The Vancouver Whitecaps have fired head coach Vanni Sartini earlier today.
According to MLS insider Tom Bogert, the search for a new head coach is already underway.
CEO and sporting director, Axel Schuster thanked Sartini for his time at the club.
“He has helped us on our road of development in a very good way,” Schuster said.
Sartini joined the Whitecaps as a first team assistant coach at the beginning of the 2019 season before moving into the role of director of methodology and second team head coach in September 2020.
He was appointed head coach for the first team in August 2021 on an interim basis after Marc dos Santos was fired. Sartini led the team to an unlikely MLS Cup Playoff berth and was awarded with a permanent contract.
During his tenure as head coach, he helped lead the team to three consecutive Canadian Championships.
Most recently, the Whitecaps were knocked out of the MLS Cup Playoffs in Round One by familiar foes LAFC.
Schuster said he started to think about the decision during the final seven MLS regular season matches where they only picked up two points.
“It’s what I got brought in, to make difficult decisions. To make the easy decisions is not the challenge, you have to make the difficult decisions… and you have to make them at the right time and for that reason, I had to make this decision now.”
However, he said the decision was not about the past season. It was about the season to come.
“It’s always about the next game, the next season, the next challenge,” Schuster said.
Sartini ends his Whitecaps’ tenure with a 62W-53L-33D record across all competitions. It is the best record for a Whitecaps’ head coach in the MLS era.
Process to find new Head coach underway
Schuster said there is “no timeline” on finding a new coach, simply saying that someone would be there for the first day of preseason training.
“I have no timeline, because I haven’t prepared for this scenario,” he said. “The process of hiring a new coach starts now. We need to find somebody who continues to work, not to restarts two steps back or who wants to reinvent the whole club and change a lot.”
In terms of a profile, Schuster said one does not exist.
“It’s not a key criteria to have MLS experience. If you have no MLS experience, you have to prove to me that you’re flexible and that you have worked in more than one environment.”
Pressure will be on Schuster (and his head coach appointment) to hit the ground running for the beginning of the 2025 MLS season.
