VANCOUVER — The Vancouver Whitecaps have fired head coach Vanni Sartini.
The Major League Soccer team announced the move Monday after a season of modest success in Vancouver.
The Whitecaps finished eighth in the Western Conference this season after posting a 13-13-8 record in MLS play.
The Whitecaps then won a play-in playoff game at Portland before taking conference winners Los Angeles FC to the limit in a best-of-three first-round series.
The team also picked up its third straight Canadian championship, beating Toronto FC 4-2 on penalties after the final ended in a 0-0 tie.
“I took my time with this decision, and it was not taken lightly," Whitecaps sporting director and chief executive officer Axel Schuster said in a release.
"We have taken important steps each year and it is now the right time for someone else to lead this group on the pitch with fresh and new energy."
Schuster said the search for a new head coach is underway.
“For the last three years and three months, it has been an absolute honour to be the head coach of Vancouver Whitecaps FC,” Sartini said in a release. "I will always be grateful to Axel Schuster and ownership for entrusting me to be the technical lead of this club in such an important time.
"Vancouver will always have a special place in my heart and my wife’s heart," he added.
Sartini, a 47-year-old from Florence, Italy, took over coaching duties on an interim basis August 2021 after the Whitecaps dismissed Marc Dos Santos and was officially named head coach that November.
He posted a record of 57-51-39 across all competitions.
The exuberant Italian made headlines in November 2023 when he publicly criticized a referee following a playoff game and made a joke about being a suspect if the official were to be found dead.
He was suspended for the first six games of the 2024 MLS campaign, fined US$20,000 and ordered to complete a league-approved behavioural assessment.
The coach later apologized for the comments and his suspension was cut to four games.
Sartini came to Vancouver in 2019 as Dos Santos' assistant coach and spent two seasons with the first team before being named the club's "director of methodology" and taking over coaching the U-23 team in 2020.
Before joining the 'Caps, he worked as a coach educator for the Italian Football Federation and the U.S. Soccer Federation, and coached at several different clubs in Italy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.
The Canadian Press
