Vancouver Whitecaps involved in a game of football

The Whitecaps 1-1 tie with the San Jose Earthquakes was one of those MLS road games.

The team never gelled. Passes were mostly either under hit or over hit and when they did reach their target the target couldn’t control the ball with the first touch.

So there’s two ways of looking at the result (actually there are a myriad of ways, but two will suffice for now).

This was either a point gained on a night when the out of town scoreboard favoured the Whitecaps and the team didn’t play well. Or it was a point lost as Sartini sent out his strongest starting eleven and will now probably have to rest at least a few for the crucial game at BC Place on Wednesday against Minnesota

The main positive of the evening was the performance of Bruno Gaspar who, for perhaps the first time in a Vancouver jersey, looked capable of being a starting full back.

His goal was the icing on the cake, but the substance was in his defensive play and his ability to get forward when needed.

Suddenly Brown and Gutierrez don’t look to be the automatic choices for the starting spots.

As for the rest of the players there weren’t so much negatives as just an absence of polarity. Neither here nor there. Just hustle and bustle with no real end product.

Only time will tell if this was a point gained or a point dropped but, for now, it’s best to just move on and never think of this game again.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-6, Gaspar-6*-Dajome-4.5, Veselinovic-5, Godoy-5.5, Jungwirth-5-Teibert-4, Owusu-4.5, Gauld-5, Caicedo-3, White-4