Vancouver Whitecaps head to San Diego to dial-up intensity

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Vanni Sartini threw a lot at his players in the past two weeks. Now he’s going to throw them into the fire and see what comes out of the other side.

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With the first two weeks of training camp in the books, the Vancouver Whitecaps jetted south Saturday for the second half of their pre-season, relocating to their temporary digs at the University of California, San Diego. They’re set to play four exhibition games, two against USL Championship competition, one against a Liga MX side and one MLS side.

The team flew out at 8 am and will have one training session before their first test, coming Sunday afternoon at UC San Diego’s Triton Stadium against Mexico’s Tijuana Xolos.

“We worked a lot. The first few weeks of camps are always volume in everything,” said coach Sartini. “(The players) have to do the extra run, they have to do a lot of gyms because they have to get in shape, and also volume in information that we give to the players.

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“There’s a lot of stops and explaining to the players … trying to be very specific on what we want (from) them tactically, because we all know how it works during the season — as soon as (it) starts, you don’t have a long time to train.

“The guys seem receptive. Of course they still miss that intensity, they still miss that ‘bite,’ but that’s actually the reason why in San Diego we’re going to have four games in 11 days. To gain fitness, but a lot of game fitness and to really bring intensity to the training.

“I firmly believe that without the brain, without knowing what to do, the heart and the legs don’t work. So even if you are very courageous and very fit, if you don’t know what to do, it’s hard. So tactics come first.”

For the first time in five seasons, there is little turnover from last year’s squad, reducing the firehose of information the players had to gulp down when Sartini took over last August to a more manageable garden-hose-like level.

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But along with the newcomers to the team, some have to do a little catch-up. Left-back Javain Brown missed all of camp so far on international duty with the Reggae Boyz, and Lucas Cavallini and Cristian Gutierrez were also away for much of it with Canada. Cava joined the team in Vancouver to make the trip to California, while Gutierrez will meet the club in San Diego; both of them tested positive for COVID-19 while with Canada and had to isolate.

Midfielder Caio Alexandre’s visa snafu — his Canadian work permit is still in processing — has meant he’s been stuck in Brazil for all of the pre-season, but is expected to be in San Diego as well.

The Caps also traded US$50,000 in general allocation money to the Columbus Crew to acquire midfielder Sebastian Berhalter — yes, his last name is related to that guy you’re thinking of — on Friday. The 20-year-old Crew Homegrown spent last season on loan with Austin FC, making five starts and 18 appearances.

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“Sebastian is a young player we’ve identified within the league who adds depth to our defensive midfield position as he brings high intensity in the press, strong work ethic and rates highly in defensive contributions,” Caps CEO and sporting director Axel Schuster said in a news release. “He will be added to our supplemental roster as we will continue to keep the door open for a more senior player at this position.”

Another senior player the Whitecaps are still in the market for is a backup goalkeeper. The team has maintained since Max Crepeau asked out and was subsequently traded to LAFC that Thomas Hasal would be their No. 1, and an experienced veteran would come in to push him for the position.

Sartini has clearly been watching F1’s Drive to Survive, with the Italian coach giving a pithy response when asked about the situation this week.

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“It’s like a Formula One race. They will compete through the season to show who’s going to be the first one at the end. And hopefully, and I say this with sadness in my heart, they’re not going Ferrari but they’re both going to be Mercedes, because the Formula One Ferraris have been terrible in the last couple of years,” he said.

(For the record, Ferrari hasn’t won the Constructor’s Championship since 2008, and a Ferrari driver last won the driver’s crown in 2007.)

The Caps, in their own studiously superstitious manner, haven’t implicitly said they would like to win some kind of hardware this year, but they do have the horses to do it. They aren’t all Ferraris or Mercedes, but perhaps — paging Brian White — enough Red Bulls to get the job done.

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Depth will be key, as well as the proper utilization of the MLSNext Pro second team to keep legs fresh and the meritocratic pathway to the first 11 open.

“I believe that the best way for a soccer team to function is to have at least 17, 18 starters that really compete every week, and I think that we have it at the moment,” said Sartini. “We have (that) core of players that allow everyone of not being sure of the (starting) spot, but everyone can see the spot there and be ready to play.

“I would love to do the same thing that I did last year to change the lineup often … because it means that every week in training someone is showing that he can play. I think that if you always play the same 11 in the long (run), especially in a competition like MLS, it’s something that is going to be counterproductive to the way that I see football.”

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