Columbus Crew manager Wilfried Nancy: I do this job to provoke emotions

June 29, 2024

Just after the Columbus Crew scored their first goal of the night on Saturday against D.C. United, they did something a little odd. As D.C. prepared to take the ensuing kickoff, all of Columbus’ outfield players lined up within 15 yards or so of the center stripe. It looked a bit like an XFL kickoff, or an onside kick.

Fans were confused, but there was a reason behind the bizarre formation. All year, United has taken a similar approach to its kickoffs: they play the ball back initially and then play a long ball over the top, towards the opponent’s penalty area. Columbus’ condensed formation was Crew head coach Wilfried Nancy’s response to this. The formation wasn’t an attempt to catch United offside, it was an attempt at making a statement.

“I’ll be straightforward with you,” Nancy said. “I want my players to be brave. We know they are going to play long, but we don’t want to drop. We stay high. Do not drop. Stay high and be brave.”

Nancy’s Crew has certainly played with bravery this year as they push closer to the top of the Eastern Conference. They’ve won three in a row, by a combined margin of 12-1 and have scored more goals in their first seven matches (17) than they have in any other season during the club’s 28-year history. Nancy has the Crew playing attractively, too, employing the same unique style of play he rolled out in Montreal last year, the one that led that club to their best-ever season.

On Saturday, a few hours before the Crew took the field against United, Nancy spoke to The Athletic about his coaching philosophy, the Crew’s current outlook and his place in MLS’ ever-changing coaching landscape. Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.

The Athletic: I read somewhere that you came to Montreal in 2006 “with nothing but (your) backpack.” Your father was in the French navy and you bounced around a lot as a kid, you lived in Guadeloupe, Djibouti, Martinique and a handful of other places. How did this affect your outlook on life?

Wilfried Nancy: All of that is why I am how I am as a person. For example, we’re in Ramadan right now, and for me it’s very important to respect that. For some people, this is a way of life. (My travels gave me the ability to) understand people, to understand a lot of things. It’s something that goes beyond soccer or football. Because of the fact that I traveled a lot I think I’m able to be open-minded and I’m able to discover new things. Life is all of the time a new challenge. New challenges with joy, and with passion. I think that because I traveled a lot, I have an open outlook on life.

TA: When you look back on your career, even all the way back to your youth career, are there coaches that molded your outlook on coaching? On man-management? Is there any one person that had an outsized influence?

Nancy: No. I’ve been lucky to have a lot of coaches with different personalities and I figured out a long time ago that the way you coach is based on the person that you are. And for me, in the beginning, I didn’t know that. Because for me, to be a good coach I was thinking that you have to be good tactically. But 15 years ago I realized that no, this isn’t the case. You have to be good, yes, tactically but you have to be good also at understanding people. When you’re good at understanding other people, you can convince other people you work with (to buy in.) For me, it’s everything.

TA: The way you guys play is uncommon for MLS — the way your defenders hold the ball, the way you play through the pressure that creates. Where did that come from? You say you didn’t have any one influence, but surely there’s an origin to that. Is it modeled after anything?

Nancy: The answer is simple for me. I was playing center back during my playing career and I was not fast. It’s as simple as that. The fact that I was not fast, I needed the other guy, my teammate, to be available for me to play. I was more of a sweeper. And I was good technically, and tactically I was not so bad, either. And the fact that I was slow, it caused me to develop, naturally, a style of play within myself.

It was all about attracting pressure, playing through it. Try and combine, try and create that little extra bit of time for my teammate. To hold the ball, to keep the ball, to recognize the moment when you pass the ball and free up space. How can I give my teammate more time to play forward, or behind the lines, or between the lines? So step by step, when I started to think about the coaching part, I put it all on paper. Every year I was playing with that paper, moving everything around. And now I’m very confident about what I want to do and I’m clear about my vision. The vision that I have, when it comes to empowering my players, is a way of life. As a coach, as a player and as a person. Because to empower my players and convince them to do what I want them to do, with a lot of creativity, they have to be brave and courageous and they have to be able to put their ego on the side sometimes.

TA: It seems, on the outside, like incorporating that style in Columbus has been pretty seamless. You’ve talked in the past about it being a project to get players to unlearn bad habits, and accept your system. How has that been going?

Nancy: It’s been challenging. But that’s why I love my job. It’s why I do this job. I do it because when you start from scratch, or you start with a new group, you have to find ways to communicate. My staff and I, you don’t know the players, their personalities, any of that — you have to find ways to put everything on the table and on the pitch and to connect with them and have them express themselves. For me it’s all about concepts, it’s all about trying to simplify as often as we can what we want to do on the pitch and also to give them the ownership to express themselves. Yes, there is a clear structure. But within that structure there is also freedom. It’s all about knowing the person behind the players, which helps us know how to better connect with them. It’s been challenging but it’s amazing. When we see (the results of this) on the pitch, it makes me emotional. And I do this job to have emotions.

TA: I’m always interested in the idea of a club’s “identity,” which is a word that gets tossed around a lot. You’re coming from Montreal, a club a lot of people view as maybe a bit of an outsider; Columbus has its own identity, this smaller-market MLS original that’s maybe flown a bit under the radar recently. What’s the Crew’s identity and place in MLS?

Nancy: It’s a good question. I’m with the Crew now because their vision is clear, on the pitch and off the pitch. It’s to be a proactive club in every way. In terms of the ideas from the front office, and from within the institution, when they presented this project to me I was able to see their vision right away. Because that vision was clear, they knew what type of coach they needed to try and help them succeed. For me, before I accept a project, common sense is really important to me. If I don’t see that, I can’t imagine myself being a part of the project.

The @ColumbusCrew have scored 17 goals through Matchday 7, the most in club history through the first seven games of a season. The previous club high was 16 goals, set in 1996.

Only three teams in MLS history have scored more in their first seven games of a season. pic.twitter.com/pYeKHuLg6U

— MLS Communications (@MLS_PR) April 9, 2023

TA: Your former sporting director, Olivier Renard, said something once that stuck with me — he said his No. 1 goal wasn’t to make the playoffs or win trophies, he said it was to entertain fans. Do you buy that?

Nancy: Listen, I believe that too. Because for me, whether you make the playoffs or not is a consequence of what you do on the pitch. For me, the fact that my staff and I are clear about what we want to do, I put the outcome on the side. The outcome is a consequence of what we do on the pitch. And the first thing to do on the pitch is to propose (a philosophy.) Offensively, to propose something, and defensively to propose something. If we reduce everything to making the playoffs, or winning a game… well, we can play a bad game and win — but we wouldn’t be able to do it consistently.

For me it is all about the vision of the club. I do this job to provoke emotions. To give emotions to my team, to my club, and the first part is to the fan. The fans are going to come and they’re going to know that something good is going to happen. I’m not here to save lives, I’m here to entertain people. We want to entertain people, but in a logical way — we want to play, and win, of course, but if we play that way, everything else will in place. So again, I put the outcome to the side. We can play a good game and hit the post twice and we don’t win. The big vision is very important.

TA: You seem to have left Montreal on your own terms. The issues there were publicized, there seemed to be a disconnect with ownership. Do you feel supported by the front office and ownership in Columbus? What’s your relationship like with them?

Nancy: My role is to be a coach and to be good on the pitch. I’m not a general manager. I focus on the team and the players and there is a clear structure there. Within that structure we have experts and the front office works on certain things and the ownership, as well. Everything is clear. I’m very happy with the way we work together, with the clarity and alignment of everybody at the club. I can’t really compare Montreal and Columbus. If you and I work together, in my company, and then you go elsewhere, the vision there is probably different. The personality of all the people with the structure will be different. So you have to adapt.

For me, the way I’ve been welcomed, it’s been spot on. The people are genuine. I feel really good in this club and with this staff and also in the city of Columbus.

TA: What’s the difficulty level of coaching in this league? The standard of play here may be lower than many places in Europe, but European coaches frequently struggle to adapt here.

Nancy: To coach in MLS, you have to understand the system. The way MLS works. And for me, yes, you have to be a coach but you also have to be a trainer. Because if you are not a trainer, because of the salary cap, because of DPs and everything like that, you know that you can have many different levels (of players) within the team. You have to be able to work with all kinds of players. I’ve been really happy with that. It’s been my life to work with academy players, and when I was at the academy, I worked with every category — U-14, U-16, U-20 and so on — to understand the way they think.

For me, it’s been brilliant. In my job, yes I know that I have to win, but also my job, for me, is to develop players and develop people. We know we have to compete every day to succeed, but what does that mean? Make the playoffs? Win MLS Cup, Supporters’ Shield and everything like that? This is the extrinsic objective. But the intrinsic objective is to see the progression of all my players knowing that we want to compete in every situation. You have to be patient to coach in MLS. If you’re not, it’s going to be difficult for you. And I like it because as a coach, you have to find ways to be better. You can’t just change players constantly — you have to find ways to have the right young players, the right DPs, the right mix. Your vision has to be clear.

TA: When you look around MLS, who is doing right? Which coach has their team playing in a way you enjoy watching?

Nancy: I’ll tell you what I like about the league — I’ve been an assistant coach for six, seven years. My first year I was like, “OK, this is more about the players, the DPs. The DPs will make the difference.” At the time it was the sort of old-style DPs. If you had the DPs, that was the difference. But now, everything has changed. All the coaches in the league have something to say and something to show. I can see the evolution of the entire league and all of the coaches in it. They’re more versatile, they are more open-minded, tactically it’s better. In the past, everybody seemed to be doing the same thing. The beauty of MLS is that we can have Philly, and they can win with a certain style of play, we can have LAFC, who brings something different — you have Dallas that plays in a certain way, LA Galaxy, all these teams that try and have their own flavor. I like this. I like when we can recognize step by step a style of play. This isn’t true of every team in the league — but for me, this is the future. Honestly I have a lot of colleagues from Europe and all over the world that want to come here. They can see that the improvement is very interesting.

TA: You have a pretty well-balanced roster, generally speaking. But Columbus is one of many teams in the league that doesn’t have a Vela, Chicharito, Rooney, Zlatan — a huge name. Does the Crew need a player like that to take the next step in relevancy?

Nancy: It’s all about the vision of the club. The vision is clear about what we want to do, money-wise, in terms of the salary cap in Columbus. We know what we want to do on the pitch and the idea is to build, step-by-step and add pieces to help the team to succeed. For me, yes, the quality and profile of the player is very important. But the most important thing to me is the desire of the player to play for the team and be good with the style of play we want to implement. And also to simply be a good person. We can have DPs. And we have DPs. And I’m really happy about the human beings behind these DPs. For me, that’s key. If you don’t have the right person as a DP, it will be difficult.

I believe more in terms of balance between positions, between lines, between personalities. That’s something we’ve been working on since the beginning, since I’ve been here. We are going to add players, that’s normal, but at the same time we want to take the time to hire the right person to help us to succeed. (Ownership) was crystal clear with me. They told me that we can go buy players. I told them I wanted to evaluate and see. There is a lot of complexity in our job, and all the pieces that we’ll add in the future, we have to be smart about them. When the moment comes (to sign that big-name player) we’re going to do it.

TA: You’re one of a handful of Black head coaches in the league, which has historically been an area that needs growth within MLS. What do you make of your place in this landscape and the direction the league is going with it?

Nancy: It shouldn’t be a discussion about this, because we are human beings first and foremost. But I know it is a discussion, and I’m part of it, and I’m going to fight for it. I’m fighting every day for it. I am really proud to be a Black coach in MLS. The way I am as a person, I like to inspire people. For me, the first thing is to inspire my family — my kids, my wife — this is the most important thing. But also I know that I do a job and I have a public profile. And yes, I’m really proud to be here. I’m really happy with what MLS is doing to change things, as well. We can see that in basketball, things are getting better… (American) football there are ups and downs. In soccer, I can tell you that I come from Europe and what MLS does to fight against that is unbelievable. I can tell you that in France, Spain, Italy, England, Germany, it isn’t like that. So, I’m really proud to represent MLS for that. For me, the fact that it’s clear that they want to take this direction is going to help all the Black coaches. There are a lot of Black coaches, Hispanic coaches, a lot of diverse coaches who will see (people like me) and realize that it’s possible to do it.

Yes, I am the coach of Columbus, because I have competency and because I add something to the club. For me, I’m really happy that we are able to fight and educate people when it comes to these things. We are going in the right direction.

TA: Are you thinking, right now, about what the ceiling is for this group? Do you think about MLS Cup? Or are you thinking, right now, about D.C. United tonight.

Nancy: The goal is clear with my group. It’s to create memories. It’s to add a new story to this club. What does that mean? Obviously, at the end of the day, we want to win something, but I don’t like to talk about that. What we can control is what we do on the pitch. What we do every day is to respect the vision that we have. And the vision that we have is to be recognized by our style of play and the way we play offensively and defensively. I never talk with my players about winning. Never. It’s all about competing. You have to compete with yourself, because that’s the only way to become “a better me.” As a person, as a player, you have to compete. Winning, at the end of the day, is a consequence.

Of course I know the ownership and front office (want trophies.) It’s normal. But for me, the way I see it is “be good on the pitch, respect what we need to do there and we’ll have a chance to do something great.”

(Photo: Trevor Ruszkowski-USA TODAY Sports)

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