CHANGING SIDES
John Herdman coached Canada’s soccer women to two Oympic medals. Now he’s going to try his luck with the men,
John Herdman, who led the Canada’s women’s soccer team to back-toback Olympic bronze medals, is taking over the Canadian men’s program.
He replaces the fired Octavio Zambrano, who was named head coach of the Canadian men’s national team program last March. Herdman’s new title is national team head coach and men’s EXCEL director.
The surprise announcement came Monday evening.
“It was an organizational decision. Octavio’s departed Canada Soccer effective immediately,” Canadian Soccer Association president Steve Reed said in an interview.
Reed denied that any specific incident had triggered Zambrano’s sudden departure.
“We’re looking at long-term, what we felt was necessary in terms of the development of our programs on the men’s side,” he added. “And we wanted to build that long-term alignment much like we’ve experienced on the women’s side.
“When we did that organizational review, we determined that John Herdman was the right person to lead that.”
Former assistant coach Kenneth Heiner-Moller takes over the Canadian women. The Dane was a part of Herdman’s coaching team at the Rio Olympics before moving to Canada to be a full-time member of his staff.
Heiner-Moller’s title will be national team head coach and women’s EXCEL (developmental) director.
The Canadian men are currently ranked 94th in the world, while the women are No. 5.
Herdman, 42, took charge of the Canadian women in August 2011. The women’s program was in a dark place after a last-place finish at the 2011 World Cup in Germany. Gradually, the charismatic Herdman built it back up while developing a pipeline of young talent.
The English native took Canada to a record-high fourth in the world rankings after winning bronze at the 2016 Olympics, cracking the top five for the first time.
Herdman had recently talked of a move back to the men’s side of the game, but not until the 2020 Olympics. It appears that the men’s opening came sooner than expected.
“I’ve done seven years with the (women’s) team,” Herdman said in an interview Monday. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it with the group.
“But I’m a builder, I’m a developer. With Canada Soccer and the rest of the crew we sort of built that program back up from scratch, built the high-performance system, built the talent development system, brought the right people in.
“I just feel the (women’s) team is there now. They’ve got the players,” he added. “They’ve got the players to be successful and that’s often the hardest thing to do.”