Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are settling in for the weekend and, if you’re American like I am, that your holiday weekend is going well.

The Whitecaps took nearly every second they could to make a decision on their roster options and, while things went mostly according to plan, there were a couple of surprises.

Vancouver opted to exercise their options on Yohei Takaoka, Isaac Boehmer and Deiber Caicedo. They declined their options on Alessandro Schopf, Fafa Picault, Joe Bednik, JC Ngando, Ralph Priso and Levonte Johnson, with Ryan Raposo out of contract. They claim they are still negotiating with many of those guys, though that often doesn’t mean much in the end.

The only real surprise about the guys sticking around for next year is Deiber Caicedo, who I thought could have gotten more of a look down the stretch. The decision to retain him appears to be an indication that he wasn’t a favorite of Vanni Sartini, rather than falling out of favor with the front office, and the brass likely decided he would be a more cost effective option than Fafa Picault.

Not keeping Picault around might seem a bit striking given the season he just had but I think there are reasonable concerns about his age that would make me wonder whether you’d want to bet on him doing it again. There also is the fact that Picault has been rumored to want a move away from the west coast and the Caps have been loathe to object to that type of deal in the past. This might also be doing the player a favor as well.

Beyond that, I’m mildly surprised Priso and Johnson were cut loose, merely because they are cost effective guys on the supplemental roster who are Canadian. Priso, in fact, became a decent depth piece by the end of the year who I think is worth keeping around. It is possible he will come back on a different number, the Caps would rather promote Jeevan Badwal or Priso wants to play more often, in which case a Canadian Premier League landing spot would make sense. Ditto for Johnson, who would seem to have all the makings of an excellent goal scorer in the league based on his Voyageurs Cup form.

The Caps are now in the rather unenviable position of having to shape their roster without a manager and, given Axel Schuster’s press conference last week, it appears there is no hurry to change that. I’ll have a couple more thoughts on the decision to let Vanni Sartini go on Monday but, suffice to say, the Caps cannot afford to get too far behind the eight ball before bringing in a new gaffer. A team without a ton of depth will need to replace some key bench pieces and there will be some decent options in MLS free agency and in the Canadian Premier League who could fit the bill. That’s before we even start thinking about any bigger signings the club will hopefully be making.

Shameless Self Promotion

We covered the Vanni Sartini decision inside and out, so come on down for our assessment of the sacking in written and podcast form.

Best of the Rest

More details on the options being declined for the Whitecaps and what comes next.

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The Caps aren’t even the last team to boot their manager, with NYCFC firing Nick Cushing.

Can the Canadian Men’s National Team continue its form? Stephen Eustaquio doesn’t underestimate the challenge.