Rising coaching star Hervé Diese spends offseason with Brentford FC’s Thomas Frank

How the Tacoma Defiance boss reaffirmed high-level ambitions through assured tactical and leadership acumen

By Drake Hills, Black Players for Change contributor

Tacoma Defiance head coach Hervé Diese sees Wilfried Nancy as the standard for coaching success in MLS — winning MLS Cup, Coach of the Year and on the trajectory to reach higher heights.

Diese has made this pathway his mission which includes coaching in Europe. And the next step, after guiding his MLS NEXT Pro side Tacoma Defiance to a 2024 Western Conference semifinal appearance during his first season and first head coaching role at the professional level, Diese learned through a Black Players for Change fall internship with Brentford FC manager Thomas Frank that his customary head coaching acumen built on personal relationships with his players and staff leads to the results and success that will propel him up the coaching ladder.

Diese has taught his players to take up space when opportunity knocks. And as it goes for an MLS NEXT Pro manager, Diese has learned player development defines success just as wins do.

“But I also want to make sure that when I do fill up that space, all the ingredients are coming out — my character, my personality, being a positive influence to everybody else that's working with me and even working against me, the ones that are playing against me, my competitors. They enjoy the competition that we have against each other because they know that I'm going to bring out the best in them. 

“I want to do way more than Wilfred (Nancy) is doing currently right now. That's very obvious,” Diese told Black Players for Change. “I'm very unapologetic about that but also understand that it takes a lot of steps, and I need a lot of people around me in order to get me to that position so I can fight that fight.”

via Seattle Sounders FC

Following Toronto FC appointed Robin Fraser as manager this month, Nancy is one of two Black coaches in Major League Soccer today and just the eighth in league history. Diese is one of eight Black head coaches in MLS Next Pro as it stands. 

Appointed in February 2024, the 35-year-old led Tacoma to a final eight-matchup with eventual champion North Texas SC by coupling his thirst for winning with an innate skill in aiding players in reaching top-flight soccer through the personal relationships he forges with them. Now, Diese is calling next in line to coach the Seattle Sounders and then some.

“Obviously the first team is kind of set, but I know that my next step is obviously going back to the first team and then eventually taking over as a head coach of the first team,” he said. “That's the objective. Now that is not the destination, it's just an objective. The destination is eventually to be able to do what we're doing here (in Seattle) on a higher platform, which is Europe, and trying to get there.”

Diese led Defiance to a 13-10-5 record in 2024, tying Philadelphia Union II for most goals scored in MLS Next Pro (57) and did so after transferring its top goal-scorer through July, Faysal Bettache (seven goals) to FC Tulsa in USL. Frank Daroma, also an everyday starter in midfield, departed Tacoma in July for USL’s El Paso Locomotive. 

Enter Sounders academy alumni Snyder Burrell, Sebastian Gomez and Chris Aquino. The latter led Tacoma in goals scored (10) last season, surpassing Bettache by three goals in the same amount of starts (14). Snyder led Tacoma with four assists from his defensive midfield spot and Gomez added five goals and two assists. 

Diese said the key to deploying players with a clear understanding of their respective roles on the field begins before training, before Defiance players — like Burrell, Gomez and Aquino, who are still teenagers — touch the grass. 

Diese instituted individual morning walks with the team, who make the trek with Diese along the Green River Trailhead that borders the 12-field, plush green acreage — the club’s training base and home stadium — settled at a median point between Renton and the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.  

These neighborhood walks are open invitations to talk about life at home and career hopes. These talks, Diese said, prepare players to fulfill or exceed the weighted pressure of manager expectations on the field and are the same Diese puts on himself: do what it takes to elevate to the first team and to Europe.

Twenty-two-year-old midfielder Georgi Minoungou and 23-year-old left back Travian Sousa are evidence of successful work with Diese at Tacoma. Both signed contracts with the Sounders this offseason.

“It means we can walk the same path. We can take the journey together,” Diese said. “And the way I do it is to have to have a personal relationship with the players.”

Born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo and raised on the south side of Johannesburg, Diese began coaching almost 15 years ago at a New York City recreational soccer program on the Upper East Side while furthering his education at LaGuardia Community College, and eventually, CUNY City College.

“And then the work that I did there, the (New York) Red Bulls saw it, and then the Red Bulls came and took me and a gentleman — his name is Steve Jones — I did a (training) session in front of him. I was unprepared. I didn't prepare anything. I just winged it,” Diese said. “And after that, he said, ‘if you take this seriously, you’re going to become a really, really good coach, but you have to take it seriously’.I believed him, and I ran with it.”

Diese ran without skipping a level in his coaching ladder ascension. He’s coached three-year-olds up through RBNY’s academy, to the University of Chicago men’s soccer, to the Orlando City SC academy, to NWSL’s Angel City FC to CF Montréal in MLS before landing in Tacoma. He knows how to speak to players based on their level, which is how he’s forging those relationships. 

Following Tacoma’s season, Diese joined Black Players for Change executive director and Brentford FC Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) board member Allen Hopkins Jr. in England, where Diese completed his one-month internship.

Frank and (former) West Bromwich Albion manager, now with Valencia, Carlos Corberán, welcomed Diese into how they run their teams. Learning touch points included assistant coach management, holistic health for the staff and players, and how to strategically and rapidly “demand a high level of existence in the organization.”

Brentford is committed to fostering an inclusive and diverse environment on and off the field, and the EDI board and Diese’s internship sprout from that. 

"If there is not a pathway, we need to endeavor to create one that provides the number of opportunities that match the wealth of Black talent and leadership in soccer here in the U.S. and football worldwide,” said Hopkins Jr., adviser to Brentford. “Many thanks to the incredible folks at Brentford FC who opened doors for Hervé to have an incredible experience. Special thanks to Deji Davies, Cliff Crown, Marcus Gayle, Jamie Greenwood and Gary McDermott and the entire club for their time but more importantly for the respect they showed and gave Hervé during his time. It was refreshing and empowering!"

Diese returned to New York in December, where he began his coaching career, for the 2024 holiday season. He’s watching Bayern Munich manager Vincent Kompany, a Belgian of Congolese descent, face RB Leipzig in the Bundesliga on his television. A proud Congolese also eyeing a head coaching role in Europe, Diese said to himself, “It’s achievable.” 

“There is a lot of space for me to take over,” he said, “but there's also a lot of me that can fill that space.”