Toronto FC’s Greg Vanney named MLS Coach of the Year

Greg Vanney has been named the MLS Coach of the Year.

The Toronto FC boss collected an average of 37% of the overall vote to beat Atlanta United’s Tata Martino and the Chicago Fire’s Veljko Paunovic to the prize.

Vanney was particularly highly rated in the votes allotted to club staff and executives, claiming approximately 44% of that section. Patrick Vieira was second in that category on 18%.

Interestingly, Martino earned only 3.5% of those votes but was rated much higher by players and the media, beating Vanney (36% to 27%) in the former category.

Vanney was the overall winner, though, by nearly 15%.

Appointed towards the end of the 2014 season, Vanney guided Toronto to the playoffs for the first time in their history the following campaign.

The Reds were eliminated in the knockout round but came back stronger the following year, making it all the way to the MLS Cup final before losing in a penalty shootout.

And they have been the league’s dominant side in 2017. TFC wrapped up the Supporters’ Shield with a record-breaking 69 points and are a home win away from returning to the final for the second consecutive season.

In the summer, Toronto won the Canadian Championship for the second year in a row.

Vanney earned 37 caps for the United States during a playing career that saw him play for four MLS clubs - most notably the LA Galaxy - as well as Bastia in France.

He retired in 2008 and went into youth coaching, serving as the director of Real Salt Lake’s Arizona academy before becoming an assistant coach at Chivas USA.

The head coach of the now-defunct Californian club was Robin Fraser, Vanney’s former teammate with the Galaxy who is now his assistant at TFC.