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Columbus Crew go in search of continental silverware on Saturday night, bidding to become only the fourth American team to lift the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
The Crew came into 2024 as the reigning MLS Cup champions and the league’s most exciting team, transformed under the guidance of head coach Wilfried Nancy. The Frenchman joined ahead of the 2023 campaign and led his team to the MLS Cup as Columbus beat LAFC in last year’s final.
His first senior coaching role came in 2021 when his countryman Thierry Henry stood down as CF Montreal head coach. Nancy, previously a part of Henry’s coaching staff, stepped up. Speaking to The Athletic, Champions League winner Henry paid tribute to Nancy’s incredible rise.
“For him to be the first Black coach to win the MLS Cup,” Henry said, “I couldn’t have been prouder to be a little part of his journey.”
“It’s important to have your philosophy… Wil has his philosophy, and it doesn’t matter what tactic and shape you have.”
Wilfried Nancy’s philosophy marked him out
When Thierry Henry took over as Montreal head coach he brought in his own staff from a previous role at Monaco. However he opted to keep Nancy, a first team assistant coach at the time.
“I kept him because I knew the brain that he has, and I knew where he wanted to go,” Henry explained. “My philosophy is very close to his philosophy, so I knew it wasn’t going to be a clash or so right from the start. One thing that was very important for me was to keep the core of the club.”
And what was that philosophy? Wilfried Nancy has stuck, with a few exceptions, to the front-foot, high-octane 3-4-3 formation that he began with at Montreal. His teams take risks and look to dominate games, both in and out of possession.
During his 18 months at the Columbus Crew the duo of Aidan Morris and Darlington Nagbe has been the centrepiece of his team, both positionally and stylistically. The two central midfielders are metronomic with the ball and relentless when it comes to winning it back, covering ground at a frightening rate. Yet within those stringent demands Nancy allows his team to play off-the-cuff, interpreting his unflinching principles however they see fit.
“The way I see it, to express, to have freedom and to create something, you need concepts, and within the concepts, after that players can move freely, because they respect the game and they respect the concept. So this is between position and relation,” the Columbus head coach explained recently.
The first Black head coach to lift MLS Cup has introduced the league to a new, fearless style of play and is reaping the rewards. However the Crew fare on Saturday night, his impact on MLS and soccer in the United States is undeniable and his place in the league’s coaching hall of fame is beyond doubt.
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