Tag: Soccer Shorts

There are times when “It just made no sense” is about a good of a summation as you can make about any game of football and the Whitecaps’ 4-3 win in Toronto pretty much fits that criteria admirably but, for the sake of something to write, let’s see if we can’t at least make an effort to bring some semblance of order to all of that chaos.

With his hand forced on a number of lineup changes Carl Robinson went with an unexpectedly innovative starting eleven. He paired Russell Teibert with Matias Laba in the centre of midfield and he played Bolaños and Morales as the creative wide midfielders with Hurtado and Manneh as the lightning quick forwards capable of hitting TFC on the break.

And, from an attacking point for view, the plan worked like a charm.

Manneh was involved in every goal (scoring two and setting up Morales and Bolaños for the others) and Hurtado proved himself to be a useful foil as one of the attacking two.

The only question is whether Robinson looks at this game and thinks his team as a whole were defensively unsound or whether he thinks every goal conceded was the result of a specific circumstance; a piece of Giovinco brilliance, a Bolaños error, bad marking from a corner.

It’s hard to be a critical of a team that scored four goals on the road however and the coach is in the enviable/slightly awkward position of having a number of ways of setting up his side for the next game in Portland.

Does he stick with what (just about) worked in Toronto? Or does he revert to the more traditional 4-2-3-1 once Octavio Rivero returns to the fold?

Only time will answer that question but what he did learn from this game is that Russell Teibert is capable of being an effective partner to Laba, that Pedro Morales can be just as dangerous playing as a wide midfielder as he is in the deep lying playmaker role and that Kekuta Manneh really is a confident and composed finisher on his day.

Foundations to be built upon or the ephemeral permutations of a one off game?

Probably the latter and, in truth, we learned as little about the players as Robinson did from that mixture of circus and Kyōgen but it did feel as though we were seeing the coach himself become more confident in adapting his team to fit the specific circumstances.

And that fact alone may be even more important than earning three wins in the space of just one week.

Time then for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Ousted-6, Aird-5, Harvey-6, Kah-6, Parker-6, Laba-7, Teibert-7*, Bolaños-6, Morales-7, Hurtado-6, Manneh-7

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There are times when a team finds its best first eleven through careful planning and there are times when it finds it through happenstance and there was probably a little bit of each in how Carl Robinson arrived at the starting lineup that beat the Portland Timbers 2-1 at BC Place on Saturday afternoon.

He was certainly keen to continue with Pedro Morales in the deeper role but an injury to Octavio Rivero and a suspension for Kekuta Manneh meant that the players in front of Morales were all of a certain type; they all prefer the ball to be played to their feet.

And lo and behold the Whitecaps began the game playing by far their best football of the season so far with both Morales and Bolaños pulling the creative strings and the only real concern was (once again) the number of chances being spurned.

That concern elevated to Code Red when Nat Borchers gave the visitors an undeserved lead in the thirty fourth minute and there was suddenly the danger that the Whitecaps’ whole season could lurch even more off course than it already was.

We’ve all sat through this movie before of course; Vancouver start well, fail to take advantage of that good opening, concede a goal and then struggle to break down a resolute defence.

This time around though they emerged in the second half looking equally as dangerous as the first with Bolaños drifting inside more and so opening up space for Aird to run into and also give the Timbers’ defensive midfielder Diego Chara a little too much to handle.

Ironically both goals relied on the touch of luck the Whitecaps have been missing in front of goal with a deflection from a Portland defender setting up Kudo to fire home from a tight angle only seconds before he was due to be taken off and the Portland keeper Jake Gleeson allowing a floated Bolaños ball to find its way between his legs and into the net.

Good fortune for the Whitecaps but fortune that was well deserved.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of their whole performance though was that taking that lead didn’t entice them into the all too familiar “backs to the wall, we have what we hold” style of play and instead they simply carried on passing the ball, carried on moving and carried on creating chances.

It all leaves Carl Robinson with some interesting choices for the Wednesday evening visit of the Chicago Fire.

Masato Kudo probably didn’t do enough to make himself an automatic starter ahead of Rivero but whereas the Uruguayan prefers to play with his back to goal Kudo always wants the final ball to be played in front of him and that puts the opposition backline in a far less comfortable frame of mind while simultaneously removing the easy long pass to Rivero that has been the staple diet of the team for so long. 

Likewise the absence of Manneh takes away the all too tempting (but low percentage) pass over the top of the opposition defence.

No doubt Robinson will say that it’s nice to have these kinds of tough choices but they really are tough choices because he’s had a glimpse of how well his team can play without two players (and two good players) who have been an integral part of the side for a long time now.

Whatever he chooses to do it was clear at the final whistle just how much this win meant to both the players and the coaching staff and the hope now is that a foundation has been laid that can be built upon with the only concern being that the Whitecaps’ two most complete performances of the season have both come in Cascadian derbies.

That’s great on one level but now they need to prove they can produce the same kind of quality and intensity on a warm Wednesday evening against Chicago.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Ousted-6, Aird-6, Harvey-6, Waston-6, Parker-6, Laba-7, Morales-7, Bolaños-7*, Techera-6, Mezquida-6, Kudo-6 (Pérez-6, Rivero-6)

The Whitecaps 1-1 tie with Sporting Kansas City at BC Place on Wednesday evening can go down as one of those games in which Vancouver probably should have won but were also quite happy to leave the field with a point.

In a way the game hinged on the red card for Kendall Waston in the fifty first minute but there were turning points galore before that too.

The Whitecaps started brightly and earned a deserved lead when Christian Bolaños volleyed home a Cristian Techera corner in the fourteenth minute and the stage was set for the home team to build on Saturday’s 3-0 victory and produce another statement performance.

Instead they reacted to taking the lead by playing as though the game was as good as won and the subsequent lethargy allowed the visitors to get back into the contest. No surprise then when Diego Rubio levelled in the twenty seventh minute.

By the start of the second half it was clear Kansas had worked out that the Whitecaps wanted to play the ball short from the back four but didn’t really have the players to pull that off and began pressing in earnest and after surviving one or two unnerving moments, the Whitecaps luck finally ran out when they turned their own free kick on the halfway line into a desperate chase to clear the ball for both Waston and David Ousted.

Waston got the man and not the ball and therefore a second yellow card.

Fortunately the dismissal seemed to affect Kansas as much as it did Vancouver and from that moment on the game dissolved into a series of spats and penalty appeals as referee Armando Villareal struggled to have any control at all.

In retrospect the most interesting aspect of the evening is to consider how the first eleven changes made by Carl Robinson stacked up.

Pedro Morales showed glimpses of his class but is still better suited to a deeper role than the traditional number ten position and pushing Morales forward meant that Russell Teibert played alongside Matias Laba in the centre of midfield.

Teibert will always be a willing worker but he offered almost nothing going forward and no home team can afford to be a midfielder shy when it comes to the attacking areas of the pitch.

Kudo looked lively without really doing anything to make him an obvious starter ahead of Rivero and Bolaños scored a lovely goal but faded out of the game just at the time the Whitecaps needed him the most.

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the performance was how unsettled the back line looked when dealing with crosses with Waston and Parker both relying far more on the hasty clearance than the calm one but Fraser Aird and Jordan Harvey both had solid games.

In fact it’s credit to Aird that after trying to attack down his flank for most of the first half Kansas switched to trying to find a way through on the other side of the field in the second period.

In the end though it was an unsatisfactory evening for a number of reasons and I think we’re allowed to say that the 2016 Vancouver Whitecaps are still very much a work in progress.

Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings.

Ousted-6, Aird-7*, Harvey-7, Waston-5, Parker-5, Laba-6, Teibert-6, Bolaños -6, Techera-6, Morales-6, Kudo-5 (Kah-5, Manneh-6, Rivero-6)

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And while I am probably higher on Kekuta Manneh than many it still seems odd how little on field connection he actually has with the other forwards in terms of where runs and passes should be made; not even with Jordan Harvey who he regularly plays with on the left side of the field. The only player who seems to regularly connect with Manneh is Pedro Morales who tends to look for him as his first option for those raking cross field passes of his.

And while we are on the subject of connections, the small sample size we have indicates that Christian Bolaños and Blas Pérez are two players who seem to “get” each other. Bolaños has only really looked effective in Seattle (when Pérez was on the field) and in the closing minutes against Dallas (when Pérez was on the field). Carl Robinson will probably stick with Octavio Rivero again on Wednesday evening but it would be interesting to see Bolaños and Pérez given a solid sixty minutes at the start of a home game just to see how their presence affected the Whitecaps’ style of play.

And is it just me (and whenever people say “is it just me” you can bet they think everybody else feels exactly the same way) but are the in game announcements more intrusive this season at BC Place? I get that these have to be made and I get that soccer is a nightmare sport in which to predict exactly what will happen in the next ten seconds (witness the number of TV directors who miss vital live action in the name of showing us a yellow card tackle for the third time) but there was a moment on Saturday when Dallas were swarming the Vancouver area amid the sound of the 50/50 draw result being announced. It was all very jarring.

And I’m also not a fan of announcing that an opposition player has been yellow carded for “diving” as happened when Max Urruti was cautioned on Saturday. No reason is ever given for any other bookable offence and “diving” isn’t even mentioned in the official rules of the game so it all seemed unnecessarily self-satisfied. But this time around I honestly think it might really be “just me” who feels that way about this one.

And aside from my own outpouring of pedantry and joy killing the major question for Wednesday’s game is whether the Whitecaps can build on the way they finished against Dallas or whether they revert to the way they began. I doubt Kansas will come out all guns blazing in the way that Dallas did so we should get to see how this team deals with trying to break down a defensive opposition and that’s partly why I like the idea of the Bolaños and Pérez combination because they should have the experience and the patience to avoid the frustration and loss of focus which frequently fazed the Whitecaps last season whenever the first twenty minutes failed to produce a breakthrough.

And that’s your lot.

I used to think that the most contemptible of all the creatures on this planet was the September wasp; that annoying piece of anger and sting which ruined every late summer barbecue and patio beer.

But then I stumbled across an outline of their life cycle and suddenly developed a new found empathy for my eternal nemesis.

It turns out that those creatures relentlessly swooping down on your craft beer have been dealt a pretty rough hand in life for, having spent the whole year helping to keep their colony alive, these “worker wasps” (for that is who they are) are heartlessly abandoned once enough new queens are produced to allow a fresh period of hibernation to begin.

The nest effectively shuts down and there is suddenly no food source for the poor souls who have toiled all their lives for others.

Naturally they immediately embark on a desperate hunt for any source of sugar to keep themselves alive which, in most cases, means the alcohol in your glass or the food on your plate.

Hard to blame them for being so angry and so persistent isn’t it?

I still kill them of course but whereas I used to think of my battle with the wasps as being akin to the Second World War (my heroically defiant battle against an unprovoked aggressor) I now see it as disturbingly similar to the Great War of 1914-18; a series of senseless slaughters in which neither side will ever make any significant physical or moral headway.

And as with the wasps so it is with supporters.

Not that I want to embark on the senseless slaughter of soccer fans you understand but it turns out they need wins and goals just as much as a worker wasp needs that sugar and without those wins and goals the poor supporter become irritable and sometimes aggressive.

Anyone sitting enjoying cool al fresco beer in these balmy April Vancouver days may have found the experience somewhat ruined by the angry buzz of a Whitecaps fan unhappy with the team or the tactics or the coach.

Thrown a surprise spring barbecue for friends? Then perhaps it was disrupted by the sting of criticism for the way the Whitecaps have either been defending, attacking or conducting their stadium security measures.

Biology is a powerful decider.

Yet so is the pervading culture and the pervading culture of the current day is to live and die by each game without ever taking the time to see anything within the context of the whole season, so it’s not hard to imagine how three bad results in a row has set the regular Whitecaps fan on edge.

Yet this isn’t me looking down on such behaviour because I’m exactly the same as I obsess over minor tactical changes, study the body language of the players and parse every Carl Robinson phrase for semiotic or semantic clues.

Fortunately the difference between us and the wasps is that they really do have no hope; there will never be a nest for them to return to no matter how hard they try to prolong the last few hours of their existence.

But we at least know there will eventually be wins and goals along the way because MLS is a parity league and because the law of averages is as reliable a guide as the law of gravity and so, when Saturday comes, we’ll be back among the safe swarm of the colony that is BC Place and no doubt we’ll all feel a lot better about things.

But let’s just hope that if there is a sting in the tail of that game it arrives in the form of Blas Pérez and not Mauro Rosales.