Cameron Toshack has joined Jesse Marsch’s backroom staff at Leeds United and will take up the the role of Assistant Head Coach alongside Franz Schiemer.
Toshack, most recently the manager at Cypriot side Pafos FC for almost a year, is the 51-year-old son of former Liverpool striker, John.
It will be his second time working in the United Kingdom as the bulk of his coaching experience was gained with another of his dad’s former teams, Swansea.
He is clearly someone who has caught the eye of Marsch in recent years and he will be hoping to play a key role in any success that Leeds enjoy over the next few seasons.
It will be the most high-profile role he has been entrusted with to date so, like the managerial appointment, provides something of a risk.
However, the decisions of the board at Elland Road must be trusted as they could not have made a better decision the last time they were in the position of hiring a new manager and coaching staff.
We have profiled Toshack and explored what’s been said about him and what he has achieved in the game so far.
What has he done so far?
Despite most of his experience coming in the Swansea academy, it was actually with the Macedonia national team where Toshack began his coaching.
He was hired as assistant manager by his dad back in 2011 where the pair enjoyed a bit of success, bringing the minnow nation inside FIFA’s top 100 rankings, from 103 to 81.
He then continued his upward trajectory with Swansea where he was brought to the club to oversee development in the U18 side. This job brought Toshack his first piece of silverware as his side became U19 FAW champions at the end of the 2013/14 campaign.
He was then promoted to work with a number of the same players in the U23 squad with whom he enjoyed plenty of further success.
He was able to guide his team to the Premier League Cup in May 2017 as well as going on a significant Premier League International Cup run in the same season.
His side were ultimately beaten by Porto in the semi final, the team who would go onto win the whole competition.
The young Swans returned to retain their crown as Premier League Cup champions the following campaign but were unfortunately beaten in the final by Aston Villa.
Toshack left the Swans in 2019 after being offered the job as manager at Pafos FC. Whilst in Wales, he played a key role in the development of current Leeds winger Dan James along with players like Joe Rodon and Oli McBurnie.
He was also a smash hit in Cyprus where he was able to mastermind a brilliant end to the season despite having a wafer-thin squad available. Pafos won five of their last six games of the season to secure a very respectable seventh-place finish.
All six of those games came in February 2020 and he was awarded the Manager of the Month award for the impressive set of results.
Why would Leeds want him?
He seems a very good coach to have as part of the backroom staff considering his track record working with young players.
It very much complements Marsch’s philosophy which is focused heavily around the development of youngsters and high-intensity football.
Given the plethora of quality youth players in the development squad and in the first-team squad at Leeds, it will be a very intriguing appointment as far as the fans are concerned.
His experience at senior level is admittedly brief, but he has shown more than enough for Marsch to trust him with a job that comes with plenty of responsibility.
He also already has an ally in the Leeds dressing room as James is a player who will know Toshack’s methods very well after the pair spent time together in Swansea’s development squad.
What has been said about him?
Jeremy Steele, who works as the managing director for football data specialist site Analytics FC, is extremely impressed by what he has seen from Toshack.
“I distinctly remember sitting down with Cam and him being really impressive, with really clear ideas about the game, how he would coach with a strong work ethic and discipline focus,” Steele told the Yorkshire Evening Post.
“Daniel James has come through that Swansea system with Cameron and he works incredibly hard.
“I think that’s probably a reflection of how Cam did things - players will run, chase and press. That’s one area I think he’s got in common with Jesse Marsch.
“I made a note at the time - the auditors used to play a game called ‘fantasy academy’ and we would write down the staff we had audited who we would take for each academy role, if we were to take over a club in the Premier League with an unlimited budget.
“In my list, Cameron was at the top of the list for the Under-23s role. I always said, if I had the chance as a sporting director to interview someone for a head coach’s role, I would certainly go back and interview him.”
