After the surprisingly positive performance against LAFC last week I ended my sparkling review of the Whitecaps win with the line “Now they just need to bring the same energy to a Friday night game against Minnesota”.
It’s amazing what truth can be gleaned from a desperate attempt to find a pithy ending to a blog post because reader, they did not bring the same energy.
What they brought instead was the more typical half-hearted attempts to press for a goal and an over reliance on being able to defend competently.
But one moment of quality did produce a goal for Cavallini in the second half and it would have been preferable/nice/wise if Vancouver saw that as an opportunity to build on their advantage and press for that rarest of beasts, a second goal.
They did not do this.
Instead they fell victim to believing their own publicity concerning their defensive prowess and simply allowed the visitors to score three unanswered goals without offering a shot in anger themselves for the rest of the game.
The absence of Cubas for the second half certainly didn’t help but the Whitecaps are built this way.
They are built to eke out wins by the odd goal while relying on fate and an abundance of defensive midfielders to see them through.
That’s why they will never reach the upper section of the Conference table.
Too happy to to settle for adequacy and live in the hope that the breaks go their way, too content to pas the ball in safe areas and not brave enough to try any take any game by the scruff of the neck.
Maybe a giant picture of Max Crepeau should be hung behind each goal to persuade the team that they still have something to prove and that working to win games is preferable to being afraid of losing them?
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Cropper-4, Godinho-4, Dajome-3, Nerwinski-3, Brown-5, Veselinovic-4.5, Teibert 2, Cubas-5, Vite-5*, Gauld-4.5, White-4 (Owusu-3, Cavlalini-4, Raposo-3.5)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 