Frank Yallop

Frank Walter Yallop (born 4 April 1964) is a British-Canadian professional soccer coach.

Yallop is currently the head coach and sporting director of USL Championship side Monterey Bay FC.

He played 13 years in England for Ipswich Town, including the club's first three seasons in the Premier League.

He also played in Major League Soccer (MLS) for the Tampa Bay Mutiny, and earned 52 caps for the Canada men's national soccer team.

He spent a further 13 years as coach in MLS for San Jose Earthquakes, LA Galaxy, and Chicago Fire, as well as three years coaching the Canadian men's national team.

He has most recently been a coach and sporting director in the USL Championship, working with Phoenix Rising, Fresno FC, Las Vegas Lights, and Monterey Bay FC.

Yallop was born in Watford and spent his early childhood there before his father, a meat cutter by trade, joined a brother in Canada in 1974 bringing his wife and three children to Vancouver.

Yallop continued playing in British Columbia, where he caught the eye of an Ipswich Town scout who invited Yallop to try out for Ipswich aged 14.

Yallop made five appearances for England's youth team in 1981/82 before switching allegiance to Canada.

In 1983, aged 19, Yallop signed a professional contract with Ipswich Town, for whom he would play 385 games in all competitions, scoring 8 goals.

He was part of the Ipswich squad that was relegated from the First Division in 1986 and of the squad that won promotion six years later to the new FA Premier League, where Ipswich stayed for three years before being relegated once again.

Yallop remained at the club for a further season after this.

In the later years of his Ipswich career, he played alongside fellow Canadian Craig Forrest.

Missing out on Canada's first World Cup participation in 1986, Yallop only made his debut for Canada at 26 years of age in a May 1990 North American Championship match against the United States.

Since this game strangely was not official his real debut came a few days later in the same tournament against Mexico.

He earned 52 caps, scoring no goals.

He has represented Canada in 27 FIFA World Cup qualification matches.

One of his eight goals for the Town came in February 1993 as they beat Premier League title favourites Manchester United 2–1 at Portman Road, a result which saw Ipswich occupy fourth place in the league and spark hopes of a late run to the title, but instead a slump in form followed and Ipswich finished 16th.

After a lengthy career in England, Yallop returned to North America in 1996, when he signed with Major League Soccer and was drafted 57th overall by the Tampa Bay Mutiny in the MLS Inaugural Player Draft.

Week 23 of the season saw Frank Yallop win his first and only MLS Player of the Week award.

This award was also the first for any Tampa Bay player.

Tampa Bay would finish the inaugural MLS season with the best record, for which they'd retroactively be awarded the Supporter's Shield.

However in the playoffs Tampa would fall just short of reaching the first ever MLS Cup, losing in the Eastern Conference finals to eventual champions D.C. United.

Yallop was given his only MLS All-Star honor with an appearance in the 1997 game, representing Tampa Bay on the Eastern Conference team.

The 1997 MLS season saw Tampa slightly regress, finishing with the third best record overall, and second best in the East behind D.C. United.

Tampa would make the playoffs for the second season in a row but would fall in the first round of the playoffs to the Columbus Crew.

His final international was a November 1997 World Cup qualification match against Costa Rica.

The 1998 season saw yet another regression, with Tampa Bay failing to quality for the playoffs.

In the final match of his MLS career, Frank Yallop scored the game winner, which was his first goal of his MLS career.

After three seasons with the Mutiny, in which he served as captain and started nearly every game, Yallop retired from professional soccer at the end of the 1998 season.

He was released from the Mutiny due to MLS shrinking their foreign player limit from 5 to 4 players per team.

At the time of his retirement, Yallop was second on the team all-time in games played (88), games started (84), and minutes played (7,646).

After retiring following his 1998 season with the Tampa Bay Mutiny, Yallop was offered the opportunity to become an assistant coach for the club starting with the 1999 MLS season.

In the interim period before the pre-season would begin, Yallop began his coaching career in 1998 as an assistant-coach under Lothar Osiander with the U.S. Project-40 team, joining the team on a 5-game tour of England.

Osiander joked that he brought Yallop on board because "I needed someone who knew how to drive on the other side of the road."

Following the tour, he began his duties as an assistant coach for the Tampa Bay Mutiny.

During the 1999 season the team lost Jan Eriksson and R.T. Moore to injury and retirement respectively.

The Mutiny petitioned the league to sign Yallop, who was still participating in player drills and could resume his career, but the league denied the request.

On 29 April 2005, Yallop was selected for induction into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame for his playing career.

On 24 May 2012, Yallop was selected by the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame as the right back of Canada's Best XI for the 1963-2012 era.