Colin Miller was sacked yesterday as an assistant coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps.
No big surprise, with the ‘Caps having a dreadful debut season in MLS, and a new non-Canadian coach on the way in. But Miller becomes yet another Canadian coach let go by yet another Canadian pro soccer team.
The more things seem to be changing, the further down the slope we seem to slide.
The concluding question of this series – where do we go from here? – is tricky. For all the reform that’s been put in place, we don’t really know a lot about the changes that are on the way. And we know even less about who’ll be in charge of implementing them.
We’re not exactly on hold, but our table is far from ready.
Fortunately, though, there’s no shortage of decent perspectives out there.
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
“Things take time,” says CBC soccer commentator and former Canada captain Jason de Vos.
“There’s no getting away from that. And not changing because it’s going to take time is no excuse. You have to have a long-term approach. I’ve been asked many times how does Canada qualify for the World Cup? It’s not a quick fix. How do we get better at the international level? It has to be a long-term approach, and that’s a 10- or 20-year project. But it starts with improvements in coaching, improvements in player development, a unification of a player development pathway, so that people who come into the game know the steps required to get to the highest levels – if their child has the ability to play there. We don’t have that right now in Canada.”
“A parent bringing a player to a club at five or six years old should know there’s a clear pathway, and that we know what needs to be done,” says Alex Chiet, chief technical officer of the Ontario Soccer Association. “And that given the right opportunity, players will progress, rather than there being barriers and blockages along the way. We’ve got to come together, and work together on a solution, rather than working against each other. And that’s what drives what we’re trying to achieve.”
For decades, in Canada, there has been a fragmented, non-centralized approach. Coaching courses were developed, but the present Canadian A-licence just doesn’t get a lot of respect – from the rest of the soccer world, or from Canada’s most promising coaching prospects.
The great future hope – at the Canadian Soccer Association level – is “Wellness to World Cup,” a sweeping new plan for long-term player development (LTPD). It’s part of a broad, nationwide effort to unify and improve the development of soccer players and coaches alike.
“First of all, we’ve got to say that it’s not a program in itself. It’s a philosophy,” notes CSA director of player and coaching development Ray Clark.
“And what comes with that are the programs that will help to drive that philosophy. It’s not just coach development or player development. It’s also about competition development and league structures. It’s also about facilities, because there are places in Canada where they don’t have enough facilities to be able to run a decent program. In terms of coaching, what we’re looking to do now is promote the fact that it’s player-centred. Whatever we do has to be based on what the players’ needs are. And at different phases of development, we’re going to see they have different needs. And there are windows of opportunity that we need to capitalize on.”
Unfortunately, the plan still lacks significant depth. The CSA has identified what everyone needs to learn, at each and every age and stage along the way. But the actual LTPD curriculum – along with the identities of the CSA administrators who will ultimately enact it – remains a work in progress.
The enemy in the past has been fragmentation. Canada’s vast, sprawling network of community soccer clubs have been left largely to fend for themselves, as the CSA drifted – for decades – largely into irrelevance. Reform is set to change all that. But when?
“You have to empower people who have been in the game for their whole life, who have a wealth of experience coaching the game, and teaching kids how to play, and playing the game themselves,” de Vos insists.
“Just empower people like that to go and make those changes that are necessary. In my time, back in Canada since I retired as a player, I have met so many, so many knowledgeable, knowledgeable people in the game who are so frustrated, because the changes that they know they need to make – that they want to make desperately – they can’t make because they don’t have the authority to make them.”
Charlie Cuzzetto, president of the British Columbia Soccer Association, agrees.
“It’s just a matter of having a person in charge saying what the plan is, and what everyone has to do,” he notes. “Right now, a lot of people have a lot of really good ideas. We need to co-ordinate all that into one structure – our plan for the next number of years. Really, it’s not the provinces that develop players. It’s the clubs and the teams. If we can provide them with a lot of tools and some guidance, I think we’re going to go a long way.”
“Younger players, maybe they’re stronger, bigger and can kick the ball a mile, and coaches say ‘That’s the player I want, because I want to win some games here,’ he adds. “And he or she is maybe not looking at the more technical player, or the smaller player who maybe isn’t as strong right now and can’t win a game by himself. They miss those players.”
But in the interim – as always happens when there is a vacuum in leadership – new players have entered the stage. Canada is part of MLS now, and both the Vancouver Whitecaps and Toronto FC have thriving, productive youth soccer academies. The Montreal Impact, joining MLS in 2012, are also taking this path. And private soccer academies are becoming a rising, significant force in Canadian player development.
And none of them is waiting for the CSA to finish and fine-tune “Wellness to World Cup.”
“At the moment, at the top end of things, we’ve just got complete fragmentation and disconnection,” the OSA’s Chiet says.
“There’s TFC, there’s CSL, there’s academies, there’s the provincial program – all these different providers, all basically working in opposition to each other, rather than working together. We have a small percentage of talent, and we really need to come together at the top end as well, to understand what’s best for the player. It may be there’s a first choice, a second choice, a third choice. How we fix it is a big challenge, because of all the different business models in play. But at the end of the day, what’s most important is the player.”
Back at the CSA, Ray Clark feels Canadian soccer coaches will benefit from all the changes.
“All we’re saying is, this is how you could do it. This is how you can structure your practice, to the point where we’re giving coaches recipe books, if you like, on a CD where they can actually see all the practices they can run. All the work’s done for them. They just have to literally lay out the field, and let the kids play. And the kids enjoy it. These things have been tried. It’s not as if we’ve just come up with some drills. They’ve actually been tested and tried, and found to be working very well.”
Entirely new Canadian coaching courses will be rolled out in 2012. It’s an upgrade that is sorely needed.
“All we’re trying to do is make this game better in our country,” says Frank Yallop of the San Jose Earthquakes, the lone Canadian head coach in a high-profile division-one pro soccer league.
“It’s not a personal thing; it’s not a power struggle – at all. What’s best for Canadian soccer, and what’s going to drive the program forward? That’s the thing you’ve got to really look at – the big picture. How do we get to the World Cup? You’re competing with the U.S., Honduras, Mexico and all these teams that seem to be better than us right now.”
We began with fragmentation, and we end with fragmentation.
The CSA can unify player and coach development all it wants. The pro teams – quite correctly – will set their own standards, and work to their own agendas. Coaching licences can be boosted and reinforced. But pro coaching jobs will continue to be high-turnover revolving doors, and Canadian MLS squads will never be exempt from that.
And all of these changes – as desperately overdue as they are – will take years and years and years to bear fruit.
The last word goes to Nick Dasovic, likely Canada’s finest pro-coach-in-waiting. Despite a UEFA A-licence, despite being in the running for a UEFA Pro-licence that would qualify him to coach in the English Premier League, he hasn’t been able to find work since being dismissed as interim head coach of Toronto FC a year ago.
“If you’re a hockey coach in Canada, in the NHL, you’ve got some past experience and then you go make a few phone calls to Europe, I think you could pretty much get out to Germany or Switzerland pretty easily,” Dasovic notes.
“Unfortunately, as a Canadian soccer coach, it’s going to be tougher. It’s tough to be a Canadian player and go to Europe, let alone being a coach. There’s possibilities, and you’ve got to be realistic about your starting point being somewhere lower, which means can you sacrifice the family again, can you sacrifice financially to do it?
“I know a lot of individuals that are like me, but when you have an idea and a dream and a vision, you want to carry it right through to the end, no matter who says you’re not going to do it. Whether it’s you want to prove somebody wrong, or whether it’s you want to live your dream, I don’t think I’m ready to listen to people here who say there’s no chance for Canadian coaches.
“I want to make it right for myself … and hopefully get out of here.”
We still, in other words, have an achingly long way to go.
Onward!
Also in this series:
Part I -- How did this happen?
Part II -- House-league nation
Part III -- What's in the way?
Full interviews from this series: