From last night but with additional sighs of desperation.
Last season the Vancouver Whitecaps were awful in the first hall of every game and it cost them a bucket load of points.
It was a problem that needed to be solved.
The good news is that they’ve solved it.
The bad news is that they’ve solved it by being awful in the second half instead.
As with last week against RSL the Whitecaps were good for the first forty-five minutes and then allowed the game to drift away from them in the second. And the key word here is “drift”. It wasn’t taken from them by San Jose, they simply allowed it to wander away because they are incapable of even the most basic of in game management.
It’s tough to guess at what Sartini is saying to his players during the half time break, but the most likely answer is that he is telling them to stop passing the ball so crisply and to cut out those pesky attacks on the opponents goals.
In his post game media session Sartini said that he wanted his team to play in the same way as the first half. He needs to figure out why they aren’t listening to him.
At least this week he reacted to the in game situation by making changes. The problem is that the changes almost immediately made things worse.
And thus far in his brief Whitecaps career Sergio Cordova looks like the exact kind of forward the team don’t need. A big man up front who will persuade the rest of the team to lump the ball forward and bypass the better players in the middle of the pitch.
That’s probably harsh on a striker who has played less than forty-five minutes. But it does speak to the inability of the team to manage a game.
A penny too for the thoughts of Ryan Gauld. He looked thoroughly fed up with the situation in his post game comments last week and he cut a forlorn figure during that mess of a second half tonight.
Gauld also looked to have picked up an injury but if the Whitevaps best player stopped buying what the coach is selling that’s a real problem.
And Sartini?
Maybe he’s just a bad Champions League exit away from being shown the door?
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Takaoka-5.5, Brown-5, Martins-3.5, Veselinovic-5, Laborda-5, Martins-3, Cubas-5, Gressel-5, Schopff-5.5* Vite-4, Gauld-4, White-3.5 (Cordova-2)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 