The Vancouver Whitecaps are potentially looking to add American winger Emmanuel Sabbi (27) from Ligue 1 side Le Havre. But is he any good? It’s a bit hard to say! Let’s go on a retrospective of his very weird career. 

Part 1: A Bold Step: 1997-2022

Sabbi was born in Italy to Ghanaian parents. The family emigrated to the United States shortly after he was born. Sabbi had the opportunity to play at the University of Akron but turned it down to try his hand in Europe. He was on the books of the Spanish side Las Palmas but made his senior breakthrough with Danish side Hobro IK. He played three seasons with Hobro before transferring to Odense, also in the Danish top tier. During this time his numbers were ok. He generally put up between 0.3 and 0.4 expected goal contributions per 90 which is back-up to low-end starter level production. The teams were mostly bad, finishing between 8th and 14th (the Danish Superliga currently has 12 teams but used to have 14). So, if you squinted at his numbers you could maybe convince yourself to get a little excited but he certainly didn’t pop. 

That is, except for one area. No matter where he has gone, Sabbi’s defensive numbers have always been off the charts. That’s obviously partly a function of being on bad teams that do a lot of defending but it seems the one thing we can be sure of is that Sabbi is going to put in a shift. 

Part 2: God Mode Activated: 2022/23

Then, Sabbi suddenly had an offensive explosion. He scored 8 goals and 4 assists in a little under 1500 minutes with immaculate underlying numbers. All while playing on a team that finished 8/12. Look at this: 

0.64 xG+xA is a lot. Comparable MLS players last season include Joseph Paintsill, Jordan Morris, and Luciano Acosta. Comparing European leagues to MLS is always a little bit of a challenge. The Danish League is currently ranked 15th out of 55 in the UEFA country coefficient. The top teams, Copenhagen and Midtylland are probably better than every team in MLS. But, conversely, I would back most MLS teams to handle Lyngby without too much trouble. Still, it’s clearly a quality league, and putting up big numbers on one of the less fashionable teams is a big achievement. If the Whitecaps were signing a 25-year-old out of the Danish league who just had this exact season I would be doing cartwheels with excitement.

Part 3: But he Played two Seasons in France. Alas, What Can One Say?: 2023-Present

Sabbi’s big season drew the attention of French side Le Havre. He joined them ahead of the 2023/24 season. That means we get fbref data for his last two seasons. How does that data look? Well…

Now, look, once again Sabbi is playing on a team that is quite weak relative to the rest of the league. At the time of writing Le Havre are dead last in Ligue 1 and only avoided relegation last season by 3 points. It’s not at all uncommon for a player to score a lot in a mid-sized European league and then struggle after joining a smaller team in a top-5 league. But I would still like to see some signs of life. Even looking through the expanded scouting report on fbref there’s really nothing you can point to as a positive (except for that defending where once again Sabbi pops).

Ligue 1 is certainly a higher level than MLS so you would expect a boost to production. Despite a slightly chaotic current situation, I would be shocked if the Whitecaps were a wooden spoon team next season. So, lower level, better team, we can obviously expect a better showing than what Sabbi is doing in France. But how much better? I think it would be overly optimistic to get back to his 22/23 form but because he moved to Le Havre right afterwards it’s hard to say how much of an outlier that was. 

Final Thoughts:

A major problem facing the Whitecaps’ recruitment team this offseason was that they needed to add domestic attacking options and there just weren’t that many proven options out there. I would be pretty surprised if Sabbi is a star in MLS (though the odds are not 0, that one season was very good) but he can probably be relied on for a mid-week game against the San Jose Earthquakes. If the plan is for Sabbi to be a nailed-on starter I would be pretty nervous but I don’t think there’s too much reason to believe that at this point. The Whitecaps still have three senior roster spots to fill and can add either a DP and a U-22 or two U-22s (MLS roster rules make for some great sentences). As long as one of those spots is used on a forward player who is more of a sure thing I think the Whitecaps should be alright.