From the bunker ball of the Robbo era, to the volatility of Sartini’s zonal marking system, the Whitecaps have been tough to watch at times. That can’t be said for the 2025 team.
Reviews and recommendations are unbiased and products are independently selected. Postmedia may earn an affiliate commission from purchases made through links on this page.
Have you ever seen an ex after a few months, and they look totally different — transformed, even? After being ensconced in a cocoon of a strict gym schedule, a crash diet regimen and a trip to the hair salon, suddenly they emerge, metamorphosed into a vision of beauty.
My God, you Vancouver Whitecaps. You look ethereal.
Few can say they watched Wednesday night’s CONCACAF Champions Cup game against C.F. Monterrey and came away unimpressed by how good Vancouver looked on the field. They pressed like demons, passed with the serenity and speed of Shaolin monks, and came away the ultimate victors in a game on Mexican soil for the first time in club history.
NEXT GAME
Whitecaps (3-0) at FC Dallas (1-1-1)
Saturday, 5:30 p.m., Toyota Stadium
TV: Apple. Radio: AM730
They did it minus three of their best players — Ryan Gauld, Jayden Nelson and Sam Adekugbe — but the rest of the roster picked up seamlessly, just as it did in the first-leg tie against the five-time Liga MX champions. Just like last week, when Belal Halbouni’s 87th-minute equalizer saved their bacon, the Whitecaps came from behind on Wednesday, advancing on away goals to the tournament quarterfinals after a 2-2 tie. Édier Ocampo had his coming out party. Ali Ahmed was a scourge on the wing. Keeper of the future, Isaac Boehmer, was stalwart in net, his only miscue a mishandled shot that bounced to the foot of an onrushing Monterrey player to thankfully bounce off the crossbar.
Roster-wise, this is essentially the same squad that finished eighth in the Western Conference last year. Perhaps even slightly inferior, considering the loss of Stuart Armstrong to the allure of English football.
(Quick side note on an ex who spurned: since dumping Vancouver for Sheffield Wednesday in January, the Owls have won just five times in 13 games, and sit 11th in the Championship, five places below qualifying for the promotion tournament to the Premier League. I guess Armstrong’s premiership dream will have to wait.)
But they look completely different, having played some of the most beautiful soccer of any edition of a Whitecaps team. They’ve bolted to a precedent-setting 3-0 league start, and made the quarterfinal of the largest CONCACAF Champions tournament, in any of its many incarnations.
And the man responsible for this makeover: Jesper Sørensen.
When the Whitecaps fired Vanni Sartini in December, it was an unpopular move with the majority of the fan base. Fans loved his passion. Scribes loved his sound bites. He guided the Caps to the playoffs three — nearly four — times out of his four seasons at the helm. Vancouver won three straight Canadian Championships, moments immortalized by tattooists’ ink on Sartini’s skin.
But, after three first-round exits in the playoffs, Whitecaps sporting director Axel Schuster felt Sartini had taken the team as far as it could go. Gone was the affable Italian in his political- or ideological-adorned T-shirts. In was a stern and taciturn Dane, who apparently has a closet full of black Steve Jobs-esque turtlenecks, and little else.
His personality is markedly different. But his tactics and effects have been as well.
Under Sartini, play was dictated by a formula. If the ball comes to you here, your choice is to pass the ball to Point A or Point B. If you have the ball at the corner of the opposition’s penalty box, you’re not permitted to shoot. Offence was predicated off of defensive pressure, flanking overload runs that ended in crosses into the box. It was why the Caps’ shot attempts came on average from 16 yards in 2024, closest of any team in MLS.
Passes were mostly long and probing, with Vancouver among the leaders in pass length. Possession was nearly always keyed by playing from the backline. Free kicks were relied on to create scoring opportunities. Attacks rarely came through the middle.
Sørensen didn’t upset the apple cart, just tweaked it. Play is simple, elegant and connected.
They now make short, pinball-quick passes. Wingers have free rein to run at defenders and try to beat them one-on-one. Buildup play, like they showcased against Monterrey, is like a rondo training session that dissects its way upfield.
Vancouver tops the league in expected goals (2.13 xG), shot-creating actions, touches in the opposition penalty area and total passing distance. They’re second in progressive carries, fifth in carries into the box and have more shots off of dead-ball situations.
To sum up the analytic gobbledygook — they’re aggressive and attacking. And look good doing it.
Their two goals against their Mexican foes Wednesday showed it. The first saw Ali Ahmed cut in from his inverted wing and drive the middle, finding Pedro Vite, who tapped it no-look into space for Edier Ocampo to lash home, one-time, with a slight curl to the far corner.
The second had Andres Cubas dive in for a ball-winning tackle deep in Rayados’s territory, pressure the backline for the loose ball, which popped free to Brian White for a clinical finish.
(The goal can’t go without a much-deserved nod of appreciation for the defensive legend, Sergio Ramos, for keeping White onside).
Now the Whitecaps are through to the quarterfinals, to face either Mexico’s Pumas or Costa Rica’s Alajuelense. Pumas takes a 2-0 aggregate lead into Thursday night’s game.
A quick dose of pragmatism, perhaps, is necessary. The Caps are off to their best start in history at 3-0, but the 2024 team also had a historic jump out of the game in 2024, going 4-1-1. Much the same things were said about that early season squad as this one, superlatives flying left and right.
For those with the stomach to remember the Marc Dos Santos era, it was actually a team on an eight-game unbeaten run and had just returned from COVID-29 exile in Salt Lake City with new signing Gauld when he was sacked and Sartini elevated to replace him.
Sartini took the momentum and rode it, putting together a remarkable late-summer run to a playoff spot, losing just twice in 14 games as they qualified for the playoffs for the first time in four seasons. His switch to a three-man backline opened up a whole new style of attack.
Those new-look Caps were sexy as hell, until they weren’t.
Now it’s Sørensen’s job to make sure the makeover sticks; Caps fans have had tear streaks in their mascara for far too long.