Blazers Men's Soccer & Futsal Head Coach Anderson Pereira Passes on the Torch
Pereira embraces a team member after winning the 2020 MCAC Futsal Championship
Blazers Men's Soccer and Futsal Head Coach Anderson Pereira has made the tough decision to step back from the team and say his farewells after seven years at the helm of the program.
An instant success with the team, Pereira captured the program's first and only soccer title of the MCAC era in his first season in 2018, a special moment as both men's and women's Blazers squads came out on top that year. A noted futsal aficionado, Pereira's teams have been perennial contenders in the Copa de la Paz Futsal Championships, taking home the title most recently in 2020, and featuring in the finals several times during his tenure.
With a growing family of his own, Pereira shared coaching duties with co-head coach Gode Katembo for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 seasons, and will now step back completely from college coaching in order to focus more on time with family.
Pereira managed the Men's Soccer squad at a pivotal time in the program's history, coming into the position for the 2018-19 season, taking over from Director of Athletics Russell Willms who himself pulled back from coaching in order to focus on the MCAC's application to join the Canadian Collegiate Athletics Association (CCAA). CMU and the MCAC enjoyed two seasons of probationary membership in 2019-20 and 2020-21 before becoming full members into the national conference in the summer of 2021. The 2022-23 season was the first year of eligibility for MCAC student-athletes for the CCAA All-Canadian awards, when CMU Men's Soccer's Matheus Aquino became the Blazers' first ever recipient of the award in the MCAC's first batch of winners. The following season Blazers Men's Soccer's Victor Hugo Gomes de Abreu also received the award, continuing the team's tradition of Brazilian all-stars developed under the native Brazilian Pereira.
Blazers Athletics would like to give our sincerest thanks to Anderson for his tireless work over the last seven years in continuing to build the program, and wish him all the best in his future endeavours!
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