Vancouver Whitecaps take a quick trip to rock bottom in Kansas City

I’ve never seen Stephen Marinovic this furious, after the third goal, and he looks furious all the time. (Photo: MLS)

The thing is, soccer as we know it isn’t guaranteed. People complain about soccer being low-scoring, but it is actually the game’s biggest wonder: The goal is large. The pitch is vast. The ball goes fast, because kicks are powerful. The ball only stays out of the goal because of collective will and group effort; if the wheels fall off, there’s no limit to how many goals a team can concede. Which brings us to the Vancouver Whitecaps’ 6-0, nine-man loss to Sporting Kansas City.

The weirdest part about the Vancouver Whitecaps’ worst-ever MLS game is that it didn’t come in a dire campaign (yet) but one that started with a small amount of promise. But the team has had a number of weak spots and questionable decisions, and while there’s a lot you can cover for or equivocate if you make the wrong choices repeatedly and are not bailed out by luck, a systems failure like Friday’s can smack you on the nose.

The team’s slimmer-salary strategy always makes these discussions difficult, because it creates a push-and-pull where the club tries to promote new additions to a skeptical fanbase envious of the star-studded acquisitions made by teams around the league. But while a Schweinsteiger or a Zlatan would certainly be nice, the Whitecaps’ issue has been a lack of continuity and cohesion. When the team lost talismans David Ousted and Jordan Harvey in the offseason and a bevy of other players, one of my worries was, how much turnover is insurmountable? How much change is too much? In such a situation, a solid preseason is invaluable.

Of course, three days before the season began, the Whitecaps traded away starting centreback Tim Parker for defensive midfielder Felipe Martins. Parker delivered three years of excellent service far exceeding his contract; he then demanded a raise higher than the club would bear. (Kristian Dyer reported he turned down $1.4 million over three years, a lot for a defender in this league.) It probably couldn’t have been helped, but it threw the team off balance in two key ways. It forced Jose Aja and Aaron Maund, alternately, to shoulder the burden of a starting lineup spot on defense, and it forced manager Carl Robinson to find a place for Felipe beside his coveted acquisition Efrahim Juarez, which my podcast pal Nick Thornton has suggested negates both. Aja and Maund, though not awful, have been only serviceable in a starting role, and neither has the chemistry with captain Kendall Waston on the backline that Parker was able to find.

But even then, all was not lost. Kei Kamara turned out to be an excellent talisman player that was able to take a leadership position and help bind the team together. The Whitecaps have won each of the games in which he scored, and none of the others. He was dropped from last week’s loss against LAFC with an adductor strain that also kept him out here and will likely keep him off the sheet for the next match against Real Salt Lake, who handled the Whitecaps easily not three weeks ago. Despite the cracks forming in the Whitecaps lineup, Kamara’s passion helped tie everything together and was a vindication of the club’s bargain buy approach. Without him, the team’s play has lacked fire for three straight weeks.

Perhaps the final straw, and the mistake most attributable to Robinson, is the decision to use a 3-5-2 formation. Robinson has been dismissive of obsessing over one formation versus another in past seasons, but put out a lot of signs he was considering a switch to the 3-5-2 in preseason. However, when the team took to the pitch, it only lined up that way for one half of a friendly, and then in the season itself only in the 4-1 loss to Atlanta. (Which, if you add to this game before the red cards, makes a -6 goal difference over 120-odd minutes of play.) The idea is that you use three centrebacks, and then you use two midfielders that drop down to add defensive muscle out wide. Here’s how that went, from Kansas City’s first goal, nine minutes in:

Committing those wingbacks leaves the central midfield exposed, which was exploited by a pass Aly Ghazal tried to break his lungs to prevent, while the closer midfielder, Felipe watched at a trot. In the second goal, Waston and Nerwinski collapse onto each others’ positions and can’t stop Johnny Russell’s shot. The third goal was a wonder, made possible by the fact that six Whitecaps were lying back as opposed to pressing Jimmy Medranda. All this puts so much pressure on Waston to perform, which he did not, and his heightened tension sets the stage for the wild conflagration that made this game unwinnable.

Waston fouls Roger Espinoza, but feels like maybe he didn’t (wrong) so he marches over to insincerely help up his opponent, bringing several SKC players in like a hurricane. In the resulting melee, Yordy Reyna and Juarez both get reds for lashing out at Russell, and I could continue to analyze the 9-man, 4-3-1 formation’s three ensuing goals, but I won’t. The previous club record for losing margin was four, the league record was seven, and if it wasn’t for goalkeeper Stephen Marinovic, it could have been nine, including a saved penalty.

The key point to make here is a counterpoint to Robinson’s post-match insistence that the game comes down to “fine lines,” and the team could have won if it wasn’t for misfortune. “(It was) fairly even, first fifteen minutes. Then we concede, and we’re 3-0 down in forty minutes. An incident then changes the game,” he told reporters.

But it wasn’t just the red cards, or the early deficit. It was also in how the club assembled these players, and the way he chose to play them, and all that happens before the opening whistle. Soccer doesn’t have to always work out. If you chip away at all the things that make a winning team — talent, cohesion, preparation, tactics — eventually you just have 11 people going it alone. Or nine. And all of a sudden putting six past them doesn’t seem that hard.

Opener win a bonding moment for Vancouver Whitecaps

The duo of Kei Kamara and Alphonso Davies both scored their first MLS Whitecaps goals in the season opener.
(Photo courtesy the Vancouver Whitecaps)

The Vancouver Whitecaps started the season with a win to help us fall in love again with a team that has changed its face.

Last year, an injury to the as-of-yet unheralded Yordy Reyna in the preseason made the Caps’ potential a promise that wasn’t fulfilled until halfway through the campaign. So Kei Kamara taking first blood in the 2-1 win over the Montreal Impact sped up the process of endearing the city to its new crop of stars. Kamara arrived in what was a whirlwind offseason of comings and goings, with the Caps bidding adieu to at least 16 players — enough to stock an XI and most of a subs bench — including Fredy Montero, Matias Laba and franchise talisman David Ousted. The most recent, Tim Parker, who emerged in Vancouver as a stalwart and underpaid centreback, was locked in a will-they-or-won’t they contract battle, shipped just three days ago to New York for Felipe Martins. While the team’s branding for its new Unity jersey emphasized togetherness between the club, players and fans, having to photoshop Parker out of the advertisements was an admission that this is a team in the midst of change. The new recruits are interesting, but unproven. When the team posted Valentines Day memes for Stefen Marinovic and “Effy” Juarez, I was almost taken aback. It’s too soon, I thought dramatically. The wounds haven’t healed.

But on game day, things felt almost familiar. Kamara, Juarez, Felipe and Anthony Blondell made their debuts, with Aaron Maund playing at home for the first time, but the backline was otherwise intact, with Waston holding the armband. Alphonso Davies started the season in the starting lineup, and when his long, loping ball crossed in for Kamara to nudge home on 63′ this seemed like a team that, despite the fact that it came in so many pieces, could assemble easily. And it was fun to watch, Kamara and Davies dancing and performing the Wakandan salute from Black Panther. Seven minutes later, Davies finally got his own, a goal in MLS to validate a slow, patient approach to nursing his stardom. Screaming towards the goal, he waved with both hands, knowing that it was his moment, and Montreal goalkeeper Evan Bush was so turned around that he could only watch it bounce off him into the side netting. For Davies, this was a journey that stretched over 34 league games and two years; for Kamara, it was his first game as a teammate. But he was the first in to pounce with a hug as Davies was mobbed. They looked like they had playing together for years. Suddenly the tension of the offseason was gone: the focus was on the bright future in the season to come.

Maybe a bit too much, in hindsight. Montreal got a goal back when Matteo Mancosu headed in with ten minutes left, bringing the celebration high to a screeching halt for the 27,837 in attendance. What had been a raucous atmosphere in BC Place changed to a stunned murmur as fans and players alike seemed to remember that there was another team on the pitch, and a game still going that could still be lost. That the Impact was itself almost an afterthought in the midst of all this hullabaloo speaks to the significance of each goal, and the fact that that team is also undergoing a moment of transition as younger players are introduced. But despite the fact that Mancosu very nearly earned a second goal, Vancouver held on to start the season with a win for the first time since 2014. The start of the season is a clean slate, and the new-look Caps have started it with a great bonding moment. Where will it take us?

Check out episode 18 of the That’s So MLS podcast, a season preview where Nick Thornton and I lay out options for neutrals looking for a new team, at thatssomls.com or iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Whitecaps win on the road against New York and dismiss some old ghosts

Photo betancourt/flickr

Photo betancourt/flickr

Life in the middle of the standings is often a series of small crises.

Until two weeks ago, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ crisis was a series of uninspired performances that saw either gutless road losses or just-barely-rescued draws at home. Following a heartening 3-1 win against Los Angeles, the crisis for the last two matches has been the opposite: going up and then watching much-needed results melt away.

Tonight, the Whitecaps were able to come up with a result that did various things it seemed the club couldn’t do recently: Win on the road. Engineer a second-half comeback that goes all the way. Play confidently with a draw and a lead. Play well up a man.

But let’s start with the road win. A road win. The team’s first MLS road win since a 1-0 scrapper nine months ago in Colorado on July 4th, 2012. It certainly did not start out looking like it was going to be any different than your average Whitecaps road match.

It’s hard to overstate how little Vancouver created in that first frame: they got exactly zero shots on target and were outpossessed a staggering 72 per cent to 28 per cent. One of the biggest problems was that they were just a bit sloppy when they took control of the ball. Maybe it was a focus issue — all the Whitecaps looked highly affected by the heat — but a particularly large problem was an inability to readily take control of the ball when they did have possession. Too many balls rolled two, three, five feet on first touch, and players found themselves too far out to do anything with it.

But hey! They weren’t behind heading into the half, and they’d managed to put New York on edge; after the refs gave the Whitecaps the benefit of the doubt on a few consecutive fifty-fifty defensive calls, Dax McCarty responded by grabbing Camilo by the shoulders about thirty yards out of the New York goal and hauling him to earth.

Greg Klazura’s own goal near the beginning of the second half was part of a tragic first start for the mascot Vancouver defender that, as well an early exit due to injury, disguised the fact that he played okay, all things considered.

It also put the team back on script for a disappointing result. See how powerful these stories can seem? It was just like a 2-0 RSL road loss in May earned with a 47th minute opener, or the that opened with a conceded own goal. You’d be forgiven for calling the game a wash then and there. (Many on Twitter did.)

But sports, like life, measures us by how we react to the successes and challenges we encounter. Painfully, lately, the Whitecaps haven’t been able to deal with it, whether it’s being unable to come back from a goal down on the road, being unable to turn a draw into a win, as against Dallas and Salt Lake at home in April, conceding despite a red card as against Portland or, heart-breakingly, watching leads slip away last Wednesday against Montreal.

And hey, you know what? It worked out. Jordan Harvey, of all people, smashed in a goal to put the Whitecaps level, the team was able to respond to a change in shape when New York’s Jamison Olave was sent off, Kenny Miller got one (to put a nice capper on what was not a great game for him) and despite squandering a late breakaway, the Caps were able to hold in injury time. Neat.

This should be good going forward. Like the LA win, it will quell the chattering about Martin Rennie’s future, because it’s a lot more pleasant to come home with three points and see ourselves just four points out of the playoffs (and only two behind next week’s opponents, Seattle!) than to feel perpetually on the brink of oblivion, as Vancouver sports fans are wont to do.

Stats after the jump.

Continue reading