Toronto’s Marco Bonofiglio heads up Guyana’s men’s national soccer program

It’s been barely three weeks since the World Cup drew to a close in New Jersey, and while some fans have begun to rebuild their social lives – to say nothing of their bank balances – others involved in the sport are already looking ahead to next month’s resumption of international matches.

While a host of soccer fans will be tuning in to watch England against world champions Spain, many Canadians will be eager to see how Jesse Marsch’s team does against Chile on Sept. 26. However, one Canadian in particular will be far more absorbed in what happens elsewhere.

Like everyone else, Marco Bonofiglio followed Canada’s journey through the World Cup, going to all three of its matches in this country, but he has since been appointed as the head coach of the Guyana men’s national team. In so doing, he becomes one of the few Canadians to ever take charge of a men’s senior national team, and by his estimation, the first from Ontario and Toronto.

“To represent this city and this province on the international stage for me is an honour,” he said Wednesday.

The hire is a return to familiar surroundings for the 48-year-old, who has previously taken charge of the Caribbean country’s under-17 team, leading it to its highest-ever finish at the CONCACAF U17 Championship last year, as well as being an assistant coach on the staff of his predecessor, Thomas Dooley. When Dooley left to take on the Bangladesh job in May, Guyana turned to the Toronto native.

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“I felt like Guyana was the right fit because I’d already been there for two years,” Bonofiglio said. “I knew the culture, knew the people, knew the players, knew the staff.”

Bonofiglio will also take charge of the under-20 Guyana team, and has been tasked with widening the program’s player pool as well as improving its technical level.

In his initial conversations with the Guyana Football Federation, three immediate goals were established. The first begins this fall, and is basically to get Guyana out of the Nations League B – where it will play Puerto Rico, Dominica and the Cayman Islands in a round-robin group – and into League A, where it would have a chance to play the region’s titans: Canada, Mexico and the United States.

Finishing first in its Nations League group would also earn the Golden Jaguars, as they are known, a spot in next year’s Gold Cup, which is also the second goal. The third is an even more lofty challenge, and that is to qualify for the World Cup. But many Caribbean soccer nations view that challenge differently after this summer.

“Now everybody’s eyes are open when you see Caribbean teams like Curaçao opening and getting a World Cup position and doing fairly well,” Bonofiglio said. “… When you see all that, the players start to get an excitement and a feel for, ‘Hey, this is real. This is something that we can do,’ and I think we’re right at that moment now.”

To get there, the new head coach will have to feed more talent into the pipeline, something that he has been looking at since he took over the job at the start of July.

He has a working list of over 100 players that he has contacted, with some of them playing for clubs in Europe’s biggest leagues, like forward Reiss Elliott-Parris and defender Walker Shabazz-Edwards at English Premier League clubs Tottenham Hotspur and Ipswich Town, respectively.

But he needs more of that calibre of player playing at more of that calibre of club.

“I think when you get those players at a young age playing at a higher league, at a higher level, everything sort of comes into place. But we really got to start with the youth,” he said.

There are some players with strong Canadian bloodlines, too, with Osaze De Rosario, the son of Canada Soccer Hall of Famer Dwayne De Rosario, and goalkeeper Quillan Roberts, who has previously played for the Canadian national team, in recent Guyana squads.

Bonofiglio, who has been a keen observer of young Canadian talent through his work heading up Canadian Premier League club Inter Toronto’s under-21 team earlier this year, thinks they might be just the start.

“We’re noticing more and more Canadians coming into camp, especially at the younger levels,” he said. “… Really eager to get all these youngsters down because this can be the future of the Canadian Guyanese being part of that program, right?”

In addition to his work with the Guyana Football Federation, Bonofiglio is keeping busy with earning his CONCACAF Pro coaching diploma, working alongside some of Marsch’s assistants such as Paul Stalteri and Mauro Biello. The Guyana jobs give him the chance to put much of that coaching theory into practice.

First off, he is looking to instill some of the tactical discipline that many of the world’s best sides exhibited on this continent over the summer. While he says that the typical Guyanese player is comfortable on the ball, in many ways it’s the work they do without it that will define how far this team – currently ranked 150th in the world – can go.

“I think when it comes down to not just Guyana but all Caribbean teams, when you look at the world stage, you see a major difference when it comes to defending principles, right?” he said. “And you see the example if you look at a team like Spain, everybody’s so into how Spain keeps control of the ball, but they don’t look at how fast Spain recovers the ball.”

His first chance to see how his philosophies have taken root will come on Sept. 24 against Puerto Rico, with Guyana playing four matches in 11 days to see if it can finish atop its group and clinch promotion to Nations League A, as well as cementing its berth in next summer’s Gold Cup.

That could throw up an enticing opportunity for Bonofiglio, one that could put him on the same pitch as his home country, pitting his coaching wits against Marsch.

“I think that’s the ultimate, right?” Bonofiglio said. “Nothing better than that.”