'I don't think we've put in our best performance [yet]': One-on-one with Pacific FC's James Merriman
On road slumps, Lukas MacNaughton's emergence, and what it takes to stay atop the CPL table
James Merriman does not project the air of a man who sweats the small things. A born-and-raised Vancouver Islander with an easy smile and surfer’s demeanour, the only ruffled part about him is the hair atop his head. A mainstay with Pacific FC from the club’s inception in 2019, he is the perfect counterbalance to the always-impassioned Pa-Modou Kah.
“When he comes in hard … I’ll try to lighten it up or come at it from a different angle,” says Merriman.
In two seasons together, Kah and Merriman have shaped Pacific FC into title contenders. They press hard on the ball. They suffocate possession. And, through much of 2021, the club has managed to hold first place in the Canadian Premier League.
But with four matches remaining, the pressure mounts. Can they stave off Forge FC and Cavalry FC in the final stretch—and again, perhaps, in the playoffs?
I spoke with the Pacific FC associate head coach and technical director about his club’s quest for the number one seed, the strong play of Lukas MacNaughton and Terran Campbell, and what it will take to unseat the defending champions.
It’s been a long road back to Starlight Stadium. Before Saturday’s win over Valour FC, Pacific had a four-game away stretch with three losses.1 How would you assess Pacific’s performance over those road matches?
JM: It’s a good test for us; it’s a good challenge for us, because it’s not easy being away from family and away from your home, from your training environment, from your own locker room, and obviously, our crowd. It’s a good challenge for our group to go on the road for this many games and have to try to get results—and obviously, we’ve been at the top of the table for a little bit now, so teams are hungry to come and grab [the number one seed], and you’ve got other teams that are fighting to get into the top four. We feel that, for sure.
“We’ve been at the top of the table for a little bit now, so teams are hungry to come and grab [the number one seed].”
It’s a good opportunity for us to reset and look at where we’re at, where we’ve come [from]. It doesn’t change where we want to go and what we want to do this season, but I don’t think it was necessarily a bad thing for us as a group. I think we’re in a really good place as a team, in terms of staying true to the process and what our goals are for the season.
It’s one thing to get to the top of the table for a brief spell. Staying there is much harder. What has been the key to Pacific’s prolonged success this season—without some of its key players, too?
JM: We’ve obviously missed Thomas [Meilleur-Giguère] a lot and [Marco] Bustos with those injuries,2 and [Matthew] Baldisimo, those are very strong players in our group. They all bring their qualities and leadership to our group as well. But it’s provided opportunities for other guys to step up, right?
Some of our leaders that we count on have stepped up, and they’ve been excellent. Jamar Dixon, for me, has been excellent. Callum Irving has been very consistent and solid for us. And after that, you also have to lean on your squad and your depth. Some of our other players have really stepped up. I know we moved Terran Campbell out to the wide forward position when Bustos picked up the injury, and he’s really been big for us down the stretch. And our central midfielders as well: Alessandro Hojabrpour stepping into Baldisimo’s role and really grabbing it. He scored an excellent goal [against FC Edmonton]. We’ve seen him come a long way since the first season. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for the work that he’s put in.
So I think the depth, right? Players stepping up.
One player that comes to mind when you’re talking about progress from 2019 until now is Lukas MacNaughton. You’ve seen him grow on the backline, going from a first-year player coming out of the University of Toronto to being talked about as an MVP candidate this year. What have you seen in his game?
JM: He put in a lot of work in the offseason. He’s continued to get better each year, since the very beginning. He’s adapted to the professional demands and the day-to-day demands of what it is to be a professional. How he carries himself, and how he takes care of his body, how he prepares, his focus, he’s been excellent. I think he’s one of the best centre-backs in the league, if not the top performer—and it’s not by accident. He’s put in a lot of work, and he’s had an excellent season so far.
Terran Campbell had a brilliant 2019 season. He also struggled in 2020. Was it just a matter of those chances finally breaking the right way this year? Or what do you think has contributed to the run he’s had lately?
JM: I think that can be the life of a striker sometimes. Sometimes it’ll go in for you and you’re rolling early, and when it doesn’t, it can become a little bit of a fight: You can force things, put a little bit too much pressure. And that’s kind of what we saw in the [Winnipeg] bubble, I think.
But then once that first one goes in for you, things start to click. We’ve never doubted him—myself or Pa or any of the staff or players—because we see his quality in training, day-in and day-out. When he does put a little bit more work in on the training pitch, he usually gets rewarded—but he’s always had the qualities; it’s just a matter of taking your chances. As everybody can see, once you start taking them, you can get on a bit of a roll.
What is Pa-Modou Kah like to work with on a day-to-day basis?
JM: I think we complement each other really well. He’s got very high standards, as do I—that we put onto our players, but we also put on each other. We push each other. Sometimes when he comes in hard with his demands, I’ll try to lighten it up or come at it from a different angle, or vice versa. I’m always trying to work off [of] him; whatever he’s seeing and focusing on, I’ll try to focus on something else.
“We see the game the exact same way … I think we hold each other to a high standard. We push each other every day.”
We see the game the exact same way. We built a really good relationship [during] our time with the [Vancouver] Whitecaps. We became good friends. We took a coaching course in the U.S. over a year-and-a-half span. Speaking football and speaking philosophy, we see the game very, very similarly in the way that we want to play it. From trainings to games and what we want from our players, what we expect from each other, I think we hold each other to a high standard. We push each other every day.
How did you and Pa first meet?
JM: When Pa started to spend a little bit more time in the [Whitecaps] academy, and when he started to work with Robbo [Carl Robinson] as an assistant with the first team, he actually came down into [the] Residency [program] and spent the majority of his time with my group and Robert Earnshaw. And that’s when we first became quite close: through talking football and views and ideas about the game.
We went on a couple trips together with the older teams. With the U18s, we took them down to Indiana for 10 to 15 days together. He took the team as a head coach, and I assisted him. And then we took our U.S. license—that’s like a year, year-and-a-half program where we went down three, four times for a week at a time. Obviously you spend a lot of time thinking about the game together. And then we just kept in touch. He went to Cincinnati, and I made the move to Pacific. We’ve always kept in touch. We’ve always been good friends, but also seen football from a very similar way.
Philosophy-wise, Pacific FC looks very much like a continuation of the Total Football school of thought: possession-focused teams, building from the back, forwards attacking the ball. What clubs have shaped your view of the game?
JM: I’m a big Pep Guardiola fan; I was a big Barcelona fan when they were flying. I was an Arsenal fan during the Invincibles [era]. Arsène Wenger, Pep Guardiola, Manchester City… you know, the type of football they’ve been playing since Pep’s moved there… that’s the type of football.
I’m a bit of a purist, I would say. I really appreciate good football and possession-based football: being in control and dominant. And then on the flip-side of that, trying to be very aggressive in defending: front-foot defending. That’s the way I like to see the game played; that’s the way I like to try to coach. Those are the coaches and teams that shaped me, or that I’ve studied the most, for sure.
You’re in a battle for the first seed right now with Forge FC and Cavalry FC. How important is clinching the number one spot to Pacific?
JM: It’s very important to us. We do very well at home—and we obviously love playing at home. It’s also very important for the players. They’ve been excellent in their approach—not just this year, but what we’ve gone through during COVID… the work everybody’s put in. Where we’ve been over the last month, month and a half, we feel we’ve got enough to try to finish at the top of the table, and that’s our goal; that’s our focus right now. So it’s very important to us as a team, and it’s very important for the players, and I think for our community, to try and finish on top of the table and bring that first [playoff] game in our market—something we’re fighting for every day.
If there’s a riddle that Pacific has yet to solve, it’s how to get the best of Forge FC. Is it just the little things that haven’t broken the right way [in those matches], or what do you see as being the answer?
JM: I’m not sure, to be honest. Forge has got a really good group. Bobby [Smyrniotis] does a great job; they have a great team. They’ve got good confidence and belief. They’re obviously having some success in CONCACAF [as well], so they’re growing right now.
I’m not going to make any excuses; we had a very big game against Cavalry FC in [the Canadian Championship], and then we went and played Forge [in Hamilton], and I don’t think we started very well. We got caught early. Trying to come back into the game, we had some positive moments in the game and in the second half, but it was too little, too late.
I think every game is its own game, to be honest. I don’t read too much into the past nine games or however many times we’ve played them now. We know our qualities; we know what we can do as a team. We know who they are. And they’re always very good games—they just haven’t gone our way. But we want to meet them again; we want to play them again. I don’t think we’ve put in our best performance [yet]. So we need to do that. We deserve it as a group; we need to prove it to ourselves.
Off the pitch, one of the things Pacific FC has made a priority is community-building—one initiative being the five-a-side pitch donated to W̱SÁNEĆ School Board, and other ties forged with local First Nations. What does that work mean to you, being a born-and-raised Islander?
JM: It’s something I’ve been involved in for a long time. I’ve been working with the Hope and Health organization for the last eight to ten years in Indigenous communities, trying to support those communities and bring opportunities through the game of football. Pacific wants to do the same. We’re a professional club on Vancouver Island, and I think we need to give back and try to create more opportunities for Indigenous communities—and also involve them more in our youth programming and provide pathways for the players. Because there’s a lot of talent as well.
There’s a lot we can do with our professional players and staff to give back—and ultimately, create more opportunity. That’s something we’re really working hard at, and we’ve got a long ways to go.
Pacific FC’s regular season results from September 25th to October 11th:
2-1 loss to Forge FC (Sep 25)
3-1 victory over Valour FC (Sep 29)
2-1 loss to FC Edmonton (Oct 6)
1-0 loss to HFX Wanderers FC (Oct 11)
Good news for Pacific? Bustos returned to the lineup on October 16th, playing 13 minutes in PFC’s 2-1 victory over Valour FC.
Good stuff. I could definitely see him taking over as head coach one day.