The Bev Priestman era is now firmly in Canada Soccer’s rear-view mirror.
Canadian Soccer’s governing body announced on Monday the hiring of former England international Casey Stoney as the new coach of the Canadian women’s team, a move that comes roughly six months after Priestman was sent home for her involvement in the infamous drone spying scandal at the Paris Olympics.
Priestman, assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joey Lombardi were all subsequently hit with one-year bans by FIFA for their role in the scandal. Canada's women’s team, currently ranked No. 6 in the world, has been without a permanent coach since then, and has relied on assistant Andy Spence and under-20 coach Cindy Tye to oversee things on an interim basis.
The hiring of Stoney, 42, is a huge get for a Canadian team that is looking to move on from the drone controversy. A skilled defender during her playing days, Stoney earned 130 caps for England from 2000 to 2017 and captained the side. She represented her country at three FIFA World Cups and three UEFA European Championships. She also captained Team Great Britain during the 2012 Olympics in London.
Stoney played her club soccer for Arsenal, Charlton, Chelsea, Lincoln and Liverpool, winning a number of individual awards and trophies, including a pair of league titles and three FA Cups with the Gunners. She also served in the role of player-manager in 2009 during her time at Chelsea.
Following her retirement in 2018, she became a member of coach Phil Neville’s staff with the England women’s team. That same year, she was named the first coach of Manchester United’s women’s side, helping them win the Championship title and gain promotion to the top-tier Women's Super League in its inaugural campaign.
She moved to the NWSL when she was hired as head coach of the San Diego Wave in 2021 during the club’s expansion season and was voted the league's coach of the year in 2022. She also led the Wave to two trophies during her tenure, the 2023 NWSL Shield and the 2024 Challenge Cup, before being fired last June. At the time, she was the NWSL’s longest-serving coach.
Stoney has a well-earned reputation of honesty and accountability, two qualities that the women’s program is in desperate need of as it seeks to repair its public image in the aftermath of the drone scandal.
“One thing people can’t question about me is my integrity and my principles. I think I’m able to draw a line in the sand with this team. I’m very aware of what they’ve been through. I will listen and I will hear, but this is an opportunity for us now to move forward,” Stoney told reporters on Monday.
Stoney is obviously well qualified to take over the Canadian women’s team, and Canada Soccer should be praised for this type of “swing-for-the-fences” move. It’s a major statement of intent from the governing body to lure a coach of Stoney’s stature at the start of the qualifying cycle for both the 2027 FIFA World Cup and the 2028 L.A. Olympics.
Still, you can’t help but wonder why Canadian candidates continue to get overlooked for one of the most sought-after and prestigious head coaching positions in Canadian soccer.
Stoney is the seventh consecutive international coach to take charge of Canada’s women’s side, following in the footsteps of Neil Turnbull, John Herdman and Priestman (all from England), Norway’s Even Pellerud, Carolina Morace of Italy, and Denmark’s Kenneth Heiner-Møller. The senior team hasn’t boasted a Canadian-born coach since Sylvie Béliveau’s run from 1993 to 1995.
For three decades, Canada Soccer has consistently gone with coaches from outside of the country, passing over viable Canadian coaches in the process.
It’s one of the reasons why former Canadian international Rhian Wilkinson, a Canada Soccer Hall of Fame member who earned 181 caps for her country, had to go abroad to seek coaching opportunities after Priestman beat her out for the job in 2020.
After leaving Canada, Wilkinson served as an assistant with England’s national team and coached the Portland Thorns in the NWSL before being hired as the head coach of Wales last year. Under the former Canadian defender’s guidance, the Welsh team booked its spot at this summer’s European Championship in Switzerland, marking the first time it had qualified for a major international tournament. It makes you think what might have been had Canada Soccer hired her instead of Priestman.
Wilkinson’s former teammate Carmelina Moscato is another example. Moscato made 94 appearances for Canada from 2002 to 2015, becoming one of the team's most trusted defenders while competing at three FIFA World Cups, and winning a bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics.
Since retiring as a player, Moscato served as coach and assistant with Canada's under-15 and under-20 teams. She was also hired by Danish outfit FC Nordsjælland (her first head coaching gig at club level), and became the technical director and head coach of Tigres UANL, one of the biggest teams in Mexico's top division.
Moscato guided Tigres to the 2022-23 Apertura league title, becoming the first foreign-born coach to win the Mexican league, and the first female head coach at Tigres to win a championship. Moscato is currently an assistant coach with Racing Louisville FC of the NWSL.
Both Stoney and Moscato have no experience coaching at the national team level, and have achieved success at the club level. Yet, it is the native of England who has been given the reins of the Canadian women’s side.
Kevin Blue, Canada’s Soccer general secretary and CEO, explained the organization cast a wide net when conducting interviews to fill the coaching vacancy left by Priestman.
“We’re happy with our head coach… We started with an initial screening of probably 40 to 50 candidates. Included in that group were several Canadians, and several Canadians entered the process, and we emerged with Casey,” Blue said.
Fair enough. But it raises the obvious question: What exactly would it take for a qualified Canadian candidate to land the job of Canada’s women’s team?
Editor’s note
John Molinaro is one of the leading soccer journalists in Canada, having covered the game for over 25 years for several media outlets, including Sportsnet, CBC Sports and Sun Media. He is currently the editor-in-chief of TFC Republic, a website dedicated to in-depth coverage of Toronto FC and Canadian soccer.
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