Aspire in the World Fellows Book - 2023

/64 I’ve been at Philadelphia Union for 10 years, as Director of Academy and Professional Development, encompassing all teams outside of the first team. Prior to that, I was Academy Technical Director at Rangers FC. Before that, I was Director of Coach Education at the Scottish Football Association. A big part of my role involves the recruitment of staff, as we are a young club, at only 15 years old. I have 40 staff, but because we have had some success, other clubs come with better opportunities or to work in the first team, so we have to recruit new staff regularly. Our policy is to look within. We have a reputation for developing players, but I’m very proud of the fact that we have developed a lot of staff too. Ten of the staff in our existing first team group have come through our academy, three of them coaches. I think that is tremendous for the culture, to see players graduating towards the first team and seeing staff on the same journey. To develop players and staff is one of our foundational pillars but we are also driven by MLS’s diversity policy. Of the 40 staff that I have, 50 percent are from diverse groups, and we’re proud of that because that reflects Philadelphia, it reflects the territory that we’re in and reflects our playing pool. We have a very rigid game model regarding the way we want to play, however, we still try to develop players. We want staff that are curious and interested in development more than winning. But we want them to abide by the way our team should play, and that comes from the first team down. I came from Rangers where we had to win games, entertain the crowd, and have the ball. Now that’s not the case. We play a transition game, and our coaches must be comfortable against the ball. As a former national team coach in Scotland, I had to be very comfortable against the ball when playing Italy, England, Germany, and Spain, etc. So, that’s a precondition for those that we hire. When we do the interview process, we ask the coaches to prepare a training session based around transition, defensive transition. Then we can really dig into their qualities. There is a technical threshold that they must cross, but after that, it’s really about their beliefs and mentality. Can they adapt to how we want our teams to play? You can sense if a coach is someone that just wants to win. You can also sense if someone has an open mindset and is prepared to learn and change. With the qualities that they already have, they need to align themselves to the way our teams are encouraged to play. TommyWilson PhiladelphiaUnion: Director ofAcademy