Gode Katembo Named CCAA Men's Soccer Coach of the Year
Blazers Head Coach Gode Katembo greets the home crowd after their final home regular season match
Fresh off his second consecutive MCAC Coach of the Year Award to go along with back-to-back provincial championships, Blazers Men's Soccer Head Coach Gode Katembo continues to raise the bar in Manitoba sports as the conference's first-ever recipient of a CCAA Coach of the Year Award.
Katembo, who is in only his second year as the sole man at the helm of the Blazers Men's Soccer program, has been an impactful figure in the Manitoba soccer scene for quite some time. Even during his playing days at CMU, he was already building his Sports Without Boundaries and Free to Play community programming, as well as the Canadian African Cup of Nations tournament that has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few summers. Those projects led to him receiving a CCAA Torchbearer Award, which until today was the highest award any CMU or MCAC athlete had ever received from the national conference. After serving as a co-head coach alongside Anderson Pereira, Katembo took over the program in 2025 and immediately started building a championship-calibre team.
Coming off a 9-2-1 regular season record in 2025, which placed the team in second spot in the conference standings, Katembo led the team to consecutive playoff wins, including against their hosts the Brandon Bobcats in a thrilling MCAC Final upset. His team then went on to the CCAA National Championships for the first time in program history, where the squad made history again by winning their placement match 3-2 over the Capilano Blues, the first regulation win by an MCAC soccer program, and earned the team a 7th place finish at the national tournament.
Hungry to return to a CCAA Championships, Katembo recruited another top-tier team for the 2026 season, and improved the team's record to 9-1-3 and claimed top spot in the league, earning a home playoffs for the title defence run. The team had to get through two tough matchups in the Brandon Bobcats, then the St Boniface Rouges, the one team CMU had yet to defeat, beating both sides 2-0 en route to back-to-back MCAC Championships, and a return to the CCAA National Championships. Not satisfied with their finish at last year's tournament, it seems as though the entire season has led to this point, starting with a pre-season trip to Edmonton, the site of the 2026 tournament, where the team drew with the hosts NAIT (a team that defeated the Blazers at the previous year's national championship), and beat the eventual ACAC Champions TKU Eagles in the pre-season friendly.
The team travelled out West once again this past Monday, practicing at the championship facility today prior to the CCAA Awards Banquet, where the top players, coaches, and teams from Canadian collegiate sport are recognized prior to the matches kicking off on Wednesday. The ceremony included the naming of Katembo as the year's top coach for men's soccer, cementing the moment in CMU and MCAC history.
"This national recognition is a testament to Gode's excellence in leadership and coaching," states CMU's Director of Athletics Russell Willms, who travels to Edmonton on Wednesday in time for the team's first match. "In just two years, Gode has established a program that now garners national attention and features some of Manitoba's best and brightest soccer talent. We're tremendously proud of Gode's accomplishments and of all the players and assistant coaches who have contributed to this national award recognition."
Never one to take personal credit for an entire team's success, Katembo and the Blazers have their sights set on even bigger things at this year's championships, which all always boasts a stacked field of top talent from across the country. CMU will have its hands full on Wednesday night as they kickoff their campaign against reigning national champions, and #1 ranked Humber Hawks at 5:30PM Mountain Time, 6:30PM in Winnipeg, with all tournament games streamed on the CCAA's YouTube channel throughout the week.
