The Vancouver Whitecaps announced their 2025 option pickups, and the team’s third-leading scorer, Fafà Picault, isn’t one of them. But talks, the team said, continue.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
There are moments that can swing a season, or even the next.
Recommended Videos
When Fafà Picault stepped up to the penalty spot against Real Salt Lake on Decision Day a month ago, the Vancouver Whitecaps were mired in a six-game winless skid, desperate to stem the bleeding and claw back valuable position in the standings. His 53rd-minute penalty kick had the potential to swing the then-scoreless contest in the Caps’ favour.
A goal also would mean the automatic triggering of a contract clause for 2025 for reaching 15 regular-season goal contributions, keeping the Haitian-American sensation — who had been having a career season — in Vancouver for another year.
The 33-year-old forward stepped up to the spot, measured his run-up, and … sent his shot sailing over the bar, Roberto Baggio style.
The Caps lost 2-1 and dropped into the wild card round of the playoffs as a road team.
And now it looks like Picault will also be hitting the road, as one of six players that the Caps elected not to pick up the 2025 options on Wednesday.
The team also declined to activate options on goalkeeper Joe Bendik; and midfielders J.C. Ngando, Ralph Priso and Alessandro Schöpf; and wingback Ryan Raposo is out of a contract, though the team said discussions with them were still continuing. Forward Levante Johnson was also on an option year, but the club and player decided it was the right time to part ways.
Depth, especially offensively, has been an unsolved issue for the team over the past two years. Ryan Gauld had 10 goals and 12 assists in the regular season, while Brian White checked in with 15 and two. Picault was third (nine, five), followed by the impending free agent Raposo (three, four).
The 35-year-old Damir Kreilach, who signed a two-year deal before 2024 to be a depth option to White, struggled to find fitness and playing time, recording two goals in 465 minutes.
Schöpf played nearly 2,000 minutes in the regular season, but with only a goal and three assists from the No. 8, the Caps can find far better uses for his international roster spot and US$992,000 hit.
Depth is tested when you played the second most games among MLS teams (49) and are staring down the barrel of a 2025 season that includes the CONCACAF Champions Cup, Gold Cup and other international breaks, Leagues Cup, Canadian Championship and hopefully a long playoff run.
“Options are not the problem. Options are great things, because you can really make decisions of, ‘Do you want to have the cap space or do you want to have the player?’ ” Caps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster said Monday.
“If feel like you can do something better with the cap space to increase the quality of your depth, because most of our option players are not starters … you can really think about (if) you want to free up space here and add other pieces for the depth.
“If you draw down our best 11 onto white paper, I think with all three DPs signed, U-22s right now signed, it’s very unlikely that we go for a clear starter in this off-season. That doesn’t mean that a player that we sign will not end up being a starter. What we have to change, and what we are working on is obviously more depth pieces. More players that are closer to our starting 11. We need to be better prepared, we need to have less of a gap there.”
The organization made it clear that it had entered ‘win-now’ mode when they axed head coach Vanni Sartini on Monday, despite having made the post-season three of the past four seasons. It was a move Schuster told supporters at a season-ticket-holder meeting that they had first thought of two months ago, but on Monday said there was no timeline nor specific candidate they have in mind to replace Sartini.
But with the holidays fast approaching and the Champions Cup kicking off in February, the team has very little time to fill that position before training camp starts in January.
“I wouldn’t say urgency, but the desperation on my side is absolutely there, and that’s probably also a reason for the change, because I feel like we have to, am I allowed to say that kick everyone in the (butt), including me,” Schuster said.
The profile for the coach is also a wide-ranging net, with the only two must-haves being experience and an acceptance of the culture and philosophy the team is currently built around.
“Why we will be better next season, because your starting 11 players are still the starting 11 players. Something else has to change,” Schuster said. “And I’m not saying that the new coach cannot change anything, and that he has to come in and do exactly the same. The only thing we have no time for, and that I don’t see, is that somebody comes in now with the complete opposite philosophy …
“This is more about how we approach things, how we do things. We rely a lot on our group. We rely a lot on the character of the group, on our work ethic, on our mentality, also on being disciplined and having a good team spirit. And so somebody has to come in who respects the steps that we have already done on, on the road to where we are at today, and who wants to take it from here to do the next step.
“I don’t think that MLS is special, but it is obviously in some things different,” he added. “The special thing about MLS (is) how you can build a roster, how much you can change in the roster and how you have to play this puzzle game of putting players together. But we’re pretty good there. There’s not like a million changes that have to happen.
“Everyone who knows our squad and follows us now for a time, and everyone who has seen our last games, will say, ‘OK, that makes no sense to move a lot of those players out who are starters’ … If you speak with the players, we have the group, we have the players, we have the quality. We believe in that.”
KEY UPCOMING MLS DATES
Dec. 9: MLS half-day trade window (6-10 a.m. PT)
Dec. 10: CONCACAF Champions Cup draw (4 p.m. PT)
Dec. 11-14: College Showcase in San Diego
Dec. 11: MLS Expansion Draft for San Diego FC (time TBD)
Dec. 12: Free agency opens (10 a.m. PT)
Dec. 12: End-of-year waivers (2 p.m. PT)
Dec. 13: MLS Re-Entry Draft Stage 1 (10 a.m. PT)
Dec. 19: MLS Re-Entry Draft Stage 2 (10 a.m. PT)
Dec. 20: MLS SuperDraft