As men’s soccer coach looms, Fonseca out as Canadian high-performance director

TORONTO — The Canadian Soccer Association has no plans to hire a new high performance director in the wake of firing Tony Fonseca.

It appears Fonseca was the victim of a changing landscape at the national governing body.

The appointment last September of Jason deVos in the new position of director of development, combined with possible added responsibilities of the new national men’s team coach, is seen to cover the territory previously handled by a high-performance director.

“We’re just looking at structuring the proper alignment on the men’s national team side,” said CSA secretary-general Peter Montopoli.

Montopoli says the plan is still to have a new men’s coach in place by this summer’s Gold Cup. And if things fall into place, the coach could come sooner.

“We’re down to a short list,” Montopoli said of the search.

Michael Findlay has been serving as interim coach since Benito Floro was let go last September in the wake of a failed World Cup qualifying campaign.

The process of interviewing coaching candidates helped prompt the association to “get a better fit and alignment and system” on the men’s side, according to Montopoli.

Montopoli said Fonseca leaves positives with the program, including a far better job of identifying talent.

“We’re not missing players anymore,” he said.

Youth players have also got far more time in national team camps, according to Montopoli. The CSA says 211 players took part in Canadian youth camps, from under-14 to under-23, in 2016. And 96 players took part in at least one youth international match last year.

“A lot of credit to Tony for starting this off in the right direction from our youth programming,” Montopoli said. “What needed to be done, we’ve done.”

Fonseca joined the CSA in 2006 on an interim basis as an assistant coach with the men’s national team. Two years later he became a full-time staff coach looking after the men’s U-20 and U-23 teams. He was named director of high performance for the men’s national team program in 2011 and technical director in 2012.