If you are reading this, the Vancouver Whitecaps have sold Pedro Vite, barring some reversal of fortunes none of us see coming. I don’t even know all of the details at time of writing, but I do know that Vite is a player you are going to have to replace. So, let’s look at what might be out there.

As always, let’s briefly discuss the methodology here. The main things you need to replace with Vite’s departure, are his ability to progress the ball and his chance creation. I am being fairly literal minded in my search. I looked at players who were in the 80th percentile for expected assists and progressive passes. Of course, you could reasonably replace Vite with somebody who does more progression through carrying, or somebody who is a little bit less progressive but gives you more in the final 3rd. But I am only one man with a budget of zero dollars, not a full scouting department.

As always I have to give credit to Axel Storbaka who’s article on which leagues’ exports most consistently succeed was very helpful in choosing leagues to look at. Lastly, this is a fairly surface level look at these players. All I am doing is looking at the stats and whatever video is easily available on YouTube. Obviously, this would not be sufficient for making actual decisions on players but I refer you once again to my earlier point about my budget and how many of me there are.

Ok, here is a list of players who:

1. Are in the 80th percentile for xA and progressive passes
2. Play at a level that’s high enough one could reasonably expect their performance to translate to MLS
3. Have not already changed clubs in 2025 or are not on loan
4. Are 27 or younger
5. Have a Transfermakrt Value of 4M or less (the Whitecaps’ record transfer was a league subsidised 5M for Lucas Cavallini)

Players who have a Transfermarkt value over 3M are marked as a probable DP. The Whitecaps have been on the 4 U-22 model but could conceivably switch back to a 3 DP model with the sale of Vite and some other manoeuvring. I don’t think that is terribly likely, based purely on reading the vibes, but I have included these players for thoroughness. Now let’s look at one U-22 option, one regular senior roster player, and one DP.

Leo Walta/22/Sirius

Perhaps showing my hand early here, Walta is probably my number one choice based on the information available to me. Walta is a senior international for Finland and plays in the Swedish Allsvenskan. He turned 22 this year which means he is still eligible for a U-22 spot. Walta is a close statistical match for Vite with slightly lower offensive outputs but more defensive actions. But there is a good reason for the discrepancies. At time of writing Sirius are only out of the relegation zone on goal difference. So, you have to assume that if Walta moved to a much stronger team relative to the rest of the league that those outputs would go up. Another plus is that the Swedish league is in season so Walta would be ready to go out of the box.

Jairo Concha/26/Universitario

If I had to pick a regular squad player, I think Concha would be the direction I would go in. Concha is a twice capped Peruvian International but has never played abroad. That does represent some risk but it also means the price will be lower. Looking at the stats, he leads this group in xG/90 so he provides a little bit more threat himself. MLS is a bit of step up from playing in Peru but Concha is pretty clearly a dominant player at that level and could probably handle it. If you want someone who can come in and play right away and have your eyes on a big fish elsewhere in the lineup, you could do a lot worse than Concha.

Dominik Fitz/26/Austria Vienna

The Whitecaps were reportedly in on Fitz earlier this year. If they are still interested, he has a lot of appealing traits. He has by far the highest attacking outputs of anybody on my shortlist and at 26 he fits nicely into a win-now strategy. The downsides are that he has a stunningly low number of defensive actions and that the Austrian Bundesliga is in the off-season so it would probably be a little bit before he gets fully up to speed. The low defensive actions thing might be a tactical thing or a function of playing for a relatively strong team but on the surface it does not fit very well into Axel Schuster’s preference for players with a high work rate. There is also the matter of price. Fitz’s transfermarkt value is 3.5M. Obviously you can’t take those values as gospel but they tend to be in the right neighbourhood. Let’s say a 3.5M transfer fee is accurate and you sign Fitz to a 4 year contract. This would add 875k to his cap hit before we even get to the matter of his salary. The Whitecaps would be flush with GAM from a Vite sale but even still you would not have a huge amount of wiggle room to get him under the DP threshold.