The Hoops top target has come a long way as a coach since he pitched up in Canada with a back pack full of dreams
06:00, 17 Nov 2025Updated 12:35, 17 Nov 2025
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Wilfried Nancy looks set to pack his bags and travel across the world into the unknown.
But it won’t be the first time for the Frenchman.
At least this time he knows there will be a job waiting for him at the other end.
The 48-year-old is close to sealing a deal to take charge of Celtic and could be in the dugout by the weekend.
And if the move gets rubber stamped it will be the next stage of a remarkable journey back-and-forth across the Atlantic since he was a kid.
Wilfried Nancy and Thierry Henry
Nancy has become one of the hottest coaches in the MLS in recent times on the back of his work at CF Montreal and Columbus Crew, and it’s taken him to the top of the Hoops wish list.
Yet the path has been far from straight forward.
This is a guy who was a top prospect as a teen but ended up shuffling around the lower leagues in France as a senior, skirting the heights of the second tier before drifting down the divisions to the semi-pro ranks.
But it was a fortnight’s holiday in America that set him off in an entire different direction.
Nancy pitched up Stateside with not much more than a backpack full of his belongings – but had a gut feeling to stick around.
Speaking on the Men in Blazers podcast last year, Nancy said: “I’m laughing, because there’s a word I like to use – serendipity. I could have stayed in France, having a nice life with friends, at my house, doing some coaching.
“But, again, from my parents, because I travelled a lot, I knew one day I would try to live overseas, to discover new things.
“At this time my sister and my mother were living in New York, so my plan was to go to New York.
“But it was so difficult for what I wanted to do in terms of the papers and so on, and one of my best friends went to Canada a year before.
“He told me about this desire to get better in football, to improve the quality of the players.
“I said, ‘you know what, I’m going to come on holiday for two weeks’ but at the same time I met with some people.
“I had a good vibe. I’m the kind of person that needs to feel things in my soul to decide something.
“Rather than staying in my comfort zone in France, I said, ‘let’s try it for a year’.
That was in 2005. Nancy managed to land a player-coach role at the University of Quebec in Montreal – taking on the under 14 girls team.
It was a humble start he described as ‘amazing’, and he quickly made a name for himself, eventually landing a job in the Montreal Impact set up and by the time the MLS had a rebrand he was an integral part of the top team.
That initial leap of faith paid off – but perhaps it was inevitable given his upbringing.
Nancy’s father was in the French Navy and the family followed him across the seas.
Travelling is in the blood – and also part of his coaching DNA.
Columbus head coach Wilfried Nancy(Image: Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Nancy said: “Without that, it’s impossible to be where I am now.
“When I wanted to be a head coach, I was thinking I needed to be good tactically. If I am good tactically, it’s going to be okay.
“I was so wrong! Because we have to convince and transmit a vision.
“The fact I travelled a lot gave me the possibility to understand more people and to have more empathy.
“You don’t have to be a big star, you don’t have to be Thierry Henry, to become a good coach.
“The key point for me is, if you didn’t have this life, you have to be good at understanding people.
“If you haven’t played at the highest level, sometimes it can be everything by the book.
“But you are not able to understand the reality of how it works.”
The Henry name drop isn’t by accident. Nancy faced the France legend when the pair of them were teens and years later they were paired up when the Arsenal legend became boss at Montreal.
Nancy said: “He had that desire to compete when I was playing against him at 16 or 17. “The Thierry I saw as a coach had the same competitive spirit. Obviously we had debate and discussion about the tactical view, because we loved all that about each other.
“Thierry is a viber. You can be talking to him and all of a sudden he says, ‘in 1982 I remember the Spain right back did this overlap after 16 minutes…’
“I would say, ‘Thierry, stop!’ But it would be true.
“He had a lot of ideas but it was this desire to compete, it was extreme, amazing.
“With work you can achieve something but with mental strength you can overachieve.”
Henry headed home during covid and Nancy was offered the chance to take the reins – while the club was making financial cutbacks.
He was a specular success and the bags were packed again when Columbus Crew came calling – where more trophy joy followed.
Nancy said: “Life is about moments. I had to present my vision. Confident but humble – this is something I try to teach and the way I am as a person.
“When I was assistant coach I saw all the other coaches were all different.
“I said, ‘you have to to take what you see and understand who you are and do you’re own minestrone soup, with a mix of everything’.
“This is what I did.”
Nancy will be right in the soup at Celtic right now, but he’s not a man to shirk a challenge.
He said: “To have meaning in life is to have challenge. If you don’t have challenge, it’s boring!
“It’s to be comfortable in uncomfortable situations.
“The game is dynamic, and life is an infinite game, it doesn’t stop. Adversity is more complex.”