Mark Watson has seen it all. And with the Wanderers, he's looking to build systems for long-term success using his experiences from MLS.

Former Canadian national team defender. Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame inductee. Assistant coach and then technical director in MLS.

You name the situation and Halifax's new senior football strategy advisor, Mark Watson, has probably been there. Perhaps unsurprisingly, when asked about his strengths in an exclusive interview on Tuesday, experience is one of the first virtues he noted given his over 30-years in professional football.

“My strength is having experiences in all facets of the game," he told The Wanderers Notebook during a Zoom call. “I have a lot of experience in the game as a player, as a coach, and as an administrator. I think I come well armed as someone to work with and collaborate with in terms of making this better.”

What Watson will be working to make better, of course, is the Halifax Wanderers. Despite high hopes, the club faltered out of the gate in 2024 and ended the year outside of the playoffs. Now, Watson has been appointed to support Wanderers founder and president Derek Martin in evaluating and improving the club's football operations. In essence, he's here to take stock of the situation and to draw on his experiences — in squad building and in organizational systems — to push the Wanderers to the next level.

And although it isn't perfect, Watson said he's been pleased by the potential of the club.

“I’m very process driven,” he explained. “The main goal is to take this group, which is already very talented, and have a really good 2025 and beyond. This is not a club that is significantly broken. I think there’s some incredible positives.

"You don’t look at this team and say this isn’t a good team, it’s not successful. I think the players are good. It’s got a really attractive, balanced style. But can we change the balance of the team? Can we improve our away form? It’s just about looking at everything and I’ll have my hands on all that. It’ll be a deep dive into everything the club does, all the processes and how we handle them.”

It's in this organizational deep dive, which Watson started over a month ago, that he'll use his experience to work with the club's leadership group, including Martin, head coach Patrice Gheisar and sporting director Matt Fegan, to map out what processes can be improved.

And it's here, in finding solutions, that Watson's experience is key.

Experience is always touted for news hires — people don't often like to draw attention to inexperience — but it feels particularly poignant in Watson's case. He was a player in the Canadian Soccer League that played, and ultimately, folded, in the early 1990s. He then moved to England, playing for Watford FC, joined the still nascent MLS, went back to Europe and returned to finish his playing career in North America. Not only does Watson have a player's perspective but he's been part of both young leagues and young clubs, which applies directly to the Wanderers.

"The growth of a club is something I know very well. I was part of the initial Canadian league back in the late 1980s. And then a bunch of different MLS teams, who do have bigger budgets, but I had two MLS expansion teams that I was with that had some of the same challenges," he said.

There are inevitably lessons that Watson has taken from the challenges he's experienced, whether as an assistant coach with the San Jose Earthquakes or as technical director for Minnesota United in MLS.

One of those lessons is that bettering things like facilities, infrastructure and travel improves the quality of play on the pitch.

"You’re trying to provide a platform and an atmosphere for the players so as to take care of as many things as possible so they don’t have to worry about anything other than their games," said Watson.

As it pertains to the Wanderers, over the last week, the club's leadership has highlighted some other areas in need of improvement.

Solving the club's discipline issues, which included a CPL leading eight red cards, is one area.

The other is figuring out a formula to improve Halifax's historically poor road form. The club has never performed well away from the Wanderers Grounds. In 2023, Gheisar's squad earned 14 roads points, which was a club record. But the club reverted this past season, earning a paltry six points away from home, costing them a shot at the playoffs for a fourth time out of six seasons.

Some of that can be fixed, said Watson, through better scheduling and habits. But others facets may need to be addressed through changes in attitude for home and away matches.

"You’re on the road and don’t have the Wanderers faithful to entertain. I think you want to entertain but part of the discussion, so far, has been let’s take a more pragmatic approach to the game. We’re here to get points, whether it’s one point or three points," he said.

It's not that Watson wants the Wanderers to play a different style of football; he's a fan of the club's sporting principles. But what he's pitching to the rest of the leadership group is managing situations and moments to earn the best result.

“Patrice is a great guy, he’s a great coach and he’s got a really strong belief in terms of the style he wants to play. So how do we take that — and there’s so many positives — and be a little more pragmatic in certain areas? It’s about how do we tweak it to make the team tougher to break down” said Watson. “It’s a tactical thing but it’s also, potentially, a personnel thing.”

Given his connections in the footballing world, Watson said he'll be assisting both Fegan and Gheisar in roster building and recruitment. And moving forward, the leadership group will be taking a collaborative approach so as to maximize people's strengths.

Watson said the good news is that the challenges the Wanderers are facing are ones that have been around for a long time: they're part of being a club in a new league.

When asked about the league itself, though, Watson was quick to praise the role its playing in developing Canadian talent. Although he may not have had the ability to follow it as much as he would have liked, Watson said he's noticed a substantial change to the quality of play since the CPL's launch in 2019.

In fact, he was on hand for Halifax's 2-1 win over York United to end the season.

"This league is about developing Canadian players at its core and even the game I saw live, I was very impressed with the style of play," he said. “I think that’s the league doing its job.”

And if Watson is able to help address some of the issues the leadership group has identified, the Wanderers will be one step closer to achieving a long-term success the club has never experienced on the pitch.

Cover Photo Credit: Minnesota Star Tribune