Vancouver Whitecaps: Have patience with Marc dos Santos

2019 was a disastrous season for both the Vancouver Whitecaps and head coach Marc dos Santos. However, the Whitecaps should have patience with their young manager.

The 2019 season could not have gone much worse for the Vancouver Whitecaps and newly appointed head coach, Marc dos Santos. Last in the Western Conference, only 37 goals scored, the second-worst points total and goal difference in the entire league. It did not paint a positive picture of what was to come.

And then Vancouver produced another lacklustre display in the season opener, roundly dismissed by Sporting KC. The team promised free-flowing offensive football, high pressing, and lots of chances in the preseason but produced very little of any. Their attacking combinations were improved from 2019, but they were individual moments and not sustained over extended periods.

Questions, justifiably, were asked of dos Santos and his work. Vancouver had spent more than usual in the offseason, mostly on club-record signing Lucas Cavallini. Where was the improvement? Well, just a week away.

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For all of their faults in Week 1, the Vancouver Whitecaps were excellent in their second outing of the season, a 1-0 victory against the LA Galaxy. The high press was present, the midfield controlled the game, chance creation was aplenty, and the defence held firm against an excellent Galaxy attack, especially new signing Janio Bikel, who made a late switch to right-back despite training and slated to start as a destructive holding midfielder and had to hang onto the coattails of Cristian Pavon.

However, more important than individual performances, though Bikel’s debut and the promising moments from fellow new signing Leonard Owusu in midfield were definite positives, was the more integrated and cohesive look of the team, illustrating that dos Santos was beginning to get a tune out of his team.

“It was what we worked on since day one,” dos Santos said after the Galaxy victory. “If you come to big games like this and you don’t set the tone, big teams like the LA Galaxy are going to slowly impose their game, and you have to make it uncomfortable for them. That’s what we weren’t able to do against Sporting, but we did today, and if we do that, we’ll always have a chance to win.”

“The way we worked, our principles from preseason, and how we applied it was the way we have to be,” dos Santos continued. “And we didn’t see that against Sporting, but we had an incredible reaction today. I think, you know, not only in the intensity of our work and the intensity of how we close down the way we prepared for this game, trying to eliminate Jonathan [Dos Santos] from their build up, being very aware in the box, and being aware of a player like Chicharito [Javier Hernandez], and [Cristian] Pavon in transition, I think [Janiel] Bikel did a great job there.”

All this is to say that dos Santos needs time and patience. He is a highly regarded coach but he has not had much to work with since arriving in Vancouver. They now have the three DP slots filled with Cavallini joining Ali Adnan and Hwang Inbeom, while the likes of Owusu, Bikel, Ranko Veselinovic, Erik Godoy, David Milinkovic among others are all bedding into their new team.

Dos Santos has also started the season in a 4-4-2 despite publicly ceding that he prefers the 4-3-3 shape. As the season evolves, he will revert back to his beloved 4-3-3, and a central midfield trio of Inbeom, Owusu and Bikel does offer much more security, possession surety, and potential than the lacking options dos Santos waded through last season.

Next. USMNT: 3 reasons why Tyler Adams can be special. dark

It has not been the greatest start to life with the Vancouver Whitecaps for dos Santos. But there is reason to hope and reason to be patient.

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