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It’s Canada Day!

And, like you, I will celebrating by watching soccer for almost all of the day.

And is there any bigger game than the visit of the Colorado Rapids to BC Place?

Congratulations! You gave the correct answer and therefore win the chance to read the following “Things to look out for in this game”.

Discipline- The 4-0 loss to the Philadelphia Union cost the Vancouver Whitecaps the services of Jose Aja (red card), Yordy Reyna (red card) and as we discovered on news dump Friday, Cristian Techera (three game ban for offensive language).

So will the lessons be learned from that debacle of indiscipline? Well, lack of control isn’t a new thing for this squad so we should probably take Carl Robinson’s assertion that this will be addressed with a pinch of salt.

The litmus test will be if the coaching staff can somehow bring themselves to concentrate on the actual game rather than frequently throwing tantrums at the officials.

If the supposed leaders in the locker room can’t control their behaviour then don’t expect the players to.

Formation- The switch to the more attacking 4-4-2 was a response to a series of poor results rather than a change of Robinson’s tactical heart.

So will all those goals conceded give him the urge to switch to something more comforting?

It’s hard to believe that will be the case against one of the worst teams in MLS but the next road trip may well see the return of two defensive midfielders and a more protected back four.

Canadian content- It would be madness for anybody to pressure the coach into playing players just because the club was promoting a certain theme.

But Alphonso Davies is a shoe in to start and one of de Jong or Levis has to be preferred to Brek Shea after his performance at left back last weekend.

So that just leaves Russell Teibert hanging around to take a look at the team sheet.

Teibert’s play this season means he has a pretty good case to be in the starting eleven but he’s fallen out of favour for some reason so chances are he’ll be riding the pine (fake leatherette).

Kendall Waston- Will the captain get a start? That seems highly unlikely given the emotions of playing and scoring in a World Cup game (and is there any team less “World Cuppy” than the Rapids?) so that means Henry and Maund should start in the centre of defence.

Safe to say that if Maund doesn’t start in this game then his exclusion becomes stranger and stranger given how decent he’s been when he has played.

Not stellar, but definitely decent.

Bounce back game- The Whitecaps really need this. As things stand the best they can realistically hope for is a fifth place finish in the Western Conference and they won’t achieve even that if they drop points at home to the likes of Colorado.

So this is yet another chance to make amends for a previous failure.

Try and match that kind of drama FIFA!