Wanderers head coach Patrice Gheisar is never still for long. The 48-year-old Etobicoke, Ontario native is bouncing in his chair as he sits to meet with The Coast in Dalhousie’s Studley Gymnasium, mere days before his Canadian Premier League club will travel nearly 1,000 kilometres to play defending regular season champions Atletico Ottawa in the first match of the 2023 season.
It’s been less than five months since Gheisar was introduced as HFX Wanderers FC’s newest bench boss—the second in the club’s five-year history—and he’s been busy: There are video sessions to run, game plans to coordinate with his coaching staff and a roster full of egos that either need gentle encouragement, tough love or a wisecrack to break through the nerves and anticipation that come with the first game of the season.
It’s a big test for Gheisar and the mostly new-look Wanderers: Can a team with so many fresh faces find a winning identity—and fast—after two seasons of missed playoff appearances?
“Sometimes, you’ve got to jump in—and it’s your moment of sink or swim,” Gheisar says with a smile.
It’s a moment the first-year Wanderers head coach has spent a lifetime preparing for. And on Saturday, he and his charges are ready to introduce themselves to the rest of the Canadian soccer world.
A new beginning
The first thing Gheisar, who came to Halifax from semi-professional League1 Ontario side Vaughan Azzuri, did when his team returned from preseason training in Florida was to give each of his new players a book. It came filled with pictures, words of motivation and a message for the season—“things that meant a lot,” he tells The Coast.
“I’m a person that believes in symbolism,” he adds. “The most exciting part of the book is the first chapter that brings you in. It’s the beginning of the journey.”
Gheisar’s journey to Halifax has been a story in its own right. Picked over a field of coaching candidates that Wanderers president Derek Martin describes as spanning all professional ranks and corners of the globe, he became the first League1 Ontario coach to make the leap to a head coaching gig in the Canadian Premier League since its launch in 2019.
“I wanted to find a leader, and I wanted to find a builder,” Martin said at Gheisar’s introduction as Wanderers coach.
More pointedly, Gheisar knows how to win: In his three seasons as head coach (and five more as assistant coach) with Vaughan Azzurri, he led the club to the 2022 League1 Ontario title and won back-to-back league honours as Coach of the Year. He also compiled a regular season record of 41 wins, five draws and two losses. (The Wanderers, in their four seasons, have finished with 26 wins, 30 draws and 38 losses.)
In Halifax, Gheisar has inherited—and in part, hand-selected—a roster of promising young talent, undervalued international signings and well-travelled veterans who he’s hoping can set the tone both on and off the field as the club aims to shake the dust off of back-to-back losing seasons. Youth is a dominant theme on the roster: More than half of the club’s 23 players are aged 23 and under.
“Our team is extremely young, so they’re going to follow how we react to different situations,” he tells The Coast. “We’ve been such a positive culture—and that’s something I want to continue whether we win, lose or tie.”
To inject some leadership into the less-experienced bunch, Gheisar has turned to returning captain Andre Rampersad, incoming goalkeeper Yann Fillion and new left-back Ryan James, 28, of Mississauga, Ontario. The latter arrives after nearly seven years spent playing professionally across the United States.
“What Ryan is going to do is take five young guys and make them all better,” Gheisar tells The Coast. “He’s a guy that’s going to bring a lot of stability and wisdom. He’s not a loud guy, but he’s a guy that speaks in calmness.”
Wanderers aim to end scoring woes
One thing the Wanderers won’t be under Gheisar, if he has his way? Boring. At Vaughan Azzurri, his two leading scorers, Massimo Ferrin and Kosi Nwafornso, combined for a near-unfathomable 42 goals in 15 games. Both have joined Gheisar in Halifax for 2023.
“I’ve always aspired to deliver beautiful football,” Gheisar says. “I’d rather win a game 4-3 and people leave pulling out their hair because we gave up so many leads and gained them back rather than just sitting back and winning 1-0.”
That’s welcome news to those who watched the Wanderers in 2022. Under departed head coach Stephen Hart—and missing star forward João Morelli for all but one game of the season—the Halifax soccer club was the only CPL team to average less than a goal per game.
But with a bolstered attacking line and overhauled midfield, the Wanderers’ scoring fortunes could well change soon.
The first glimpse at how the Wanderers could look in 2023 came over the Easter weekend. The Halifax club hosted the Nepean Hotspurs, Ottawa Selects and Peterborough, Ontario’s Electric City FC in a trio of pre-season friendlies at Dalhousie’s Wickwire Field that saw the Wanderers shut out each of their opponents and wrap the weekend with a 3-0 win in front of a fervent Halifax crowd.
⚓️ Ryan James -> Dan Nimick to open up the scoring 😤#TogetherFromAways #COYW pic.twitter.com/6lRcPUGdM1
— Halifax Wanderers FC (@HFXWanderersFC) April 8, 2023
Among the most impressive of the Wanderers’ new faces might well have been defensive midfielder Lorenzo Callegari, who comes to Halifax after stints in France’s first, second and third professional tiers, including at global footballing giant Paris Saint-Germain’s academy.
“He doesn’t lose the ball,” Wanderers captain and midfield partner Andre Rampersad tells The Coast. “He is very aware of his surroundings: He can make a pass forward, sideways, long, short—and he can also thread it [through a defense]. He’s shown a lot since coming in.”
Pre-seasons are notorious for overblown expectations, but with a healthy 2023—and a playoff return for the Wanderers—the French midfielder could find himself on more than a few end-of-season CPL award ballots.
A difficult opponent
If Gheisar and his team were looking for a worthy measuring stick for how they’ll fare against this year’s Canadian Premier League competition, they couldn’t do much better than Saturday’s hosts. The 2022 regular season champions, Atletico Ottawa figure to be motivated after losing last year’s playoff finals to Hamilton’s Forge FC.
The game kicks off at 2pm AT at Ottawa’s TD Place Stadium. It will also be broadcast on OneSoccer and FuboTV.
