If there’s one thing that being away from social media has taught me it’s that feeling the need to have an instant take about everything is a feeling we can all learn to live without.
And the same goes for this blog as well.
Wasn’t it Marcus Aurelius who said, “You always own the option of having no opinion”? Yes it was him because I googled “quotes about opinions” to find something appropriate.
Anyway, it’s been fun writing it and it’s nice to leave while the Whitecaps have a likeable team that work hard and try to play good football.
But leave I must (well maybe not “must” but I want to and that’s what matters).
Thanks to all who read, commented, criticized and praised over the years. A solid 5.5/10 for all your efforts.
(Memo to self: Just for once make a decent effort of cheking for typos!)
I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me-Bob Dylan
If there’s a defining feature of this Whitecaps season it’s their inability to control a game when in the lead.
That’s probably a feature rather than a bug of the way Sartini wants his team to play but the 2-2 tie against DC United was a textbook example of a game that Vancouver let slip away from their control, not once but twice.
The almost traditional early goal was followed by the equally traditional inability to build on it and allow an equalizer against the run of play. A pattern that was repeated in the second-half.
Maybe the hope was that signing three Canadian internationals would imbue a sense of calm when needed? But, thus far, that hasn’t materialized with none of the three making a significant contribution (other than being much needed bodies on the field).
It could even be argued that their arrival has given Sartini selection decisions that he didn’t really need to make. Laryea as right back, wing back, right sided midfielder, left sided wing back? None of those options have produced the end results required from a player purported to be heading for a DP contract nest season.
So, once again, it fell to Gauld and White to provide the clinical touch with Gauld, once again, being the main creative outlet and White, once again, demonstrating that his overall hold up play has improved exponentially this year.
The caveat to this has something to do with putting all their attacking eggs in one basket and the late arrival of Ali Ahmed showed that having a midfielder who can also offer a goal threat makes the Whitecaps far more difficult to defend against.
Still, a tie wasn’t a disaster given that all the teams around them seemed to tie as well and that means one less game for those below them to overtake the Whitecaps.
It also means one less game for the Whitecaps to get the one win they probably need to ensure a postseason berth and the two wins they probably need to ensure a favorable match up.
They just need to learn to take a deep breath every now and then.
It’s hard to know whether the Whitecaps 2-2 tie with Colorado was two points dropped or a point gained.
Probably a little bit of column A and little bit of column B.
They ended the first half a goal to the good and should have had a bigger lead. But throughout the half it felt as though they were trying to manage a game that they should have been trying to kill off. The Rapids were there for the taking but Vancouver let them off the hook
Still, if there was one thing learned from the defeat in Salt Lake it’s to be focused for the first few minutes of the second half and not allow the home team to gain a foothold back into the game.
Wait, that wasn’t the lesson learned at all as the Whitecaps started the half at a stroll (both mentally and physically) and the game was immediately back on the line.
It was no surprise when Colorado took the lead and that was partly because Sartini was too slow to make changes to a team that looked gassed as soon as that equalizer went in.
It’s hard to gauge if it was the eventual substitutes or just being able to get a goal from a set-piece that revitalized Vancouver but they ended the game looking the more likely of the two teams to score the elusive winning goal.
All this leaves them in a decent position in the standings but not in the genuinely good position that might have been.
Sartini will need to figure out his best eleven for the remaining four games but right now Raposo looks a better option than Adekugbe, Vite looks a better option than Hoilett and Laryea still has an awful lot to do to convince that he can offer an attacking threat.
Ditch the marquee signings for a crucial end of season run in?
That’s probably the best (if hardest) choice the coach can make.
Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee star in John Hillcoat’s The Road, based on Cormac McCarthy’s Pulizter Prize winning novel.
How do we sum up the 2-1 defeat to Real Salt Lake?
Well, firstly it was a very MLS game. All scrappy play and long interruptions with all three goals coming from set-pieces.
It was also a game that the Whitecaps could have won, lost or tied and you have to think on another night at least one of their volleys from inside the area would have gone in or an officiating decision would have gone another way.
But they also lacked the final killer ball for most of the game. Gauld was just off with his final passes and neither Schopf nor Vite offered any attacking thrust.
And Richie Laryea may have moved from “needs time to bed in” to “isn’t that good as an attacking threat”. Certainly not for a team that had grown used to Gressel’s confident and early delivery into the box.
Ultimately though the last two defeats have been marked by the kind of individual errors that come from spending so long on the road.
It’s not been mentioned in the media but this was Vancouver’s sixth game of a seven game road trip.
The culprit this time was Takaoka who switched off when facing a free-kick early in the second half and that allowed Salt Lake to find the belief they really didn’t have in the first.
On the positive side most of the other results on the day went well for the Whitecaps, but that Wednesday make up game in Colorado is now about trying to move away from the playoff line rather than moving away from the chasing pack.
That means Sartini has less room to rest players before the final four games of the run in and it means that the margin for error is barely a margin at all now.
The Whitecaps are still a good team but now it’s a case of making their weary minds and bodies remember just what it is they are good at.
The Whitecaps weren’t terrible against the Houston Dynamo but ended up losing 4-1 to their playoff rivals in a game that was nothing but pure frustration for Vancouver.
They probably should have started with a more robust midfield than one that contained both Ahmed and Vite but ultimately is was a deflected free-kick, some terrible defending and two goals on the break that undid them.
On another night the Whitecaps could have got more than a late consolation goal, but they seemed both physically and mentally tired when the big decisions and the right passes needed to be made.
The player to come out best from the night was Ranko Veselinovic as the central defensive stalwart was rested and was able to watch his colleagues concede three goals to a team that didn’t really offer much other than hard work.
Elsewhere Pedro Vite struggled to have an impact in the deeper role that the coach seems to believe he is best suited to.
But the Ecuadorean is at his best when further forward and able to create chances for the strikers. How he fits in to a team that has Gauld and White as a front two remains to be seen.
Two more road games to go and if the Whitecaps win one of those it’s been a hugely successful road trip to set up three of the last four games at home.
Lose then both and it all gets a lot more stressful.
My heart sank somewhat when I saw that MLS were running a piece this week on the Whitecaps (and Ryan Gauld in particular).
In seasons gone by the Whitecaps have wilted under such scrutiny. Like quantum matter they seemed to behave differently once they know they are being watched.
This iteration of the team is an oscillator of a different colour however and they continued their somewhat astonishing road form by picking up a 2-1 win in Toronto on Saturday afternoon.
The first half was all a bit meh. The home team created chances through the quality of their two Italians and the Whitecaps continually just failed to create chances with a touch or a pass that was always a tad too heavy.
When TFC scored on the break early in the second half it seemed possible that Vancouver could wilt but instead they seemed affronted that their opponents had the temerity to score and almost immediately took control of the game to run out comfortable 2-1 winners.
By the end of the match it was a case of how many the Whitecaps would score rather than any genuine concern about an against the run of play equalizer and it was frankly hilarious watching the inept Toronto team being outplayed and outworked by Gauld and White et al.
Vanni Sartini was even able to dispense with the need for a dedicated defensive midfielder (Berhalter had struggled to fill in for the absent Cubas) and still allow his players to keep Toronto at arms length.
Aside from Berhalter’s struggles it would be nice to see Richie Laryea pick the easy pass or first time cross from time to time. No need to try to dribble through three players every time he gets the ball.
But Ryan Raposo continues to be energized by the arrival of Adekugbe, once again offering far more going forward than he had earlier in the season.
Next up it’s much tougher games at Houston and Salt Lake and the Whitecaps will likely hit a setback or two given the nature of the schedule.
But this team is currently operating in a universe that seems to favour their efforts.
I’m not sure it’s possible to play a decent game of football on the Yankee Stadium pitch, but if it is neither the Whitecaps nor NYCFC managed to do so.
Still, Vancouver came away with a perfectly satisfactory point on the road to make it seven from nine from what looked to be the start of a a brutal road trip.
That point could have been more or it could have been less as both teams missed good opportunities to seal the win the game without ever really looking as though they were comfortable with the ball in the in-field.
It’s hard to pass any significant judgement on performances given the circumstances but we’re probably at the point where we can say that Mathias Laborda hasn’t turned out be the defender the Whitecaps wanted him to be.
He’s mostly passable but far too often he is off the pace of the game and that leads to yellow cards and that leads to more mistakes.
Today it was his inability to make the right decision that led to NYCFC having open space to run into and once Brown came on to replace him Vancouver looked more effective both going forwrad and at the back.
Elsewhere it was all a much of a muchness with everybody no doubt keen to get back to Vancouver for some quality home time.
The exception to that rule will be Alessandro Schopf who recently revealed that his main interest outside of football is “maybe the real estate market”.
How fascinating it must have been for tidy midfielder to compare the property markets in three different cities. And how great for teammates to spend some quality time listening to what are no doubt fascinating insights into a world they will be largely unfamiliar with.
Next up it’s yet another trip out east to visit Toronto but for now we can safely say that had you offered Vanni Sartini these seven points he would have bitten your hand off (and subsequently have been arrested).
In some ways the Whitecaps 1-0 victory over the Chicago Fire was a game of two halves.
In the first half Vancouver ran Chicago ragged with Gauld and White combining for what felt like a plethora of chances while the Fire lumbered around the pitch bereft of ideas.
When that half ended with the Whitecaps only one goal to the good there was always the nagging feeling that those missed chances would come back to bite them but ultimately the Fire didn’t have enough quality to make their mark on the game.
And so the “game of two halves” narrative was replaced by the “game of two eras” narrative.
Because, as the game went on, Chicago looked more and more like a team from the past. An MLS side who relied on the one mercurial playmaker and the big centre forward to be their attacking threat and if that doesn’t work, well that’s it, there’s no Plan B.
All options exhausted.
The Whitecaps however hustled and harried as a team, could maybe have been cleaner in some of their passing but always looked to move the ball as quickly as possible when the chance of a space opened up.
And all this without Vite or Ahmed offering much in the way of offensive threat at all.
Six points is already a satisfactory total from the first three games of this much heralded road trip and that buys them the points cushion they needed from the chasing pack.
Throw in a much needed clean sheet and this becomes a very satisfactory evening of work.
The Whitecaps beat the Timbers 3-2 thanks to a strange brew of textbook counterattacking and comic book game management.
They strolled through the first half, allowing Portland have the ball and twice hitting them with incisive breakaways and then twice allowed the home team to claw back a goal from a two goal deficit to set up a finish that really shouldn’t have been as frantic as it was.
All in all though this was a much needed win in the first of seven road games that will define the season.
Key takeways?
Laryea and Adekugbe confirmed that they are both significant upgrades, Ahmed makes a huge difference to the midfield with his willingness to run with the ball and it’s much better for Vancouver if Ryan Gauld starts every game.
And I’ve decided (for now) that Alessandro Schopf is a player whose neatness on the ball makes him invisible during games rather than the fact that he doesn’t do anything.
This win buys the team some leeway for the next two road games and if they sneak another win in one of those encounters then they will head into the international break in a good position.
It seems inevitable that eventually their inability to consistently manage a game (whether from in front or behind) will be their ultimate undoing but they will make it a fun ride to follow until it all does crash and burn (for “fun” read nerve shreddingly anxiety inducing).
The Whitecaps could have been two or three goals to the good at half time against San Jose but ended the half a goal behind.
Put those missed chances down to a combination of bad luck, good defending and a heavy touch and a poor final ball every now and then.
Debutante Richie Laryea was most at fault when it came to those final passes but he at least showed that he has the ability to be some kind of replacement for the much missed Julian Gressel.
Vancouver missed Laryea’s thrusting runs drown the right in the second half when he was replaced by fellow debutante Sam Adekugbe and, as the half wore on, the Whitecaps (much like their coach) lost their heads and began to play as individuals rather than as a team.
And maybe they need to learn to deal with the fact that the opposition will waste time if they are hanging on to a lead? Stupid challenges and touchline rants help nobody apart from the team you are trying to beat.
It’s become something of a pattern that Sartini’s substitutions tend to throw the team off kilter every now and then and that’s either down to him not making the right calls or the players not appreciating what the changes are meant to achieve.
But the squad is now deep. It needs to be used with a purpose.
This defeat isn’t a disaster but it would definitely merit a warning alert if the Whitecaps had such a function in their app that no longer exists.
So now they face a series of road games where they need to pick up more points than they have been able to do on their travels thus far.
Thev’re shown they’re good enough to do that but they’ve also shown that they are capable of falling apart when things go against them.
The missed chances tonight were costly but it may be the missed chances throughout the season that derail them from their destination.
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 