Vancouver Whitecaps: Driving in their car

Is their any love greater than the love of a driver for a really good rental car?

That thrill as the shock of unfamiliarity melts into the excitement of the new and as the initial sense of dislocation and confusion gives way to the right switches always being flicked and buttons being pushed.

And then, just when it all seems perfect, the unspoken sense of an ending descends into the interior and suddenly it’s over.

And yet, although it only lasted a few days, the sheer density of the relationship seems to have bent and stretched the time spent together into meaninglessness.

And the best thing of all is that there’s no bitterness upon parting. No recriminations, just the two going their separate ways secure in the knowledge it always had to be this way.

Maybe in the coming weeks and months the outline of a familiar form will be glimpsed from the corner of the eye, but it won’t be them. In your heart you know it can’t be them.

But that won’t stop the Proustian rush of mountain roads and ocean sprays circling the synapses for a second or two before the real world reasserts itself once again.

And, in almost no way imaginable, isn’t being the coach of a soccer team a bit like being the driver of a rental car?

Trying to figure out what goes where and how to get the best out of this strange and unpredictable beast without the whole thing grinding to screeching and disastrous halt.

Safe to say if we extend this metaphor to Carl Robinson he would be the kind of driver who, no matter what car he was allotted or how many free upgrades he received, would immediately set the cruise control to 58 mph and sit in the passing lane of the freeway oblivious to the tirade of abus from other motorists.

Slow and steady might not win the race but it gets you there in almost the exact time predicted by Google Maps and that’s a victory of sorts.

Except that now he’s started to experiment with putting his foot on the gas occasionally. Maybe even using the passing lane for passing instead of it being just a really nice drive because you never have to think about overtaking any other vehicle.

Sure, he’s occasionally setting the windshield wipers to maximum when he’s really trying to find the AOR channel on the radio and his discomfort is apparent whenever his attempts to open a window result in the gas cap popping open, but at least the car is going somewhere close to the speed it should.

But do you know what the best thing about driving these days is?

The car pretty much does all the work itself.

It’s smart enough to let you know if another vehicle is in your blind spot, won’t force you to turn your head when reversing and will sound a shrill warning if the traffic in front is getting too close.

In other words, the best way to drive a modern car is just to get in and do as little as possible.

And right now Robinson has a squad of players who seem capable enough of figuring things out for themselves when they are on the field. All he really has to do is make sure there’s enough gas in the tank and the oil is changed at the right times and the rest will pretty much take care of itself.

No car will ever fully function to its potential with a passive driver at the wheel but better that than a driver who perpetually has their foot resting gently on the brake pedal for fear of something going wrong.

Less is almost certainly more when it comes to this coach and this team it seems.