The move has been coming for a long time — really it was just a matter of when it was going to happen. Soehn hasn’t had his fingerprints on the team since 2011, when he finished the year as the club’s interim coach after Teitur Thordarson was sacked.

For the second year in a row, Denis Hamlett will be an assistant with a team making the move from Div.-2 to Major League Soccer.

“It means a lot that that Tim (coach Tim Hankinson) and Hitch (general manager Michael Hitchcock) believe in me, that they wanted me as the club’s first player,” said Harsme, who joins former Whitecaps’ teammate Greg Janicki in San Antonio. “Everyone knows what Hitch has done in MLS. Tim has been in an excellent coach in Major League Soccer. And the club is a non-profit organization, which is something that’s unheard of in professional sports. That’s something I am very excited about.”

Saturday’s 2-1 loss to Colorado guaranteed the Whitecaps would finish tied for the worst record in MLS with the New England Revolution. But, if you want to be picky, the tiebreaker in MLS is head-to-head record, and New England drew and beat the Whitecaps this season. So, by the MLS book, you can say that the Whitecaps finished with the worst record in the league.

But, in examining RSL’s 3-0 loss to the Whitecaps Thursday, you have to shake your head and try to think back to the spring, when the Royals were everybody’s shoo-in pick for the MLS Cup. Think back to when Real Salt Lake was one lousy goal away from winning the CONCACAF Champions League and making plans to head to Japan for the Club World Cup.

But it is a gamble. Mitchell suffered severe facial and skull injuries late in 2010 while playing for Joe Public.

Vancouver coach Tom Soehn’s return to D.C. certainly didn’t go as he would have liked. Chris Pontius scored twice for D.C. United and rookie Joe Willis saved the day in goal, as the Whitecaps fell 4-0 at RFK Stadium.

Martin Rennie will take over as head coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps in 2012.

The Vancouver Whitecaps, who have surrendered 30 goals in 21 league games this season, cut two defenders loose on Thursday.

Now, if you’ve ever heard Lenarduzzi speak about the team that went to World Cup finals in 1986, he’ll talk about the number of players on the squad who couldn’t find teams on which to play. It was a ragtag group of players, many of whom didn’t escape the realm of semipro North American soccer. Now, the shoe is on the other foot. Lenarduzzi is the boss. He’s on the club side. And he has obviously learned that management is a cruel business.