Tuesday morning at the National Soccer Development Centre, the Vancouver Whitecaps announced their 6th manager in MLS history, with the introduction of Jesper Sørensen.
Sørensen began his footballing journey as a successful midfielder in Denmark, with more than 300 professional appearances before joining the coaching ranks in 2009. He took his first managerial position at Silkeborg IF in 2013, securing them promotion to the top flight, and more recently, he managed the Danish U-21 national team, as well as Danish giants Brøndby IF, a side that fell just one point short of the league title last season in dramatic fashion.
While Vancouver’s coaching search took longer than they would have hoped for, and although a prized German candidate slipped through their fingers, Sørensen is by no means a second tier appointment. Brøndby is the biggest club in Denmark in terms of supporter base and media attention, and Danish football has proven its quality recently, both on the international stage and in European club competition.
Sørensen joins the Whitecaps at an interesting time for the club. While the long term future is uncertain, the short term mission is clear. Vancouver has a very talented group of prime-age players, and the window for this current roster to compete for an MLS Cup is limited. It became clear near the end of last season that Vanni Sartini had done as much as he could with the group, and although he will depart the club as their most successful manager in MLS history, it was time for a new voice.
Axel Schuster had emphasized throughout the coaching search that he was not looking to start from square one, and whichever manager entered the fold was here to build on the work that had been done previously. Schuster echoed this in the introductory press conference, highlighting Sørensen’s record in Denmark of taking over teams and having an immediate positive impact.
While I think the idea of building on the team’s progress is true in terms of roster construction, I also think we might see some significant changes in terms of the team’s play style.
If there was one thing that really stood out from Sørensen’s opening press conference, it’s that he will emphasize tactical discipline and a possession-based style of play. This stands in somewhat stark opposition to Vanni Sartini’s transitional counter-attacking inclinations. Sørensen also noted that he is confident the current Whitecaps roster has the technical quality to play the style he expects, which to me suggests that Sørensen believes Sartini was not getting the most from the players at his disposal.
It’s no doubt been a whirlwind couple of days for the new Whitecaps manager, as he arrived in Vancouver on Monday night, was introduced to the club Tuesday morning, and will fly with the team to their training camp in Spain Tuesday afternoon.
With the Whitecaps in Marbella for three weeks, Sørensen should have a good amount of time to develop a better understanding of the players at his disposal, while also implementing his core philosophical ideas before his side plays their first competitive match Feburary 20th against Deportivo Saprissa in the CONCACAF Champions Cup.
It’s critical that Sørensen uses this next month to good effect, as the Whitecaps have a history of slow starts, especially when coaching or player movement has compromised their early season plans.
Yet, at first blush, Sørensen appears to be the right man for this job, a good counterbalance to the manager that proceeded him. The Dane, perhaps stereotypically, is honest and matter-of-fact in his statements. However, he also displays a dry sense of humour and charisma that stood out to me, one that should endear him to both players and supporters alike.
While Vanni Sartini brought a level of excitement and unpredictability to Vancouver that was no doubt very entertaining to watch, the Whitecaps were always lacking the level of discipline and seriousness that top sides tend to embody – there’s a reason the team never won three matches in a row under his supervision. I don’t think the Whitecaps will have that same problem under Sørensen.
Obviously, only time will tell as to whether or not Jesper Sørensen is the right person to help this Whitecaps team take the next step in their development, but I think we will see a renewed and focused Whitecaps team in early 2025, one that understands the gravity of the season that lies ahead of them.
(Image Credit: Ty James)
I’m cautiously optimistic about the hire… I agree that it seems like we’ve hired someone with a bit better pedigree than previous hires…
But I posted some links to Danish articles about him on yesterday’s article and those definitely bring up some of the negative aspects of his style of play… In particular, complaints about a cautious style which results in a lack of offense, and being exposed easily on the wings due to the back 3…
But I’m glad they have someone, and hope it works well… I wouldn’t want to be the one deciding who to hire as a manager, I think it’s probably one of the hardest decisions, I don’t think that you can go just on points per match, as salty keeps suggesting, it’s all about how the coach did relative to the quality of the team…
For example in many of the European leagues there’s obviously a disparity in the buying power of different team, and for some teams just staying In a higher league agter being promoting is an achievement…. If a coach is able to keep their team away from the relegation spots for a couple seasons and in the higher league, even if they have a losing record, then that’s probably still a good coach! That’s one of the reasons that Jim Curtin seemed like a good pick, because he did fairly well with a lower budget team…
But of course it also depends on if the personnel that the coach has matches how the coach wants to play, and if he’s able to make decisions to adapt the team to his vision or if he has to adapt his vision to what the team has…
Anyway, will be interesting to see what happens, here’s hoping for the best!
points/game do matter when its done with a variety of teams/2-3 seasons with the same team, such as david wagner- there is a pattern- Jim Curtin is a prime example; same goes for Jesper Sorensen
Patterns are visible to the intuitive eye
unlike Vanni who failed to make tactical changes during a game when we were exposed on our outter flanks, i hope jesper will make in-game adjustments; and it was a rare example when Vanni was able to make subs and the timing of the subs that really made a difference; hopefully Jesper does a much better job
the Caps Axel Schuster made the right decision to find a better coach… hopefully its Sorensen- certainly the first 6-8 MLS games will tell us if its an improvement- the last 2 seasons under Vanni in which we had horrendous starts and poor finishes cost us a top 4 position in the West (thats a pattern)
Sounds like a good choice, what really surprised me was the team let one of the most entertaining players go—Fafa– hope he doesn’t come back to haunt us !
the first professional-experienced head coach the Caps have had in MLS- it looks good to me and his points/game average of 1.75 is impressive – if he is able to start the season with some degree of success, then we are on the way to higher results- a good hire and WELCOME, JESPER
“…which to me suggests that Sørensen believes Sartini was not getting the most of the players at his disposal” I have to disagree. That sounds to me like 1) Sørensen probable hasn’t thought about Vanni at all, and 2) Sørensen believes he can get more out of the player using his system, not Vanni had hit his limits.
The reality of Vanni is he learned from his mistakes but he waited until the off season to analyze & correct those mistake. For example in his first season Vanni often left his subs until the 80 minute or later. In his second season he was bringing them on around the 66th minute. In Takaoka’s first season Vanni played him into ground which led to multiple errors at the end of the season. Last season he rotated Takaoka more often, not as often as I would like but still more often than the first season.
> Last season he rotated Takaoka more often, not as often as I would like but still more often than the first season.
Did he actually play Boehmer at all outside of the Canadian Championship? I seem to remember that he didn’t get any starts outside of the Canadian Championship
Boehmer played in leagues cup versus lafc and the last regular season game against RSL, but yes most of his minutes were in canchamp
under Vanni, the Caps had the same horrendous starts and poor finishes to the seasons , 2023 and 2024- he didnt learn much IMO
and he didnt learn to integrate the young academy players – to me, Vanni had a bias against Canadian youth- that became a significant reason as to why Axel fired him and is going with a new coach who does integrate young academy players
Sounds like he has a decent pedigree. Like the fact that he is a former midfielder and hopefully will work well with Gauld. Any idea who the German was that didn’t pan out?
Steffen Baumgart signed with Union Berlin at the last minute. I suspect it was a similar pay but he could stay in Germany with his family.