CF Montreal Ditch Stardust, Keep It In The Family

This morning CF Montreal announced interim coach Wilfried Nancy as permanent successor to the departed Thierry Henry.

Said Sporting Director Olivier Renard, “We are very happy to announce Wilfried as our head coach today. After Thierry left, we decided to trust him and give him the opportunity to continue the work we started last season, with the same vision.

“It is also part of the club’s philosophy to consider and promote our own, as we did in the past for Jules Gueguen (fitness coach) and Maxime Chalier (video analyst).”

Nancy, who declared his readiness for the role only last week, becomes Montreal’s eighth coach since the club embarked on it’s MLS venture as Montreal Impact in 2012.

“I am very happy and proud to take on this new challenge,” said Wilfried Nancy. “It’s even more special, since it’s with the club I’ve known since I came to Montreal. I would like to thank Joey Saputo, Kevin Gilmore and Olivier Renard. I’m really excited for this challenge and hope to make the team progress as much as possible.”

Nancy, 43, is somewhat of an unknown quantity as a head coach, never having previously held such a position, but he has been retained as an assistant by various Impact head coaches since Mauro Biello first gave him an opportunity with the first-team in 2015.

Much of MLS may go, “Who?” but Nancy is well-known and a popular figure to Montreal soccer fans.

From Toulon in France he’s worked at the club in various academy coaching roles since 2011.

Prior to that he was a professional from 1995 to 2005, with Sporting Toulon Var, in France’s Ligue 2, and with Raon-L’Étape and Noisy-Le-Sec in the National division.

Within the framework of the partnership between MLS and the Fédération Française de Football, he obtained the Elite Formation Coaching License (EFCL) diploma in 2014, and also holds his ‘A’ coaching license from the Canadian Soccer Association.

There’s been a growing groundswell of support for Nancy to get the job from Montreal fans, former coaches and players in recent days, so the appointment, despite interest from overseas, is not a huge surprise.

Assistant coaches Kwame Ampadu and Laurent Ciman, as well as goalkeeper coach Rémy Vercoutre and fitness coach Jules Gueguen, will complete Nancy’s coaching staff.

There will be a video-conference organized by the club at 2pm this afternoon.



Check out the latest The Ball Is Round Podcast (Episode 18). Recorded Wednesday evening the TBIR team discuss the general state of CF Montreal in the wake of Thierry Henry’s departure and recent Re-branding/Renaming...

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