In this edition of Sensible Whitecaps Transfers we are looking at players who are currently free agents. Previous editions of this series have had a complex process to determine a shortlist. But generating this shortlist was pretty easy. I went on Transfermarkt and looked at the first three pages of free agents. If they played a position the Whitecaps needed I did about 30 seconds of research and if I was intrigued I shortlisted them for further study. Here is that list.

Now, every one of these guys has something about them that makes me a little uneasy about them. But they are also all potentially interesting in the right circumstances. Here are the three I personally find most interesting.

Lebo Mothiba

On the surface, Lebo Mothiba has a lot of things that make him an attractive signing for an MLS club. He has over 100 appearances in a top-5 league and he’s still on the right side of 30. His xG across those appearances also compares quite favourably to a previous MLS success story, Denis Bouanga (though obviously, they are very different styles of player). Bouanga averaged 0.45 xG+xA/90 across 5 Ligue 1 seasons (he has gone on to average 0.77 in MLS) and Mothiba has averaged 0.41 across 7.

But there are two very big red flags. Firstly, he has been a free agent for 7 months. The reason for this, as far as I can tell, is that in the 23/24 Ligue 1 season he tore his Patellar Tendon, which connects the knee cap to the shin bone. A quick google suggests this is an injury that takes 6-12 months to full recover from. So who knows what sort of physical shape he is in.

The other big red flag is more of a Whitecaps specific one. If you look at where he pops, at least in terms of his stats, he seems to basically just be South African Brian White. Obviously he has played at a higher level than White has but you would have to figure out a way to play two players who want to do the same things in the same sort of areas together.

Viktor Kovalenko

Viktor Kovalenko is another player whose resume would seem to make him a slam dunk. He has 62 appearances in Serie A and has scored quite a lot of goals from midfield on teams that were not very strong. He’s 28 so he’s not going to be at his peak for much longer but he should have a couple of years of juice left. Someone even suggested him in the comments of the midfield playmakers article. If all you know about him is that then he seems like a natural replacement for Stuart Armstrong.

But there is a catch. Kovalenko is more like a striker who happens to play in midfield. He does not create any value with his passing, dribbling, or defensive play. At least he doesn’t at the Serie A level. It’s just runs into the box and vibes. Of course, Serie A is a higher level than MLS and Kovalenko has spent the last three seasons on loan to various Serie A teams, none of whom ever finished higher than 16th. So he would probably have more to offer in MLS and on a team that is stronger relative to the league. But even still, it would probably take a significant tactical adjustment to get him in. Maybe it could work if one of your wingers is more of a zone mover like Jayden Nelson or Ali Ahmed but even then I’m not sure.

There’s also the fact that nobody in Europe signed him after his contract ended. Unlike with Mothiba, I wasn’t able to figure out an obvious reason for this. Regardless of the reason, he would probably need some time to get back up to fitness. Still though, if he can score a consequential number of goals from midfield that isn’t a gift horse I’m going to look in the mouth.

Diego Valencia

Diego Valencia recently terminated his contract with Serie B side Salernitana, presumably with an eye toward signing somewhere on a free transfer. Valencia got his move to Italy after putting up some big numbers in the Chilean league but he struggled to break through at Salernitana, who were in Serie A at that time. That’s not so unusual a career trajectory, it is pretty common for young players who move to struggling teams in top-5 leagues to have a hard time. But it also means that Valencia has not played very much in the last two years and it’s a bit tough to say how good he is at the moment. He had a loan at Greek side Atromitos, which is the only place he played enough minutes to generate a radar. Atromitos were near the bottom of the table, so that is a mitigating factor. However good Valencia is, it’s not good enough to succeed despite a bad team in the Greek League.

Still, he’s in his prime, he’s been capped 9 times for the Chilean national team (all before he was in Italian purgatory but still), and he has a history of scoring in a fairly strong South American league. Not too bad for a free transfer. He has also played considerable minutes as a winger so he could be played at the same time as White and Gauld. Tall wingers who bully smaller fullbacks is a profile I have always had a soft spot for and it’s one that could be successful on the team that has led the league in successful crosses two seasons in a row (that’s a real fact, you can look it up).