Marc Dos Santos Relishing Opportunity To Lead Deltas In Inaugural Season

Photo credit: Steve Kingsman/Freestyle Photography

Marc Dos Santos, who will coach the San Francisco Deltas in the club’s inaugural season, knows all about the process of putting together a roster and helping to build a club from the ground up. He also knows of the challenges.

In fact, Dos Santos, who previously took Ottawa Fury FC to The Championship Final in 2015, runs toward the challenge.

“I am,” Dos Santos said jokingly to NASL.com about being addicted to coaching expansion sides. “I just like it. You’re able to create something from scratch and you’re helping an organization get going. I think it’s the most difficult thing to do.

“It’s a huge challenge and I love that.”

That attitude also led to the club's CEO, Brian Helmick, bringing Dos Santos into the fold.

“Why we chose him had to do with the traits he had and for me what was really impactful compared to the other coaches was they spent time talking about their accomplishments, but Marc talked about his struggles and hurdles and challenges and disappointments,” Helmick said. “That’s the type of character and scrappiness I value.”

Dos Santos also has plenty of experience coaching first-year sides. In three of the last four years, he will have been on the touchline for an expansion side, starting with Ottawa in 2014, USL's Swope Park Rangers in 2016, and now the Deltas. In his native Montreal, Dos Santos was the first coach of Trois-Rivières Attak, the former Montreal Impact reserve side.

With the opportunity to have a more wide-ranging role than the one at Swope Park, Dos Santos jumped at the chance to head to San Francisco.

“I wanted to come back to really managing every aspect and San Francisco was giving me the opportunity to do that,” he said. “Secondly, the first time I came here I was very impressed with the city.”

For Dos Santos, expectations will be high for the club’s first season in the NASL. In the past two years, he has taken two different clubs to finals in two different leagues. Both, however, ended in losses in the New York metro area.

“The city of New York bothers me” he said. “The last two finals, in two different leagues, were in New York.”

Dos Santos’ Ottawa side fell to the New York Cosmos, 3-2, in 2015. Last year, Swope Park was defeated by New York Red Bulls II, 5-1. Dos Santos is hoping to return to the NASL postseason in his return to coaching in the league.

“I have objectives personally, it’s to go to a final and win,” he said. “I’m tired of going to finals and losing.

“The objective is to make the playoffs. Once you’re in the playoffs, anything is possible.”

Before talk of reaching The Championship, the league’s four-club postseason tournament, Dos Santos is just looking forward to the first Deltas game at Kezar Stadium.

“Just having the stadium in the middle of houses, it’s just special where the stadium is,” Dos Santos said. “I think it’s going to be a very special moment and I’m looking forward to it. Every little detail for the home game, I’m just excited to sit on the bench that first day.”