Victor Wanyama Names Dream Club He Would Like to Coach First and Little-Known Tactician He Adores

Former Harambee Stars midfielder Victor Wanyama has expressed a desire to start his coaching journey at one of his former clubs.

Wanyama officially retired from football last month, bringing the curtains down on a highly-successful career that took him to Sweden, Belgium, Scotland, England and Canada.

During his football journey, the midfielder, who honed his skills at the JMJ Academy in Kenya before short spells at Nairobi City Stars and AFC Leopards, played for Helsingborg in Sweden, Belgium’s Beerschot and then made a career-defining move to Scottish giants Celtic, where he became a cult hero.

Wanyama won back-to-back league titles in a two-year spell at Celtic before leaving to join Southampton in England, and then Tottenham Hotspur after three years in the English south coast.

He would spend four-and-a-half years in North London before he left to sign for MLS Club CF Montreal, a club he played at for nearly five years.

Wanyama was already preparing for life after football as even before he hung his boots, he had been taking his coaching badges and is now ready to make the transition from the pitch to the dugout.

“I have done my UEFA ‘B’ and next month I have exams for UEFA ‘A’ License,” he told Citizen TV of his coaching journey. “Things like these as a footballer are good. Just be part of everything. If you can’t [coach] join anything that can help you.”

Wanyama then opened up about where he would like to start his coaching journey, revealing his admiration for Celtic.

“It doesn’t matter [whether] you want to be a coach or director, anything that can help you in the future, get involved and do it,” he added. “I hope one day I can start with Scotland at Celtic. I hope one day I can get that opportunity. It would be good,” he said of the club for which he made 91 appearances, scoring 13 goals and weighing in with nine assists.

During his career, Wanyama worked with a number of coaches such as Neil Lennon at Celtic, Mauricio Pochettino at Southampton and Tottenham, Ronald Koeman (Southampton) and Arsenal legend Thierry Henry at Montreal but there is one, who is not a high-profile name, that he picked a lot from and would like to follow in his footsteps.

“All the coaches that coached me, the likes of Mauricio and Koeman. I would say my last coach at Montreal, his name was Will, Wilfried Nancy,” Wanyama said of the coach that he admires the most.

“I have seen him grow as a coach and he really taught me a lot and I was learning from him. I saw I can also learn and make my own history like what he has done for that club,” added the 34-year-old.

Nancy coached Montreal between 2021 and 2022, taking them to the MLS playoffs semi-finals, having broken numerous records along the way, and also guided the club to the 2021 Canadian Championship.