Hailing from the small English town of Consett, Beverly (Bev) Priestman grew up with a soccer ball at her feet. Playing on the streets and in the schoolyard, Bev embraced the hardworking mentality of her blue collar hometown, leveraging this mindset throughout her coaching career. Bev is best known for leading the Canadian women’s national team to gold at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the youngest coach at the tournament, just one year after taking over the women’s program.

Over the span of 15 years, soccer has brought Bev to three continents, getting her start as a Support Coach with the Everton Football Club and shortly thereafter heading up the development of New Zealand Football’s National Team for 5 years. She would then come to Canada, quickly moving up the ranks to become an Assistant Coach under her own childhood futsal coach, John Herdman, who also hails from Consett.

After a pressure-packed two-year stint as Assistant Head Coach with the English Women’s National Team, where Priestman would guide the Lionesses to a 4th place finish at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, Bev would come back across the pond to become the Head Coach of Canada’s women’s team.

Off the pitch, Bev enjoys spending time with her partner Emma Humphries, a former New Zealand international footballer, and their son Jack.