Performance in sports humbles predictions. This year I have been wrong on the misfortunes of the Vancouver Canucks and BC Lions and good fortunes of the Toronto Blue Jays and Vancouver Whitecaps. I’m 0-for-4 on my favourite teams.

Business in sport, though, is clearer. Winning drives the business (Toronto Maple Leafs, excepted). The on-field ledger this season for the Whitecaps has been made clear now for months: on a thrifty roster, Vancouver has lived near the top of the West, punching above its payroll but missing one obvious piece to take it to new business heights.

That piece was shipped this week from Germany. Thomas Müller joining the Whitecaps is the franchise’s biggest bet ever—a business-sport inflection on the field, in the books, and in the city’s imagination.

Müller, the 17

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