Episode 507 - The AFTN Soccer Show (CPL Is Back with special guests James Merriman, Alan Koch, and Martin Nash)

We're back with another packed episode of the AFTN Soccer Show for your listening pleasure, and it's a special Canadian Premier League themed show ahead of the new season that gets underway on Thursday. In this episode, we continue our chats with head coaches from around the league and bring you three feature interviews, from three teams with very different expectations this season. We kick things off with the champs, as we sit down with new Pacific FC head coach James Merriman to chat about defending their title, the comings and goings in an eventful offseason, fighting on three fronts, and more. It's also been an eventful offseason for FC Edmonton, and not one you'd wish on any coach. With the team looking for new owners, the playing and management team decimated, and the league taking over the team and providing loan players, head coach Alan Koch has certainly had his work cut out for him. We chat with him about all the turmoil, building a squad, and what we can expect from the team this year both on and off the pitch. Continuing to move east, we end up at York United to chat with another new head coach, and a man we know very well here in Vancouver, Martin Nash. Nash has moved too York after three years as an assistant at Cavalry. Can he take the team forward after they reached the playoffs for the first time? What will a Martin Nash team look like on the pitch? And how has he found the adjustment to being the main man in the dugout? We talk about all of that and more. Plus a quick discussion about all the teams in our season preview, some AFTN CPL power rankings, and Armchair Loyal are back in this episode's Wavelength. Here's the rundown for the main segments from the episode: 02.10: James Merriman interview 36.06: Alan Koch interview 69.33: Martin Nash interview 91.40: Pacific FC discussion 104.36: FC Edmonton discussion 110.00: York United discussion 114.40: CPL season preview and power rankings 125.47: Wavelength - Armchair Loyal - Young Gifted and Right Back