John Herdman took a group once called a “struggling squad” to one that has captured the hearts and minds of Canadians. Under his leadership, th Canadian Women’s Soccer Team won two bronze medals at the Olympic Games, and a gold medal at the Pan Am Games ― the first Pan Am gold in Canadian soccer history. In his riveting talks, Herdman explains the importance of vision, passion, and discipline to achieve success, whether it’s on the field or in the office, and now he’ll be imparting that vision, passion, and discipline on the Canadian Men’s Soccer Team, since this week Herdman was named Head Coach of that team.

From CBC Sports:

John Herdman, who led the Canada’s women’s soccer team to back-to-back Olympic bronze medals, is taking over the Canadian men’s program.

He replaces the fired Octavio Zambrano, who was named head coach of the Canadian men’s national team program last March. Herdman’s new title is national team head coach and men’s EXCEL director.

The surprise announcement came Monday evening.

…

The 42-year-old Herdman took charge of the Canadian women in August 2011. He succeeded Italy’s Carolina Morace after a last-place finish at the 2011 World Cup in Germany.

The women’s program was in a dark place. Gradually the charismatic Herdman built it back up while developing a pipeline of young talent.

…

“I’ve done seven years with the [women’s] team,” Herdman said in an interview Monday. “I’ve enjoyed every minute of it with the group.

“But I’m a builder, I’m a developer. With Canada Soccer and the rest of the crew we sort of built that program back up from scratch, built the high-performance system, built the talent development system, brought the right people in.”

“I just feel the [women’s] team is there now. They’ve got the players,” he added. “They’ve got the players to be successful and that’s often the hardest thing to do.”

Read the full report here.