Getting Familiar with Sørensen-ball: A Vancouver Whitecaps Pre-season Analysis

After spending three weeks in sunny Marbella in Spain, Vancouver Whitecaps settled back into their routine in Vancouver this week – if not only for this week. Come Tuesday, the ‘Caps will be back on the plane as they fly out to Costa Rica to face Saprissa in the first leg of the first round of the Concacaf Champions Cup. But under new manager Jesper Sørensen, the Whitecaps will be a new-look side for many fans, built with some newfound faces.

So what can fans expect from the Whitecaps side based on their pre-season and transfer dealings ahead of their first official match of 2025? Let’s find out.

Marbella ✅@TheChampions ⏭️#VWFC pic.twitter.com/SRfFt9cyzY

— Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) February 8, 2025

New Shape, New System, New Energy

It’s part and parcel of football that when you change coach, the way the team is going to play will likely change as well. CEO Axel Schuster mentioned prior to Sørensen’s appointment that he wanted someone to come in that could evolve the Whitecaps’ style of play, not revolutionize it. At his appointment, the Danish coach was coy with his answers about what kind of system he wanted to implement into the team, although he did mention his philosophy of dominating possession and being in control.

Now, after a short but intense pre-season, Sørensen has a clearer idea of the way that he wants this team to play, based on the assets he has and, of course, his own philosophy. “The philosophy is not dependent on the system,” he explained after Thursday’s intense training. “But the system is helping us [on] how we would like to approach some things, and can maybe make it a little easier.”

Across the four games they had in Marbella, Sørensen has been pretty consistent with the way he’s set out the team. Starting as a 4-3-3, the team tended to evolve into a 3-4-3 when on the ball, oftentimes with either Sam Adekugbe or fresh-faced Tate Johnson on the left flying up to help in the attack. They also played with more patience on the ball, but with more urgency off of it. Sørensen seems to value the idea of recycling the ball and waiting for the right pass to open up, before employing high-intensity pressing after losing possession in order to try to win it back quickly.

That defensive style will perhaps better please Whitecaps fans that were tired of seeing the idealistic-yet-risky zonal marking philosophy that they had the last few years. Fellow defender, and now longest-serving active member of the club, Ranko Veselinovic sees the benefit of this change, and the balance required to achieve it. “We [the team] spoke with the coach [Sørensen], and he understands that how we played was really good last season,” began the Serbian centre back. “But we knew that we needed that aggressivity a little, especially when we were higher up the field, to not allow them to have a counter attack because that was a huge problem for us last season.”

“We need to find that balance between a reckless game and a smart game. That’s something that we need to work on. It’s been good so far in training… we’ll see how it goes when the season starts.”

Our Black History Month kit in action 🤌🏾

Make sure to keep an eye out for club community initiatives to get your hands on this limited-edition piece of history 👀#VWFC | #TogetherWeDare pic.twitter.com/SP0RvTwaxf

— Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) February 2, 2025

Putting Less Pressure on the Stars and More on the Team

With these new changes, the roles for the attackers have shifted slightly as well. Captain and star player Ryan Gauld is now starting out wide as a proper winger instead of a central 10, but his role is unique. Instead of just hanging out wide, the creative Scot has been allowed to float inside so that he can get more involved in the play, allowing space for the marauding full-back to push forward and provide width. This has allowed the ‘Caps to overload the central spaces while also stretching the defence, creating gaps for them to play through.

Gauld’s special role also means that his opposite winger will have to occupy a more traditional winger role, as we saw with the likes of Ali Ahmed and Jayden Nelson. Both players seem to already suit what is required of them, especially in taking on their markers to break lines, providing support out wide and even getting involved in the goals – something that will please both fans and Sørensen greatly.

Too many times last season, the team had to rely on Gauld to provide the magic for the Whitecaps to score when the game got stale. This season, Sørensen wants to avoid that overreliance and instead push the rest of the attackers to step up. “I would like our game to be more fluid, so we are not just depending on one guy’s individual actions,” he explained. “We should be a team that can produce chances, and hopefully from many different players. It’s a good thing that Ryan [Gauld] has been very good and productive goal-scoring wise, but we would like others to be a part of that group as well.”

That relief of pressure will do well not only for Gauld, but also for his partner in crime in Brian White. It was no coincidence that whenever White began to go on a bit of a goal-drought in the last couple seasons, the team’s form dipped as well. Sørensen spoke about wanting to push White to not just focus on getting the goals but in helping the whole team out with his various skills. “I expect him [White] to be a constant threat,” described Sørensen. “I expect him to be a guy that helps out his team, not only with scoring. He’s very good at linking up with his teammates so he will also be participating in keeping the flow in our game.”

“He helps the team out in many ways, so for me, it’s not just important that he scores – because he will, over the course of the season, score goals – but also that he reminds himself that there’s a lot of good things that he helps the team do on and off the ball.”

But for those that may worry that this lessening of pressure on the two attackers will be the end of the “Ryan and Brian” show, fear not. White himself believes that as long as they’re both on the pitch, that magic won’t stop.

“Ryan [Gauld] and I have had such a great connection, from the first time we started playing together,” said White. “At this point, it’s been three years. Anytime we are on the field, we can be able to find each other pretty well, bounce off each other and read each other’s movements. So I think we have a good connection and I think it’s only going to continue to grow.”

The build up. The pass. The finish. 🤌🏾

Berhalter to Ahmed, gets our second on the board!#VWFC pic.twitter.com/lQmMGw05Ii

— Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) February 6, 2025

Tactical Fluidity and of Personnel

Marbella’s camp saw the Whitecaps win twice and both draw and lose once. In each of those games, we never saw the same lineup, let alone see the same lineup last 90 minutes. Sørensen took full advantage of these games to see all different kinds of combinations with players, from the academy products all the way up to the big earners. And even though Sørensen’s team never strayed too far from the 4-3-3 system he developed, the Dane maintains that he is open to trying new things when the time comes for different approaches.

“We will be able to play different formations, because we know that sometimes you meet opponents that require it,” emphasized Sørensen. “Sometimes opponents will have special players that you need to maybe take a little bit extra care of, or sometimes you need to have the flexibility to do something new, maybe when under pressure or maybe because you need to mix things up a little bit.”

“We will have to have different formations that we can turn to whenever we need it, but before we do that and start being flexible, we need to be solid in doing one thing and then we can start adding things.”

That also goes for the very players that make up the team. Sørensen seems to understand that there can never be any constants in football, and you have to be prepared to go with the flow of the season.

“I think that in football, you never start over. You always carry something with you,” he began. “Of course there is some kind of hierarchy, but as I understand throughout my career as a player and as coach, it’s always fluid. You can have the belief that this guy is the most obvious in the starting line-up and all of the sudden he’s out of it because somebody has moved.”

It feels like that thought goes even more with MLS than with any other European league, both due to the schedules and also the roster rules. Every team needs to contend with the restrictions of how to construct their roster and also manage the toils of facing multiple competitions in such a short amount of time. And that managing begins, for Sørensen and Whitecaps, with Saprissa.

“I would say that I’m not settled for how we’re going to play in Saprissa, but I think it’s a good thing that we have a lot of good options, and that’s the most important part for me,” he added. “Because if some players get injured or some maybe don’t live up to the expectations you have, then it’s good that we can change.”

Saprissa will be a good opening test for both the players and Sørensen. As the Dane will quickly find out, there is little time to rest and recover for a MLS team, so Sørensen needs to find plans B through Z’s as quickly as possible before the real season gets too hectic that he can’t get the train back on the rails. Time will tell if Sørensen can be the guy to evolve the team to those lofty and ambitious heights, but unfortunately for him, he won’t have that much time before the ‘Spandauer’ hits the fan.