For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC

For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC

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For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC
For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC
Deep Dive: How Pa-Modou Kah came to Pacific FC

Deep Dive: How Pa-Modou Kah came to Pacific FC

On cross-continental relationships and ties formed at Vancouver Whitecaps FC

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Martin Bauman
Oct 30, 2021
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For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC
For The Isle: Musings on Pacific FC
Deep Dive: How Pa-Modou Kah came to Pacific FC
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Head coach Pa-Modou Kah chats with his coaching staff during Pacific FC’s match against Valour FC on October 16, 2021. Photo: Pacific FC / Sheldon Mack.

Pa-Modou Kah is getting honked at by a red Hyundai. It is a cold and wet afternoon in Langford, British Columbia. (A redundancy, I suppose: October and rain are one and the same on Vancouver Island.) The driver—a fifty-something woman—spotted him on the short walk from the practice pitch back to Starlight Stadium. She beams and toots her horn. Kah smiles. Behold: another moment in the life of the most famous man in Langford, British Columbia’s premier notwithstanding.

One year and nine months since he was announced as Pacific FC’s second-ever head coach, Kah has emerged as one of the Canadian Premier League’s brightest talents: a vocal leader who, in his first season, led PFC to a first-ever playoff berth1 and is now poised to finish his second season with a chance at the number-one overall seed.

He is not merely appreciated on Vancouver Island; he is beloved.

“You have to be passionate in this sport to be successful,” says Pacific FC co-owner and CEO Rob Friend, “and he’s a guy that never takes a day off.”

Pacific FC head coach Pa-Modou Kah shares a moment with his daughters after his club’s Canadian Championship victory over Vancouver Whitecaps FC on August 26, 2021. Photo: Pacific FC / James MacDonald.

It seems a natural fit now—like October and rain, you could say—but Kah’s arrival came as somewhat of a surprise in 2020: a first-time head coach whose most recent stint came as an assistant with FC Cincinnati—then the worst team in Major League Soccer.2

It shouldn’t have surprised at all; in fact, Kah’s arrival to the island nearly came a year sooner. To trace the Gambian-Norwegian’s ties to the Tridents is to follow a story that spans two decades and three countries.

It begins with a water bottle.

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