Vancouver Whitecaps are a marvel against DC

On Friday the Vancouver Whitecaps sent shock waves through the sporting world by SENSATIONALLY announcing they were DEFINITELY THINKING about putting together a job description in an effort to ALMOST CERTAINLY recruit a new Sporting Director.

This radical change would be stasis by addition however, because EVERYBODY ELSE involved in the running of the club would stay exactly where they were.

With the sole exception of Bobby Lenarduzzi who would move from the somewhat vague role of Club President to the somewhat vague role of Club Liaison.

It’s a little known fact that “Liaison” is a word that, by law, can only be used in conjunction with the phrase “Internal and external stakeholders”.

With all this off the field excitement it’s no wonder a larger than expected crowd turned up at BC Place to watch the Whitecaps take on DC United

And, fortunately, they were treated to both a Whitecaps win and a thoroughly entertaining game.

Marc Dos Santos kept his team unchanged from the defeat in Portland and, once they had overcome their initial consternation at being on the same pitch as Wayne Rooney, and also realized that keeping the ball on the floor was much a better idea than hitting high balls to DC’s towering defenders they began to create chances.

With Yordy Reyna once again being the standout player.

One of the glimmers of hope for next season is that Dos Santos has both identified the best position for Reyna and coaxed consistent performances from him.

Having a coach who can improve players is crucial to way the Whitecaps see their path to success.

The same goes for Hwang In-Beom too.

It took the coach time to discover his best role but now the South Korean is putting in consistently impressive performances from his deeper lying role.

The biggest concern going into this game was that the presence of Russell Teibert and Felipe in opposition would somehow cause the Universe to collapse in on itself and we would all be left trapped in an infinitesimal ball of anti-matter with the concepts of Time and Space no longer applying.

Luckily that didn’t happen, with both players having perfectly decent games and Teibert even turning with the ball toward the opposition area and playing the pass to Reyna to create the winning goal.

It’s felt like a long time since the Whitecaps produced an enjoyable game for the home crowd to savour (because it is a long time) but if they can play with the same fervour and willingness to take chances for the rest of the year then the whole season won’t be a complete washout.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-6, Nerwinski-6, Adnan-5.5, Godoy-6, Cornelius-6, Teibert-6, In-Beom-6.5, Rose-5.5, Montero-5, Bair-5, Reyna-7*  (Henry-6)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vancouver Whitecaps find fun from nowhere

From yesterday but now with additional unseasonal periods of rain.

If the Vancouver Whitecaps aren’t going to make the playoffs this season (They’re not) then at least let them continue not making the playoffs in the manner of their 3-1 loss to the Portland Timbers on Saturday evening.

This wasn’t the Whitecaps of a few weeks ago; all half-hearted effort and tactical ineptitude.

This was a team who had some idea about what they were doing and even believed in that idea.

And a large part of that turnaround has been down to Hwang In-Beom.

The South Korean began his tenure in Vancouver brightly, but then seemed overwhelmed by the physical excesses of MLS and underwhelmed by the technical abilities of some of his teammates.

Nobody can argue the Whitecaps don’t need new players, but these recent performances of In-Beom have highlighted just how shallow the team are in midfield, with neither Teibert nor Rose offering anything of value other than work rate.

Give In-Beom two effective players alongside him and Vancouver become a different team.

But, of late, he has been a player reborn.

Maybe it’s to do with him getting used to the league or maybe it’s because he’s being played in a much deeper position? But he suddenly looks like a genuine difference maker.

He wants the ball, he takes time on the ball when he can and he moves the ball quickly when he needs to and (And this is a revelation for a Whitecaps midfielder) he’s always looking for the forward pass, always twisting his body shape to the opposition goal rather than his own.

That must make life so much more fulfilling for somebody like Yordy Reyna who is constantly making runs to unsettle the opposition defence, just that knowledge that the player on the ball is aware of those runs and has the ability to find him must make the Peruivan’s heart sing.

As with In-Beom the Peruvian is in desperate need of quality alongside him. There was a moment in the second half when Reyna chased and won yet another forward pass and stood with the ball knowing he would have no support.

Then he was astonished to see that Theo Bair had made a run into the box and was available for a pass.

It almost resulted in a goal, but Reyna’s surprise was indicative of what a lone furrow he has been ploughing all season.

Elsewhere Theo Bair scored a magnificent goal but still looked as though he has a lot to learn with the ball at his feet.

Once Ali Adnan went off injured both Jake Nerwinsky and Brett Levis got into good positions but couldn’t cross the ball effectively and Fredy Montero continued to not really care when the ball wasn’t at his feet and to want to take his ball away when another teammate wanted to take a set-piece.

Is this too harsh on Montero? Maybe we’re in the same kind of subconscious reinforcement that occurs everytime Teibert passes the ball backwards?

But, at the very least, Montero does not look like a captain on the field.

Oh and the Whitecaps continued their policy (It has to be a deliberate policy right?) of allowing opponents to shoot at will from just outside the box and it failed them miserably.

But this is all a huge improvement on what has gone before and the Whitecaps have now played two consecutive games of football that were enjoyable to watch.

Heady days indeed!

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-5, Nerwinski-5, Godoy-6, Cornelius-6, Adnan-5, In-Beom-6.5*, Teibert-5, Rose-4.5, Bair-5.5, Montero-3.5, Reyna-6 (Levis-4.5)

 

Vancouver Whitecaps are happy. Hope you’re happy too?

Nobody could look at the tie in Minnesota and the win in Cincinnati and think that all was suddenly well in the world of the Vancouver Whitecaps.

But what they could do, if they really tried, was to think that the task of rebuilding this team wasn’t quite so insurmountable as it appeared during the summer horribilis we have all endured.

Certainly the defence seems to have found its coherence again (And is Derek Cornelius the unsung hero of the team this year? Never first choice in central defence but never looking out of place) and even the midfield is finding a semblance of substance.

More than substance really.

Hwang In-Beom has found his role playing deep in a manner that both allows him to see the game in front of him and removes him from the sterner challenges of the centre of the park.

And both Teibert and Felipe have been so much more effective than at any time previous.

It’s hard to imagine either of them being regular starters next season, but to see them combine for the winning goal was both enjoyable and somehow slightly hilarious (especially as Teibert still managed to turn an assist into a backwards pass).

But, oh dear, the forward line.

Theo Bair is still not an MLS player on any showing he has given thus far and Fredy Montero is a shadow of the player he once was.

Whether that is attitude or aptitude is up for debate, but easy passes are over hit and when the ball arrives at his feet in the penalty area he has become a kind of Darren Mattocks tribute act; all hasty first touches and wrong decisions.

There was a time when the game slowed down for Montero when he received the ball in a dangerous position. Now it just feels as though it’s him that has slowed down in every area of his play.

And then there’s Joaquin Ardaiz.

Marc Dos Santos has been critical of the Uruguayan’s attitude almost since he arrived in Vancouver and maybe it’s that attitude that has made his teammates mistrust him and so avoid giving him the ball, or maybe he’s just disconnected from them in other ways?

Whatever the answer there seems little point in playing Ardaiz at this stage of the season unless a warm body is needed for some reason.

Better to give Theo the opportunity to demonstrate that he can become better than hope Joaquin rises like a phoenix from the ashes of a season that is already dead.

New signings and the return of Yordy Reyna will make the forward line better (it could not be worse) and although this season will still go down as possibly (probably) the worst in the Whitecaps MLS era there are at least signs that the foundations Dos Santos has to build on are sitting somewhere near sea level rather than deep in the depths of despair that seemed to be the case a couple of weeks ago.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-6, Nerwinski-5,5, Cornelius-6, Godoy-6, Adnan-6, In-Beom-6*, Teibert-6, Felipe-6, Bair-3, Montero-3, Ardaiz-2 

 

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Vancouver Whitecaps give it all they got

From yesterday but now with some MLS quality additions.

We’re grading on a curve here, but the Vancouver Whitecaps 0-0 tie in Minnesota was one of the more accomplished performances of the season and a vast improvement on anything else they have done since May.

Marc dos Santos mixed things up by trying the Christmas Tree formation and, miracle of miracles, it actually worked.

This formation is very much not the one that Dos Santos has said he wants to play long term, but needs must when the devil drives and if  it somehow instills a sense of belief into the team for the remainder of the year and leaves the off  season more about adding to the squad than rebuilding shattered confidence then it will do.

All season the Whitecaps midfield has existed in a state of purgatory; neither able to offer attacking assistance to the forwards nor defensive cover for the defenders.

And anybody who saw the names of Felipe, In-Beom and Teibert announced as starters will have been left in little doubt that a transition to a footballing nirvana was not likely any time soon.

And yet.

All three played with a level of simplicity and effectiveness we haven’t seen all season. That’s probably down to the fact that, in this game, they had options when they  were on the ball and weren’t forced to play either a one in a hundred chance pass forward or a simple pass back that just leads the team nowhere.

It’s amazing how much easier the game can be when players do the basics right.

Oh to have been a fly on the wall in the Whitecaps dressing room over recent weeks because it’s clear that something happened to completely alter the DNA of the team. Dos Santos is quick to claim the Gold Cup for the loss of focus but the issue seems to have run deeper than that. The next big test will be when they concede a goal. Do they revert to the shambolic indifference of recent weeks or are they back to being made of something stronger?

The Whitecaps even offered the possibility they might score a goal with Fredy Montero looking livelier than he has in months, and Yordy Reyna always being willing to run at the opposition defence with the ball at his feet.

Theo Bair still looks out of place in the starting eleven however, but maybe time and confidence are all he needs?

The three main areas in which Vancouver need to upgrade their squad are a forward who can produce more than Montero, a midfielder who likes to get into the box and score goals and a right back who can attack in a manner similar to Ali Adnan. Those three changes wouldn’t make them unbeatable, but they would make them a decent MLS side.

None of this means all is well in the world of Whitecaps of course.

This club still has more issues than Vogue, but everybody needed at least a hint that the on field problems weren’t irredeemable beyond repair and the hope now has to be that Dos Santos can use the next two road games to establish a playing system that works and thereby convince his players to fully buy into it.

Oh to have been a spider on the wall of the Whitecaps locker room in recent weeks. Not least because there’s a nice juicy fly in there, but also to see how the coaching staff dealt with the way the players switched off from what they were being told. Dos Santos gives the impression that his coaching style is based on talking and listening to players rather than hammering them in to how he wants them to play. Is this the first time in his career that a group of players have needed to be hammered and not heard? Whatever the truth of that it’s clearly a learning curve he needs to get through.

The season is over in terms of achieving anything of note, but at least we might be able to see the hint of the outline of the shadow of a blueprint of what we can possibly, perhaps, maybe expect next season.

That’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got and it’s more than we had before this game.

Time for the Soccer Shorts Player Ratings.

Crepeau-6, Nerwinski-5, Adnan-6, Henry-5, Cornelius-6, In-Beom-6, Felipe-6*, Teibert-5.5, Bair-4.5, Reyna-5.5, Montero-5.5 (Godoy-6)

 

 

 

Vancouver Whitecaps go down the rabbit hole

Perhaps the real tragedy of the Vancouver Whitecaps being eliminated from the Canadian Championship by Cavalry FC is that I had planned to write quite a funny blog if they had won.

Not hilarious. But just amusing enough to convey the impression that I was putting some thought into the thing.

But instead of that, we get this.

More darkness.

Just vast, unending darkness stretching into the eternal void of night.

And what else is there to say?

Vancouver were outworked (and outplayed!) by a team that is theoretically inferior to them and almost nobody at BC Place was surprised by that.

And if the players don’t even have enough professional pride to put in a performance in a game like that then what hope is there?

And if the coach can’t instill enough professional pride into his team to put in a performance in a game like that then what hope is there?

Those are rhetorical questions by the way, because there is no hope while the people who run this club continue to do so.

Because they clearly have no professional pride either.

If they did they wouldn’t still be around after so many seasons of failing to follow up on promises, shirking the tough decisions in favour of an easy life and offering jam tomorrow when it came to investment.

It’s always the next transfer window that will be the best one to make a move for the Whitecaps, never this one.

And if this was anything even approaching a half competent organization changes would already have been made.

And if this was even a quarter competent organization changes would definitely be made after the debacle of a season we have witnessed so far.

But changes won’t come. We’ve been through this movie before and we know that.

The people responsible for what the Whitecaps have degenerated into will continue to  skulk in the shadows and ask us to “believe in the process” and throw up their hands in horror when anybody even dare question their commitment to the cause.

And then they sit back down and watch their (no, our) empire crumble into dust and don’t even have the decency to feel even a modicum of shame.

On the positive side the team can now concentrate on the league!

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-3, Nerwisnki-2, Adnan-2, Godoy-3, Henry-3, Rose-2, Felipe-2, In-Beom-4*, Bangoura-2, Reyna-4, Bair-3 (Venuto-3, Ardaiz-3)

 

 

Whitecaps lose: Something, something, blah, blah, blah

From yesterday but now with additional tactical naivety.

It’s hard to know which is worse.

Watching the Whitecaps lose when the players aren’t really giving their all, or watching them lose when they are.

They are each probably equally bad in their own specific way and Saturday’s 3-1 defeat to the San Jose earthquakes was another nail in the coffin of a season that is now more iron than pine.

At least the game started well, with Vancouver getting an early goal from a set-piece (of course  a set-piece) but then things began to form a familiar pattern.

For sure this team is mentally fragile as Dos Santos keeps saying, but they now seem to be so mentally fragile that scoring a goal affects them as badly as conceding one. They pressed and harried San Jose for the first few minutes and got their reward. What is it in their psyche that makes them think “Well that worked, but now let’s revert to the style of play that has failed us miserably over the last few weeks”?

I do not have the answer to this question.

San Jose pressed and the Whitecaps sat deep. San Jose pressed some more and the Whitecaps sat deeper still, until every cross was pinging around the six yard box and creating more mayhem than a group of pensioners with only five minutes left on the early bird special at an all you can eat buffet.

And so the San Jose goals came and the Whitecaps went in at the half with a one goal deficit.

But that wasn’t too bad.

They had made the Earthquakes work for their spoils and recent games had featured something of a revival for Vancouver in the second period, so we settled in for the rest of the game with hope (if not belief) in our hearts.

Our hearts were telling us lies.

The visitors dominated from the get go. Firing shots and winning corners at will and, by the end, the 3-1 scoreline flattered a home team who didn’t give up, but had nothing to offer to counter their opponents.

The best case scenario is that Dos Santos is indulging in the footballing equivalent of a sacrificial blood letting. Allowing the evil demons to escape BC Place through suffering and chaos and then appeasing the gods before a pre-season cleansing ceremony that allows this team to start afresh.

But that scenario is a long shot to be fair.

Random thoughts on the game?

Every time a San Jose player was in possession he had options to pass to and one of those options was almost always a forward ball.

When a Vancouver player was in possession they had nothing to aim for but a high and hopeful ball forward or a safe and simple back pass.

And that difference isn’t about the salary cap or signing a big name player. That’s about the very basics of the game.

But all too often the gap between the Whitecaps midfield and their forward line is almost a third of the pitch (more at times) and there’s no way a team can create meaningful chances playing in such a way and it’s baffling why such a simple issue hasn’t been addressed.

And while replacing Kei Kamara with Fredy Montero made some kind of sense at the start of the season, it’s now richly ironic that the Whitecaps have ended up playing in a fashion that would make the most of Kamara’s talents.

Just getting Hwang In-Beom to stand on the attacking side of the centre circle and never drift deeper would create more headaches for opposition defences than how he is currently being used.

Lass Bangoura looked like nothing more than a Dollarama Yordy Reyna, relying on pace to make up for his lack of first touch or overall awareness. Jake Nerwinski will never be an attacking full back and if Dos Santos wants the right side to mirror Ali Adnan then an upgrade is seriously needed.

Oh, and the substitutions made no sense.

Bringing on two tall central attackers and Felipe was very much the mark of a coach who is just hoping that something will work right now.

In many ways that was the most concerning aspect of the game. Perhaps the theory was to use Ardaiz and Bair to hold up the ball and for Felipe to help the midfield keep some kind of possession?

But in practice it was a mess.

Still, it was definitely an improvement on the Kansas game, so there is that.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-5.5, Nerwinski-3, Henry-4, Godoy-5, Adnan-5, Eriece-4.5, In-Beom-5, Teibert-4, bangours-3, Montero-4, Reyna-5.5* (Ardaiz-3.5, Felipe-3.5)

 

 

Vancouver Whitecaps: In every day, in every way…

You know things are really bad when a 4-0 defeat leaves you thinking, “Hmm, that was a little bit better actually.”

Not that there was anything all that good about the Vancouver Whitecaps loss to the New England Revolution on Wednesday evening, but there was at least a spell in the second half when they looked interested in scoring a goal and in which Hwang In-Beom showed flashes of the player he can be.

All quick first passes and incisive balls forward.

On another day (in another season maybe) Theo Bair’s shot in the early stages of the second half would have crept just inside the post instead of bouncing away from the goal and the game would have been a different story.

But it hasn’t been the Whitecaps day in a long, long time and this is very much not going to be their season so the shot stayed out and Vancouver huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow the Revolution down and a late flurry of goals gave the scoreline a very one sided look.

But that’s because, taken in the round, it was a very one sided game.

With the Whitecaps surpassing themselves in terms of lack of ambition in the first half as they conceded a gazillion shots against to zero for.

Zero shots!

Teams do better than that when they are playing the likes of Barcelona and Manchester City.

And this mini revival theme after going behind is becoming a little wearing. Either step up from the start or don’t bother stepping up at all.

But perhaps the only good thing about this recent cataclysmic series of results is that it may even persuade the vacuous and insipid souls who haunt the corridors of the Whitecaps Front Office to do more than mouth platitudes and live their lives as something akin to a permanent shrug of indifference that something needs to change and that that something has to be more than taking a chance on the type of player who once looked good when he played eight games in the Belgian top tier in 2013.

We shouldn’t hold our breath in that regard, but you would need a heart of stone and a brain of bone not to see that this squad needs more than just a tune up.

Like I said, don’t hold your breath.

Next up it’s the bang in form Earthquakes, followed by a nerve shredding home game against Cavalry FC and then three tough road games.

So the situation just isn’t going to get better quickly no matter what happens off the field.

You know how else you can tell things are really bad?

The team concede four goals and the goalkeeper is their best player.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!

Crepeau-6*, Nerwinski-3, Sutter-3, Cornelius-4.5, Godoy-5, Rose-4.5, In-Beom-5.5, Teibert-3, Venuto-4.5, Reyna-4, Bair-4 (Lass-3.5, Montero-3)

 

Vancouver Whitecaps eschew the path to glory

In their last three games the Vancouver Whitecaps have lost 5-1 to LAFC, tied 0-0 with Cavalry FC and lost 3-0 to Sporting Kansas City.

Each one of those is a bad result in its own individually tortuous way, but perhaps the most painful thing of all is that in every one of those games the opposition have played as a team and the Whitecaps have played like, well, not a team.

The defence has no meaningful connection to the midfield, the midfield exists more as a performance art project than a functioning entity on a soccer field and the forward line is comprised of Yordy Reyna chasing everything down in a vain attempt at relevance.

In retrospect it feels as though that last minute goal they conceded in Seattle way back when broke this team.

Broke its belief in its own system and broke its belief in its own sense of progress (On a side note it also broke my TV remote control as I slammed it against the couch in frustration. A moment I now think of as an homage to the opening scene of Stanley Kubrick’s seminal film “2001: A Space Odyssey” rather than the hapless act of somebody who needs to get some perspective on life).

Anyway, against Kansas Marc Dos Santos tried to reboot things by bringing in a PC and a Mac.

The former was a desperate attempt to turn the life sapping enervation of watching Felipe and Russell Teibert (sometimes both!) turn every possible forward pass into its direct opposite and it didn’t work.

PC wasn’t quite as unaware of the notion of ball progression as his forebears, but his contribution was negligible at best and certainly offered nothing in terms of creating chances.

The Mac decision was a tad more controversial.

Max Crepeau has been the Whitecaps best player this season, so to leave him out of a game the team simply had to win to even pretend the playoffs were still a possibility was odd.

In his post game presser Dos Santos claimed that the idea to start MacMath was based on the upcoming tough schedule, but he really did need to put out his best team for the Kansas game and his decision backfired spectacularly.

MacMath made a few decent saves, but was clearly at fault for the second Kansas goal that well and truly doused the flame of any possible Vancouver comeback.

The coach also gave young Theo Bair his first MLS start and while Bair did well initially it was obvious by as early as the sixtieth minute that he wasn’t going to change the game.

Which begs the question as to why Ardaiz wasn’t used until the eighty-ninth minute.

Whatever the reason the Uruguayan can surely now be consigned to another of those Whitecaps signings that make us all scratch our heads and ask “You know, that guy they had on loan for a season, he was a young DP, but never really played? What was his name?”

In defence of Dos Santos he doesn’t have too many players who can change games right now and some of his decisions were probably down to a sense of simply tinkering around the edges in the hope that something might work rather than the wholesale changes he must know are needed.

Yet being outplayed is one thing and being outspent is another, but the Whitecaps are now beginning to be outworked in games and that can’t be allowed to stand.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

MacMath-4, Nerwinski-5, Adnan-5,5, Godoy-5, Rose-4.5, Henry-5, Erice-4.5, PC-4, In-Beom-4.5, Bair-4.5, Reyna-5.5*

 

Vancouver Whitecaps hold their horses

Editor: I need five hundred words on Cavalry against the Whitecaps. Stat!

Me: Wait, do you want words or stats?

Editor: Stop using stupid jokes to up your word count. Give me the copy now.

Me: The copy of what?

Editor: Your resignation letter if you don’t do it sharpish.

Me: But nothing happened.

Editor: Something must have happened!

Me: But it didn’t. Literally nothing happened throughout the whole game.

Editor: We don’t pay you the big bucks to come up with nothing. Think man!

Me: Well, there was horse.

Editor: Yes, yes, yes! That’s good, an animal. People love reading about animals.

Me: It got a bit lively.

Editor: During the game?

Me: No, before. During the anthem.

Editor: Wait! So this horse disrespected the Canadian national anthem?

Me: Well….

Editor: You’re saying it disrespected the anthem and looked as though it were about to charge into the spectators?

Me: That’s not really how it….

Editor: Sounds like a pre-planned attack. How many other horses were there?

Me: Quite a few. The team name is Cavalry so it’s sort of their thing.

Editor: So a group of horses gathered at an iconic Canadian sporting venue and were only thwarted from making an all out assault on the spectators thanks to the heroic actions of a single rider?

Me: I mean…

Editor: Try and get a quote from a Government official. Ask them what plans they have in place to stop this increasingly dangerous equine menace.

Me: I don’t think that’s necessary or the appropriate reaction to what was really an incredibly minor incident.

Editor: It’s either that or write abut the game?

Me: I’ll get right on it.

Editor: Good man! I always said you were the finest of the lot of us.

Me: Wait a minute.

Editor: What now?

Me: I don’t have an editor.

Editor: Don’t be ridiculous man. I’m right here.

Me: No you aren’t.

Editor: Yes I am.

Me: No you aren’t.

Editor: Yes I am.

Me: No you aren’t.

Editor: Look, I see what you’re doing here. You’re just using up your word count by repeating the same phrases over and over and over and over and and over and over.

Me: (Sniggers)

Editor: What’s happening? Why am I repeating the same phrases over and over again? Tell me! Why am I repeating the same phrases over and over again?

Me: Because you aren’t real.

Editor: Nonsense!

Me: It’s true. I can make you say anything I want you to say.

Editor: Absolute rubbish. You can make me say anything you want me to say. Wait! What was that? Why did I say that?

Me: I made you say it. I control everything about you.

Editor: This is most disturbing. But what a great story. Forget the game and the horses! We will run with “Imaginary editor demands player ratings for a game that everybody who watched it will already have forgotten”.

Me: That’s better.

Editor: You really are great you know? Stop making me say things! You are so wonderful. Stop it at once and give me those player ratings!

Me: Okay, okay. Calm down

Editor: So sorry about that honey bun. Stop this now and remove me from this godforsaken reality immediately!!

Me: Done.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-6*, Sutter-5, Adnan-5.5, Godoy-5, Henry-4.5, Cornelius-4.5, Felipe-4, Teibert-4, Rose-4, Reyna-5, Montero-3.5 (PC-4.5)

Vancouver Whitecaps: Déjà vu all over again

From yesterday but now with additional free shots on goal.

Six one! Six bloody one!

When Marc Dos Santos took over from Carl Robinson at the end of 2018 most of us hoped there would be both a change of style and a change of attitude from the Vancouver Whitecaps.

And, to be fair, the style change has been evident.

They are more tactically flexible, they look to play out from the back and they are no longer as reliant on the hoofed clearance as the go to attacking option.

But the big problem is that they’re still shit.

Is that a tad too harsh? No. Next question! 

But there have at least been moments when the team show glimpses of how Dos Santos wants them to play but that’s all they are; thirty second clips that show up on Twitter every now and again.

And perhaps the most surprising failure has been how poorly the Whitecaps press without the ball, because pressing doesn’t take technical skill as such, it’s about organization and playing as a team and that should be possible to achieve on a much more consistent level by this stage of the season.

And Saturday’s 6-1 defeat to LAFC simply emphasized that undeniable fact.

There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with losing to LAFC on the road of course; they are easily the best team in MLS right now (and probably the best team MLS has ever seen) but the manner of the defeat was dispiriting.

An early Yordy Reyna goal did nothing to convince Vancouver they had a chance in the game and the following eternity of minutes were filled with endless LAFC attacks while the Whitecaps just got deeper and deeper.

All season there has been an emphasis from the coach that his team have never really been beaten by a large margin. As though losing by a single goal is some kind of achievement. In retrospect, a beat down like this has been coming simply because the Whitecaps have been inviting it by celebrating marginal failures.

And during all that time not one single Whitecaps player wanted to keep the ball. No matter how they received it or where they received it, the first thought was always to get rid of that pesky little round thing that had somehow landed at their feet as quickly as possible.

And that has to be a coaching issue.

It has to be down to how the players are being told to play because not every team in MLS plays that way.

Even the teams as bad (there aren’t many, but work with me here) as the Whitecaps play with some semblance of control. Some semblance of believing that they can break down a defence with something more than an opposition error or a freak moment of quality.

But not Vancouver.

They just continue to play scared.

Scared of losing, scared of trying to win, scared of conceding and scared of trying to make the plays that create chances.

Only Adnan and Reyna have been playing with any kind of confidence in their own ability going forward, with Montero and Ardaiz both being busts in their own different ways.

And the idiotic red card Montero picked up in LA might actually turn out to be a blessing in disguise and compel Dos Santos to think long term about life without a player who has (this time around) been a waste of a Designated Player spot and salary.

The only hope now is that this deserved shellacking will be the wake up call they need.

After all, they aren’t going to make the playoffs and they aren’t going to get better if they continue with this mindset.

So let’s fervently hope this trouncing allows (forces) Dos Santos to throw off the shackles of restraint and that he allows (forces) his players to attempt to play football with some style, some courage.

Because, right now, this is just as bad as it was under Carl Robinson (but with better post-game interviews).

And they are far better!  

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Crepeau-3, Nerwinski-3, Levis-3, Godoy-3, Rose-2.5, Henry-3, Teibert-3, Erice-3, In-Beom-2.5, Venuto-2.5, Reyna-4* (Montero-1)