Camilo lines up for his penalty kick against RSL’s Nick Rimando. Photo Andrew Bates/Little Rubber Pellets
Enthusiasm can get you places, but not the whole way.
Ahead of Saturday’s game against Real Salt Lake, the Whitecaps pushed hard on the notion of the advantage it has at home. That is because they want you to believe this will be like last year, when strong home performances pulled out low-percentage wins against challenging opposition, and not like 2011, where the season fell apart after a strong start and they couldn’t defend for the life of them on the road.
From the first half, it seemed to be working. Outside of Joao Plata’s goal, called off for offside, Real Salt Lake got precisely zero shots on target, despite outpossessing the Caps 59 per cent to 41 per cent. It is, to be honest, astounding that the ‘Caps did not pick something up in the first frame. But while the midfield was strong and moved with purpose, the attack seemed a bit more improvisational. The first half’s finest move came from Y.P. Lee, curving it in but just tipped over by RSL’s Nick Rimando, who played well.
The group of talented speedsters that made up the Whitecaps attack — Camilo, Corey Hertzog, Darren Mattocks — are bright at making the run, generating chances and creating. But in the box, the passes in the box weren’t crisp and Vancouver wasn’t quite fast enough at the crucial process of making decisions and then executing them. The contested play where Y.P. Lee was brought down in the penalty area with no call might have been contact, but the fact was that Lee was off-balance from pivoting two, three times looking for an option.
It seemed they were going to be punished for it on 66 minutes when Olmes Garcia pulled off the opposite: firing a beautiful, floating ball into the top corner off a Javier Morales cutback. It was the same ball Lee had been trying at all night, and mainly worked because Garcia had acres of space, and it was one of the only great things Salt Lake did all night. The Whitecaps looked deflated.
Darren Mattocks, subbed on for an impressive-and-improving Corey Hertzog minutes earlier, helped improve things. He fits into a spray-and-pray offense a lot better, and there were a couple of heartbreaking headers he just couldn’t get high enough for, including an attempt to recreate the famous Toronto goal that redirected straight down.
It’s not surprising that the workman-like approach is what ended up working. Mattocks’ penalty kick eventually came when he tried to ping it through and Nat Borchers fell on the ball with his hand. Camilo, who took the kick successfully, was rewarded with a goal for his five shots on target, but it came through working the ball towards the goal, not crisp execution.
Watching the confidence coming from outside of the area in the form of armband-sporting Nigel Reo-Coker and Y.P. Lee, it’s possible that this is what the attack misses without Miller. Not that he’s any better with improvisation, but a veteran presence could have helped Hertzog, Mattocks and Kekuta Manneh (who also served a great ball) from as much stress and guesswork.
The ‘Caps worked hard with a generous five minutes of added time to try and pull something off, and despite a late scare on the game’s last move where Joe Cannon saved the point, they held deservedly.
With the attack like it was today, an energy-based system that runs on effort and gumption, running the ball in and creating terror, is it any wonder that this works better at home? Comfortable and in front of lively fans, it’s a lot easier to pull off high energy. But they need to have some better answers and better finish to be able to turn chances into goals, and draws into wins.
Stats and quotes after the jump.
Quotes
“At the beginning of the game, we struggled. Rather than folding up shop and allowing a goal, we probably could have allowed multiple goals at that point, the guys stayed pretty focused.” -RSL coach Jason Kreis on how the team withheld the onslaught
“Hopefully, we keep playing well and creating chances, because we are definitely doing that, but ultimately it takes players to do that. The last little part of the game is down to players putting the ball in the back of the net, and those who do that become very rich and very wealthy and very famous, and it’s up to players to become that.” -Martin Rennie on converting chances to goals
“I’m not concerned at all. I feel very good about how we’re doing. This season’s been a good start to the season without us playing wildly amazing or anything like that, we’ve been doing well in every game we played.” -Martin Rennie
“Not well enough, because we only scored one goal and that was on the penalty.” -Martin Rennie on whether the team improvised well
“I don’t think there was necessarily a lack of composure… That’s a lot of shots on goal. If Rimando makes the saves that he makes, then that can be the difference between scoring and not scoring. It wasn’t necessarily like we were missing lots of open goals and missing the target, generally we were hitting the target pretty well. Over the course of the game, Rimando made a number of great saves, and I think obviously that’s what he’s there to do, but it’s probably the best performance that I’ve seen by a goalkeeper in any MLS game that I’ve been the coach of. Just so happens that it was against us today.” -Martin Rennie on composure in attack
Goals
66′ – RSL Olmes Garcia (Javier Morales)
84′ – VAN Camilo (pen.)
Cards
18’ – RSL – Yellow – Chris Schuler
67’ – RSL – Yellow – Olmes Garcia
81’ – RSL – Yellow – Lovel Palmer
Numbers
Shots: Vancouver 14 – Salt Lake 4
Shots on Goal: Vancouver 7 – Salt Lake 3
Fouls: Vancouver 9 – Salt Lake 14
Offsides: Vancouver 1 – Salt Lake 3
Corners: Vancouver 7 – Salt Lake 5
Possession: Vancouver 41.8% – Salt Lake 58.2%
Lineups
Vancouver Whitecaps FC: Joe Cannon; Young-Pyo Lee, Andy O’Brien, Brad Rusin, Alain Rochat; Nigel Reo-Coker, Jun Marques Davidson, Russell Teibert; Daigo Kobayashi (Kekuta Manneh 73′), Camilo Sanvezzo (Tommy Heinemann 89′); Corey Hertzog (Darren Mattocks 63′).
Unused Subs: Brad Knighton, Erik Hurtado, Jordan Harvey, Gershon Koffie.
Real Salt Lake: Nick Rimando; Chris Schuler, Tony Beltran, Nat Borchers, Lovel Palmer; Kyle Beckerman (Yordany Alvarez 31′), Ned Grabavoy, Javier Morales (Khari Stephenson 79′), Luis Gil; Joao Plata (Olmes Garcia 56′), Alvaro Saborio
Unused Subs: Josh Saunders, Kwame Watson-Siriboe, Devon Sandoval, Kenny Mansally
Programming note
This is my first Little Rubber Pellets post of the 2013 season. I’ve been doing a bit of Whitecaps work, mainly this piece for the Ubyssey on the Whitecaps Reserves-UBC game and an unpublished piece for the Union Jack. But mainly I needed to close out my term at the Ubyssey (also, I got hacked), so back to full service now. Thank you for reading.