Columbus Crew set to hire Wilfried Nancy as head coach
After a nearly two-month search, a process that began when the Crew fired Caleb Porter on Oct. 10, the team has made a decision on its new head coach.
Wilfried Nancy will be the coach, a league source confirmed to The Dispatch on Monday afternoon. The team is set to hold an introductory press conference Tuesday morning. Nancy joins the Crew from CF Montreal, where he led his team to a 20-9-5 record and second place in the Eastern Conference.
Because Nancy was under contract with Montreal for one more season, the Crew will be required to compensate Montreal as part of the hiring.
Nancy made sense as a candidate from the beginning, and rumors have swirled about him being hired by Columbus for weeks. Crew general manager Tim Bezbatchenko emphasized when the search began that his priority was a coach who both understood his role in the alignment of the club — from MLS to MLS Next Pro to the academy level — and had experience coaching successfully in MLS.
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Since being hired at the last moment before the 2021 season began, when Thierry Henry stepped down unexpectedly, Nancy has checked both of those boxes. Despite Montreal's middle-of-the-pack spending on its roster, Nancy took his team from 10th in the East with a 12-12-10 record in 2021 to being one of the top teams in the league this past season.
Prior to being named Montreal's head coach, Nancy was an assistant with the first team beginning in 2016. Before that, he coached in the Montreal academy for five seasons.
Nancy finished second in the voting for the Sigi Schmid MLS Coach of the Year award in 2022, behind Philadelphia Union's Jim Curtin.
In early November, Jeremy Filosa of 98.5 FM in Montreal reported that there was an incident between Nancy and Montreal owner Joey Saputo after a game in Kansas City in July. Per Filosa's report, Saputo was displeased with the team's performance and attempted to enter the locker room, but Nancy did not allow Saputo to enter. The two had a verbal altercation.
Saputo felt Nancy had disrespected him, and Nancy was prepared, according to Filosa, to resign from his position immediately. The two sides came to an agreement that Nancy would remain, they would not discuss his contract for the rest of the season and Montreal would not trigger the option on his contract for 2023.
But in late October, Montreal sporting director Olivier Renard said that the option was automatically triggered when the team qualified for the playoffs and he hoped to have Nancy in place for years to come. At the same press conference, Nancy declined to comment on his personal standing with the club.
Just over 10 weeks later, Nancy was hired away by the Crew.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Wilfried Nancy hired to be next Columbus Crew coach
