Tag: Russell Berrisford

Vancouver Whitecaps: Happy Days

The big question following on from the Alphonso Davies transfer to Bayern Munich was how the player himself would react to the move.

Would the excitement of joining one of the biggest clubs in the world weigh heavy on his shoulders?

Would the remainder of his time in Vancouver feel somewhat anti-climactic?

No.

Davies was subdued in the first half, but in the second he took the game by the scruff of the net and former Whitecap Michael Boxall must still be spinning in circles half expecting Davies to appear on his blind side.

Davies won’t face defenders of the calibre of Boxall in Germany but you can only beat what’s in front of you and that he did.

The rest of the game was a fairly neat summary of the issues still facing the Whitecaps.

In the first half they had Russell Teibert and Aly Ghazal as defensive midfielders and looked fairly comfortable when Minnesota pushed forward.

Then a Ghazal injury saw Felipe replace him and the defence suddenly felt much more vulnerable.

It’s hard to see what Felipe brings to the team when he is played so deep. He doesn’t have the defensive instinct of Ghazal or the hustle of Teibert, so a player who is best suited to finding the right pass to a forward becomes an amalgam of nothingness.

But at least Carl Robinson now seems to have settled on a regular back four with de Jong and Nerwinski both playing their best football of the season.

Nerwinski in particular is back to providing the attacking threat he did so often last year (and he may well be the best crosser of a ball in the squad) and that improvement is likely down to the fact those two defensive midfielders provide the cover he needs to make his forays.

Another good game for Yordy Reyna too.

The Peruvian has discovered the little bit of arrogance that’s been missing from his game all year and, for the first time in a long time, it feels as though he both wants the ball and wants to do something with it.

The lone forward position remains an issue however (this could be the new club motto given how perennial a problem it is).

Anthony Blondell stood in for Kei Kamara and was poor.

His hold up play was horrendous, his passing not much better and his connections with the rest of the team pretty much nonexistent.

That wouldn’t be such a huge problem if Kamara was firing on all cylinders but he’s been nowhere near that of late.

Perhaps his goal from open play last night will kick-start his form again?

Or it could be that the chances created by Davies will be all he really needs but the Whitecaps face two tough road games in New York and Portland (parenthesised by Voyageur’s Cup games against Toronto) and if the illusion of still being in the playoff hunt is going to be maintained they need more than they will probably get from their travels.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Marinovic-5.5, Nerwinski-6, de Jong-6, Waston-5.5, Henry-5.5, Ghazal-5.5, Teibert-6, Davies-7.5, Reyna-6.6, Techera-5, Blondell-4 (Felipe-5)

Vancouver Whitecaps: You say you want an evolution

Life must have been so much more simple back when Pangaea was the single super-continent on earth.

Everybody spoke the same language and there was no need for planes because you could just drive to wherever you wanted to get to (and the road trips must have been amazing).

Plus Netflix worked everywhere with none of that pesky regional blocking.

Then the decision was made to split Pangaea into separate smaller continents (possibly for tax reasons) and many historians now believe the first planet wide war was caused by people disagreeing over whether there should be five, six or seven of these.

But at first everybody seemed happy with this move.

Kangaroos flourished, tortoises frollicked and even the simple minded Dodo lived a life of uninterrupted bliss.

But gradually, over the course of dozens and dozens of years, people lost touch with all continents but their own and eventually new languages and subscription VPNs began to emerge.

But then, thanks to the invention of Duty Free alcohol and fragrances, humanity cast off their blinkers and began to explore their world anew.

Unfortunately this new found adventurousness coincided with the rise of the airline companies allowing Service Animals to fly free of charge and the introduction of several invasive species caused mayhem among the native population.

Sure, the kangaroos were fine; they can punch a hole in the side of a Buick.

But the tortoises were too slow for the newly arrived hares and the Dodos too stupid for their natural predator the owl.

It turned out that “Evolution and Unintended Consequences” wasn’t just the name of a new Vegan restaurant in Kitsilano, it also had real world implications.

Which inevitably brings us to the Vancouver Whitecaps.

When they first joined MLS the League was approaching the end of its Pangaea stage, but there was still enough uniformity and harmony to allow the lesser species to survive and even occasionally flourish.

But in the League of today the rifts and shake ups of the last few years have led to tectonic plate shifts of massive proportion.

The likes of Atlanta, NYCFC and Toronto bestride this new world with little fear of predators (Not even the Lethal Zone version).

And things remain fine for the species of team who have adapted well to this new reality; Kansas, Columbus, Portland and NYRB have all evolved to find a niche to keep them functioning and relevant.

But with each passing season some teams find themselves edging more and more toward the Dodo end of the spectrum.

Not necessarily because they aren’t spending money at all but because they aren’t spending money in the right way.

A big name signing to play among duds, a player beyond his prime to withstand the rigours of MLS travel, a badly scouted central American here, a converted inverted winger there.

And the Whitecaps have gradually been slipping down to the Dodo level with each passing season and with each badly thought through move.

But suddenly! Miracle of miracles!

They’ve been given the chance to turbo charge their own evolution, to upgrade their gene sequence and add lots of fancy new features to their defensive and offensive mechanisms.

The money arriving from the Alphonso Davies transfer is a “once in a species” opportunity to get things back on track.

And that means not rushing into moves just because a player is available (Jordon Mutch) or bringing in players in the hope they can be converted into something they are not (Efrain Juarez) or play in a role they are not suited to (Fredy Montero) or sign them just for the sake of signing them (Giles Barnes who subsequently evolved into Brek Shea).

But what it really really means is not allowing the people who made all of those decisions to now go on and make the next, all important, ones.

If a scientist recreated a killing machine of a dinosaur from prehistoric DNA leading to the deaths of hundreds of tourists and causing all round chaos you wouldn’t “give them another go” in the hope they would get it right next time (although that would be a good idea for a movie now I come to think about it. I’d call it Dinosaur Island!)

So if the Whitecaps think the Davies sale is convincing proof they are doing everything right and there is no need to change their ways at all then they are doomed to extinction.

But if they see it as the metaphorical equivalent of Peter Parker being bitten by a radioactive spider then they can use that insight to use their powers for good.

It just needs somebody at the club to have the humility to understand they need the advice and wisdom of their very own May and Ben Parker to prevent them from firing their web at the first available overpriced defensive midfielder they see.

Spiderman or Dodo? The choice is theirs.

Vancouver Whitecaps take their chances

Now with additional points de vue from the day after.

Well that was better.

For what feels like the first time since the introduction of the steam engine the Vancouver Whitecaps played like an actual team who wanted to win an actual game of football rather than a disparate collection of ne’er do wells happy to collect the mercenary coin of an employer they neither cared for nor held in high regard.

The 2-0 victory over the Montreal Impact at BC Place on Wednesday evening felt more like the release of a pressure valve than a sporting achievement but it does lead us to ask a question that hasn’t been asked about this team for the longest time.

What went right?

Well, Aly Ghazal and Russell Teibert provided the defensive midfield coverage that has so obviously been missing.

It’s a fairly damning indictment of Carl Robinson that he still can’t figure out how to successfully set up a team without the presence of two defensive midfielders (particularly at home) but we are where we are and what works is what works.

Marcel de Jong and Jake Nerwinski both took the opportunity to get forward from the full back position whenever they could (and helped to create both of the goals).

Brek Shea and Cristian Techera were both involved in the game from the get go and Yordy Reyna was a menace whenever he was on the ball.

Could we play amateur psychologist and wonder if the departure of Alphonso Davies has set Reyna back to being the creative hub of the team and that being the centre of such attention suits his on filed personality?

We could. But only time will tell if we are right.

Time will also tell how the reintroduction of Davies for the remainder of the season affects the rest of the team.

There are already signs the club will be making a push to turn the whole thing into a farewell tour for the kid and while all who have followed him for the last couple of years are thrilled there are still competitive games to play and there has to be some kind of limit set on how much a team should be celebrating the departure of their best player.

The Davies to Bayern Munich story must be like catnip to the marketing arm of the Whitecaps of course but the footballing appendage of the club needs to keep focused.

Time will also tell how the Whitecaps build on this performance as a whole.

The last thing they need to do, the very last thing, is to consider this game as proving the naysayers wrong and simply assuming that all is now well.

At the time of writing this performance sits as an outlier rather than the norm and they need to go out and do it again and again and again before anybody will really be convinced by their coherence.

We can probably give Carl Robinson some leeway when he suggested in his post game interview that the character of his players has never been in doubt given how relieved he must have felt with the win but the character of his players has very much been in doubt and remains very much in doubt given the appalling run of results and lack of discipline they’ve exhibited in recent weeks.

That character will continue to be tested and assessed over the course of the rest of the season and only then will anybody be able to make a definitive claim to its worth.

That gives Carl Robinson some tough choices.

Neither Ghazal nor Teibert should be left out after the way they played against Montreal but that would mean confining Felipe to the bench.

He should leave Felipe on the bench if only to hammer the home the idea that what the players do on the field is more important than what they earn in their paycheck but the smart money would bet against that.

But hopefully this performance will put paid to the line of thinking which argues this group of players is incapable of competing in MLS.

Sure, they were only playing a second string Impact side but they created chances, worked for each other and defended as a unit.

Any team consistently doing all of those thing will be difficult to beat and will certainly be edging much closer to the playoff line than Vancouver currently are.

Maybe we’ll never find out why the season up to now has been such a shambles (and let’s not bet against the shambles returning before too long) but we’ve at least seen a template for how this side can function successfully.

Robinson would be unwise not to follow that template for what’s left of the campaign.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Marinovic-6, de Jong-6, Waston-5, Henry-6, Nerwinski-6, Teibert-6.5, Ghazal-6, Shea-6, Techera-5.5, Reyna-6.5*, Kamara-5

Vancouver Whitecaps do what they’ve done before

“Sometimes it gets so hard to care, it can’t be this way everywhere”

Bob Dylan-Most Likely You Go Your Way and I’ll Go Mine

So this is where we are now.

The Vancouver Whitecaps will sell Alphonso Davies for north of ten million dollars and we have no idea if that money will be spent on players or on some other chunk of club expenditure (New filing cabinets perhaps? Upgrading from Windows XP?).

And even if the money is spent on players the person in charge of selecting them and coaching them will be Carl Robinson. A man who has consistently proven himself incapable of dealing with or getting the best out of players with more experience of football than the confines of MLS.

And even if Robinson is let go the people in charge of selecting his replacement will be the people who selected Martin Rennie and then Martin Rennie’s assistant to lead the team.

For this whole scenario to end in any good way for the supporters of the team it either needs a complete clear out or a once in a generation bout of good luck.

It’s not looking great.

The latest debacle in an ever growing catalogue was a 2-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders at Century Link Field, a game in which the Whitecaps barely looked like creating a meaningful chance of any kind and gave up two goals which were the product of their own failings.

In the absence of Davies, a quick and strong wide player who is ideally suited to a 4-3-3 system, Robinson switched away from 4-4-2 to a 4-3-3 with the slow and not strong Techera slotting into the Davies role.

It didn’t work.

There’s a wonderfully rich irony in having watched the likes of Rivero and Montero be bombarded with high balls only to find the arrival of Kei Kamara result in the tall, lanky forward sending in crosses to the not tall or lanky Techera.

And if we can reasonably conclude from all this that the team is not being coached effectively we can definitely conclude it isn’t being managed correctly.

In another timeline Efrain Juarez would be the experienced leader this team needs but in this timeline his petulance is his defining feature and there are some coaches who wouldn’t let him start for the team again this year.

“I’m sick of it” Robinson said after the game (speaking of the general lack of discipline within the team) although many of us were sick of it much earlier than now and maybe some of us even believed him earlier in the season when he said the matter of poor discipline had been dealt with internally.

Three red cards and an additional three game suspension in the last five games certainly hints at a locker room that isn’t really listening to their coach anymore.

Did anybody emerge with credit from that game in Seattle?

Marcel de Jong had the will to keep making forays down the left hand side no matter how little support he received and Nicolas Mezquida added his typical energy and willingness to actually try when arriving as substitute.

But the rest of the players either looked like they didn’t want to be there at all or, at best, didn’t really care about losing a Cascadia Derby game.

Things need to change in a hurry before nobody cares anymore.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Marinovic-3, Nerwinski-4.5, Waston-4.5, Henry-4, de Jong-5.5*, Felipe-4, Juarez-3, Mutch-4, Techera-3.5, Kamara-4, Reyna-5.

 

 

Whitecaps fail to make an impact (again)

Now with additional réflexions from the day after.

If a person were forced to select Carl Robinson’s least appealing trait as a coach than that fellow could do worse than select his propensity to view the limitations of his squad as a safety net rather than a challenge to be overcome.

After the game on Wednesday Robinson was of the opinion that his team “went after” the away goal in Montreal which we can accurately describe as more than a slight gilding of the lily. 

He also thought the team worked “extremely hard” which is basically covering the lily in molten gold until it crumples beneath the weight of its own sadness and withers and dies.

Robinson has never seen his team suffer a loss that couldn’t be put down to the lack of relative quality of the players he manages, or the travel or the squad rotation or something or something or something.

And he seems fine with that.

The post match shrugs and smiles befit the aura of a man comfortable in the knowledge that extracting more than the sum of said squad parts isn’t really within his remit.

And boy did we see that in full effect in the 1-0 loss to the Montreal Impact in the first leg of the Voyaguer’s Cup.

This time around it will no doubt be squad rotation that gets brought to the fore as the reason for yet another tepid display.

But here’s the thing.

If you’re going to keep rotating your first eleven then you’d better figure out a way to make that rotation work and not just use it as one more punchline at the end of another “You know me, I don’t make excuses but…” post game quote.

And sooner or later the coach is going to have to accept that the team needs somebody in front of the defence to protect them. Giving up goal after goal from the edge of the box isn’t a coincidence. It’s happens because the Whitecaps have nobody to close down the shooter because they’ve all either dropped too deep or haven’t tracked back. 

As things stand Vancouver would be better off planting a fence post at the outer edge of the “D” to at least give opposition players some obstruction to think about before lining up a shot.

So what were the standout features from the loss?

Anthony Blondell seemed set on trolling those of us who have argued he deserves a decent run in the team by giving a display shot though with appalling first touches and decision-making.

Maybe he just needs more minutes? Maybe he’s run out of hope? Maybe he was just trying too hard?

Whatever the reason he was fortunate to even appear for the second half (although he didn’t improve at all).

You know who will never be accused of working too hard?

Yes, spot on.

Whatever we may think of Shea’s salary in Vancouver to see a senior player display that level of disinterest and sheer carelessness speaks volumes as to why the team consistently fail in the character stakes.

It wasn’t just Shea who played badly of course and by the end of the second half most Whitecaps fans were probably reduced to exclaiming “Oh, is he still on the field?” whenever one of their players touched the ball.

Robinson tried to turn the game around by bringing on Hurtado, Franklin and Ibini but to no avail and………….

Wait! What?

Yes, the competition the club really, really care about was subjected to that level of tactical wizardry.

So it seems Robinson has thrown all his eggs into the playoff basket (probably because of an edict from on high?) so this Saturday’s game against Seattle gains even more importance than it did before.

The Sounders have been terrible for much of this season but they have shown the odd glimpse of life in recent weeks.

For those of us who already feel the post-season schedule is one that will be unencumbered by actual games of football for the Whitecaps it will be a game filled more with macabre curiosity than genuine hope.

But at least feeling macabre curiosity is better than the studied disinterest this team currently seems determined to engender into their fanbase.

In the end the Whitecaps were astonishingly lucky to escape with just a one goal defeat but let’s not pretend it was anything more than another nail to the heart of whatever hope any of us have of anything getting remotely better in either the short or long-term.

But why would it get better when the only net anybody seems genuinely interested in is that metaphorical safety net of just about acceptable mediocrity?

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Marinovic-5.5*, Nerwinski-5, Maund-4.5, Ghazal-5, Levis-5, Teibert-4.5, Norman-4.5, Techera-3.5, Shea-3, Mezquida-5, Blondell-2.5

 

 

Vancouver Whitecaps welcome Schadenfreude to BC Place

“Siri, show me a game that perfectly encapsulates the advantages and the disadvantages of the Vancouver Whitecaps playing the 4-4-2 system”

“Here is a list of cinemas in your area”

“Siri no, Whitecaps, 4-4-2, advantages and disadvantages”

“Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with symbol Pu and atomic number 94”

“This isn’t really working is it?”

“You have to say ‘Siri’ first. I can’t hear you unless you say ‘Siri’ first”

“But I didn’t…..”

“Can’t hear you unless you say ‘Siri’ first”

Anyway the game that did encapsulate those advantages and disadvantages was the Whitecaps 3-2 win over the Chicago Fire at BC Place on Saturday evening.

The main advantage is they always look capable of creating some kind of scoring opportunity for themselves.

The main disadvantage is they always look capable of creating some kind of scoring opportunity for their opponents.

Back in the days when Carl Robinson was focussed on the defensive aspects of the game his philosophy was to turn every contest into a virtual coin toss by making the first goal more or less the game winner.

If the Whitecaps conceded first they found it hard to move out of their sit back and counter mode butif the Whitecaps scored first they were perfectly set up in their sit back and counter mode.

And strangely enough the games are still a virtual coin toss given how open this team is asnd how willing they are to trade chances with the oppoition.

Against Chicago we saw the experienced trio of Juarez, Felipe and Mutch start together for the first time and while none of them contributed consistently to the attacking play it was Juarez and Mutch who combined for the goal at the start of the second half which recalibrated the Whitecaps after they had squandered the advantage of being the better team in the first.

Mutch is clearly not a natural wide player and his presence out there reduces the opportunities for crosses in to Kamara (especially when the full backs gets forward as little as they did on Saturday) but his tendency to drift inside was one reason he got the opportunity to score his goal.

And it may be that having those three experienced players playing mostly conservative soccer and allowing Reyna and Davies to create chaos ahead of them is the best way to go from here on in.

That won’t solve the defensive issues however and it’s doubtful that even the return of Kendall Waston and Stefan Marinovic (remember him?) will fully paper over the cracks of a back line that has never really functioned correctly all season.

That may be partly due to the lack of a midfield shield in this current system or it may be due to the constant chopping and changing of personnel, but whatever the reason it will be the undoing of the team far more than all the chances they’ve missed going forward.

The schedule gets really tough from here on in and we will almosy certaily be looking back at the halcyon days of sitting in sixth place with affection come late August.

But the win over the Chicago Fire was an entertaining game of football and that was good enough for a pleasant summer evening.

“Summer is the period from the summer solstice to the autumn equinox”

“What?”

“You asked me about summer”

“No I didn’t. And I definitley didn’t say ‘Siri’ first”

“I thought you did”

“I didn’t”

“Can’t hear you unless you say ‘Siri’ first”

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Rowe-4.5, Nerwinski-5.5, Henry-5.5, Aja-5.5, de Jong-5.5, Felipe-5, Juarez-6, Mutch-5.5, Davies-6, Reyna-6*, Kamara-5.5

 

Whitecaps gotta go back to go forward?

It’s a truth universally acknowledged that the switch to 4-4-2 turned around the season for the Vancouver Whitecaps.

It certainly produced more exciting football and conveniently headed off at the pass the growing clamour of discontent swirling around the club.

But the reality is that in the nine games played this way the Whitecaps have won just two and haven’t kept a clean sheet in any of them.

It seems we’ve all been blinded by the superficial glitter and remained oblivious to the underlying flaws.

So does Carl Robinson stick with what isn’t working but kinda, sorta feels like it is or throw in his lot with another new formation?

It’s usually around this time in a season when Vancouver hit some kind of slump and that may well be because opposition coaches have worked out how the Whitecaps will play and have adapted to it.

So changing things around might not be that bad an idea no matter what the reason.

It’s still possible this squad could play three at the back very effectively but that would take time (and willingness) on the training field so it looks like our old friend 4-2-3-1 should probably raise its head again.

The benefits of this are many.

It allows the reintroduction of two holding midfielders to protect the back four (and if Felipe or Mutch fill one of those roles during games at BC Place it doesn’t have to be as defensive a system as was previously played).

It forces Kei Kamara to stay central and forward instead of somehow finding himself out wide and taking throw ins when the teams are attacking.

And it allows flexibility in the three behind the front man.

Davies, Reyna and Techera (when fit, not suspended etc.) look like the ideal players for the these slots but Mezquida, Felipe, Mutch or Shea could fill in when needed.

No mention of Anthony Blondell here because he’s starting to feel like another one of those signings that don’t get the field time they either deserve or need before being moved on having left barely a mark on our memories.

When he has played Blondell has looked raw but lively and effective and it’s odd to see just how little playing time he has had.

Chances are that Robinson will give 4-4-2 one last try for the upcoming home game to the Chicago Fire but it’s had a good run and soon needs to be replaced with something a little more substantial.

Vancouver Whitecaps: Canada D’oh

Now with added post Canada Day thought bombs.

So I’m calling it.

The Vancouver Whitecaps aren’t going to make the playoffs this year.

The 1-0 loss at home to the Colorado Rapids was the final nail in a coffin that’s been begging for the sweet release of death for weeks now.

You could certainly look at the standings and argue that the games in hand of other teams count for little but, to quote Schopenhauer, “Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world” and the world outside of the Whitecaps has moved on.

Carl Robinson has taken the best group of players he has had under his control and turned them into an amorphous mess where nobody could name what he thinks is the best eleven or even what he thinks the best way of playing is.

In a comment to the original post a commenter wonders if the plethora of  choice leaves Robinson in a position where he’s trying to please too many players to ever settle on a genuine starting eleven.

Robinson has never set himself up as a disciplinary coach but rather one who earns the trust of his players through man management and it may well be that this desire to keep everybody happy simply results in everybody being just a little bit dissatisfied.

In some ways it’s a fascinating metaphor for the inefficiencies of the modern Capitalist system and in other ways it would be nice if the coach just made his mind up.

It’s been tempting for some to be mollified by the recent series of games which produced great entertainment, if not great results, but nobody could honestly have looked at those matches and concluded this was a coherent team operating under a coherent philosophy.

And before we get on to the substance of the Colorado game can we acknowledge that the decision to start Kendall Waston was indicative of everything that’s wrong right now?

Of course the Captain wanted to play after his World Cup exploits, but of course somebody within the club should have been strong enough to say that clearly wasn’t a good idea given that he’d just flown in from Russia!

But it seems either nobody wanted to make that decision or convey that decision to him so we get a lacklustre Waston and a wasted substitution at half-time.

It also turns out that Waston left the game with a groin strain making the decision to start him even more foolhardy (see above re wanting to keep players happy rather than manage them).

Ironically the Whitecaps didn’t play all that badly against Colorado, they just couldn’t finish their chances.

And part of that has to be down to how poorly Kei Kamara has been playing.

He constantly seems to want to drop deep to be the hold up man but his first touch (and his second and third) aren’t good enough for the role so Vancouver either lose the ball or (on the odd occasion when he succeeds) don’t have anybody in the box to cross to.

Ironically (again) Robinson finally has a player who is suited to receiving high balls punted into the box and yet he’s never there to receive them.

Ironically (again) Robinson mentioned this very fact in his post game interview but this isn’t a new thing.

It’s been mentioned on the AFTN preview podcast on more than one occasion and even I wondered a few weeks ago if this was a deliberate tactic to create space for other players.

So the coach of the team has either failed to notice this until now or has noticed it but hasn’t taken any action about it.

Neither of those options are hugely inspiring.

The only real bright spot was Alphonso Davies who continues to cause havoc among the opposition whenever he has the ball at his feet.

But how frustrating is it to see that talent being wasted in a team that has become less than the sum of its parts?

So what now?

Almost certainly the slow descent into a seventh or eighth place with the club desperately trying to keep the tension of the possibility of postseason play alive until the very last cross is headed away or the very last shot is hammered over the bar.

But sooner or later somebody is going to have to “look beyond the limits of their own field of vision” and make a brave decision.

Unfortunately every indication is that brave decisions won’t happen and if they do they will certainly be too late.

Let’s hope that prevarication only destroys this season and not those to come.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Rowe-6.5, Franklin-6, Waston-5, Henry-6, de Jong-6, Felipe-6, Juarez-5.5, Shea-5, Davies-7*, Mezquida-5.5, Kamara-4 (Mutch-5.5)

Vancouver Whitecaps: Too much time at Club Tropicana?

Now with italicised hindsight from the day after.

There are times when the whole world can seem slightly off kilter. After a particularly vivid fever dream perhaps, the sudden death of a loved one that throws clarity on what was previously blurred or maybe the ingestion of industrial amounts of hallucinogenic drugs.

One other such time is when watching a game of Major League Soccer immediately after a World Cup game.

And this isn’t a “Hey! The MLS is bad” take. Every league in the world would lose some of its lustre when compared to the behemoth that is the World Cup. For where is the vibrancy? Whither the national narratives being shaped in the moment and the sheer heartbreak and joy with almost every goal?

But still, watching the Whitecaps lumber their way around the field against Philadelphia was unedifying to say the least.

After the game Carl Robinson had this to say 

“We looked two miles off. We did not look like we were fit enough. I know that is a little bit harsh, but we looked like we were tired.”

Hard to say if this is just another example of the coach throwing shade at his players in an attempt to deflect from his own failings, but whatever the interpretation it’s a somewhat shocking admission.

His contention seems to be that the Whitecaps, as a group, came back from a two-week break in too poor a physical condition to compete.

No point in saying that lessons need to be learned from this because we’ll hear that same familiar refrain again and again from within the club for the next week.

And now back to the original post.

If you follow the Vancouver Whitecaps on Social Media you’ll be well aware they went into the game against the Philadelphia Union looking to extend a six game unbeaten run.

If you follow the actual results of the team you’ll know those six games included some pretty poor ties at home and two wins against teams who were in disastrous form.

So a loss in Philadelphia wasn’t that unexpected an outcome.

What was slightly more alarming was the manner of the loss.

The Whitecaps began as though they were still on vacation, or maybe still watching the World Cup, as they stood back to admire the Union’s baffling ability to pass the ball to each other and occasionally make the effort to win it back when they didn’t have it.

Somehow though Vancouver went into the break only one goal down and, for a brief spell, the introduction of Mezquida and Mutch looked to inject some life into the team.

Then it all fell apart again.

Three more goals conceded including two penalties and two red cards are surely indicative of something far more rotten in the state of the team than simply not being able to get back up to speed after a two-week lay off or the trauma of a cross-country flight.

The whole performance stank of a group who either felt the recent decent run of form meant the pressure was off or didn’t have the will to step up to the plate after a relaxing break.

And the decision to name an unchanged eleven for the first time this season was certainly interesting since that eleven was previously being held to a 1-1 tie at home by ten men Orlando until changes were made.

It’s almost as though Carl Robinson had looked at the result of that game rather than the reason for the result and watching the way his side played in Philadelphia certainly upped the irony factor of having spent the last week observing him dole out advice to World Cup managers on the need for early substitutions and the importance of going for the win and not sitting back.

Given the chance of reciprocity some of those managers may well have offered him the advice that continuing to play Brek Shea as a left back was inviting this kind of result and perhaps they would also have wondered why he continues to oversee a group of players who lose their heads (both tactically and emotionally) as soon as things go against them?

On to the Canada Day game at BC Place against Colorado.

But the Whitecaps are going to have to do more than beat the likes of the Rapids to convince anybody they are genuine playoff contenders and any pre World Cup break optimism has been well and truly discarded.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Rowe-4, Nerwisnki-4, Shea-3, Aja-4, Henry-5*, Felipe-4, Ghazal-4, Davies-4, Techera-4, Reyna-3, Kamara-3.5 (Mutch-5, Mezquida-5)

Vancouver Whitecaps: Reviewing the Situation

While the current World Cup blinds us all to every other sporting event rather like an alien spaceship hovering over the horizon intermittently blocking out the sun and intermittently dazzling us with its reflection, it’s easy to forget that the Vancouver Whitecaps are back in training and preparing for a game in Philadelphia next weekend.

And how much better the mood must be now the team are finally scoring goals and trying to win games?

Carl Robinson certainly deserves credit for adjusting his team to play in a manner just about everybody else said they should have been playing from the first game of the season and the question now is whether he left that change too late for the season to be genuinely successful.

Hopefully the coach hasn’t used his time away from the players to dwell on the number of goals they’ve conceded too much, but hopefully he has been dwelling on how to use the best group of players he’s had at his disposal.

So what are his options?

Firstly, let’s take the players who should always start if fit.

Marinovic, Waston, Henry, Felipe, Davies, Reyna and Kamara.

That might be harsh on Techera (who is in a hot streak of goalscoring form) Aja (who has been fine in central defence) and Mutch (who has been very good when available) but the named seven are the ones who have done enough to always be pencilled (Damn it man just write it in pen!) to the starting eleven.

There’s nothing much wrong with continuing to alternate the full-backs until the business end of the season as each one of Nerwinski, Franklin, de Jong, Levis and Shea have strengths and weaknesses and can be picked and chosen to suit the demands of the day.

In central midfield Felipe’s “What kind of player is he really?” quality can be useful in platooning other players in.

In Colorado he worked very well with Juarez in controlling the pace of the game (and keeping the ball) and Ghazal or Teibert could slot in as more defensive cover to allow Felipe to move forward when needed.

In home games though the ideal scenario would be Felipe sitting deep as a putative defensive midfielder, while still able to play passes that release the pacy players in the team, with Mutch as the attacking box to box midfielder.

Mutch made much difference when he came on as a substitute against Orlando simply because his first instinct is to always get forward.

The Whitecaps have needed that kind of player since before the Gods that made the Gods were made.

That just leaves the right side of the midfield to be covered and while Techera will (and should) play more games than most here’s where the opportunity for Robinson to switch things up presents itself.

If he wants to pair Blondell with Kamara up front he can switch Reyna out to the right (or play Blondell out there if he feels like it). If he wants to use Shea on the left he can get Davies to switch flanks. If he desperately wants to play an extra defensive midfielder he can use Felipe, Davies and Reyna as the three behind Kamara.

It still feels as though the team are one more really good wide player away from being the real deal (which kind of makes the desire to stockpile central midfielders somewhat strange) but Robinson has far more options than many coaches in MLS.

Let’s hope that turns out be a blessing rather than a curse.