John Herdman explains Canada to Toronto FC move: “I need a different path now”

His move is surprising given the sky-high optimism around the CanMNT – and the contract extension he’d signed through 2026 – just a few months ago. Paced by rising talents like Alphonso Davies and Jonathan David, Les Rouges bested traditional regional powers Mexico and the United States on the road to Qatar ‘22, then impressed observers with a valiant but ultimately winless showing at their first World Cup appearance since 1986.

But subsequent revelations about the tenuous state of the federation’s finances, tumult at its executive level and labor unrest with both national teams’ players’ associations have changed the outlook.

“Coming out of Qatar, in order to take another four years with Canada, at that time you feel the motivation and the excitement of what you experienced there, and the potential,” said Herdman. “We also feel that there’s another level to come from this team. It needs freshness, it needs a different voice. There’s an element of that.

“But also the organization. I think the organization’s undergoing a level of leadership change, and for me, this is the time. You feel that in your gut, you feel in your heart, that there’s a moment it’s time to step off and go and fulfill another dream. And that dream was to be on the grass with players day in, day out, developing people in the way that you haven’t had that opportunity, probably since we were in our residencies with the women’s national team.”

Though he left plenty unsaid, Herdman made oblique references to problems – “deep down, it’s been a battle,” he said – around a program with an uncertain future despite the rich promise of 2026.

“I’ve given everything, literally everything, and my staff have as well. This is fresh, it’s new, it’s energetic. And we’re ready, we’re ready for change,” he said. “As a human being, you go through these processes in your cycle, you just feel it, in your guys, in your heart, with your family, and I’ve had that feeling for a while. It’s not something that’s just crept up on us, I think the team has been changing and things are progressing at Canada Soccer in ways or changing there, that for me, I need a different path now.”