COACH IN FOCUS: Jesper Sørensen

Jesper Sørensen was appointed head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps in January 2025. In his first season in charge, he has already guided the team to victory in the Canadian Championship and a strong league campaign, with Vancouver currently in the Playoff Round of 16. After a 3–0 win in the first leg, the Whitecaps are now on the verge of reaching the quarterfinals of the championship. Under his leadership, the team also reached the final of the CONCACAF Champions Cup 2025 for the first time in the club’s history. Prior to his move to Canada, Sørensen managed Brøndby IF and served as head coach of Denmark’s Under-21 national team. In our conversation, Jesper talks about finding the right balance between attack and defense, exceeding season expectations, and developing young players.

Right now, your team leads MLS in expected goals (2.08) and ranks second-best in expected goals against (1.2). How do you manage to strike such a strong balance between attacking football and defensive stability with the Whitecaps? What specific aspects of your training sessions do you emphasize to maintain that balance week after week?

Jesper Sørensen: Football is a flowing game full of transitions where you try to seek the balance between being able to attack, without on the same time be too vulnerable in your defence. I have an attacking mindset in the regard that I want our team to play active football not awaiting and react upon what our opponents do. We want to dominate with the ball and play high up the pitch and whenever you do that, you leave open space and areas behind you. We work daily with getting our players to understand how they prepare for defensive transitions by maintaining space control behind the ball when we attack. It allows more flexibility and freedom in our attack because all players now how to position and cover up spaces for each other behind the ball in case we lose it.

With Vancouver, you finished the league in second place in the Western Conference and have surpassed expectations — your expectation index is rated at 9 out of 10. You’ve also won the Canadian Cup, and after a 3–0 victory in your first playoff match, you’re now on the verge of reaching the quarterfinals of the championship. Did you have a sense before the season started that your team could perform at this level, and how far do you believe this group can go? Given this strong position, do you feel the goals for the season have shifted compared to your initial plans?

Jesper Sørensen: I must say that this season completely exceeded my expectations. When I joined the Club I didn’t have much knowledge of the team, the League and certainly not the teams we where playing in the Champions Cup. When you are living in football in Europe its difficult to follow the MLS because of the time difference. So I had to study everything in the preseason. From all the games I studied with the team from last season I wanted to make big changes in the style of play. My expectation was that the team would need some time to adjust to the new ideas, and that we were able to get better throughout the season. But the player’s really bought in to the changes, and we saw pretty fast that we could compete at the highest level in both the league and in the Champions Cup. We have had a long season and played a lot of games mainly due to our Champions Cup run, but the players still look fresh and we have high hopes for our playoff run. Maybe outside expectations have changed about how far we can go but one of our teams strengths is that we don’t worry about expectations but always stay focused on the task at hand. We set a high bar of expectations for ourselves about how we play and don’t worry much about what others think. The playoffs is a new format for me, and of course you also need some good fortune to end up winning but I think we are one of the teams that has a good chance of getting all the way.

According to the age index, your squad is the fourth-youngest in MLS at 26 years on average, and with 24% of playing time given to U23 players, you rank among the league’s top eight. How do you approach player development within your philosophy, and what’s your strategy for blending experienced players with young talent? How do you ensure that young players are able to make mistakes and learn without it negatively impacting the team’s overall performance?

Jesper Sørensen: It is true we have played a lot of young players this season. Many of them didn’t play much last year but I believe that we will never get answers if we don’t see our young players on the team. It all starts with the players talent workethic and ability to learn. Then we try to make a safe environment where the player knows that mistakes are a part of the game and everyone makes them but the most important thing is how we react to them. On the same note we set very high demands for what we want from them in training sessions so they are prepared for matching the tasks in MLS. The game of football is extremely complex and that’s why I am a strong believer in football as a relational game. For me football is played between eleven players and not by eleven players. That’s why the most important thing for me is our structure and style of play. If we have a good structure and the players have well defined tasks then its easier for a young player to succeed because you take some of the complexity away from the individual. And because everyone knows what to do you can always get help around you either from your teammate or from the structure. It gives freedom and security not only for the young players but for everyone, and then its up to the individual player to show how far they are in terms of performing at the highest level. We can’t ensure that playing with younger players doesn’t impact our performance negatively, but we cannot assure either that playing younger players won’t impact our results positively. The only thing we know is that we will never find out if we don’t try.

Thank you very much, Jesper, for your time, and much success for the rest of the season!