Vancouver Whitecaps fire head coach Vanni Sartini

Article content

The Vanni Sartini era with the Vancouver Whitecaps is over.

Article content

Recommended Videos

The Major League Soccer team made the quick announcement after journalist Tom Bogert broke the news on social media early in the day.

Sartini had more playoff wins and Canadian Championship trophies than any other coach in team history, and when the Whitecaps fell short against Los Angeles FC in the first round of this year’s playoffs — for the second season in a row — CEO Axel Schuster felt like it was time to move on from the popular coach.

“That’s our business. Everything you have achieved last week doesn’t matter for next week. It’s unfortunately like that. That’s something for the history books,” he said Monday afternoon.

“We can always come together and celebrate those most amazing moments, but it’s always about the next game or the next season’s challenge. … And the only thing that has driven me was really, do I have the belief that on the 14th of January, when we are back on the pitch and start to train, do we have a group that has all of … the anger and hunger and belief and energy? Is everyone coming back with the right energy level, and if not, you’d better find a solution now.

Article content

Article content

“That’s obviously what drove my decision. It’s better we finish on a high, then to wait until we maybe get to a low, where we then say, ‘OK, that’s a natural process in this business. … I don’t want to come to this point. I want to not to miss the momentum.

“We can achieve what we achieved this year, or we can do the next step. And so that was the only thing that drove my decision.”

Article content

Sartini, a 48-year-old from Florence, Italy, had been guiding the team since August 2021, when he took over the reins from the fired Marc Dos Santos. Sartini came to the Whitecaps as an assistant coach in 2019 but was director of methodology at the time the club split with Dos Santos.

Vancouver finished eighth (13-13-8) in the MLS Western Conference this season. They won wild card round against the ninth-place Portland Timbers with a 5-0 decision in game that had to be played in Portland because B.C. Place was already. booked, and then lost a best-of-three opening round with first-place LAFC, dropping the third final game in 1-0.

Article content

It was the final leg of the regular season, a seven-game winless run, that cost the Caps their spot in the top-four in the West and set up a meeting with LAFC in the first round, instead of deeper in the post-season.

“To be good when … it’s not able for us to be very good, I think that’s the next step,” Sartini told the media at the end of the year. “When we were in form or we had the possibility to work one week between games, we had the record that was probably top three in MLS. … And then we had two parts of the season, one right before the summer and one right before the end of the regular season, where we did (nine) points in 11 games.

“When you can’t shoot for the moon … you have to at least to try to do the basics and go for the sky instead of falling down. It’s a good learning lesson for the next year.”

Article content

Over his three plus years as the first team head coach, Sartini helped the ’Caps qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs in three of his four seasons, won three consecutive TELUS Canadian Championships, and advanced from the group stage in both the 2023 and 2024 Leagues Cup. Sartini posted an MLS regular season record of 44W-40L-32D and an overall record of 57W-51L-39D across all competitions.

The search for a new head coach will begin immediately, said Schuster, with no particular profile or person in mind — he stated that in response to a question about the availability of Jim Curtin, recently fired by the Philadelphia Union after eight years.

The current coaching staff will remain for now, but Schuster also said the incoming head coach would also have the choice of forming his own staff.

Article content