Was that better or worse than the 6-0 loss in Kansas City?
I’m going to say that losing 1-0 to poor team who were injury ridden and reduced to ten men is worse.
Ironically the Whitecaps started the game quite well with Blondell showing good movement and Davies and Levis looking a twin threat on the left.
But then they settled back down to the familiar pattern of sitting deep and not really being able to pass the ball.
The second-half began sluggishly but Vancouver were thrown an unexpected lifeline thanks to a deserved red card for Toye after a monumentally stupid elbow on Waston.
Those of us who watch the Whitecaps regularly soon became a little concerned that Minnesota would sit deep and our heroes would be unable to break them down resulting in a tedious goalless stalemate.
But it turned out we had set our sights too high!
The whole of the back-line mentally switched off to allow the home team to take the lead and that was that (and it was reminder that lack of mental discipline isn’t just related to red cards).
There were a couple of decent efforts from Reyna and Shea that could have gone in on another day but “could” and “should” really shouldn’t apply in a game like that.
The real problem was that the Whitecaps can’t break down any kind of deep-lying defence because they can’t pass and move effectively.
Worse than that, they can’t even just move effectively.
It’s one thing to set a team up as a counterattacking low possession side but it’s quite another to produce a team simply incapable of one of the most basic facets of the game.
Particularly when that issue has lingered for years.
But we did at least get to see Kamara and Waston both standing together up front as they watched cross after cross sail over their heads.
No doubt we’ll now be subjected to a week of media appearances where everybody at the club very seriously asserts that lessons will be learned from this and the team will come back stronger and that the boys have responded really well in training.
Then we have to go through the hell of watching them play again.
Time for the Soccer Shorts Player Ratings-
Marinovic-5, Franklin-5, Waston-5, Aja-5, Levis-5, Ghazal-4, Felipe-4, Davies-5*, Ibini-4, Mezquida-5, Blondell-5, (Reyna-5, Kamara-4, Shea-4)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 