Vancouver Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi says the debut MLS coaching season of Martin Rennie has been a success regardless of Thursday's result.
The Canadian club take on the star-studded LA Galaxy in a playoff knockout this week and no matter what happens, Rennie has done a brilliant job guiding the Whitecaps to a fifth-placed Western Conference finish according to the clubs chief.
"He's come in after we had the worst record in the league and there's only two teams who've had a bigger turnaround," Lenarduzzi told The Province.
"I think that's significant. Rebuilding as we are, that takes time. I think we've got a good core of players and people can see that we've made a lot of progress."
He added: "The bottom line is we wanted to make the playoffs and we've done that. There's been a number of firsts along the way and we'll go into the post-season now as the obvious underdogs.
"There's no doubt how we perform on Thursday will determine the outlook on this season, so we want to make sure we put in a good performance and regardless of the outcome, it's something people will have a positive feeling about."