
From last night but now with additional fumblings.
I think it’s safe to say that Thomas Hasal won’t be starting another game for the Vancouver Whitecaps this season unless every other goalkeeper in the squad (and a few technical staff) are unavailable due to injury.
A road game against St. Louis was probably a tough ask for a player who hadn’t started a game all season but the Whitecaps haven’t seen this level of incompetence since I failed to get a free bucket hat during last season’s much vaunted giveaway.
Sartini clearly wanted to give Hasal a game in case he was needed for the Canadian Championship final but, in retrospect, a midweek home game might have been a better option.
Hasal was certainly to blame for the first and third goals and it’s doubtful that Blackmon would have made the same decision he made for the second had the calming presence of Takaoka been waiting behind him.
Vanni Sartini ended the game furious with the officials (and probably rightly so given some of the decisions) and that might prove to be a useful distration for the performance of his young goalkeeper but Vancouver lost the game because of their own errors not because of the errors of those with whistles and flags.
The coach piled into the referee in his post game comments too. Another attempt to take eyes away from his goalkeeper.
Ironically the overall play wasn’t at all bad.
And if Becher had been sharper in front of goal they could have left the game with even more than a single point without it seeming a travesty of justice.
A word though for Sergio Cordova. Well, more than one. His inability to link up with the rest of the team and to even perform the basics such as pass the ball to within six metres of a teammate mean the Whitecaps are a Brian White injury away from a crisis. Cordova doesn’t look like a player who needs more time to settle in. He looks like a player who doesn’t want to settle in at all.
But, as it is, they somehow continue to pile pressure on themselves to get results at home.
They’ve been able to do just that thus far, but it’s a fine wire they’re walking if they want to finish in a position that their overall play deserves.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Hasal-0, Brown-4, Martins-5.5*, Veselnovic-4.5, Blackmon-5, Berhalter-5, Schopf-4, Gressel-5.5, Gauld-4, Vite-5, Becher-3