Fury receives early Christmas present
Soccer club enthused to add Popovic as coach; de Guzman moves to front office
The Ottawa Fury FC can only hope Nikola Popovic can do for Fury FC what he did for the Swope City (Kansas City) Rangers and that is take the franchise to United Soccer League championship contender status.
But a big part of what sold Popovic on the Fury FC job was the time he spent in Ottawa watching a little different type of football, that being the 105th Grey Cup at TD Place.
Popovic spent most of Grey Cup week in Ottawa last month, taking in all the festivities while getting to know the people at the Ottawa Sports and Entertainment Group.
Less than four weeks later, Popovic was tagged as the new Fury FC head coach Thursday, succeeding interim head coach Julian Guzman, who relinquishes his bench duties to concentrate solely on being the club’s general manager.
“We got our Christmas present (Thursday),” said Fury FC president and OSEG partner John Pugh. “I think we’ve been aware of what we wanted to do here and that was bring in an experienced head coach. And it took a while to find our man.
“It was Julian’s decision to become GM and at that point, we started looking. Julian has been the leader in this process and Nik came up for Grey Cup weekend and as the weekend went on he was quickly ticking off a lot of the boxes we wanted ticked off.”
It didn’t hurt that Popovic’s resume includes one season (2016) as an assistant coach to former Fury FC head coach Marc Dos Santos before taking over last season and guiding the Rangers to a second straight Western Conference championship and within a goal (1-0) of a USL championship, the one-goal margin of defeat all too familiar to last year’s edition of Fury FC in regular season play.
Popovic and the Rangers produced 17 wins and seven draws in 32 regular season games to finish fourth in the regular season before really taking off in the playoffs. And Popovic’s experience hardly began with Swope City.
As a UEFA Pro licensed coach — the highest UEFA licence available — Popovic has coached in eight countries, speaks four languages (Serbian, Portuguese, English and Spanish) and has coached at the academy, club and international levels. His CV includes internships at Inter Milan (2012-13), Portugal Under21s (2013) and Serbia and Montenegro Under-21s (2006).
“I’m very proud to be part of this organization,” said Popovic in a statement. “I also want to assure our fans and supporters that we will do everything to make them proud.
“We must build a very strong culture within Ottawa Fury FC. It is important that we have strong core values and a commitment to an attractive way of playing the game.
“Everything that I’ve seen in Ottawa and everything we have in place going forward gives me great confidence in the future of this club.”
Popovic’s line about “an attractive way of playing the game” may well have sealed the deal with Fury management. His teams like to go on the offensive and were absolutely dominant at home with 11 wins and three draws against just two defeats.
If he can get the Fury FC to play anywhere close to that level at TD Place, more fans are sure to make their way through the gates at Bank Street.
As for de Guzman, the most accomplished international player in Canadian soccer history gets to rebuild the Fury FC squad the way he wants it after taking over in a dual role in mid-August.
“I took the time necessary to reflect on this next step in my career and I want to thank the ownership and management group for supporting me in my decision and supporting my appointment of Nikola as the club’s next head coach,” said de Guzman. “I am committed to this club and look forward to solely focusing on my role as general manager and building a club that we can all be proud to support.”
It is important that we have strong core values and a commitment to an attractive way of playing the game.