Posted by

Steve Bottjer ,

November 11, 2013 Email Steve Bottjer Twitter @BottjerRNO

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Marc Dos Santos

Montreal born coach Marc Dos Santos has recently taken over as Head Coach of the Ottawa Fury and has long been pinpointed as one of the up and coming head coaches in Canada. The 36 year old Dos Santos is best known for leading the Montreal Impact to the United Soccer Leagues (USL) First Division title in his first year at the helm. He has returned to Canada after spending the last two years coaching in Brazil. After coaching the U20 team of FC Primeira Camisa in the 2012 Copa Sao Paolo, the Montreal native was invited to join SE Palmeiras, one of the most successful clubs in Brazilian football, where he coached the U15 team to their first ever Brazilian Championship (2012).



RedNation recently had the chance to catch up with Dos Santos to discuss the Ottawa Fury, his time coaching in Brazil and his upcoming participation at the National Soccer Coaching Conference that will be held in Toronto from Friday, January 31 to Sunday, February 2nd.



RedNation Online (RNO): Marc, the last time RedNation spoke to you, you were in Brazil working as a Youth Academy coach with Palmeiras and with Desportivo Brasil's U-20 squad. How does it feel to be back living and working in Canada?



Marc Dos Santos: It’s good, especially on the family comfort side. We’re very happy about it. But of course it is also very different. You can’t compare Canada with Brazil. Canada has its good side and Brazil has its good side. It’s just that you can’t compare the two countries.



RNO: From reading previous comments by you, I got the impression that you really enjoyed the work and atmosphere in Brazil. What attracted you about the Ottawa Fury Head Coaching position and organization?



Marc Dos Santos: One thing is that it is very hard for a foreigner to get a chance in the first or second division in Brazil. It’s possible but it takes a lot of time and a lot of years. Most of the coaches in the first division in Brazil are quite old and it is not a country that gives opportunities to younger coaches, especially if you are a foreigner coming from Canada. For them it is crazy to accept a Canadian coach in that market. But at the youth level I was growing and my name was getting out there.



However, I felt my place was at the pro level with professional players. So when Ottawa called me, I was at the point where I was considering whether I wanted to spend another 5-10 years fighting for a spot as a first division coach in Brazil or if I wanted to jump at the next opportunity to come back to the pro world.



The project in Ottawa with the new stadium and everything they are building is ambitious. I thought it was the right time to come back to Canada.



RNO: You and the club have just announced Scottish midfielder Nicki Paterson as the club’s first player signing. Often the first player signed kind of sets the tone for an expansion club, so I’m wondering what qualities you saw in Nicki that have made him the first player up on the marquee?



Marc Dos Santos: The fact that he is the first player signed doesn’t mean that he is the most important one. At the end of the day, what I told Nicki – and what he said also – is that he is going to be an important piece of the puzzle, but he is only one of the twenty-five pieces. I think the positive that comes with announcing him first is that his character, demeanor and profile are what we want an Ottawa Fury player to be. He is a player who is good in possession, who is good in the community and he has a strong attitude and character. He is also somebody who is extremely humble. That’s the type of player that we want to bring in, players with character, integrity and who will fit with the model of play that we want to build here. We feel that Nicki has that profile.



RNO: I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit about your philosophy with respect to building a squad. Now that you have Nicki on board, what other types of players are you looking to bring in as you build out the team?



Marc Dos Santos: When I arrived here with Ottawa I arrived with a very clear idea of how I want us to play. So I resembled a sheet of paper with no names on it and we started to go after twenty-five guys. You have two choices in building a new team. You can try to get the twenty-five best players and then think about how you want to play with them. Or you can build a strong model and then go after players who can maximize your model, which is what are doing.



We want to be a team that is possession-oriented. If you look at the other clubs where I have been, it was always a trademark that the teams I have coached were very oriented on possession. We also want to have a team that is very aggressive without the ball. We don’t only want to defend and wait for the opponent to make a mistake. We want to try and force the opponent to make a mistake. So we are going to need players who are good possession and who know how to take the ball out of pressure, as well as players who when they lose the ball have the strong character to recover it right away. We want players who aren’t lazy defensively. Players who fit that profile are the types of players that we are looking for.



RNO: As one of two Canadian clubs in the NASL, Ottawa and FC Edmonton are bound to be compared in terms of their performances and their philosophies. Right out of the gate, FC Edmonton owner Tom Fath was vocal that he wanted his club to have a Canadian identity and to develop and field a large number of Canadian players. What is the Ottawa Fury’s philosophy with regard to Canadian content and its place with the overall Canadian player development process?



Marc Dos Santos: Our philosophy is to win. We want to be the type of club where everybody looks at us and says that we have a winning mentality. For us, we won’t look at it as players who are Canadian, American and foreign. If you are like that, you will take Canadian players out of their comfort zone. I think that one of the problems we have in Canada is that we have too many players in a comfort zone. We want to take those players out of there.



Whether you are Canadian, Indian or Chinese, you have to deserve your spot on the Ottawa Fury. It won’t be because you are Canadian that you will have a pass. We want to make sure that the Canadian players that we get are players who are hungry to win and hungry to improve Canadian soccer. We don’t want Canadian players who see an opportunity in Ottawa and who think we will just take any Canadian.



RNO: Given you experience in Brazil and contacts there, is there any possibility that Ottawa might sign some Brazilian players as you work to fill out the team’s roster?



Marc Dos Santos: Yes, absolutely. The contacts that I have made in Brazil over the last two years have been excellent. But you also have to understand that I was at Palmeiras and the players at that club are very expensive. So they won’t be the types of players that I will bring in, as most of them make salaries above MLS. The Desportivo young players are all starting to sign with top pro teams. But the fact is that I have made contacts with teams and agents and certain players over there that fit our profile, so it won’t be a surprise if we sign a Brazilian or two. It is something that is very possible. But for me the most important thing isn’t Brazil or Portugal, it is the Ottawa Fury and the community around the club. For example, when I arrived in Ottawa I saw that here in the capital there are a lot of people with a background from Scotland and Ireland. So the fact that we brought in a player like Nicki shows that we are answering the people in Ottawa (in terms of that cultural aspect).



I’ve noticed that Toronto FC might be interested in getting Gilardino and I think that sets an example with the huge Italian community in Toronto. I think when you look at players you have to think about the team and also your fans.



RNO: Speaking of your time in Brazil, in terms of your own development as a coach, what did you gain from your time plying your trade in one of the world’s truly great soccer nations?



Marc Dos Santos: The biggest thing I took away was the winning factor. It is incredible how important it is to win there. I think that winning mentality was developed more and more in me. I started coaching at a very young age with the Montreal Impact. I was only 31 years old. I think Marc Dos Santos at 31 years old and Marc Dos Santos at 36 years old are very different. Having spent almost two and half years in Brazil developed a lot of different things in me as a human being and also as a coach.



In Brazil there is so much pressure to win at the U-13 level. You can get sacked as a coach. Winning is everything in Brazil. When you start at the U-13, U-17 and U-20 levels, that pressure to win and mentality was a big part of my development in Brazil.



RNO: With your former club, the Montreal Impact, now competing in the MLS, there is the possibility that Ottawa and Montreal could face off at some point in a tournament you won with the Impact, the Canadian Championship. Now that you have had a few years to reflect, how do you look back on your time with the Impact and would a Cup matchup against them be something that you would particularly relish?



Marc Dos Santos: It is a club that I love and that is not a secret. When you win a Championship in Montreal like we did in 2009, it always stays with you that it is a special club in your heart, just as Palmeiras will be in the coming years because of that huge championship that we won. When I look at back on my time in Montreal, I am able to see so many positives from things that I learned, high pressure situations I was put in and how people there always tried to maximize everything that I had.



Of course it is a club that I would like to face. A lot of people have asked me about the possibility of facing Montreal in the Amway Canadian Championship, but I also have a huge amount of respect for Edmonton as well. So I think that before we speak about Ottawa facing Montreal, we have two huge games in the Amway against Edmonton.



RNO: In addition to your role as Head Coach of the Ottawa Fury, another important initiative that you are involved in is the upcoming National Soccer Coaching Conference that will be held in Toronto from Friday, January 31 to Sunday, February 2nd. You will be presenting two on-field sessions at the conference. What can attendees expect from your sessions at the conference?



Marc Dos Santos: First of all, I am very honoured to be speaking at the conference that has had so much success in past years. I think I will bring a different side. I really want to talk with the hope that I will be there for the coaches and not for the players. I want to give a lot to the coaches in those two hours and I want to make sure that the sessions on the field really reflect clearly my view of coaching and how I see a model of play inside every single exercise.



RNO: Given everything you have on your plate with a new team, why did you decide that it was important to be part of an event like the National Soccer Coaching Conference?



Marc Dos Santos: As soon as they introduced the project to me and invited me to the conference, I went to look into the history of the event and I felt immediately blessed to be invited. I want to give the best of me at that conference because of that. I think it is a huge opportunity. Toronto has to be praised for the way that community is developing soccer in Canada. I really believe that when I look at a conference that has more than a thousand coaches attending, it really shows that the city of Toronto really likes soccer and I think that it is only a matter of time before Toronto FC really make their mark in MLS.



RNO: Lastly, what is the value that you see in an event like the National Soccer Coaching Conference with respect to the future of Canadian soccer?



Marc Dos Santos: One of the most important things for the development of Canadian soccer is the development of Canadian coaches. We talk a lot about the development of players, but to develop players you have to make sure that you develop good coaches. This conference is showing that the community is concerned with that. They are bringing the best people to give the best presentations in order to make sure that they develop the best coaches possible. It is only going to help the development of these coaches. When that happens it will only help the development of the young players and Canada will only benefit from that.