Latest news with #VancouverWhitecaps
CTV News
3 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Head coach Jesper Sorensen guiding Vancouver Whitecaps to new highs
Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Jesper Sorensen acknowledges the crowd as he walks onto the field before an MLS soccer match against Minnesota United, in Vancouver, on Wednesday, May 28, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck 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 semifinals. 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 following 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 over-delivering 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.' This report by Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press, was first published May 29, 2025.
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Vancouver Whitecaps play for country, city and league in Concacaf Champions Cup final
In his post-election victory speech late on the night of 28 April, Canada's prime minister Mark Carney celebrated a momentous political comeback by reinforcing what he felt were the country's three core values: humility, ambition and unity. But in the face of constant threats, gleeful taunts and mounting tension, there was also a warning to the United States. Advertisement 'President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.' Related: LAFC stuns Club América in extra time to qualify for Club World Cup Two nights later at Chase Stadium, about 40 minutes south of Trump's Xanadu at Mar-a-Lago, an unfancied but spirited and confident Vancouver Whitecaps outfit embarrassed the garish glitz of Inter Miami – rather deliciously, with the help of a couple of Americans – and easily booked their place in the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup for the very first time, becoming only the third Canadian side ever to qualify for the decider. They play Cruz Azul on Sunday night, and could end the night as the first Canadian side to win the competition – any version of it, dating back to 1962. The team's domestic form sees them currently leading Major League Soccer's Western Conference, while they're one point from the summit of the overall standings. They've been on an unbeaten run of fifteen games and have just two defeats in 24 across all competitions this season, but it somehow gets better. They've accomplished this with a novice MLS boss, Jesper Sørensen, only in the job since the start of the year and having replaced the beloved Vanni Sartini who'd led the club to back-to-back MLS playoff appearances and three successive Canadian Championship titles. Advertisement Oh, and one more thing. Last December, the Whitecaps ownership group of Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash dropped a bombshell and announced they were selling. Should new investors be found there's a distinct chance the club will be relocated to an American city. Maybe it's the Canadian way: to do good things but not speak about them very much - Axel Schuster And yet, the timing of such a doomsday scenario could hardly be any better. With a remarkable surge in nationalistic sentiment since Trump's ramblings about annexing Canada, the country has never been more solidified and compelled to protect what's theirs. The Whitecaps, a club that proudly boasts over half a century of impactful soccer history and local cultural resonance, have felt the benefit of the swell and a rescue mission is already well under way. 'You wouldn't be able to do my job if you weren't optimistic because you always have to believe that a positive development is ahead of you,' says Axel Schuster, CEO and sporting director of the Vancouver Whitecaps. 'Sometimes, if there's a risk that you'll lose something it's only then you realise how important it is to you.' Leaning into the patriotism and community seen in recent months, Schuster is pushing hard for a new, privately funded downtown venue for the Whitecaps at the city's landmark PNE fairgrounds site, a stone's throw from Empire Stadium, the original home of the Whitecaps. The team's current base at BC Place is owned by the province and greatly restricts the club's revenue streams and commercial opportunities. A shiny asset is one distinct way of enticing new ownership to keep the team where it is and the City of Vancouver has confirmed that 'high level discussions' have already happened. Advertisement 'Maybe it's the Canadian way: to do good things but not speak about them very much and we haven't always told our stories,' Schuster says. 'There are enough people who believe in this club being a major asset to our community and to the soccer landscape in Canada and believe that it's worthwhile to fight for it, to keep it alive and keep it in Vancouver.' After a long stint in the Bundesliga and influential roles at Mainz and Schalke, Schuster took the Vancouver job just as a global pandemic brought everything to a halt. Since then, he's overseen an impressive rise. Three visits to the playoffs, a mammoth increase in attendance, a litany of domestic cup success and all achieved on an always-conservative budget. In 2024, the club paid $17.4m in salaries to leave them comfortably mid-range in MLS. In contrast, Inter Miami splashed out $41.7m, while cross-country rivals Toronto FC racked up an outlay of $31.8m. Look closely, though, and Vancouver boasts a perfectly proportioned roster between small, medium and big earners. But perhaps Schuster's most impressive achievement has been ensuring off-field distractions and all of the worry, concerns and anxiety that come with an uncertain future, have not seeped on to the field or into the front office. 'It hasn't always been easy to be a Whitecaps employee and wear our badge,' he admits. 'When the news broke that the club was for sale, it was easy to say 'Look, nothing will change. We'll have the best ever season, we'll be the most attractive club in MLS that everyone wants to own.' But it's something else to fill those words with real life.' Advertisement Winning has, at least for now, seemed to ease that instability. Related: Pochettino turns to an unlikely savior for USMNT's struggles: MLS 'There were a lot of questions,' Schuster said. ''Will this club still be here?' 'Why should we sign this sponsorship deal with you?' And we told those people: 'Come with us because everything will be great'. After the second leg in Miami, I was so happy because I could feel how much it meant to everyone. To give them these special moments made me super happy. It was like we all got rewarded for everything.' Schuster felt the 2024 season had been a 'missed opportunity' of sorts and that a fresh approach could unlock something new in the group. In Sørensen, he found a coach that has managed to get career-best performances out of players up and down the roster – a big reason why the team has excelled as much in continental competition as it has in MLS, where most teams involved in both tend to struggle in one or the other. We'll make it very clear that we are not just one of 30 MLS teams. We are one team from British Columbia in Canada. - Axel Schuster Advertisement 'There were two main criteria that our new coach needed to have: firstly, that he was a developer with a track record of improving players and not just young players,' Schuster says. 'Secondly, we didn't want a coach who would say, 'Some of these players won't fit my plans and I'll need one or two transfer windows to build a team'. We wanted someone who looked at the existing group and knew what to do with them to make it successful from the first day.' Under Sørensen's watch, certain players have stepped up and the group has adapted impressively to the loss of talisman Ryan Gauld, sidelined since early March with a knee injury. While the likes of Brian White and Sebastian Berhalter have garnered much of the focus given their call-ups to the US national team, Schuster pinpoints the developments of Ali Ahmed and Tristan Blackmon as examples of Sorensen's coaching nous. 'Ali doesn't have that many years of being in a professional environment and Jesper has simplified his game, focusing on key areas rather than on his overall profile,' Schuster says. 'Tristan Blackmon has made big progress. In all of our stats, he's the best defender in MLS. You always felt he had the skills to be a top defender but maybe wasn't using them in the right way. But his consistency this year has been unbelievable.' Despite the positivity this season, Schuster admits that he hardly ever enjoys watching games. Advertisement Related: What MLS can learn from the J League's growth in Japan 'Even the second leg win over Inter Miami took a long time before I really believed it was done,' he says with a laugh. 'During the game there is nothing to enjoy. I can't watch with a lot of people around me, at least people I don't know, because I get pretty active about what we could do better and should do better.' Schuster will certainly take some enjoyment from Sunday's Concacaf Champions Cup final against Mexican heavyweights Cruz Azul. Because on this particular international stage at this particular time, the Vancouver Whitecaps will not represent Major League Soccer. They'll represent the humility, ambition and unity of an entire nation. 'For us, we are proud to be Canadians,' Schuster says. 'Our players can appreciate living in this country and this province. I have a player who told me that at some point he might be ready to play in a more challenging league. But then he said, 'My family feels so good and so safe here and that's even more important than where I play'. So we also represent that. This is what we think is right. This is how a country, a city, a province should be. It's what we stand for. We will go there as proud Canadians and we will have the Maple Leaf everywhere. And we'll make it very clear that we are not just one of 30 MLS teams. We are one team from British Columbia in Canada.'
The Guardian
9 hours ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Vancouver Whitecaps play for country, city and league in Concacaf Champions Cup final
In his post-election victory speech late on the night of 28 April, Canada's prime minister Mark Carney celebrated a momentous political comeback by reinforcing what he felt were the country's three core values: humility, ambition and unity. But in the face of constant threats, gleeful taunts and mounting tension, there was also a warning to the United States. 'President Trump is trying to break us so that America can own us. That will never ever happen.' Two nights later at Chase Stadium, about 40 minutes south of Trump's Xanadu at Mar-a-Lago, an unfancied but spirited and confident Vancouver Whitecaps outfit embarrassed the garish glitz of Inter Miami – rather deliciously, with the help of a couple of Americans – and easily booked their place in the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup for the very first time, becoming only the third Canadian side ever to qualify for the decider. They play Cruz Azul on Sunday night, and could end the night as the first Canadian side to win the competition – any version of it, dating back to 1962. The team's domestic form sees them currently leading Major League Soccer's Western Conference, while they're one point from the summit of the overall standings. They've been on an unbeaten run of fifteen games and have just two defeats in 24 across all competitions this season, but it somehow gets better. They've accomplished this with a novice MLS boss, Jesper Sørensen, only in the job since the start of the year and having replaced the beloved Vanni Sartini who'd led the club to back-to-back MLS playoff appearances and three successive Canadian Championship titles. Oh, and one more thing. Last December, the Whitecaps ownership group of Greg Kerfoot, Steve Luczo, Jeff Mallett and Steve Nash dropped a bombshell and announced they were selling. Should new investors be found there's a distinct chance the club will be relocated to an American city. And yet, the timing of such a doomsday scenario could hardly be any better. With a remarkable surge in nationalistic sentiment since Trump's ramblings about annexing Canada, the country has never been more solidified and compelled to protect what's theirs. The Whitecaps, a club that proudly boasts over half a century of impactful soccer history and local cultural resonance, have felt the benefit of the swell and a rescue mission is already well under way. 'You wouldn't be able to do my job if you weren't optimistic because you always have to believe that a positive development is ahead of you,' says Axel Schuster, CEO and sporting director of the Vancouver Whitecaps. 'Sometimes, if there's a risk that you'll lose something it's only then you realise how important it is to you.' Leaning into the patriotism and community seen in recent months, Schuster is pushing hard for a new, privately funded downtown venue for the Whitecaps at the city's landmark PNE fairgrounds site, a stone's throw from Empire Stadium, the original home of the Whitecaps. The team's current base at BC Place is owned by the province and greatly restricts the club's revenue streams and commercial opportunities. A shiny asset is one distinct way of enticing new ownership to keep the team where it is and the City of Vancouver has confirmed that 'high level discussions' have already happened. 'Maybe it's the Canadian way: to do good things but not speak about them very much and we haven't always told our stories,' Schuster says. 'There are enough people who believe in this club being a major asset to our community and to the soccer landscape in Canada and believe that it's worthwhile to fight for it, to keep it alive and keep it in Vancouver.' After a long stint in the Bundesliga and influential roles at Mainz and Schalke, Schuster took the Vancouver job just as a global pandemic brought everything to a halt. Since then, he's overseen an impressive rise. Three visits to the playoffs, a mammoth increase in attendance, a litany of domestic cup success and all achieved on an always-conservative budget. In 2024, the club paid $17.4m in salaries to leave them comfortably mid-range in MLS. In contrast, Inter Miami splashed out $41.7m, while cross-country rivals Toronto FC racked up an outlay of $31.8m. Look closely, though, and Vancouver boasts a perfectly proportioned roster between small, medium and big earners. But perhaps Schuster's most impressive achievement has been ensuring off-field distractions and all of the worry, concerns and anxiety that come with an uncertain future, have not seeped on to the field or into the front office. 'It hasn't always been easy to be a Whitecaps employee and wear our badge,' he admits. 'When the news broke that the club was for sale, it was easy to say 'Look, nothing will change. We'll have the best ever season, we'll be the most attractive club in MLS that everyone wants to own.' But it's something else to fill those words with real life.' Winning has, at least for now, seemed to ease that instability. Sign up to Soccer with Jonathan Wilson Jonathan Wilson brings expert analysis on the biggest stories from European soccer after newsletter promotion 'There were a lot of questions,' Schuster said. ''Will this club still be here?' 'Why should we sign this sponsorship deal with you?' And we told those people: 'Come with us because everything will be great'. After the second leg in Miami, I was so happy because I could feel how much it meant to everyone. To give them these special moments made me super happy. It was like we all got rewarded for everything.' Schuster felt the 2024 season had been a 'missed opportunity' of sorts and that a fresh approach could unlock something new in the group. In Sørensen, he found a coach that has managed to get career-best performances out of players up and down the roster – a big reason why the team has excelled as much in continental competition as it has in MLS, where most teams involved in both tend to struggle in one or the other. 'There were two main criteria that our new coach needed to have: firstly, that he was a developer with a track record of improving players and not just young players,' Schuster says. 'Secondly, we didn't want a coach who would say, 'Some of these players won't fit my plans and I'll need one or two transfer windows to build a team'. We wanted someone who looked at the existing group and knew what to do with them to make it successful from the first day.' Under Sørensen's watch, certain players have stepped up and the group has adapted impressively to the loss of talisman Ryan Gauld, sidelined since early March with a knee injury. While the likes of Brian White and Sebastian Berhalter have garnered much of the focus given their call-ups to the US national team, Schuster pinpoints the developments of Ali Ahmed and Tristan Blackmon as examples of Sorensen's coaching nous. 'Ali doesn't have that many years of being in a professional environment and Jesper has simplified his game, focusing on key areas rather than on his overall profile,' Schuster says. 'Tristan Blackmon has made big progress. In all of our stats, he's the best defender in MLS. You always felt he had the skills to be a top defender but maybe wasn't using them in the right way. But his consistency this year has been unbelievable.' Despite the positivity this season, Schuster admits that he hardly ever enjoys watching games. 'Even the second leg win over Inter Miami took a long time before I really believed it was done,' he says with a laugh. 'During the game there is nothing to enjoy. I can't watch with a lot of people around me, at least people I don't know, because I get pretty active about what we could do better and should do better.' Schuster will certainly take some enjoyment from Sunday's Concacaf Champions Cup final against Mexican heavyweights Cruz Azul. Because on this particular international stage at this particular time, the Vancouver Whitecaps will not represent Major League Soccer. They'll represent the humility, ambition and unity of an entire nation. 'For us, we are proud to be Canadians,' Schuster says. 'Our players can appreciate living in this country and this province. I have a player who told me that at some point he might be ready to play in a more challenging league. But then he said, 'My family feels so good and so safe here and that's even more important than where I play'. So we also represent that. This is what we think is right. This is how a country, a city, a province should be. It's what we stand for. We will go there as proud Canadians and we will have the Maple Leaf everywhere. And we'll make it very clear that we are not just one of 30 MLS teams. We are one team from British Columbia in Canada.'
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Highlights: LA Galaxy 2-0 Real Salt Lake (MLS)
Dream season for unbeaten Vancouver Whitecaps could get even dreamier If you haven't heard about the Vancouver Whitecaps yet this season, you probably will this weekend. The soccer club is at the top of the Major League Soccer standings and has a shot at becoming the best in all of North and Central America and the Caribbean. As CBC News' Chad Pawson reports, the team is preparing for its big match in Mexico City this weekend. 2:21 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
Yahoo
9 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Highlights: Nashville SC 2-2 New York City FC (MLS)
Dream season for unbeaten Vancouver Whitecaps could get even dreamier If you haven't heard about the Vancouver Whitecaps yet this season, you probably will this weekend. The soccer club is at the top of the Major League Soccer standings and has a shot at becoming the best in all of North and Central America and the Caribbean. As CBC News' Chad Pawson reports, the team is preparing for its big match in Mexico City this weekend. 2:21 Now Playing Paused Ad Playing
