Columbus Crew's Wilfried Nancy, the only Black head coach in MLS, looks to inspire as well as win
Coach Wilfried Nancy led the Columbus Crew to the MLS Cup championship last year in his first season at the helm
As Columbus Crew coach Wilfried Nancy surveys the current landscape of Major League Soccer, it’s impossible for him to ignore that he’s the league’s only Black head coach.
To Nancy, that means the job is about more than victories and trophies — it's about leading by example and staying true to his values.
Last season, Nancy's first with the Crew, he led the team to the MLS Cup championship. The 47-year-old Frenchman was the first Black coach to win it. On Saturday, the Crew will vie for another trophy in the CONCACAF Champions Cup final against Pachuca in Mexico.
"My definition of a success is, who do you want to become as a person, not as a player or as a professional person, but as a person?" he said. “So that’s why for me, the word fulfillment is a key word for me, because it means that I am aligned with my values, with my actions and, this is the most important for me, my thoughts. And because of that, I am at peace with what I do every day.”
