This is the way the season ends, this is the way the season ends…
It’s probably fitting that the Whitecaps ended their 2022 campaign with a lacklustre effort in a must win game.
After all, they were lucky to be given the chance of making the post-season given how poor they had been for so many games this year but, even so, there was something enervating about seeing the team play with so little vigour or imagination.
Consistently floating crosses into a a central defensive pair who like floated crosses was always going to be a losing strategy and the inability to get either Gauld or Vite on the ball in dangerous areas coupled with the inability to keep the ball for more than two passes at a time (that might even be a generous assessment) they allowed a tanking Minnesota team to find their feet and play the game out in comfort.
There will be time enough in the coming weeks to look at why this Vancouver team failed to ascend to the heights that were within their reach, but this game did at least offer a snapshot of what has gone wrong.
Lack of courage on the ball and in the team selection and an inability to adapt to the in game circumstances as they arose.
The Canadian Championship win means this wasn’t a disastrous season.
But the Whitecaps remain in their role of bit part players in the story of the MLS season, glad to be of use but almost, at times, the fools.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Hasal-4.5, Nerwinski-3.5, Martins-3.5, Veselinovic-3.5, Blackmon-3.5, Gressel-3, Cubas-5.5*, Teibert-1, Vite-4.5, Gauld-5.5, White-3 (cavallini-3, Berhalter-3)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 