Head coach Jesper Sorensen guiding Vancouver Whitecaps to new highs

Globe and Mail

a day ago

Jesper Sorensen believes in giving his players room to make mistakes.
'If you're afraid of making mistakes, you'll make nothing. That's the problem. Because you will end up making mistakes,' the Vancouver Whitecaps' head coach said in a recent interview.
'So making mistakes is a big part of a fluid game … where there's a lot of transition moments and a lot of moments where things are not going perfectly. And my job is to try to construct a safety net behind the mistakes.'
Sorensen's first five months in charge haven't featured many missteps – just an astounding start to the season.
A 0-0 draw against Minnesota United on Wednesday extended the club's unbeaten streak to 15 games (7-0-8) across all competitions. A third of the way through the Major League Soccer campaign, Vancouver sits atop the Western Conference standings with a 9-1-5 record.
The 'Caps have also stunned giants in CONCACAF Champions Cup play this year, ousting five-time champions CF Monterrey from the round of 16 and besting Lionel Messi's Inter Miami twice in the semi-finals.
The team will look to write the final chapter in their fairy-tale run when they face LIGA MX side Cruz Azul in the tournament final on Sunday.
'It's been a lot of fun. It's been a lot of work. And it's been a time that I couldn't have foreseen, becoming this successful,' Sorensen said. 'And it's been great. Everybody has been great.'
The 51-year-old former midfielder from Aarhus, Denmark, was introduced as the MLS-era Whitecaps' sixth full-time head coach on Jan. 14, just hours before the team took off for training camp in Marbella, Spain.
He replaced Vanni Sartini, the eccentric Italian whose three-and-a-half season tenure saw the 'Caps win three straight Canadian Championship titles, but fail to get past the first round of the MLS playoffs.
Though he'd played more than 300 matches in Denmark's top league, Sorensen was a relative unknown for many North American soccer fans before taking the job in Vancouver.
He joined the 'Caps after two years as head coach of Brondby IF in the Danish Superliga, and two and a half more as assistant. He also spent more than a year in charge of Denmark's under-21 national squad.
Sorensen's track record of quickly guiding new teams to positive results and his passion for player development stood out to Whitecaps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster, who also liked the coach's 'calmness and confidence in himself.'
'I would love to say that I had seen all of this coming and that I was exactly expecting this,' Schuster said. 'I have to say that he's overdelivering on the results. But in general, he is exactly what we hoped he would be.'
Sorensen's first game with the 'Caps ended in a frustrating 2-1 loss to Costa Rica's Deportivo Saprissa in Champions Cup play on Feb. 20, but the team rebounded with three straight wins across all competitions before the squad dropped its first match of the MLS season on March 22, a 3-1 decision to the Chicago Fire.
The Whitecaps have not lost since.
'I think we've played amazing football. I think we are playing entertaining football. Actually, I would be a little bit arrogant if I said that we had imagined it to be as good as it is,' said 'Caps assistant coach Jan Michaelsen, who's known Sorensen since the 1990s when they played together at Akademisk Boldklub in Denmark.
'But we have to continue. We have the quality in the team. I think we have shown the quality. Now we just have to continue. That is the hardest job.'
Under Sorensen, the 'Caps have been relentless, a team that attacks in waves and isn't afraid to pick the ball off an opponent's feet.
It's a style of play that suits the players, said striker Brian White, who leads the team with 15 goals across all competitions.
'I think he's allowed everyone to kind of flourish and play their kind of game, and in respect to the way we want to play as a team,' he said. 'So I think he's found a way to get the best out of everybody, and I think we're just playing really well as a team.'
The new coach isn't convinced that he's found new strengths in his athletes.
What he's done, Sorensen said, is find ways to play to their existing strengths by utilizing them in the right moments.
'Sometimes it's also maybe a player that hasn't had the chance often is given a chance a couple of times,' he said. 'And then he can grow with the challenge. And then you can set even higher demands on the player like that.
'And I think it's very important, because players want demands, because then they know that you have expectations for them.'
Knowing they can grow makes players hungrier, said Sebastian Berhalter, who's become a stalwart presence for Vancouver this season.
'I think we always had those strengths and it's about how he just pulled them out of us,' said the midfielder, who recently earned his first call-up to the U.S. national team. 'He's been really good at talking to each individual player and making sure that we know we're all going on the same page.'
While some of the team's young talent has shone under the new bench boss, a vast array of players have seen their game develop this season, said 'Caps captain Ryan Gauld.
'I'd say he's got a passion for it and he's very good at individuals and coaching the younger players,' said the attacking midfielder, who's been sidelined since early March with a knee injury.
'And us, the older boys, the more experienced boys, we're learning a lot in training sessions as well. But especially the young boys, the amount they're learning off him and picking up, little things that they can do to improve their games, is huge for them. And I think that's why everyone's been enjoying it so much.'
Sorensen, too, has been learning since stepping into the job.
Before joining the Whitecaps, he'd spent his entire career playing and then coaching in Denmark. The new gig has brought an abundance of travel and a chance to explore North America – if only in short bursts. On every 'Caps road trip, he tries to take a walk and see part of the city.
The packed MLS schedule is a challenge, he admitted, especially when he's trying to stay in touch with his wife, Pernille, and three young adult sons back home in Denmark, scheduling calls across a nine-hour time difference.
Sorensen is learning to navigate those challenges for the sport he fell in love with 'instantly' as a kid.
'I played football every day after school, and I played in school, and I played all the time. And it was great,' he said, adding that he also dabbled in badminton and handball. 'When I was a kid, we were fortunate that there was not much television. In Denmark, you only had one channel and there was no internet. So all the time you were moving. And sport was the most fun thing for me to do.'
That love hasn't waned.
Sorensen remains passionate about soccer and exploring all of its complexities.
It's a passion that bubbles out of him as he talks about why he turned to coaching after his playing career.
'I love studying the game,' he said. 'Finding new things, seeing new trends, learning about the game because it's so complex. It's the most complex game I think there is.
'I love it. I love the game.'