Music: {allcanada} Canadian men's soccer coach Hart steps down

It's the end of an era -- again.

The Canadian Soccer Association announced Thursday afternoon that Stephen Hart stepped down as coach of the Canadian men's senior team.

CSA president Victor Montagliani confirmed to reporters during a conference call that Hart handed in his resignation earlier on Thursday and it was immediately accepted.

Hart's decision comes on the heels of Canada's humbling 8-1 loss to Honduras in San Pedro Sula on Tuesday, a result that officially eliminated the Canadian team from contention for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. A win or draw in that game would have seen Canada advance to the final round of World Cup qualifying in CONCACAF.

Instead, Canada's World Cup drought continues. Its lone World Cup appearance came in 1986 in Mexico. And the last time it made it to "the Hex," the final qualifying round, was in 1998 – and even then, it finished in last place.

Montagliani thanked Hart for being an "exemplary model for the game at both the national and international levels through his tenure at the CSA."

Hart, 52, was in his second stint as coach of the men's team. Hart also served as the CSA's technical director, and coached Canada's under-17 and under-20 teams.

"He's been asked to do a lot of things that he's always done with the ultimate class and (as) the gentleman that he is. He's earned the respect of the entire soccer community and helped to raise the profile of this game," Montagliani said.

Montagliani later added: "He's a good football man. He's a good man, period."

Thursday's announcement marked the 13th coaching change for the men's team since 1986, a sobering and stark reminder of how difficult a job it is and the challenges ahead for Hart's successor, whoever that may be.

Montagliani stated that a major review of the national team and its setup will take place in the wake of yet another early and embarrassing World Cup qualifying exit.

"Unfortunately we're getting some good practise at this stuff," Montagliani said. "We all thought this campaign, in terms of the preparation both off the field and on the field, we had covered off a lot of things that had been missing it past campaigns."

He also suggested that one of the team's biggest problems was psychological.

"One of the things we really have to look at is psychologically how we compete in countries in Central America specifically -- and also in the Caribbean to some degree – and how we overcome that hurdle," Montagliani explained.

"It's obviously a psychological barrier which has existed for a long time in this program."

As far as finding Hart's replacement, Montagliani hasn't had time to start the process, but did say the position will be open to both Canadian and international managers.

"We will be looking for the best candidate for this program, keeping in mind that one of the key ingredients is not just international experience, but also having the understanding of what it means to compete in the environments that we just experienced ... which are significantly different than standing on other sidelines in other place in the world where you have to qualify," Montagliani stated.

Player development needs to be fixed

One of the hard truths emphatically driven home by this latest failure was that Canada still lags far behind a lot of countries in terms of player development. One of the criticisms of the CSA has been that its relationship with Canadian MLS clubs has not been the best, relying on them to do the bulk of the developmental work, while not giving the teams much in return.

Montagliani said the relationship is getting better, but there's still work to do.

"From a technical standpoint we need to do things differently. One of the areas that have been addressed is ensuring we're not stepping on each other's toes and we have to break down some of the political fighting that has existed in this country," he said.

Montagliani hopes that the CSA's new technical director, a position that's been vacant for a long time, will be named soon and that person will continue to work closely with MLS clubs.

"He'll have a specific vision that is a long term process of working with the clubs to ensure that we benefit from their work, and they also benefit from our work, because it is a two way street," Montagliani offered.

The CSA commissioned a study on the viability of a lower-tiered domestic league, below MLS level, that could potentially serve as a developmental incubator for young Canadian talent.

Montagliani said he is just waiting for one final part of the report to be submitted. Once it is, he believes that will lead to a national discussion and talks with the various stake holders about how to get such a league off the ground.

Montagliani also stressed that one of the key issues that the CSA has to address is coaching development. To that end, he called on all provincial soccer associations to adopt the CSA's Long-Term Player Development program (LTPD) to increase coaching standards at youth level in this country.

"It's at the level that I think it needs some serious look at in terms of how we develop coaches," Montagliani said.

"At the end of the day, I'm not sure how we're going to develop coaches that are being coached by just parents. We put a player behind the eight ball when they come into our national program at the age of 14 or 15, because they haven't been given the proper skill sets technically to deal with the game.

"That all comes from the lack of proper coaching at that young age group."