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The Vancouver Whitecaps have been mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, with New York City FC delivering a stylish coup de grâce in Saturday night’s 3-1 decision at B.C. Place.

The transfer windows have closed, the roster freeze has passed.

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Major League Soccer has no relegation — yet — so there’s no worry about dropping down into a lower division.

So, with four games left, what’s next for the Whitecaps? How will this team be motivated?

“I don’t know,” the always candid Marc Dos Santos said.

“It’s new for me. I don’t know. I’ll think about it in the next three, four days. It’s new for me. It’s a situation that is new, not to be in a playoff or not to be fighting for something in September. It’s new. I don’t know what to answer.”

Dos Santos has a curriculum vitae filled with success stories, from his USL days with the Montreal Impact, proving his detractors wrong as a youth coach in Brazil, to taking a lame duck San Francisco Deltas team to an NASL championship.