LAFC Assistant Prefers Road Less Traveled

For Marc Dos Santos, Montreal will always be home.

“It’s where my family is, where my kids are, where the first opportunity as a professional coach was given to me … Christmas is there. The offseason is there. So, when I think of Montreal, I think home,” Dos Santos said after an LAFC training season.

Born in Montreal, Dos Santos’ journey to Los Angeles hasn’t been linear in any respect. Climbing the youth ranks in Canadian soccer before taking his first professional coaching job in 2009 with the Montreal Impact, then of the NASL, the current LAFC assistant spent time with no less than eight clubs, across three countries, in the span of eight years.

To say Dos Santos is a bit of a soccer nomad might be an understatement.

“When I left the Montreal Impact I said, ‘OK, every coach born in Montreal, that has coached the Impact, never did something after that outside the comfort of the Impact, so I have to leave.’ I have to do something different,” Dos Santos said.

Doing something different meant moving his family to Brazil in 2012. Dos Santos coached Primeira Amisa U-20, followed by time with SE Palmeiras’ U-15 academy team. His Brazilian odyssey came to an end after a stint as head coach and technical director of Desportivo Brasil in 2013, but it was an experience that enriched Dos Santos' need for a challenge.

“It allowed me to say, ‘Ok, I’m able to be understood at home. I am able to get it done in a market that I know, and people know me, and it’s normal. Now how can I be when people don’t understand my language, we don’t eat the same food, and we don’t deal with the same things,’” Dos Santos said of his time in Brazil “These to me are challenges that are incredibly motivating. When I go to a place, I don’t think about what am I going to eat, is my family going to adapt? No, we just went. And then we see what life is going to give us.”

After leaving Brazil, Dos Santos’ journeys brought him back to Canada in 2014 as the first-ever manager of the Ottawa Fury. But just two seasons in, he was on the move once again. Dos Santos joined Sporting KC reserve side Swope Park Rangers as head coach for one season in 2016, before helping build the San Francisco Delta’s from scratch in 2017. The Deltas won the NASL Soccer Bowl that year, Dos Santos' first and only season there.

“I have a problem with comfort,” Dos Santos said. “It’s something very personal in my heart because I think the biggest coaches in the world and the biggest leaders in the world all have a huge story of going through areas that are very uncomfortable. Leaders of business, leaders that have been bankrupt, people that have failed, people that have suffered, the biggest stories of the biggest leaders in the world have been through grind, through persistence. I think that is something that was always natural in me. I was never afraid of taking risks.”

Through all the change, Dos Santos has been able to fall back on one constant.

“My base is my family. What keeps me grounded is my faith and my family. That’s the two things that I know that if disaster strikes at any moment, I know I have them. And I know that’s where my base is, and I feel secure because of that,” Dos Santos said. “How my wife has supported me, and my kids have supported me, in this journey allows me to go to a place with full peace of mind and give my best effort wherever I go.”

Now as Dos Santos prepares to return to Montreal for the first time as an opponent (LAFC at Montreal Impact, April 21, 10am PST | YouTube TV, UniMás 46), he’s comfortable knowing that while change is inevitable, he'll be up to the challenge.

“I feel calm because I think it is part of sports,” Dos Santos said. “You have to be cold enough to understand, today I am in LA, but maybe four years from now, maybe in 10 years from, I’ll come back with another team against LA. And LA is going to be very special in my heart. Montreal is the first place where I coached pro, the first professional championship that I won was in that stadium.

“When I step on that grass, I think then I'm going to realize I have so many stories in this stadium and it’s so special to be back here. It’s not a secret for anyone that this is a special place for me.”