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Stejskal: How Portland’s Gavin Wilkinson grew into one of MLS’s best GMs

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In the summer of 2012, back when regular trips to MLS Cup were nothing more than a pipe dream for the Portland Timbers, Gavin Wilkinson kicked himself out of his own house.

The Timbers were at the lowest point of their MLS existence. They had just fired manager John Spencer, and Wilkinson, who coached the club from 2007-2010 in USL, was reluctantly pulling double duty as both GM and…

Stejskal: For LAFC, Thorrington, offseason questions abound over defense

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LAFC GM and EVP of soccer operations John Thorrington doesn’t expect his club to make too many transactions this winter, but the moves they will make are shaping up to be somewhat significant.

After a successful season in which they set the MLS record for most points by an expansion team before surprisingly bowing out in the Knockout Round of the Audi 2018 MLS Cup Playoffs to Real Salt…

Courtesy of Vancouver Whitecaps FC

November 15, 201812:28PM EST

Marc Dos Santos has an ambitious plan for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

This winter, the new ‘Caps head coach will have some room to bring it to life.

Dos Santos, who was named Vancouver manager last week, told MLSsoccer.com on Wednesday that the Whitecaps are “in a good spot” with their salary budget heading into the offseason. Vancouver’s three highest-paid players in 2018 – Designated Player Brek Shea, striker Kei Kamara and midfielder Aly Ghazal – are either out of contract or on a club option for 2019. The ‘Caps will also receive their massive windfall from Alphonso Davies’ impending move to Bayern Munich in January.

The expiring deals of Kamara and Shea, the option on Ghazal and Davies’ MLS-record $ 13 million transfer fee – up to $ 750,000 of which can be converted into General Allocation Money – will give Dos Santos plenty of space remake a squad that has missed the playoffs in two of the last three seasons.

“I think the club’s in a good spot to make intelligent moves,” he said. “We just have to be smart and we have to stick to how we want to look on the field.”

That flexibility will be important, as Dos Santos’ vision for how he wants the Whitecaps to look could require some significant turnover. The 41-year-old, who had a great deal of success as a head coach in the lower divisions with the Montreal Impact, Ottawa Fury, Sporting KC-affiliate Swope Park Rangers and San Francisco Deltas and as a youth coach in Brazil before he joined LAFC as an assistant this past season, has a demanding set of principles he hopes to use to build a new identity for Vancouver.

He wants an aggressive defensive scheme in which individual players will press to win the ball while the team remains compact regardless of where they are on the field. He pictures a fast-paced attack that will quickly look to get vertical and will be able to keep the ball for long stretches. He’ll build his roster with that model in mind – even if realizing it could be tough for a Vancouver team that had the least possession and conceded the fourth most goals in MLS in 2018.

“I’m trying to take every decision for the club with my eyes on the model. What type of team we want to be, how we want to play, what type of intensity, what type of behaviors we want,” he said. “All my decisions are being taken based on the model and nothing else. So, the players that fit that model are in a good spot. The ones that don’t fit, we move on. It’s as simple as that.”

Dos Santos repeatedly returned to the idea of building a “model” or “identity” for Vancouver. He thinks the ‘Caps have lacked a consistent identity from the first-team through the academy in recent years. If they want to regularly compete with MLS’s biggest spenders, he said that will have to change. To compensate for their comparatively small payroll, they’ll need clearer ideas and more cohesion than their rivals.

Fortunately for the Whitecaps, Dos Santos has built successfully at his previous stops. His teams typically didn’t have the deepest pockets in their respective leagues, but they almost always thrived. That was in large part due to Dos Santos’ ability to sign and integrate players that fit his desired model.

He won the USL title with Montreal in 2009, took over Ottawa ahead of their debut season in 2014 and led them to the NASL title game in 2015, guided Swope Park Rangers to a runner-up finish in USL in their expansion season in 2016, then won the 2017 NASL Soccer Bowl in San Francisco’s first and only year as a club. He’s never done it in MLS, but the Montreal-born Canadian-Portuguese dual citizen has clear ideas about how he wants to play and a long history of finding players that fit his system and budget.

“I often say that I wasn’t microwaved. I’m not a coach that was playing and two years later became head coach or was an assistant coach for one year and became head coach,” he said. “I don’t come from that type of background. I think I was a lot of years in the school of coaching, I would call it, to learn to become better, to learn about the league.

“Going from the Impact, to Brazil, to building an NASL club in Ottawa, building an NASL club in San Francisco, working with the reserve team where Peter Vermes was the first-team head coach, working directly with Bob Bradley at LAFC, I think all of those were rich, very rich situations in my life that were more than a coaching course. All of those steps have allowed me to learn, to grow, to become better, and I took some experience in everywhere that I was.”

Of course, Dos Santos started with a blank slate in most of his previous jobs. He led Ottawa, Swope Park and San Francisco during their debut seasons, and was on hand for LAFC’s maiden run in MLS. Working for a first-year team has its challenges, but dos Santos didn’t have to worry about how roster holdovers would adapt to his system. All the players were his.

That won’t be the case in Vancouver, even with their flexibility heading into this offseason. Ten Whitecaps have guaranteed contracts for 2019, including midfielders Felipe, Yordy Reyna, Russell Teibert and Efrain Juarez and DP defender and captain Kendall Waston. Several of those players sniped at each other during Vancouver’s end-of-season media availability, and Waston has said repeatedly in recent weeks that he wants to leave the club this winter.

Dos Santos didn’t commit to moving Waston on Wednesday, but he reiterated his position from his introductory press conference that “the guys that are going to stay here are the guys that want to be here.” He hasn’t yet spoken with the Costa Rican international, but said he’s hoping to sit down with him this week. If Waston still wants to leave after that meeting, Dos Santos indicated that the Whitecaps will move forward accordingly.

Elsewhere, Dos Santos is working with Vancouver VP of soccer operations Greg Anderson to evaluate the current roster and determine which options the Whitecaps will pick up. He said the club is “100 percent looking” at Designated Player targets this offseason – they could have as many as three DP spots available this winter. He’s also in talks to hire three assistant coaches, something he hopes to finalize by the end of November.

Outside of the roster build, his biggest priority might be finding a head scout. Dos Santos will travel to Europe in coming weeks to pick the brains of several different clubs with “incredible scouting departments.” Dos Santos knows he need to ace the hire if Vancouver are going to find players that fit his model, get the club back to the postseason and continue his long history of winning.

“I just feel that I’ve prepared myself for 12 years for this job,” he said. “I feel ready. I feel re-energized in my levels and ambition. I want this club to do well.”

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October 19, 20183:48PM EDT

It was an important milestone in what he hopes will be a long, successful career, but Gianluca Busio’s first professional goal was far from pretty.

In fact, he scuffed his 94th minute tap-in in Sporting KC’s 4-1 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps on Wednesday. Not that the 16-year-old attacking midfielder was worried about that after the fact.

“When the ball was coming across, I was thinking that this could be it,” Busio told MLSsoccer.com over the phone on Thursday. “Everything was going through my head; all the happiness, all my family. Then I put it in and I couldn’t believe I actually scored a professional goal. It was just a great feeling.”

He’ll remember it for the rest of his life but, aside from the milestone, the goal wasn’t particularly noteworthy. It certainly wasn’t a demonstration of what makes Busio one of the top prospects in American soccer. For that, we need to go back 15 minutes, to a pass that wasn’t even completed.

With the match tied 1-1 in the 79th minute, Busio, who came on in the 63rd, stationed himself with his back to goal in a small pocket of space just outside the top of the box. Roger Espinoza found him, but his pass was elevated. It left Busio in a difficult position. The conventional play would’ve been to try to bring the ball down and keep possession, but Busio instead played it directly out of the air, flicking the ball over his left shoulder and toward goal. If not for an important interception by Whitecaps center back Aaron Maund, the pass would’ve put SKC striker Khiry Shelton in for a one-on-one opportunity.

It didn’t quite come off, but the play, which was reminiscent of Busio’s assist in Kansas City’s 1-0 win at Houston in August, showed the smarts, technical ability and confidence that have SKC head coach Peter Vermes raving about his talented teenager.

“He has a real attacking mind,” Vermes told MLSsoccer.com. “He positions himself well between the lines, he knows where he wants to go with the ball, he’s calm in tough situations. If you remember his first assist, we played against [Houston] and… a ball got played into him and he played it first-time, sort of half turned in behind the defender, and then [Diego] Rubio tucked the ball in the back of the net. He almost did the same thing last night with Shelton. He just has a mind that other players don’t. Most don’t think or attempt or see that, and that piece is now starting to come to the forefront. It’s really good. It’s really good to see.”

He’s shown exciting flashes, but it’s important to note that Busio is still nowhere near a finished product. He’s played just 163 minutes in seven career MLS appearances, only one of which was a start. It’s clear that he’s skilled, but the United States youth international still has plenty of work to do before he even becomes a regular with SKC. Tagging him as a surefire future star would be premature and presumptive.

Listen to Vermes, however, and you get the sense that might not be the case much longer.

From the moment he left his family in Greensboro, North Carolina to join the SKC academy at 14 in the summer of 2016, Busio, who also considered joining the Seattle Sounders and Philadelphia Union youth setups, has outpaced all expectations.

Last August, after just one year in the academy, he became the second-youngest signing in MLS history when he inked a Homegrown deal. Vermes and SKC initially planned for him to spend most of this year with their USL team, Swope Park Rangers. That instinct was driven home early in preseason, when the 5-foot-7, 135-pound Busio was physically dominated in an exhibition match against another MLS team. That game could’ve been a blow to his confidence. Instead, Busio used it as a wakeup call. He knows he should become faster and stronger as he gets older, but he realized he’d be at a physical disadvantage throughout 2018. If he wanted to play this year, he’d have to compensate with his feet and mind.

“Playing with guys that are a lot older and physically bigger and stronger than you, you’ve got to try to keep up with them with your foot skills and moving the ball and all that,” he said. “That’s part of my game that I don’t feel behind on. Physically, they’ll have the advantage on me, but if I’m better with my feet and I’m quicker, then it’s not going to make a difference. I want to make sure I improve on making sure every touch is clean, every pass is to the correct foot, everything like that. That’s part of my game where I can clearly excel and be better and I don’t have to worry about being the biggest or strongest.”

He started the season primarily with Swope Park, but his continued improvement and a run of injuries for SKC prompted Vermes to scrap his plan of stashing him in USL. Busio made his first MLS gameday roster on May 27. He’s remained there for 14 of second-place SKC’s subsequent 19 MLS matches, including each of their last 12. All signs point to him being a significant option for the club’s final two regular season matches at first-place FC Dallas on Sunday and against third-place LAFC on Oct. 28, as well as in the playoffs.

According to Vermes, Busio’s maturity has been what’s kept him in the squad. Unlike many young pros he’s dealt with in the past, Vermes said that Busio isn’t subservient to his older teammates on the field. He’s not worried about feeding Espinoza or Graham Zusi if they’re loudly calling for the ball. He’s only committed to making what he believes to be the right play.

“He has the utmost respect of his teammates, and a lot of those guys have been around for a long time,” said Vermes.  “It’s amazing. A lot of the guys spend time with him because they know that he listens and he tries to absorb as much as he possibly can, but at the same time he goes out and he has the confidence to try to do those things.

“He’s just such a mature kid that I forget sometimes that he’s 16-years-old. In a very short amount of time, in one season in MLS really, his adaptation has honestly been incredible…. He’s gotten this opportunity and he has not just sat back and said, ‘OK, I’ve made it. Now I’m here.’ He continues to work really, really hard, he understands his place in the team and is always prepared every time we call on him. That’s a great quality to have because not all players have that.”

If he continues to progress, that mindset will no doubt serve Busio well in the future. Just what that future will entail, of course, remains to be seen. He does hold Italian citizenship through his father. That’d smooth his path to a European club, several of whom showed interest before he signed with SKC. Busio didn’t think he was ready to head across the Atlantic then, but he did say joining a European club is an eventual career goal. For his part, Vermes acknowledged that SKC could one day sell him, whose contract runs through 2020 with team options for 2021 and 2022.

But all that’s off in the distance. Until then, Busio, Vermes and SKC will continue trying to transform the talented teen from a hot prospect into a full-blown, productive pro.

“I think he’s one of those players that has the ability to be special,” said Vermes. “He’s in one of those positions that are hard to develop: attacking No. 10. He’s a guy that can give the final pass, can score a goal, can make the goal on his own with a pass, can make a goal on his own with his own dribble or what have you. I really think the sky’s the limit. The kid just has great qualities.”

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Stejskal: Russell Canouse stepping up in influential role for DC United

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports October 4, 201810:30AM EDT

Luciano Acosta and Wayne Rooney are deservedly drawing plenty of headlines, but the pair of high-profile attackers aren’t the only players powering D.C. United’s second-half surge.

Holding midfielder Russell Canouse, who, like Rooney, made his season debut in a…

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

October 4, 201810:30AM EDT

Luciano Acosta and Wayne Rooney are deservedly drawing plenty of headlines, but the pair of high-profile attackers aren’t the only players powering D.C. United’s second-half surge.

Holding midfielder Russell Canouse, who, like Rooney, made his season debut in a substitute appearance on July 14, has added plenty to the Black-and-Red since he returned from a knee injury that kept him sidelined for the first four months of the season. The 23-year-old has looked good in his 15 league appearances, helping shore up D.C.’s defense as Rooney and Acosta have injected life into the attack.

The team’s hot streak and his solid individual play are validating Canouse’s decision to leave Germany to join D.C. last August. Signing with a dreadful United team in 2017 instead of opting for a second loan from German Bundesliga club Hoffenheim to second-division side VfL Bochum, where he played 20 times in the 2016-17 season, was a bit of a risk, but his gamble has paid off with regular minutes for a re-energized organization.

“This is what I hoped for when I signed,” Canouse told MLSsoccer.com over the phone on Wednesday. “You want to be involved in a team that wins and you want to create a winning mentality. I’ve been a part of teams in Germany, the youth teams in Hoffenheim I’ve been involved in, teams that have that winning mentality and I feel like we’ve started to create that here at D.C. Hopefully we can continue it out through the last weeks of the year.”

Russell Canouse’s second half? 37/37, 14/14 in the attacking third and 3 more tackles. Overall 84/86, 11 recoveries, 8 tackles, made all 29 passes in the attacking third. Hydrate son, we need that Sunday #DCU pic.twitter.com/kndbGu7hfM

— Ryan Keefer (@reefa_k) September 13, 2018

If United’s steady climb up the standings does continue over their final five games, Canouse will likely play a big role. In the 12 matches since he made his first start of the season on July 23, D.C. are 7-2-3 with 26 goals for and only 14 goals against. Those numbers are a huge improvement for the Black-and-Red, who were 3-9-5 with 27 goals for and 34 goals against in 17 matches before Canouse entered the XI. They’re also in line with D.C.’s splits with and without Canouse in 2017, when they went 4-5-1 with a negative-4 goal differential in his 10 starts compared to 5-15-4 with a minus-25 goal in their other 24 matches.

And while Canouse himself gave the bulk of the credit for D.C.’s turnaround to Rooney and Acosta, there’s no denying that the former U.S. youth international has been a big influence. He’s not the most athletic holding midfielder in the league, but he’s adept at reading the game, understands where and how he should funnel opposing attacks, rarely gets pulled out of position and is a solid tackler and clean distributor. His presence has taken significant pressure off United’s back four, which, as the numbers show, has been much more effective since he moved into the lineup.

“I try to pride myself on being tough in the middle defensively,” he said. “I try to force the play wide a lot so the back four and the goalkeeper aren’t sustaining a lot of pressure throughout the 90 minutes, and I think that’s helped close down the middle a lot. I try to organize the play as well when we don’t have the ball. I think that’s a key asset that a lot of people don’t realize when they’re watching a game, but it’s just really important – the act of defending, the marking, connecting the lines so that when the ball turns over our team is there to win it again and build that next possession.”

Canouse is in a good place now, but the Lancaster, Pennsylvania native hasn’t had an easy road since he left the New York Red Bulls academy to join Hoffenheim’s youth setup at age 15 in 2011.

pic.twitter.com/uvnbIgTD71

— Andrew Wiebe (@andrew_wiebe) August 20, 2018

He never quite broke through for the German club, making just one Bundesliga appearance before being sent on loan to Bochum in 2016. His experience in the second division was solid, but he wanted more of a full-time role. So he headed to D.C. last August.

He did enough down the stretch with United to earn an invite to U.S. men’s national team camp in January, where a solid performance ratcheted up his personal expectations for 2018. Those plans were derailed by a knee injury suffered early in D.C.’s preseason that lingered longer than hoped and eventually shelved him for half the season.

Those struggles have made his solid play over the last two months feel even sweeter, however. And now that he feels like his career is back on an upward trajectory, Canouse is shooting for big things with D.C., who could move out of seventh place and into playoff position in the East as soon as this weekend.

“If we can get that sixth-place spot, I feel we can beat anyone,” he said. “We’ve showed it in the previous results against Atlanta and New York – we can get results against them and we can play good soccer against them. If we can sneak in, get a couple results here these last five games and get that sixth spot, I wouldn’t count us out for winning it all.”

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