🏆 'Unwanted' managers lead Cruz Azul, Vancouver Whitecaps to unexpected CCC final
If you'd said in January either Vicente Sanchez & Jesper Sørensen would lift this trophy, I would've been very confused.
The final whistle blew, and Vicente Sanchez dropped to the ground, offering a prayer to the divine hand that had guided him here, to the technical area at the CU where he had just guided Cruz Azul to a 1-0 victory, a 2-1 aggregate win and a spot in the Concacaf Champions Cup final.
That Sanchez is on the sideline of an important soccer match is not a surprise. A Toluca legend and former Uruguay international who closed his career out in the United States, you’d expect Sanchez to still be in soccer. At the start of the year, though, he was Cruz Azul’s U-23 coach working to develop players for the first team and win a youth title.
But in late January, Martin Anselmi abruptly left and took his coaching staff with him, leaving Cruz Azul to scramble to find anyone to take over as interim. Sanchez was still there, so he became the chosen coach.
With enough results - Thursday’s win was the 16th straight match in which Cruz Azul avoided defeat - the interim tag sort of fell off, with Sanchez guiding the club to the final of the Concacaf Champions Cup and a third-place finish in Liga MX ahead of the Liguilla beginning next week.
That is to say that Sanchez didn’t really ‘win’ the job - and even now there are questions about his continuity. Cruz Azul is pairing down its sporting structure, wisely, but sporting director Ivan Alonso didn’t select his countryman and reportedly may be agitating for a new coach in the summer.
“Right now I’m happy. These are the demands of the club: Fight in every tournament,” Sanchez said Thursday night. “Getting to the final, I’m very happy and grateful - to the players for how they put in the effort, the whole tournament, every day, the respect, the hope, the hunger the players have to win things - Ingeniero (Victor) Velasquez, the support, the entire stadium and the fans, my family, my wife who was here. I’m really happy. I’ll enjoy it and tomorrow start focusing on the league.”
Velasquez is the club’s president, but there, notably, was no shout out for Alonso. Sanchez even declined to compare the difference between the team when he took over to what it looks like now, saying “I don’t look back. I live one day at a time and always look forward.
“Now, I look at the games, I look forward and tomorrow we’ll start to build the plan to face the next opponent in the Liguilla.”
Before the June 1 final, he’ll shake hands with a man whose job is much more secure. Jesper Sørensen has transformed the Vancouver Whitecaps from MLS also-ran to a treble contender. The ‘Caps convincingly beat Inter Miami over two legs, winning not only at BC Place but also at Chase Stadium where the potential excuses of weird turf, long travel or a hostile environment for Lionel Messi and his fellow Miami teammates were not valid.
Sørensen was named the Vancouver coach in January after being dismissed as Brøndby manager in December amidst a dip in otherwise strong results.
Both managers built on the foundations already built rather than tearing everything to the studs. Sanchez didn’t have much of a choice. Anselmi’s departure was so painful partly because the team was built in his own image, and for two transfer windows in a row the team had signed players the manager specifically requested.
Sørensen had a bit more wiggle room, but the squad looks very similar to what his predecessor Vanni Sartini had to deal with.
“For me, I’m relatively new and have not had the struggle to come this far with the club, but I know a lot of people have,” Sørensen said after Wednesday’s win. “A lot of people working for many, many years in the club have not seen this moment. I think it’s great for everybody in the club. For the fans, maybe we can also rally the city of Vancouver behind the team even more and hopefully excite people.”
The excitement should build in both Mexico City and Vancouver, with Cruz Azul one title away from matching Club América as the most successful team in the competition’s 63-year history and Vancouver seeking to be the first Canadian team to lift the trophy during that time.
These were not the managers - or, frankly the teams - we were expecting to be here. Yet, here they are, having put in the work, earned the results and bucked our expectations.
Good article! enjoyed seeing the comparison and reading about their 2 stories. Hoping for a fun final.