Good Monday morning Caps fans. — hope you all had an enjoyable weekend. The good news is that now that Super Bowl Sunday is in the rearview mirror, we only have to wait a couple more weeks for MLS. 

The column has been doom and gloom lately, but let’s change that and think about what the Caps might look like on the pitch. Specifically, let’s get excited about Cheikh Sabaly. 

As will become readily apparent, I love the signing of Sabaly, who officially joined the team amid the chaos of last week. The rumored fee is somewhere between €1 to €1.5 million — a cut-rate deal as FC Metz were set to lose him on a free in a year. 

Sabaly has operated in the Ligue 1/Ligue 2 world for his entire career and exploded for Metz last year, helping them earn promotion back to the first division. His output in 2025-26 has been muted — 2 assists in 14 appearances on a bad team that appears all but certain to be going right back to Ligue 2. 

This might not sound overly impressive, but remember, this is the same situation Emmanuel Sabbi found himself in. Indeed, the Caps have had a lot of success buying from yoyo French clubs (Andres Cubas, anyone?). And players from these clubs have a proven track record of success in MLS, while Americans and Canadians have done well moving the other way to Ligue 1 sides. This is not a league of unknown quantities. 

Sabaly has a fun profile as a dribbley winger who can press and provide some goal output. He also got minutes for Senegal as they won AFCON in January, showing he can hang with the best players on the continent. Sabaly feels like a bit less of a creative force than Ali Ahmed, but someone with a bit more end product. That should fit perfectly withwhat  Jesper Sorensen is trying to do. The fact that he can play as a striker in a one or two striker setup is another big plus, as the Caps can keep giving Rayan Elloumi lots of minutes while still replacing Daniel Rios as a break glass in case of emergency striker. 

I’ve heard some comparisons between Sabaly and the DP striker Real Salt Lake just signed, Morgan Guilavogui. The two are different types of players but are coming from the same league, and both had a breakout season before coming back to earth. I don’t know much about Guilavogui — he might work out fine for RSL. But Sabaly isn’t going to need to have DP-level production. His pedigree is such that, were he signing for Houston or RSL, he’d probably be a TAM signing, with the requisite expectations. For Vancouver, he’s a depth piece, as I’m guessing we’ll see Sabbi and Kenji Cabrera start the year as first-choice wingers. This feels like a shrewd find and as good of a way as you could hope for Vancouver to fill the awkward Ahmed/Jayden Nelson-sized holes on this team. 

Shameless Self Promotion

Caleb takes a deep dive (with more data and sharper analysis) on the Sabaly signing.

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