Even Pellerud remembers the first time he saw the Canadian women's soccer team play. It was 1995 and he was scouting Canada at an international tournament.
"I was hiding in the stands," he said, laughing.
What the Norwegian coach saw was a Canadian team long on promise but short on basics.
"A lot of hard-working, small, busy players running around, but not very effective," said Pellerud, whose first name is pronounced Evan. "I guess that was this team's history. The passion, the eagerness was great, but the knowledge was not."
Today, the national women's squad is a team moulded in Pellerud's image. And the team is turning heads.
Almost four years into Pellerud's reign, the Canadian women have caught the imagination of soccer fans across Canada and sell out domestic stadiums wherever they go.
And they are expected to make a mark at the women's World Cup,
Canada opens the World Cup on Saturday against third-ranked Germany in Columbus, Ohio, and is being touted as one of the most improved — and feared — teams in the tournament.
The Canadians are 32-21-7 under Pellerud, and with Sunday's 2-0 win over Australia in a friendly, head into the World Cup on a 10-game unbeaten streak.
It was no small feat for the affable Norwegian, who inherited a team in total disarray. The Canadians had just bowed out of the 1999 World Cup in the preliminary round earning just a single point from a tie with Japan, the veteran players were disillusioned and ready to call it quits.
But Pellerud isn't one to dwell on weaknesses. Hired by the Canadian Soccer Association as the first full-time women's soccer coach, he came in armed with a plan, plenty of demands — and a ton of belief.
"I had a plan to introduce my philosophy, so the tactical part was No. 1," said the 50-year-old coach. "No. 2 was the fitness level, the area around soccer attitude and lifestyle. Then No. 3 came the skills."
Pellerud made his name coaching Norway to gold in the 1995 women's World Cup, defeating Germany in the final after knocking out the powerful United States in the semis. He left the women's program after that World Cup to coach men's premier league team Lillestrom, and was surprised to get a call from Canada four years later.
"I had no plan to go back to women's soccer at all at that time," said Pellerud. "But I didn't actually come back to women's soccer, I came back to a national team."
Pellerud also had a young family — his twins Tora and Hedvig were two at the time — and was working seven days a week.
"I looked forward to having another soccer job that was a better fit for the lifestyle we wanted to live," he said.
If coaching Canada was a better fit for Pellerud's lifestyle, it was a match made in soccer heaven for a Canadian team with no international presence or history.
One of his first tasks was to use his coaching contacts to get Canada some much-needed playing time, throwing his overmatched team to the lions of women's soccer.
"I forced myself into tournaments in Europe," said Pellerud. "We played games against big teams and that was absolutely one of the keys to get adjusted to the international level.
"And we got beaten a lot too, which I expected. But it went on and on and gradually we adapted to the level. When we played at home, we played against guy's teams, and were beaten. And beaten, and beaten. But we played better and better and better every month."
The Canadians have played China, Norway and the U.S. more than 20 times in the last three years, and gradually closed the gap. At the 2002 Gold Cup, Canada lost in the final to the world No. 1-ranked U.S. in overtime on a Mia Hamm golden goal.
"When Even came in, he had a lot of demands, but they were realistic demands as far as having a certain number of days as a team for camp, having a certain number of international games, being able to go and recruit himself," said defender Sharolta Nonen. "All of those things were very important to our success."
Pellerud implemented the same team tactics that had worked so well for the Norwegians. On offence, he prefers a quick, powerful attack with numerous players involved, rather than a long, slow buildup. He prefers a zone defence rather than man-to-man.
Pellerud is working on a book on his approach to soccer called Northern Magic, due out in 2004.
His players are already on the same page.
"We have one of the best coaches in the world, and he not only brings confidence to this team, he brings in a great game plan, and great athletes to play the system," said veteran Charmaine Hooper, who was outspoken in her criticism of the program after the heartbreak of 1999.
Added veteran midfielder Andrea Neil: "He's a winner, he had to teach us how to win. That's taken a while, we had some ups and downs through the years since he took over the program. But he's the whole package deal.
"He's hard on players when he needs to be tough on them, and easy on them when he knows it's time to pull off. He's a brilliant man."
Pellerud scoured the country looking for the brightest young players, turning heads when he named 15-year-old Kara Lang to the national senior side for the 2002 Algarve Cup. Of his current 20-player roster, 14 have no World Cup experience.
"He's brought in a lot of different players and given them opportunities," said Silvana Burtini, a veteran who will be playing in her third World Cup. "We've got a lot of young players with some good athleticism."
Pellerud said he looks for certain qualities rather than perfection, assembling a collection of players with unique qualities.
"Look at Diana Matheson. . . ," Pellerud said of the tiny midfielder, one of his recent acquisitions. "People have the assumption that I'm only interested in big players, so I confused them by choosing Diana. But she has the qualities we need in midfield."
Excellent distribution, "but her skills off the ball, winning balls are even bigger," said Pellerud.
His style is to stress a player's strength and not dwell on their weakness — and that builds confidence.
"Confidence is a word athletes use a lot as if it is something they can buy or get from the coach. Not the case. It comes from performance, it comes from inside yourself," he explained. "Nobody is perfect, but if you put emphasis on the strong sides they have instead of the weak sides, that's a way I can help a player to see what they can do."
Pellerud is confident that the team he will field at the World Cup has adopted his mentality. It's a far cry from what he saw back in 1995.
"We won't see any mental breakdowns. We can win games, we can lose games, but we won't lose games on mentality," said Pellerud. "They have a lot of desire to achieve something."
