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# Foreign Exchange: Three questions with The Third Sub's Sam Rowan
- URL: https://verdeallday.com/foreign-exchange-three-questions-sam-rowan-the-third-sub-vanvatx-09-13-26/
- Published: 2026-09-13T13:55:04.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-13T13:55:04.000Z
- Description: Austin FC travels to cooler climes for Sunday's match against the best team in the West. We talk to an excellent Whitecaps source for intel ahead of the oddly-timed match.
- Author: Phil West
- Tags: 2026 season, austin fc, match preview, foreign exchange

On Sunday, Austin plays away in a city currently experiencing temperatures about 30 degrees cooler than ours. That's 16 degrees, if your degrees are in Celsius, as they are in Vancouver, home to the Whitecaps, the West's best team. 

Of course, as Brad Stuver pointed out after Wednesday's match when I told him to enjoy the cooler weather, "We're playing in a domed stadium" (though I meant he should enjoy it *in general*; I know when I'm in the soup of Austin summer for several months and get to travel someplace cooler, I immediate revel in it in the jetway, and once I get outside, I'm just drinking in the cool air through my pores — anyone else ready for summer to end?) 

To help preview this match, we reached out to Sam Rowan at [The Third Sub](https://thethirdsub.ca/?ref=verdeallday.com) to give us some perspective on Vancouver in what, weirdly, is the first match between the teams this year. It starts at 5:30 pm CT (or thereabouts), one of the more unusual start times of the season. There's info about the watch party buried within the just-published [episode of Emergency Podcast!](https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-122-siskeling-my-ebert-emergency/id1742052077?i=1000789338283&ref=verdeallday.com), which goes more into this unusual week we've all just gone through. 

To the questions! 

### Vancouver's currently first in the Western Conference and looking like they could make a repeat return to MLS Cup. Do you think this team is better or worse than last year's version, and why?

That’s a really good question. I think the feeling in Vancouver is that they are not quite as good, but there’s a number of things that go into that. There have been some departures along the way, and Vancouver has not had quite as much success leaning on their depth this year. At the same time, Ryan Gauld is now back in the fold, and when he’s at his best, he’s been a top-five caliber player in MLS. The Whitecaps never had that as an option last season. There have also been a couple of late adds before the transfer window closed. In the end, this team had more than enough talent to win MLS Cup last year, and I think the same is true this year.

### Sebastian Berhalter was certainly a key midseason exit, but Oli Larraz seems to be stepping into his role well. Is it just that Larraz is upping his game at the right time, or is the team doing something else (with players or strategy) to make up for his absence?

\[Head coach\] Jesper Sørensen certainly has a knack for getting the most out of his players, as pretty much everyone on the roster under 25 has taken a big step forward during his tenure. Like Berhalter, Larraz has a solid defensive and positional game, and some pretty good technical traits. But as we saw with Berhalter, it took a while to get the knack for doing the box-arriving and final-pass stuff that really makes you a dynamic box-to-box midfielder. I don’t think Larraz is on the Berhalter trajectory, but can he be a really solid MLS starter? Absolutely.

### Many of us in Austin are rooting for the Whitecaps to stay in Vancouver ... what's the latest on that, and what do you think the chances are that the team will stay where it should?

There was a lot of urgency early this year because of the lack of a deal to remain at BC Place, and I think the Whitecaps used that, along with their pending sale, to really hold the provincial government (who owns the stadium) to the fire in order to get a better deal. It’s a tale as old as time, where a team says they might have to relocate if they can’t get a good deal on their stadium. They have since come to a short-term agreement to remain at BC Place, which has provided some much-needed stability. At the same time, there are discussions about the Whitecaps, or a larger group of stakeholders, potentially buying the stadium from the government, which would solve a lot of the longer-term issues around the team’s cash flow and assets, while also making the sale of the club more attractive. It’s not as though the team is out of the woods, but I don’t think there’s reason to be too worried at this stage.

*Verde All Day is a reader-supported online publication covering Austin FC. Additional support is provided by Austin Telco Federal Credit Union. For more coverage, check out* Emergency Podcast! (an Austin FC Podcast) *wherever you get your podcasts.*

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