VANCOUVER, BC – While Vanni Sartini has become a huge admirer of his new home in recent years, it was not love at first sight when he first came to Vancouver.
Upon arriving in Vancouver in 2019, Sartini was still pining over his previous home of Chicago, the city he had resided in while working for the United States Soccer Federation (USSF).
“I lived three years in Chicago,” recounted Sartini. “I really think about Chicago as a city that embodies what and who I am as a person.”
The appeal of Vancouver, with its breathtaking sights in mountains, forest, lakes, seas, and more, might have been enough for someone else to instantly fall in love with the city. But for an Italian, who has grown-up around the warmth, joy, and intensity that is the Italian lifestyle, the city seemed a little lacking in something that he craved deeply: soul.
“To me, the objective of Vancouver was always to be beautiful, but not necessarily to be alive,” admitted Sartini on his first impressions. “The one thing that changed that, my perspective of the city, was the pandemic.”
It might seem strange the Italian’s perspective changed during the pandemic in 2020 – the period of time where it felt like the city was at its quietest with everyone staying home. But the pandemic gave many, including Sartini, the opportunity to step away from their busy lives and be able to look out and truly appreciate where exactly they were living.
“I started to explore the city more in an outdoor way,” described Sartini at that time. “I began walking and seeing everything that was around me.”
Like many, it made him yearn for something he once had access to but then did not: a city with an unearthed soul to it. So once the pandemic finished, he made sure to make up for it.
“Right after the pandemic, I began going to the different neighbourhoods and began understanding the different souls that different neighbourhoods had. I also think there was a cultural change. Before, the pace of living for everyone was ‘work, work, work’, but you need to enjoy life too, and it seems many people here learned that.”
While the pandemic might have changed the perspective for Sartini on Vancouver, it was his appointment as the head coach of the club that solidified his love for it.
“I had this immediate click with the fans, and that helped me make [Vancouver] more my home.”
There was no surprise to his connection to the fans. Since the start, Sartini has always been unapologetically himself. His down-to-earth nature and genuineness isn’t often seen in head coaches of football.
You often see many coaches try to hide their emotions to maintain an air of authority and strength when faced by media or fan questioning, but Vanni is an open book.
His passion allows him to be vulnerable, which in turn allows the fans to connect with him. It, of course, helps that his warm and boisterous Italian personality can diffuse any tension in a room.
But for Sartini, his greatest asset for connection - aside from languages - is his compassion for people.
“I know I am a, I would say, peculiar character,” joked Sartini. “I’m very strong in my opinion but also I believe a lot in empathy, I believe in putting your feet in the shoes of the other person, to make that connection. I am a textbook extrovert, and that is not something you see naturally a lot of the time in Canada, so maybe people resonate with that.”
His joie de vivre allows him to recognize the humanity in the people around him. In turn, he allows himself to be vulnerable in front of others. He is someone who can acknowledge when something gets to him, without it affecting his own view of himself, like with outside criticism on social media.
“I read everything about me online,” Sartini admitted jokingly. “A lot of the time it's positive, but when it is not, like when some people think I'm just a funny, nice guy and not serious or good at my job, it hurts a little bit. But luckily, I know that I’m very good at my job, so no one can tell me otherwise. That’s why it doesn’t hurt me too much.”
Like any idealist, Sartini would prefer to focus on the positives.
One of his greatest positives is his connection to the supporter groups inside BC Place. At almost every home game, you’ll see Sartini wearing a supporter group’s shirt underneath his blazer. He also frequently goes out to their events to sit down and chat with fans, even if it's just to have a couple drinks.
It may look like he is going the extra mile for the supporters, but more than anything it's that empathy acting out once again. He doesn’t see them as any different than himself; they’re all fans of this beautiful sport.
“This thing with the supporter groups is even different for me because I am also a supporter,” explains Sartini. “The way that I was drawn to the game is to be a fan, to be a supporter, so I really know and feel it when I see that some of them are really sad when we lose, and I really, really feel it when I know they are happy because we won!”
“Having this kind of empathy then makes it natural for me to go and do things [for them], because something like that may be big for them, but it’s also big for me. Seeing the joy when I go to an event or spend half an hour speaking with kids or signing autographs, it’s something that not only makes them happy but also makes me happy because I can see what it is to be a fan in that moment, so I think that connection is again, based on empathy.”
For those who know Sartini personally, they know he has been a massive Fiorentina fan from birth, being born and raised in Florence.
While some may think his ultimate goal is to one day coach the famous Viola, that is not his dream. His dream is to one day be there at the stadium for when they win the Scudetto as a fan. It’s to be a part of something greater, something that cannot be bought nor traded.
“There is no money in the world, no personal satisfaction or recognition that beats being a part of something greater that brings people joy."
In the end, it is a collectivist mindset, the duty to have others above yourself, that truly separates Vanni from the rest.
His actions and achievements are always for the team and for the fans, and it is an attitude that is exemplified in the teams he coaches. It is why he always prefers to have hardworking team players rather than flashy individuals with big egos in his roster, because all the work that they put on the training pitch should always, and will always be, for the greater purpose of the club and its fans.
