Wilfred Nancy’s response was extremely spontaneous when a reporter asked him about his new role as head coach for Montreal.
“I love. He said in his first video conference with the media since he was hired three weeks ago, I can’t get any clearer than that. I had a lot of fun. The difference is that when you are an assistant, you present ideas to the coach and he takes or not takes them, depending on what.” Feel it, and its day.
“Whereas when you are a coach, you have an idea and put it in place. We are collaborating, of course, with the staff, and we explain why we want to do it. That’s what excites me. I admit it, I’m having fun.”
In the meantime, with his assistants Laurent Seaman and Kwame Ampadu – joined by Jason de Tullio, a choice that came “naturally”, Nancy said – and goalkeeper coach Remy Verkotri is working on group symbiosis on the field, for logic in group actions.
“We are very happy trying to get players to understand the concepts so they can run at the same time. Because telling a player to do something, they’ll do it. But making synchronization, connecting players, is the hardest thing. That’s the challenge we face with the staff.”
Small sample
The opening game of the season on April 17th, against Toronto FC, approaches. More so, the club’s departure to Orlando on April 6. Between these two dates, as we know, Montreal Football Club will only play two pre-season matches.
“It is not clear with regard to the building and cohesion of the team,” he stressed Coach.
Meanwhile, he watches “frequently” the international matches played by many of his players scattered there.
“But then, I approach it with caution because every coach asks for something specific,” he says.
When the group meets in Florida, the coaching staff will only have a few days to tie the strings.
As for the preparatory fencers, we will undoubtedly give the competitors plenty of minutes for a place at the start of the eleventh match of the opening match.
“Of course with more friendly matches, I was going to try a few other things, but now I’m just going to try to save time. Because in reality, we need to be robotic, to work on certain things, Nancy explained. It’s going to be – the beginning, I really don’t like that term – The players will be the ones who will be ready for the first match. And then we’ll see. ”
The coach remembers cases when plans changed late in the camp. Sometimes you have to reset the shot.
“Yes, we have an idea of who we want to create, but we are leaving ourselves with a way out because nothing has been decided yet,” he says.
Superficial challenge
By choosing to set up camp in Montreal to preserve a certain “freshness of mind”, Olivier Renard and Wilfred Nancy realized there would be an unfortunate counterpart: having to train in prosthetics. The surface that has also caused some minor injuries in recent weeks.
“We knew it would be the first time in history that we would do pre-synthetic work. It was not easy. But the weather gave us a little help, so we were able to go out to the park and in the first session, I saw the children again, full of fun,” he said. Technical Director.
Exactly, there are a lot of teenagers in camp this year. Some were there anyway, others were called to fill out the calls for national teams and be delayed by the quarantine.
Young people who instilled a good dose of enthusiasm in the camp, our sporting director Olivier Renard recently told us.
“What I would love to see is that when kids come early, they’re all shy. They have a hard time expressing themselves at times. And now they’re getting out of their comfort zone a little bit, so there are more interesting things about the concepts of the game, especially the speed of the game,” Nancy said.
Yes, youth bring energy, for sure.
On the other hand, it takes patience. Because he who says energy, who says I want to do well, who says youth also, at certain times, hurry. So this might be a bit frustrating for older players. ”
Nevertheless, since the start of the month, an interesting dynamic has been created, as Wilfred Nancy points out, between the older and younger attendees of the camp.
Few notes on …
James Pantemis
In general, the Coach He appreciated the work of his young Quebec goalkeeper in the CONCACAF Under-23 Olympic Qualifiers. He liked his attitude and his bravery, among other things. But there is still work to be done. “James was fine. Now he only has to erase one thing and he knows it. Yes, he was good at tackling him, but he made mistakes that put his team in danger. So he knows he has to try to minimize them.” Clement Diop, early in the season, will be a man Club confidence.
Ahmed Hamdi
The Egyptian midfielder acquired at the beginning of February has barely completed quarantine. Once again, Wilfred Nancy liked what he saw. But we have to be patient with Hamdi, even if it is because of his adaptation, which will not be easy. Nancy said her understanding of the English language was “minimal.” “I have my own Google Translate,” he fired Coach As a joke. In fact, he is assisted by chief sports therapist Karam Al-Hamdani. The player started to learn some English.
Jazz series
“His strength is that he knows his qualities and faults. He will not hold the match. He will play according to what he sees,” Nancy summed up about her new defender, who got her from Dynamo FC in Houston in mid-January. We are gradually going with the person who finished their quarantine about a week ago. “I think he feels good at group level,” the coach also remarked.
“Pop culture maven. Unapologetic student. Avid introvert. Gamer. Problem solver. Tv fanatic.”