Writing was on the wall for Carolina Morace

As soon as Canada’s women’s team was eliminated from World Cup contention with its humiliating 4-0 loss to France, a coaching change was always going to be the only solution.

Carolina Morace resigned as the national women’s team coach on Wednesday, after a debriefing with the Canadian Soccer Association hierarchy and stakeholders like Own the Podium. The The CSA, confirmed the resignation on Friday. Morace’s staff, including former national-team player Andrea Neil, is also out.

What’s interesting is that the CSA confirmed that the resignation was given verbally on Wednesday. So Morace didn’t walk into it with a resignation letter in hand.

Based on the amount of conflict with the Canadian Soccer Association, this had to happen. It was the logical, inevitable end to this drama. In the past year, Morace had:

• Threatened to resign after the World Cup over a lack of support for the women’s program from the CSA;

• Her players had threatened to boycott games as a show of support for their beleaguered coach;

• Announced that a deal was made with the CSA that would allow her to stay on past the 2012 Olympics, or, in other words, for her to keep honouring her contract;

• Had her team spend months away in a training camp in Italy, ensuring that the Canadian Soccer Association had limited opportunities, if any, to promote the national team ahead of the World Cup.

The only thing that saved Morace from her own arrogance was the fact that the team was doing very well under her guidance. The women won CONCACAF and several other tournaments leading up to the WWC.

When the results are good, administrators will try and work things out to keep the status quo. But, when they go south, well, Morace was well aware she had created a shopping list of grievances.

Yes, you can argue that Morace was fighting the good fight for women’s soccer, that she wanted the best for her players. But, as any due-paying soccer parent or player in Canada or taxpayer would attest, she must have known about the funding challenges when she walked into this job, no?

And Morace had one major issue that was created not by what she did, but what she didn’t do. She didn’t have a media presence. She didn’t engage the Canadian soccer community, didn’t do interviews and didn’t hold herself accountable in the court of opinion.

And that matters. How many “Morace must stay” articles from outside the message boards and blogs did you read after the three WWC losses? That’s right, none. She had no allies among the media members who get cheques for what they do.

Morace chose to isolate the team in Italy, and isolate herself.

Now the CSA must hurry to find a new coach; Olympic qualifying goes in January. Morace has done some nice things with the possession game, and that should be continued by the new boss.