When Giorgio Chiellini talks, you listen. And when Giorgio Chiellini calls someone a “maestro”, well, they probably are.
“They have a fantastic teacher, or maestro if you prefer to call it,” the legendary Italian center back said of the Columbus Crew before MLS Cup in 2023. Before signing with LAFC in 2022, Chiellini spent more than a decade at Juventus dominating the world’s best teams. He knows better than most what makes those teams tick.
“That is coach [Wilfried] Nancy.”
The French manager arrived in Montreal in 2005 “with my backpack". Now he’s leaving North America, where he rose up the ranks to replace Thierry Henry at CF Montréal and won MLS Cup with the Crew, to take over as Celtic manager.
Leading one of the United Kingdom’s largest clubs with a downright rabid following while they’re currently sitting in an unthinkable second place in the Scottish Premiership won’t be easy. Winning league titles is considered the bare minimum at Celtic. Still, during his time in North America, Nancy has shown a unique ability to spin straw into gold.
And along the way? He became the best coach in MLS history.
To state the obvious, comparing coaches across eras is no easy task. MLS has changed dramatically since its launch in 1996. There are more teams, more games, more competitions. There’s more money, better facilities, and larger staffs, too.
It’s worth acknowledging, then, that there are a group of legendary MLS coaches who seem worthy of a spot on the league’s Mount Rushmore.
