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Greg Vanney is the head coach of Toronto FC in Major League Soccer. Vanney joined Toronto FC as the Academy’s director and assistant general manager in December 2013, after serving as the head coach of the LA Galaxy’s U-14 Academy side and technical director of the LA Galaxy partner club, LA Galaxy South Bay. He was also previously the director of soccer operations and director of Real Salt Lake-Arizona Youth Academy at Grande Sports World, while also overseeing program and business development at the facility. At RSL, he played a key role in creation of the first MLS Residential Academy in the United States, which began play in 2010.
Vanney previously coached Chivas USA in MLS, where he held a dual role as assistant coach and technical director of the youth academy. He holds a USSF “A” Coaching License and is currently completing the Elite Formation Coaching License program - a development course partnered by MLS and the French Football Federation.
Vanney also enjoyed a decorated playing career, spending many years in MLS with FC Dallas, Colorado Rapids, DC United, and, most notably, LA Galaxy, where he played in three MLS Cup Finals and was twice named to the MLS Best IX. He also spent three seasons with SC Bastia in the French First Division, where he helped the club to the final of the Coupe de France. Internationally, Vanney was capped 36 times for the United States men’s national team during his successful playing career.
Greg will be a featured clinician at the 2015 National Soccer Coaching Conference. Register now. The early-bird rate expires on December 1st.
In this interview, RedNation and Greg discuss his coaching philosophy, his thoughts on player development, his priorities for the offseason and his upcoming participation as a clinician at the 2015 National Soccer Coaching Conference.
RedNation Online: Greg, it’s been several months now since you took over as Head Coach at Toronto FC. How is the offseason going so far and what do you think are the most imperative things the team needs to do in order to ensure that next year is a success?
Greg Vanney: The offseason has been very busy. Obviously things never really stop and we go from the end of the season to immediately preparing for the next season. We have met with all of the players individually and collectively and we wound down the final training session about a week after the final game of the season. We are looking for them to start getting back into some physical activity and getting themselves going again real soon. So we’ve been in touch with them regarding their offseason programs. The key things for us over the offseason from a player’s standpoint is continuing to progress the players that we will have back next year and have them understand where we see the areas that they need to continue to grow and build at going into next season and what that looks like in terms of our system, as well as what each guy’s role will be within that structure.
The second thing is related to the fact that I have been all over the map looking at potential pieces that we might add to our group, as every offseason you will lose several guys and then need to add several new guys. So to continue to build on the core group of players that we want to bring back towards improving as a group. That is always an ongoing process.
The third part is for us to establish how we want to work next year in terms of the culture we want to set and the standards we want hold our players to on a day to day basis. That is the most important thing. I think we have a pretty good core and a solid group of players here that are capable of winning games in this league. But we need to push our expectations of each other and of ourselves to a higher standard every single day. We are starting to set that framework now such that when we hit day one of preseason we are very clear regarding how we are going to work together as a staff and as a team and as players individually, focusing on how we can be successful based on what we do on a daily basis.
We don’t want to focus on getting this result or that result. There will no pressure greater than the pressure we put on ourselves with respect to getting to where we need to be as a team. We just need to raise our level. To me, one of the biggest things about this offseason will be making that clear to the players.
RNO: A number of Toronto FC’s previous Head Coaches had very distinct approaches – a Dutch 4-3-3, focusing on the counterattack and playing a very traditional English game, just to mention a few. How would you describe your own coaching philosophy?
Greg Vanney: I actually prefer to control the balance of power and to dictate the game through possession. For me, having the ball is the best course of defending. But having the ball is easier said than done in some ways. I like to be possession-oriented and I like to push the opposition back into their half of the field. Also, if we transition and lose the ball, can we press and get the ball back and really force the opposition to be uncomfortable in possession so we can get the ball back again and then try to quickly create opportunities for ourselves.
Obviously, games are often won and lost in moment s of transition, so we still want to be excellent in moments of transition. We need to recognize transition moments when we can take risks and go for goals and also recognize transition moments when we need to secure the ball and keep possession. Conversely, on the defending side, when we lose the ball on the attack, we have to recognize when we can re-press and win the ball back, but also when we don’t have the numbers to do that and have to pull together into our defensive shape and work from our defending structure.
I don’t like to sit back and allow the opposition to dictate the game to us. I also don’t like to defend deep in our half. I like to be proactive and want our team to be proactive with how they think and to be the aggressors. Especially at home, it is our job to entertain our fans and get results. I think we need to take a little bit of risk at home in order to make the game interesting and entertaining for the fans. All of that being said, at the end of the day, the job is about getting results.
RNO: Over the last number of years, we have seen several coaches jump right from being players to being a Head Coach. The 2015 MLS season will be your first full campaign as a Head Coach at the professional level. However, you have previous experience as an assistant coach with Chivas USA. What did you take away from your time as an Assistant Coach under Robin Fraser?
Greg Vanney: I think we all learned a lot at Chivas. I knew from a very early age that coaching was going to be a pathway for me. I was involved in coaching in the academy and player development side of things all through my playing career. So I knew (that I wanted to coach) and I was taking steps like getting my licenses even prior to retiring as a player.
Multiple situations then lead to the Chivas USA situation. It was interesting because it was a club that had had its struggles, but we also learned a lot because it was a club that did not have a ton of resources. Even as an Assistant Coach I had numerous roles within the organization. Sometimes I would run the training sessions and Robin would observe. Other times we would do them together. I was involved in some of the general manager aspects of the club, including working with some of the younger players to construct contracts that we thought would be good and viable for them. We were all involved in the scouting and the various aspects of the club.
I think when you work for a club that doesn’t have quite the same resources that a club such as Toronto FC then it is all hands on deck and you take on a lot of roles and responsibilities and you tend to grow a lot more in those types of positions. I also think that I learned a lot about the league in terms of developing my ideas about how I want to play and how to win, as well as understanding how to manage players and how to get the best out of players.
At times it was very difficult and we went through an amazing set of circumstances at Chivas with an ownership change and a lot of things that a happened on the ground that most people probably don’t even know about. Just learning to manage through those types of situations and keeping the team on the same page and on a path, it was an immense learning situation. It wasn’t one in which we were overly successful because at the end of the day we didn’t make the playoffs. However, if you are open-minded enough to recognize your own faults and errors in certain situations, sometimes those moments can be the ones you learn the most from. For me it was a huge experience that I will use going forward.
RNO: You are the 8th Head Coach in the history of Toronto FC and the club has rarely employed coaches who had recent MLS experience or who were really integrated with the North American soccer industry. We hear all the time that Major League Soccer is a unique league. In your opinion, how important is it for an MLS Head Coach to have had significant experience with the league?
Greg Vanney: I think it is huge. I don’t think there is any way that you can come from any league outside of Major League Soccer and have an appreciation for all of the nuances that happen in this league. You can cite just the different rules that we have in constructing a roster. Secondly, there is understanding the strengths and weaknesses of North American players, which I think are somewhat unique in some ways compared to other players around the world. There is also the aspect of managing those players and understanding the mentality of North American players, which I think is a little bit different. I think there is also having an appreciation of the particular difficulties of the league – the travel, the distances that you have travel, the time changes and all of those things that don’t happen anywhere else but North America due to the size of the continent.
I think knowledge of the league is a very critical aspect. Very few of the coaches who have come over from abroad have been very successful. I think only one coach from abroad has won a championship in all the years of Major League Soccer and kudos to him. He also isn’t in the league anymore. I do think it is a unique league and knowledge of all of those things is critical to being successful in this league.
RNO: In my opinion, one way in which Toronto FC is different from the other clubs in the league is due to the inherent pressure of being the only team never to have qualified for the MLS postseason. At times last year, when the team would give up a bad goal or lose to a particular opponent at home, there was often this feeling of “Here we go again” in both the stands and even the press box. My instinct tells me that even the players have likely felt something similar. You’ve spoken previously about the culture change that you will bring to the team. As a Head Coach, how are you planning you deal with the historical pressure that hangs over TFC?
Greg Vanney: I recently heard an interesting quote - and forgive me for not being able to recall who said the quote – from a commentator speaking during a hockey game. He said that when the pressure really gets on them, players tend to resort back to their oldest training habits. So if they are trained at a level that is not commensurate with high expectations and high standards, when the going gets tough they will fall off in a lot of those moments.
So you deal with it through preparation, hard work and mental challenges and building resiliency as a group – and gaining some successes along the way is also important. I think when the going gets tough we have to have a default that is of a much higher standard than we maybe had this year. I think by building some more experience together with our core group and starting to grow with a new mentality and creating a focus on a new path, we will have the ability to start to change that culture. I think first and foremost it starts with pushing ourselves to the limit when we train and being committed to getting the best out of each other. I think at times we looked at things like what one guy didn’t do right or what another guy didn’t do and those are recipes for failure for me, instead of recognizing what each guy can bring to the table towards making us great and being able to push each guy in that way.
I think there is a whole environmental shift that we need to make within our building and on our training grounds, so we can have a higher default to drop back to during those high pressure moments.
I also think as we continue to build this roster that we have to find players who have had success in the past. I think that is really important because they will understand what it will take to get there. I haven’t done comprehensive research on all of the past rosters of this club but it would be interesting to do some research and find out how many of the players who have come to the club had very successful backgrounds prior to joining Toronto FC, such that they had experience to fall back on and they understood what success is about. To me that is an important piece as we look for players to bring in – guys who have won championships and been successful and who have certain number of games under the belts – those are key components to add to our core group.
RNO: Bringing in new players is one way a club can improve from season to season. Another area of growth often comes with young players developing and improving. If one looks at your CV, the eye is immediately drawn to your experience in player development. I’m wondering if you could speak a little bit about your philosophy with respect to taking a player from point A to point B as they develop from a youth player to an established professional player?
Greg Vanney: I actually have a lot of faith and belief in our youth system here in Toronto and the players in the local market. I do think that given time the face of Toronto FC will come from a core group of players from this market. I just firmly believe that there is a great pool of soccer players here and we have a great setup and an ownership group that is highly committed to the youth of Toronto, Ontario and Canada and who have a real interest in youth development.
Obviously, it is a longer term approach than with players on the first team, which is a very results oriented business. The academy is more of a long-term view. In my experience, generally in North America we have players who are gifted physically and technically – maybe not the eye-catching stepovers of Ronaldo and Messi – but definitely sufficient enough technique to play at a high level around the world.
Where I think we fall short a little bit is in our ability to understand the game from a cognitive standpoint – being able to read the game and recognizing a situation and understanding what the right solution is. Essentially, having all of that cognitive stuff worked out before the moment of execution. My contention is that we are behind in that area and where it resonates and shows itself is in the moment of execution. That’s where we break down. When a player hasn’t figured out a solution to a particular solution and then receives the ball, a mistake is made technically. A lot of people will watch a situation and think the player isn’t good enough technically. In my opinion, it is not a technical thing. We play more soccer in North America than probably most countries around the world via organized tournaments and training sessions. The problem is that our development system and the way we bring players up hasn’t been focused on teaching them to understand the game - and reading plays not just individually but collectively as a group - and understand what the decision-making process looks like and to be able to do that quicker and quicker as they progress and they get to higher levels.
That is what our methodology is all about and that is how break down the game as we teach it here (at Toronto FC). We do it through twenty-three principles of play and we break it down to very strategic methods to get players to understand the game and to be able to make decisions during the game. When they do that and they are comfortable in their mindset, I do think it shows in their ability to execute technically. That is how we approach it and it is very much a long-term view because those things don’t happen overnight. But it is a process that we have started to take our academy players through and we have seen results with our academy teams just over the past year.
Some of our academy teams are actually quite interesting to watch. They have a good structure, good organization, they understand their roles, they bring out their creativity within their roles, and they are reading the plays and reacting well. The other side is the psychological and emotional side of the equation. We also take a holistic view of that and all of our players have individual programs to try and progress their potential as players. I’m giving you a bit of an unorganized and broad view of how we approach player development.
For me, we have to look at the entire player and ensure that they are stable on and off the field – emotionally, psychologically – and then add in things such as the technical, tactical and physical components that we can add to their game in order to move them on to the next level. We do believe that the face of this organization will come from our academy in the not too distant future.
RNO: TFC recently selected Marco Delgado in the Chivas USA dispersal draft and I’m guessing he is a player you are very familiar with from your time with Chivas . Marco is a young player that can play multiple positions. What do you expect him to bring to TFC and what position do you think is his best?
Greg Vanney: I have known Marc for a while. He was in our academy at Chivas USA. So I knew him there as a young player. He was in the U17 Residency Program for US Soccer in addition to being part of our residency program at Chivas. We signed him as a homegrown player because we thought that his future was bright. He has gotten some good first team experience even though he is only 19 years old and has already played a good number of first team matches. He has a great engine and can work and cover ground. He is technically sound – he can drive the ball and pass many different ways and has a good range of passing.
As you said, he is capable of playing multiple positions. I don’t believe he is a right back but he has played some right back in cover situations as much as anything. I think he can play in a wide position and come off of a wide position towards the center of the pitch and combine with people. I also think he can play as two-way midfielder because he has a great engine to get up and down the field. Marc is still a young player who has a lot of things to continue to grow and develop. In my opinion, I think it will be good for him to move away from home and it will be a good step for him to move away from home and mature as a man and start to pave his own road away from home. I think that will be a huge step for him as a player and as a person.
He is part of the U20 National Team program for the United States and they have a projection for him to play at a higher level in the national team program. I think he is a great piece for us to continue to build with. I don’t have an expectation for Marc to come in here and change our team or to do anything more than he is capable of doing. He will continue to develop as a young player.
I was really surprised that he dropped down to us at the 14th position. I had him as number two, as the second most important guy on that roster to find a home. We are happy to bring him here and to continue to progress his career.
RNO: You will be one of the featured clinicians at the National Soccer Coaching Conference that will be held in Toronto at the beginning of next year. What can attendees expect from your sessions?
Greg Vanney: I think we will talk a lot about our methodology here at Toronto FC and how we organize our training sessions. We will look at one of principles of play that we look at as we start to teach our young players the game – and how we break that down and start to focus our training sessions so they can be purposeful such that the players can learn to problem solve on their own. Also how we connect the methodology to the principles of play so they can figure out and find solutions on their own. We also put them in positions where they have to do that. I think it will be a unique and interesting perspective – that there is more than meets the eye behind the building. There are a lot of dots that have been connected that you don’t really hear about unless you come through the building or if I have the opportunity to sit down and talk to you as many people as I can.
We have a very open door policy now, as I was the Academy Director previously. I believe that we are a part of the soccer community and we do things one way. That doesn’t necessarily mean that we do things the right way, as there are a lot of different ways to bring players along in the game. We have one way that we do it and we believe that it is an intriguing and interesting way that is well connected in terms of methodology, philosophy and pedagogy and teaching style. Then we also tie in sports science and a lot of things that I know other clubs don’t have access to given that we have resources and expertise within our club that may be a little bit different. So we want to give people a bit of an overview of what we do and give them some ideas from how we approach training and organize training and how we break down the game in order to teach it.
For me, it isn’t as important to go do a session on, for example, crossing and finishing so that coaches can take away an exercise. I think it is more important to get them to think about the game and how they present the game to their players to make them think and help them to develop. They don’t have to have the same methodology as ours. It is all about the question of how does their methodology make their players think, as well as the environment they create in order to make their players better. To me, those things are more important than any exercise. There are a million great exercises out there but it is all about how they connect to developing players and moving up a path so they can reach their potential.
RNO: You hold a USSF "A" Coaching License, have been involved with U.S. Soccer Development Academy and have taken part in the Elite Formation Coaching Licence program, a development course partnered by Major League Soccer (MLS) and the French Football Federation. It’s clear that the game and soccer tactics are always evolving. How important do believe it is for coaches to be flexible and continually develop their own understanding of the game and how they approach it?
Greg Vanney: I think it is critical. I think the game is always evolving and there are always new influences. If you are involved at the youth level, the reality is that we aren’t involved in developing players for today’s game – we are developing players for five years down the road or ten years down the road. So we don’t only need to know what is happening now but also the trends in the game and where is it going. Otherwise, we are not developing players for the future and we’re not preparing them to be ready for when they get their numbers called and when they need to be ready to perform at the first team level.
It is really important that coaches stay on the cutting edge and recognize what the trends in the game are and where the game is going and to develop their own methodology around where the game is going. That’s what will give their players the best chance of being successful at the highest level.
RNO: You will be among an illustrious group of clinicians at the conference, including former FC Dallas Head Coach Schellas Hyndman, Canadian Men’s National Team Head Coach Benito Floro and Toronto FC Director of Sports Science Jim Liston, just to name a few. How important do you feel events like National Soccer Coaching are with respect to helping coaches develop?
Greg Vanney: I think they are huge. Any time you can bring in a group of people with International and educational experiences that have worked with players and seen these trends in the game and where it is going, I think it is enormously useful.
My thing is that all coaches who attend the conference should go there with an open mind. Once again, there is no one way to do anything in this sport. There are many ways to be successful. Like you said, some coaches put an emphasis on counterattacking and there are many ways to skin a cat. It is so important to be open-minded and to leave the conference with maybe more questions than answers, so the coaches can then research and dig deeper and figure out exactly how they want to go about developing their players.
We are all going to come and present ideas and none of them are the most important ideas. They are all just a set of ideas and philosophies and ways of approaching the game. I think ultimately it is the job of the coach to develop and define the environment and how they want to teach. I will attend and watch the other sessions and I remain open-minded to what other coaches are doing and there will be pieces of things that I will take from anyone else. Sometimes I will watch my son’s coaches – my children are twins who are 7 years old - and I might see something intriguing about how their coach operated and I will take that away from a session. As long as we remain open-minded, the game has a huge amount of growth left in Canada and there is a huge number of talented players here that we can continue to push forward if we sort of work together and remain open-minded in this process.
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