The Vancouver Whitecaps held their annual end-of-season media availability on Tuesday at UBC.
It was much sooner than they hoped. But on a grey day at the National Soccer Development Centre, head coach Vanni Sartini, striker Brian White, midfielder Sebastian Berhalter and goalkeeper Yohei Takaoka spoke to the media. Sporting Director and CEO Axel Schuster was not available as he was caught up in meetings all morning.
2024: a season of fine margins
The 2024 season displayed a lot of “what ifs” for the Whitecaps. What if they scored first in Game One or Game Three against LAFC? What if they won the games they should’ve won? What if they won even half of the games down the final stretch of the season and finished in the top seven?
But the past is the past and can’t be changed. What is done, is done.
“I think there’s a number of opportunities where we were in positions to win games that we needed to win and we tied or lost the game,” said White. “I think those little margins are what we need to improve on next year.”
“We missed 10 cents to make a dollar,” said Sartini. “When you can’t shoot for the moon … you have to at least try to do the basics and go for the sky instead of falling down. It’s a good learning lesson for next year.”
Taking the next step
2025 will be another big year for Vancouver. 2024 was a big year but they fell short of expectations.
The winter will be used for the club to make the necessary moves to hopefully turn the team from a good team into a great team.
“I don’t think there’s going to be changing of 12 players,” said Sartini when asked about what changes need to be made. “We are the Vancouver Whitecaps, we’re not gonna buy (Lionel) Messi. We are here to try to be the best team possible and to try to outwork the other team…I think we’re pretty covered all around the roster.”
“I think you saw how we play like these last couple games you know even though still didn’t get what we wanted,” said Berhalter. “I think we have the pieces, just you know the time together and experience, you know experience the playoffs because it’s it’s different regardless of where you play.”
The Whitecaps already have a solid core that consists of Designated Players Ryan Gauld, Stuart Armstrong and Andres Cubas. Armstrong displayed what he can do in the playoffs and will have a full preseason under his belt in 2025. White is also part of that core as well as defender Ranko Veselinovic and left-back Sam Adekugbe.
Takaoka can also be considered part of the core but he and Isaac Boehmer also have contract options for next season. Takaoka revealed on Tuesday that he was having talks with the club just before the media availability and expressed his desire to return next season.
“I’m really excited to come back here next season, next year is going to be different,” said Takaoka. “We need to be better than this year…but it’s going to be hard.”
Sartini said on Tuesday he believes his team has 17 or 18 starters and acknowledged that they have had seven international call-ups, which showed how strong the team is. On Tuesday, it was announced Gauld and Armstrong, (Canada), Cubas, (Paraguay) Adekugbe and Ali Ahmed (Canada) and Pedro Vite (Ecuador) were called up for the November international window.
The Whitecaps have the main pieces but as mentioned before, they need some more ingredients to spice things up. The main cast is set, but more is needed for the supporting cast.
Looking to Improve
The team is also looking to improve within. That means improving their own fundamentals.
“I can sit here all day and tell you things I can improve on,” said White. “I try to keep a very high standard. I try to learn from every mistake, every game. There are different moments in hold-up play, different finishes, different runs…But overall, I plan to study the game improve practice and just come back better next year.”
Takaoka also spoke about wanting to improve his game.
“I’m not perfect, but I want to be perfect,” he said.
“We need to be consistent,” said Sartini on what needs to improve next season. “I think that’s the next step. When we were in form or we could work one week between games, we had the record that was probably top three in MLS… then we had two parts of the season, one right before the summer and one right before the end of the regular season, where we did nine points in 11 games.”
Key offseason dates
Deadline for contract options
November 27
Free agency opening
December 12
MLS Expansion Draft for San Diego FC
December 12.
San Diego can select up to five current MLS players and hold the number one pick in the MLS SuperDraft.
2025 MLS SuperDraft
December 20
A short winter
The Whitecaps will kick off their season once again in February as they qualified for the CONCACAF Champions Cup. They are in Pot One and they will avoid the likes of Tigres in the first round.
The Whitecaps don’t need to change much this offseason. But improvement won’t happen without some sort of changes, even just a few small ones.
