Dos Santos in limbo as Valour FC head coach

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This article was published 31/10/2024 (363 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Phillip Dos Santos’ future as the head coach of Valour FC is undecided.

Dos Santos, whose contract expires at the end of the calendar year, has met with Winnipeg Football Club president and CEO Wade Miller several times about an extension since the team’s season ended on Oct. 19.

The two sides have discussed the state of the club and where it appears to be headed.

“It looks positive,” Dos Santos told the Free Press Thursday. “The intentions of the club and mine needed first to be aligned, and I think this is where we are.”

Valour went 7-7-14 in 2024 and finished at the bottom of the Canadian Premier League table for the second consecutive season under Dos Santos.

“We’re currently evaluating and working through and talking with Phil and working together to figure out the direction forward. We’ll keep working through that and see where that ends up in the next week or two,” Miller said.

“There’s a process to this and it takes some time.”

Dos Santos was hired as the club’s general manager and head coach during the latter part of the 2021 season and has led Winnipeg’s pro soccer club to a 26-25-46 record since arriving.

While Valour has never made the post-season, despite finishing in last place, it had its best chance to do so this year as the club was mathematically in contention entering the final match of the regular season.

Winnipeg’s side began the year with five losses in a row and appeared to be dead in the water by the season’s midpoint, but clawed its way back into contention during the second half of the campaign. Only Forge FC and Cavalry FC, the league’s top two clubs during the regular season, respectively, had more points over the final 15 matches.

Those are all things Miller said he’s taking into consideration as he contemplates a decision over the next couple of weeks.

“Look, we’re not far off here,” Miller said. “There’s some pieces that need to be added, but what I’m looking for is how does that team compete. How did we compete right until the end, right? And you saw that in the second half of the season.”

In the meantime, Dos Santos is preparing for 2025 as he normally would. He echoed Miller’s sentiments that there is plenty to be encouraged about from the core group of players.

“I never make these things about me, and this is important that it’s clear because my job is to make sure that the club is in a good place, regardless of me being here or anyone else,” he said.

“This is what I work for, and I think that when you look at the way the team ended the season… I feel the team has reached levels of competitiveness that were very high, and now there’s a foundation going into 2025 and beyond, and I really think that this is where the club needs to be on a consistent basis,” Dos Santos continued.

“For me, today, when I look at it, I say that for the club, we have put ourselves in a position where we are closer to succeeding than we were maybe 12 months ago, and that I have no doubt.”

The recent stretch of success was a long time coming for Dos Santos. He explained that his first two seasons were spent instilling a culture where players felt appreciated for their work and could focus on their craft.

Entering 2023, the roster experienced a lot of turnover as Dos Santos really put his fingerprints on the team. He admitted to making some mistakes with the players he recruited, and his salary cap made it even tougher to reel in some of the bigger fish on the market.

“We didn’t do a good enough job. I feel that we brought in good players that struggled to adapt,” he said. “Without being negative, I think I hadn’t yet completed the build of an experienced enough staff to come in and help me with the load management.”

“I think this year that was obvious in the amount of players we kept out of the medical room, of how important (strength and conditioning coach Daniel Guerrerio) was for the organization.”

Last offseason saw plenty of turnover, as well, but this time players showed they just needed time to get on the same page — something that was made difficult by playing the first eight matches away from home.

Now building for 2025, Dos Santos is as confident as he’s been in his roster. Save for a few key and necessary additions, he anticipates the vast majority of his core to return in the spring and hit the ground running.

“That I could tell you right away — expect to see a lot of returning faces,” he said. “Expect to see a team that if we started the season tomorrow, you could already have a group on the field of 11 players that would allow the team to start at the level that they ended this year.”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam