How do we sum up the 2-1 defeat to Real Salt Lake?
Well, firstly it was a very MLS game. All scrappy play and long interruptions with all three goals coming from set-pieces.
It was also a game that the Whitecaps could have won, lost or tied and you have to think on another night at least one of their volleys from inside the area would have gone in or an officiating decision would have gone another way.
But they also lacked the final killer ball for most of the game. Gauld was just off with his final passes and neither Schopf nor Vite offered any attacking thrust.
And Richie Laryea may have moved from “needs time to bed in” to “isn’t that good as an attacking threat”. Certainly not for a team that had grown used to Gressel’s confident and early delivery into the box.
Ultimately though the last two defeats have been marked by the kind of individual errors that come from spending so long on the road.
It’s not been mentioned in the media but this was Vancouver’s sixth game of a seven game road trip.
The culprit this time was Takaoka who switched off when facing a free-kick early in the second half and that allowed Salt Lake to find the belief they really didn’t have in the first.
On the positive side most of the other results on the day went well for the Whitecaps, but that Wednesday make up game in Colorado is now about trying to move away from the playoff line rather than moving away from the chasing pack.
That means Sartini has less room to rest players before the final four games of the run in and it means that the margin for error is barely a margin at all now.
The Whitecaps are still a good team but now it’s a case of making their weary minds and bodies remember just what it is they are good at.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Takaoka-4, Brown-5, Veselinovic-5, Blackmon-4.5, Cubas-5, Laryea-2, Raposo-4.5, Schopf-3, Vite-4.5, Gauld-5.5*, White-4.5 (Hoilett-3, Ahmed-3.5, Adekugbe-3).
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 