Former Whitecaps coach Vanni Sartini named coach, GM of CPL’s Halifax Wanderers

By Canadian Press on December 10, 2025.

Former Vancouver Whitecaps coach Vanni Sartini is back in football, this time on the East Coast.

The 49-year-old Italian, fired by the Whitecaps in November 2024, resurfaced Wednesday as head coach and general manager of the Canadian Premier League’s Halifax Wanderers.

“I was very eager to come back — 2025 has been the first year of my life that I haven’t been, Iet’s say, employed. I didn’t have a team,” Sartini said in an interview.

“I was starting to coach my cats at home,” he added with a laugh. “So for my mental health, it’s good that I have a team next year.”

Halifax parted ways with coach Patrice Gheisar on Oct. 24 in the wake of the club’s penalty shootout loss to visiting York United (now Inter Toronto FC) in a CPL play-in game.

Halifax president and founder Derek Martin said he had targeted Sartini to succeed Gheisar, who had taken over the team in November 2022 from inaugural coach Stephen Hart.

“I think it’s great for the league, it’s great for us,” said Martin. “I think he’s going to be a fantastic addition to the CPL.

“For us, we’ve been one of those clubs that’s been on the cusp of turning the corner. We haven’t been terrible, but we haven’t won anything yet. When you think about what you need to make that next leap, I think a guy of Vanni’s skills is exactly what we need.”

Martin pursued Sartini for several months, waiting for the Italian to sort through possible MLS openings.

“When it didn’t work out, I think he saw us as a great way to stay in Canada and get to work in the sport he loves,” Martin said. “I think he sees the potential of what we’re trying to build out here in Halifax.”

Halifax set a club record for goals scored and away points last season while finishing fourth in the standings at 11-11-6, one point ahead of York United (now Inter Toronto FC).

Halifax held a 1-0 lead in the Oct. 22 play-in game at Wanderers Ground, only to see York pull even with four minutes remaining after a 20-minute lightning delay. The game went to extra time with Shaan Hundal’s 118th-minute goal for York cancelling out Jeremy Gagnon-Lapare’s go-ahead strike in the 114th minute.

York then won the penalty shootout 5-4.

Halifax made the final in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, losing 2-0 to Forge in the Island Games championship, and lost 1-0 to Pacific FC in the 2023 quarterfinals.

Sartini did more than just play with his cats during his time off. He combined professional development with some leisure time, travelling with his wife while visiting clubs in Mexico and Spain.

He also spent time in Italy, renewing his coaching credits and teaching some classes, and gave guest lectures for U.S. Soccer.

Sartini is a colourful, larger-than-life character who wears his heart on his sleeve — when he is wearing a shirt, that is.

The coach famously celebrated Vancouver’s penalty shootout win over Toronto FC in the 2022 Canadian Championship final with a shirtless celebration in front of the jubilant fans at B.C. Place Stadium.

He also made headlines in November 2023 when he publicly criticized a referee following a playoff game, joking about being a suspect if the official were to be found dead. He was suspended for the first six games of the 2024 MLS campaign, fined US$20,000 and ordered to complete a league-approved behavioural assessment.

Sartini later apologized, and the ban was trimmed to four games.

The Italian joined the Whitecaps as an assistant coach before the 2019 season, eventually transitioning to the club’s director of methodology and U-23’s head coach. He was elevated to acting head coach in August 2021 after Marc Dos Santos was fired and was handed the job on a permanent basis that November.

He was fired after a late-season slump dropped the Whitecaps into eighth place in the West at 13-13-8. Vancouver won a play-in game at Portland before losing a best-of-three series to Los Angeles FC, beaten 1-0 in the deciding game.

Sartini left with a record of 57-51-39 across all competitions.

Before joining the Whitecaps, Sartini was head coach of A.S. Mezzana for three seasons, an assistant coach with A.S. Livorno Calcio — whom he helped earn promotion to Serie A — and assistant coach with S.S.C. Bari. He later did analysis for Italian youth national teams and worked as a coach instructor for both the Italian Football Federation and U.S. Soccer.

The Florence native has room to manoeuvre with the Halifax roster.

In a roster update released Monday, the CPL team had just nine players with guaranteed contracts for the 2026 season: defender Thomas Meilleur-Giguere, midfielders Lorenzo Callegari, Isaiah Johnston and Andre Rampersad, and forwards Jason Bahamboula, Yohan Baï, Tavio Ciccarelli, Tiago Coimbra and Ryan Telfer.

The club has until the end of the month to decide on options for eight other players.

—

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2025

Neil Davidson, The Canadian Press