Martin Rennie 2023-24 Women's Soccer Staff

Martin Rennie will begin his fourth year with the Notre Dame women’s soccer program ahead of the 2024 campaign. He spent the 2021 season as an assistant coach, the 2022 campaign as a volunteer assistant and then moved back into a primary assistant role for 2023. Rennie brings a loaded resume of soccer experience to South Bend, including head coaching stints with the Vancouver Whitecaps FC and the Indy Eleven.

“I’m very excited for Martin Rennie to be joining our program,” Doug & Lisa Jones Family Head Coach Nate Norman stated. “To get a coach with the resume and experience that Martin has is a huge win for our program.  He has been a head coach in the MLS (Vancouver Whitecaps) and has a ton of other coaching experience at extremely high levels. I was fortunate enough to play for him professionally and loved my experience.  This is a huge addition for our program that will only make us better.”

On January of 2018, Indy Eleven announced Rennie as head coach ahead of their inaugural United Soccer League (USL) season. Overall, Rennie compiled a 42W-31L-19 ledger in USL Championship action and a 2W-2L-0D record in postseason play over his three-plus seasons on the Eleven sideline.

Prior, Rennie spent some time abroad when he was the head coach and manager of Seoul E-Land FC. Working with primarily young Korean players, Rennie gave 18 players their professional debut and led the team to the playoffs in their inaugural season. Rennie and Seoul E-Land parted ways in June of 2016.

Rennie brings MLS head coaching experience to the Irish. The Scotland native was head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps for two years from 2012-14. In his first season in charge of the Whitecaps, Rennie reached the playoffs, becoming the first coach to lead a Canadian team to the MLS postseason. The Whitecaps became known throughout MLS for their attacking and entertaining style. In 2013, Vancouver had its most successful season to date and won the 2013 Cascadia Cup.

Prior to that, Rennie began to coach the Carolina RailHawks from USL 1. With the Carolina RailHawks he inherited a team that had only made the playoffs once in the history of the Franchise and had never finished above eighth place in a regular-season campaign. Rennie completely changed the team culture and environment, introducing psychological, tactical and physical concepts that had never been implemented at that level before. In 2009 the team missed out on the regular-season title by only two points finishing runners up to Portland. Rennie was finalist for the coach of the year award and his team was recognized for the turnaround that had taken place in just one season.

In 2010, the RailHawks established themselves as arguably the premier team in US Soccer outside of MLS. The RailHawks won the NASL title and continued their success into the post season with a run to the Championship final. For the fourth year in a row, Rennie was recognized as a finalist for the Coach of the Year Award, a feat that had never been achieved before at this level of professional soccer. The RailHawks also broke franchise records for a single season including conceding only 14 goals and scoring 54.

Before Carolina, Rennie was head coach of the Cleveland City Stars for three years, spanning from 2006-08. In the club’s first season, the City Stars lost only one regular-season game. Rennie won the coach of the year award in a season where the team conceded a USL all-time record low of 13 goals. The team finished its first season as the runners-up in the USL Second Division. The Cleveland City Stars won the 2008 United Soccer Leagues Championship with a 2–1 victory over the Charlotte Eagles. Again Rennie’s work was recognized in the shape of the coach of the year award.

Born in Thurso, Scotland, Rennie earned a business degree at Glasgow Caledonian University.