By Francisco Padilla
Staff Writer
After consecutive years of underachieving on the pitch, the California State University, Dominguez Hills women’s soccer team has looked to their historic past and brought back coaching soccer legend Marine Cano.
Cano returns to CSUDH for the second time in his career, boasting an impressive resume.
He has two National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) semifinal appearances, two California Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA) championships, one CCAA Coach of The Year honor, and one NCAA title.
“I’m excited, I never realized how excited I would be until I got on the training ground and [I’m excited] to be able to lead this team in the right direction,” said Cano.
His first stint as the coach for the CSUDH women’s soccer team started in their 1984 inaugural season and ran until 1994, where he then took over as the coach for the men’s soccer team. In 1991, he led the program to win its first and only NCAA National Championship.
Along with his achievements, Cano attained an impressive record of 133 wins, 58 losses and 16 ties.
However, the glory days are a thing of the past for the Toros. After having one season in the first 21 years of the program finishing under .500, the women’s team has stretched that mark for last six consecutive seasons.
During that stretch, the Toros’ highest win total for a season was eight wins in the 2016 season and their lowest came in 2014 with two wins. This past season, the Toros started their season on a seven-game losing streak and capped off the season with a dismal 4-10-2 record.
However, Cano hopes to soon change that.
“Speed and fitness are the two main topics that we’re addressing here in spring,” said Cano. “The conditioning for a Division 2 CCAA team is not even close to the level it has to be in.”
Coach Cano has over 20 years of coaching experience and looks forward to bringing a certain style of soccer, or “Cano Ball” to CSUDH.
“A system that is high level, in terms of speed and aggressiveness, so everybody plays offense, and everybody plays defense,” said Cano.
The Toros struggled to produce this past season and had multiple games where both the offense and defense stalled. The team scored 20 goals this season, 10 of which came in one game against Saint Katherine’s College on Sept. 30 and conceded 29 goals.
With the arrival of coach Cano expectations may well be on the rise for the program.
