The Vancouver Whitecaps beat FC Edmonton 3-2 last night in the first leg of their Voyageurs Cup semifinal. I missed the match, but it certainly proved why we play these things, as the Whitecaps reportedly looked poor and trailed the second-division Eddies for much of the night before that weird Camilo PK.
The call looked so sketchy that Edmonton manager Colin Miller got himself ejected for complaining about it. When it comes to the foul, I think there was contact but he certainly made a meal of it. He appeared to be savvy, snagging a lovely goal inside the first ten minutes. It’s easy to do that against an inexperienced defense, but it’s nice to see him get results. It’s also good that Tommy Heinemann got a goal; I haven’t really liked what I’ve seen of him ever since a brief moment of insanity that got him sent off against UBC, and perhaps this will pick up his spirits.
The Whitecaps have been criticized for their focus on this competition, the thinking being that it might distract from their league play. This result proves that you can’t sleepwalk through the Cup, but the ‘Caps suffered up until the 83rd minute. Oh well. At least it’s a road win.
It’s a special time for Vancouver Whitecaps fans: the Canadian Championship. Every year, it’s an opportunity to see old friends from the second division, dream of Central America and ugly cry after the final.
Vancouver will visit FC Edmonton tomorrow in the first leg of a two-match semifinal, with Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact in the other side of the bracket. The Championship, also known as the Voyageurs Cup, is how I got into following the Whitecaps, and it’s always been the source of some lovely memories. And some really, really awful memories.
What’s at stake?
The winners of the Canadian Championship are awarded the Voyageurs Cup, named for the national team supporter’s group that bought the trophy. They are also granted a spot in the CONCACAF Champion’s League, which is like the European version except with less money and more trips to crazy loud Mexican and Central American stadiums. (MLS teams usually compete for that through the league or the U.S. Open Cup, but we are special Canadian flowers and we get our own route. It works out.)
How did it start?
It started life in 2002 as the Voyageurs Cup, a trophy founded on donations by the national team supporter’s group and completely organized by the fans. At the time, all the Canadian professional teams played in the North American second division. From 2002 to 2007, it was awarded to the team with the best results in the regular season against the other Canadian teams in the league, which was invariably the Montreal Impact. Montreal competed yearly with the Whitecaps, TFC’s predecessors the Toronto Lynx, and, for a time, a Calgary team.
But things were changing rapidly by 2008. Toronto got an MLS expansion team and CONCACAF was rearranging its eight-team knockout cup into a 24-team format more like Europe, with group stages. Since American teams had always been awarded to the top two MLS teams, Canada needed to find a way to pick their own champion. Enter the Canadian Championship, a four-game round-robin between Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. Eventually, Edmonton joined the second division, and in 2011 it changed to its current form, home-and-away semifinals followed by a two-legged final.
Has it been fun?
Oh yes. Back before Vancouver and Montreal got their MLS spots, it was a fun chance to take swipes at big-league Toronto. To those who had schlepped it in the second division for years, Toronto fans seemed like plastic jerks with no sense of history, who thought they were important just because they had games on TV. (Now, of course, we’re all that way.) A 1-0 win at BMO Field in 2008 was an underdog’s triumph, and though the ‘Caps lost, taking five points off Toronto kept them from seizing the first Cup of the new era.
Vancouver really wants to win one of these, largely because it keeps evading them. Last year’s 1-0 wet-fish loss against a TFC team that had been dire in almost every other match it played was brutal. In 2011, Vancouver were leading 1-0 in the 60th minute of the final’s second leg at BMO Field before rain and lightning caused the game to be called off. It was restarted a month later from 0-0, and TFC maddeningly won 2-1.
And then there’s 2009.
What happened in 2009?
Oh, 2009.
It was an exciting time! A young nerd from the B.C. Interior who’d been watching Tottenham since 2005, I started following the exploits of the second-division Vancouver team, who’d recently been awarded an MLS franchise for 2011. On a vacation to the Lower Mainland, I poked my head in the door for my first ever pro game live, a Voyageurs Cup game against Montreal. It was wonderful, although I missed Ethan Gage’s 60th-minute goal because I was making an emergency run to the portable washrooms behind the bleachers that held the Southsiders in Swangard Stadium.
I prolonged my vacation enough to make the next V-Cup game against Toronto, and it was delirious. With all the pressure — Toronto would win the Cup on our ground if they beat us — Ansu Toure scored twice, and Vancouver turned aside those big-league jerks. Not only that, but barring an inconceivable four goal win for TFC in their final game against Montreal, Vancouver were going to win the trophy themselves. We were dreaming of Costa Rica. There was a pitch invasion. It was like this:
Two weeks later, Toronto and Montreal lined up at Stade Saputo, with a crew of Whitecaps players watching from the stands. It couldn’t go wrong, right? Montreal wouldn’t ship five. They were too good for that. Even though they’d fielded what looked like a weak side, when they scored the first goal on a penalty, that looked like it was done and dusted.
And then Dwayne DeRosario, that asshole, scored twice before halftime. Then again for a hat trick. Then Amado Guevara scored. And then Chad Barret scored. Guevara’s 90th-minute goal sealed it. Toronto had won 6-1. Each goal was like a punch to the stomach.
Writing for the 24th Minute at the time, I had absolute sorrow. From Whitecaps president Bobby Lenarduzzi down, everyone was furious at Montreal for rolling over. They maintained they were saving their energy for the league game against Vancouver on the weekend, when, to add insult to injury they trounced the Whitecaps on national TV. The Montreal supporters’ group boycotted the first half in protest. There would be no Costa Rica. Toronto lost in the first round of the Champions League.
It was sporting hurt. Vancouver fans fly banners that read Je me souviens to remember it. One of these days, we’re going to win this damn thing. Maybe this is the year.
Christine Sinclair must have done this to Kaylyn Kyle like, eighty times in practice. Photo courtesy Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Thorns FC
It’s Monday! That mean’s it’s time for the Monday Review. What happened in soccer this week?
NWSL
It was the historic start of the National Women’s Soccer League’s first season! (That actually started a week ago.) Portland Thorns FC defeated Seattle Reign FC 2-0 in their home opener Sunday. A posted attendance of 16,479 at Jeld-Wen eclipsed all of the games in the previous women’s pro league, WPS, as well as the crowds of all 9 MLS games except LA and New York.
The news will hearten women’s soccer fans, although certainly an MLS stadium in Portland with two of the best attacking players in the game got an attendance that teams like Chicago, satisfied with its 3,000-seating Village of Lisle-Benedictine University Sports Complex, aren’t trying to hit while the game is in its growth period.
But the good news is that the teams are fairly even on the field. Though Portland has heavy talent in Canadian talisman Christine Sinclair and goalkeeper Karina Leblanc as well as the USWNT’s Alex Morgan, the Thorns were bright in attack and okay in defense, but they need to figure out how to get the ball to their attacking pair. Just like Canada! Seattle sported the CANWNT’s Kaylyn Kyle and Emily Zurrer, as well as Welsh star Jessica Fishlock, who was keen to play antagonist to the Portland fans. Should be bright.
Thorns lead the table with 4 points and a 1-1-0 record. In the other NWSL game of the weekend, Canada’s Diane Matheson scored an 86th minute penalty kick to draw the Washington Spirit even 1-1 with the Western New York Flash.
MLS
Despite really really looking like they could pull out a win against Houston, Toronto conceded at 93:30 of a 94-minute match on one of those last gasp corner attempts. TFC had a man on the far post and a man on the near post, but nobody on Houston D-Mid Warren Crevalle, who stood right in front of GK John Bendik and flicked it backwards with a seal-poke of his forehead. It erased a lead the team had been carrying since a Jeremy Hall goal in the 58th minute for a 1-1 draw.
Elsewhere, Seattle got a 1-0 away win at Colorado, Portland drew 1-1 at San Jose, the Union beat United, LA Galaxy turned away Kansas City, Salt Lake defeated Chivas, Chicago got Columbus, and New York trounced New England 4-1 at home.
FC Edmonton, whom Vancouver will visit in the Voyageurs Cup on Wednesday, lost 2-0 to Minnesota United, struggling to find space despite having lots of possession. Former Whitecaps Wes Knight left the game with a serious foot injury in the 17th minute and they conceded a penalty in the 29th. It was a bad day for Colin Miller. The winless Eddies sit joint bottom with a point after three games.
CONCACAF Men’s Under-17 Championship
The agony. The ecstasy. Terrified high-schoolers playing away in Panama City. Already qualified for the U17 World Cup after pushing past Trinidad and Tobago, Costa Rica and Jamaica, the Canadian men’s U17s tried to push for gold but lost out to Panama in the semis. They beat Honduras on penalties in the bronze medal game, so they’ll go home happy. And they should! They got some good games against international opposition, and now they have a trip to the United Arab Emirates in October to look forward to. Hopefully nobody threw urine at them.
USSDA
With five players away with the Canada U17 men’s team, the Whitecaps U18 residency team managed to beat San Juan SC 2-1 despite having to haul in some younger players. The U16s, however, had all their players hauled in by the U18s, and lost 1-0. With five games left each, the U18s and U16s sit first and sixth respectively in their West Conference standings.
PCSL
The Pacific Coast Soccer League schedules are out! They’re, uh, all in Excel. Working on it. Sadly missing Kelowna club Okanagan Challenge FC after it closed its doors this winter, the men’s season will kick off next weekend with the Victoria Highlanders and Victoria United both hosting and conclude July 21st before the Challenge Cup on the 27th and 28th.
The Whitecaps’ women’s team (is the PCSL squad now the senior team? Oh, woe) will get the ball rolling for the women’s Premier division May 1st at SFU. It will conclude the same time.
On the women’s side, Surrey United and Castaways FC picked up wins, as did Prospect Lake SC and the NSGSC Renegades. All semifinals will take place next weekend.
Joe Cannon, frustrated after Rusin’s own goal, the first in a 2-0 loss away to FC Dallas.
What causes a road slump?
We keep talking about it, because the numbers make it easy to do that. The Whitecaps were 0-15-2 (W-L-D) in their first season, 3-10-4 last year. The road record so far, with three losses and a draw, is the albatross that turns a respectable home record of 2-0-1 to a pretty mediocre 2-3-2.
But how does it actually happen? Teams and players slump because they stop clicking and they can’t figure out how to pull off the things they’re good at. Clubs build up slumps against specific opponents because of an intimidation factor that comes from specific players and memories of bad losses.
But how does a team perform consistently for two weeks and then drop it the next? How can you turn it around? Teams with good away form buy hotels in their home city to inspire focus, but there is no such quick fix for Vancouver’s issues.
In the aftermath of the Vancouver Whitecaps’ 2-0 pasting at FC Dallas last night, they didn’t seem ready for the challenge of playing in the league leaders’ ground. There are a bunch of factors.
Vancouver’s young players like Erik Hurtado and Tommy Heinemann deserve minutes, but they can’t be counted on to create yet. The Whitecaps’ front four was Hurtado, Heinemann, Russell Teibert and Matt Watson, who bring only 43 games of experience (34 games in an MLS season) between them, with no goals. Not that those players aren’t worthy, but why would you rely on them to deliver you a result against the team with the best form in the league? Placing even one player, like Darren Mattocks, who has experience pulling results in this situation, in the mix could have worked.
Poor Joe Cannon was also let down, with two goals against on 13 total shots and six shots on target. Part of that was because Dallas was, as mentioned earlier, very good. Part of that is just lapses. What exactly is happening on the own goal?
Somehow, Brad Rusin is getting shoved all the way through the penalty area by George John. I can’t explain that. Rusin has been okay in the absence of Jay DeMerit, but he wasn’t on it last night, and nobody really was. Look at the backline on the second goal.
Rusin, Andy O’Brien and Y.P. Lee are all standing still within ten feet of each other staring at Kenny Cooper, and nobody is marking anybody. O’Brien has just turned around and the line is keeping David Ferreria offside, but by this point in the game the defense just wasn’t reacting fast enough to stop Blas Perez from breaking through the gap I’ve marked with the red arrow.
At the heart of it, these are the decisions you have to make. To beat a team on the kind of form that FC Dallas is enjoying, you need to move fast, stand strong, and be on it all the time. The Whitecaps know this, because in the last year they’ve willed these results into existence, winning not once but twice against San Jose last season.
After the game today, Watson pointed to confidence issues and Cannon pointed to the Voyageurs Cup match against Edmonton on Wednesday. At the end of the day, it’s not that they weren’t in front of the fans, it’s that they didn’t play like they thought this is a thing they could have pulled of.
You can roll out allthecumulativestats you like tying this current streak to the Whitecaps’ historical away woes or the drop in form that ended last season. What are we going to do? Fire Tommy Soehn? Cut John Thorrington? But the fact is that the only way to turn things around is come into every game ready to overcome challenges and win.
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.
Nigel Reo-Coker is on his way from Ipswich to Vancouver, his fourth club in four years. Photo courtesy thepfa.com
Well. The Vancouver Whitecaps have added a 28-year old English player with 200 matches of Premier League experience, ending Martin Rennie’s off-season of moving and shaking with a bang. But even as the club touts Nigel Reo-Coker’s experience as a captain and he ambitiously trumpets that he hasn’t yet hit his prime, why is everyone so nervous?
Rennie said he and Lenarduzzi spoke specifically to NRC about past incidents and how he’d deal with certain future situations.
Hardly the questions you want to answer about your newest star signing. Part of the nervousness is because this story hasn’t ended well before, both in terms of Reo-Coker and the Whitecaps. Despite his star-studded CV, this is the newest Whitecap’s fourth move in four years, each to a club lower and lower in stature. If we hadn’t have taken him, he’d have gone to the English third division.
But the narrative of a bruised but brazen Reo-Coker trying to assure a new fan base that he can overcome past mistakes might apply too to the Whitecaps, when it comes to justifying their transfer decisions. Over the last two years, they’ve flipped away fan-favourites inexplicably and splashed huge cash on designated players mid-season that slink away in the summer. The Whitecaps want you to believe that this signing is more Y.P. Lee than Barry Robson, but the fact that Reo-Coker’s decline is the first thing on everyone’s mind is due to some lingering trauma over past transfer masterworks gone awry.
Part of the shock of the move is that if you follow English football, Nigel Reo-Coker is a name you know and might even be surprised had gone. Out of the Premier League for only half a season, Reo-Coker enjoyed a promising career with the England U-21s that coincided with rapid rise to the captaincy at West Ham, followed by a mostly-distinguished turn for Aston Villa that saw him acquit himself well in the UEFA Cup.
He’s also seen trouble. As Away From The Numbers notes, he was a member of West Ham’s “Baby Bentley” boys in the 2006-07 season, criticized for losing focus on the game over the money and the lifestyle and barely escaped relegation. He got into a fight with manager Martin O’Neill in Aston Villa and only avoided the sack because O’Neill got it first. He got relegated with Bolton and left for Ipswich, a club he left in three months after finding himself on the fringes. At his worst, he has been sullen and lacks commitment. But he claims despite his slips, the best is ahead of him. Can he seize a second chance in Vancouver?
He’s got something to prove. But so do the Whitecaps. With Barry Robson having quietly left over the winter, the ‘Caps have walked a way from a sizable investment in the Scot. In the second half of the season, Martin Rennie blew up the roster and brought in Robson and Kenny Miller, two players with Premier League experience. They failed to gel, and the Whitecaps almost missed the playoffs, squandering the promise of the first half of the year. It mirrors Mustapha Jarju, a complete bomb brought in for big money by Tommy Soehn in July 2011.
My main thought when Robson walked, other than seriously wondering whether it should have been Miller, is this: How the Whitecaps can absorb so many transfer misses? How many times can they afford to drop money on a player with no return? (The club has pared down its operations this off-season, cutting the women’s senior team and replacing many of their paid media staff with unpaid interns.)
That’s why people are wary of Nigel Reo-Coker. They’ve been burned too many times before. Can this work out?
The good news is that, as Reo-Coker says all the right things, the Whitecaps are doing all the right things. Reo-Coker will not be a designated player, which means he won’t carry the same expectations that Robson and Miller had. Y.P. Lee was an amazing success under these circumstances, as was Andy O’Brien. He will start the season with the ‘Caps, a positive because European players traditionally find it hard to adjust when they stroll in halfway through the season, and that certainly happened with Robson and Miller. He’s only 28, which means there is every chance of him playing a long and fulfilling career here.
There may still be some whispers about Nigel Reo-Coker because of his past and the Whitecaps’ past transfer issues. But together, it’s possible that this time player and club might not have to just stonewall the skeptics.
New Canadian men’s national team interim head coach Colin Miller has named a 22-man roster full of new faces for his January training camp. Photo canadasoccer/flickr
It truly is the first match of a new era.
What did people want when Honduras blew out the Canadian national team 8-1 in the final group stage of World Cup qualifying? Fire? Heads rolling? Exile?
The answer Colin Miller, former FC Edmonton head coach and veteran of the North American soccer scene, has provided turns away slightly from the fire and tends to the green shoots in Canada’s soccer garden.
His 22-man roster has ten new players and an average age of 25; forward Dwayne De Rosario and goalkeeper Lars Hirschfeld will remain, as will a few other famiiliar faces from the last year of the program. But only four players total on this squad (DeRo, Hirschfeld, Ricketts, Ledgerwood) played in World Cup Qualifying last year. Only three (DeRo, Hirschfeld, Dunfield) are over 30.
This isn’t exile. A lot of good players are missing, but North American training camps often omit players in Europe. (Why make Iain Hume, David Edgar, Andre Hainault or Atiba Hutchinson fly across the pond?) Some MLS players got callups, while others (Will Johnson, Ante Jazic) will start their training camps with their clubs. They’re not necessarily out of the picture.
The theme of this squad is not the end of those players, but the beginning of a new pack. The opportunity offered here is incredible: Two games in short procession, one against a Euro 2012 team (23rd ranked Denmark, last seen in a 1-0 win against Canada in 1995) and one will be the newest installation in the USA-Canada rivalry. It is stiff competition.
But with the long view, how could you plan any differently? The third round of 2018 World Cup qualifying will likely be three years from now, and the journey has to begin immediately. If Canada charges the hexagonal final round of CONCACAF’s tournament, it needs to do so with a new core of players and somewhat of a different look from the team fielded the last few years.
So bring TFC’s Matt Stinson, a 20-year-old with six appearances in 2012 and 22-year old Kyle Bekker, who has never appeared. Think about starting Russell Teibert and Ashtone Morgan and Doneil Henry and Jonathan Beaulieu-Bourgault, all with some national team experience but all young and looking for more. Take the players trawled back from clubs in Europe and South America and give them a chance to see what they can do.
Because this is the start of the great adventure for this squad. From these games to the Gold Cup this summer, not all of these players will necessarily figure all the time. But when the time comes, when they are needed, they will remember this camp, and they chance they were given.
Jon Herdman and Chelsea Buckland of the Canada women’s national team look on as Ida Chong announces the Whitecaps’ National Soccer Development Centre in September. Photo Kai Jacobson/The Ubyssey
I’ve been going through the agreements between the Vancouver Whitecaps and UBC on the new Whitecaps training centre, and there’s one element conspicuous by its absence: The Canadian women’s national soccer team.
When the province unveiled plans for the National Soccer Development Centre in September, it was identified as a “west-coast base” for the Canadian women’s national team, with cabinet minister Ida Chong going back down memory lane to the Olympics and manager Jon Herdman and player Chelsea Buckland in attendance. “The national team will be here, we’ll make use of these facilities as long as we’re welcome, and this may be our little tipping point,” Herdman said at the time.
When you read the agreements for how the fields to be used, the guarantees, which promise 75-25 and 85-15 per cent access for the new turf and grass fields respectively, are solely between the Whitecaps and UBC, with the ‘Caps getting the larger share. The conference also promised community access would make up 50 per cent of the facility’s use, and that is expected to come from each side’s allocation; UBC has suggested the 50-50 split is between internal and external groups, as UBC has suggested. (UBC Board of Governors proposals list “National soccer team” as a primary user of the facility.)
With a women’s national team camp in Vancouver coming up from December 12-20 and no location yet announced, where does the program fit into these commitments?
We have a very close relationship with the CSA, and obviously with the Canadian Women’s National Team being based here, and [the] 2015 World Cup coming up, we hope that we’re going to be able to be a base for the team. Obviously, Jon Herdman’s working through his plans and we’re not sure yet what his training plans are for the coming few years, but if we can support that group in any way we’re obviously going to look to do so, we want to see them be successful … We’re really closely linked with Jon and his team on the Girls Elite side as well as supporting the national team.
But the “hope to be a base” for the team is a bit of a change in terminology from what seemed to be a sealed deal at the press conference. The CSA refused comment, saying that there was no official agreement between the association and the Caps. Lewis confirmed there was no agreement.
Nothing formal, really what we’ve said to Jon and the CSA is, “We’d like to understand what your needs are and what your plans are up in the leadup to 2015 and beyond, and tell us how we can support you.” These conversations are undergoing, but it’s still quite preliminary, as we haven’t even moved out to the campus yet.
There’s nothing to say there won’t be significant partnership – a CSA spokesperson suggested that the team was currently conducting siting meetings before deciding where in Vancouver to hold the practices, so this month’s camp could still be at UBC’s existing pitches. The new fields and training facility aren’t near being completed yet, and hey, it’s not like the CSA are paying for it, so the Whitecaps don’t have to guarantee the women’s team anything.
But if you got a different impression at the press conference in September, it’s clear that for now, at least, the National Soccer Development Centre isn’t quite a home for the program.
The storyline heading into last night’s Whitecaps playoffs game tried to reference, in whispers that did not actually invoke it by name, giant-killing in the English FA Cup.
Small teams beat big teams in knockout games all the time, the argument went, using examples from MLS history but calling to mind “the magic of the Cup” used as the selling point in England.
As we know now, that did not happen. Despite a third-minute goal so good it couldn’t be real from Darren Mattocks, the LA Galaxy scored twice in four minutes and took their place in the Western Conference quarterfinal. The Whitecaps were left with the knowledge that they came close, but now only have next year to plan for, and fans now have to wonder what this means in the context of the season.
The self-doubt-defying hope that maybe the ‘Caps could get something out of the fixture was run-of-the mill. But the elation of going up early—and staying ahead ten minutes later, and at half time, and with a half hour left—was glorious. Conceding the lead was like taking a punch, but it didn’t force the same loss of hope that a rout would have done. The reality set in, but the long-term vision seemed promising: maybe we can stop this from happening next year.
That, of course, is the other reality of the FA Cup. In that competition, fortunes vary year to year. One year, you might make a deep run or topple a Champion’s League club or lose in the first game to Cheltenham. Any year you don’t win it, you live with elimination and dive into the challenge next year, feeling the dare that you have a path to the title.
This perspective can be hard for expansion teams. Each year—especially in North America—gets measured in terms of impact or progress; We proved we could make the playoffs, we proved people would come, etcetra. We proved we belonged.
But what this result asks from you is the grand bargain every sports team wants to make with its fans: to get them to stay along for the long haul, not to just come out and see a game, but stick around.
The defeat was a punch in the gut. The whole last end of the season was a punch in the gut. Come back next year, maybe we’ll make the finals, or win the Cup or miss the whole thing altogether. Sometime you’ll get your satisfaction. Come along for the ride.
The match itself was kind of dull, but okay: It’s a shame Jay DeMerit got injured, but Martin Bonjour acquitted himself fine. Darren Mattocks showed his quality. Brad Knighton saved the Whitecaps over and over, and proved the decision to start him was correct. In the climatic miss that broke the Whitecaps’ concentration for just a crucial moment, Barry Robson and Kenny Miller both intensified the scrutiny over their midseason acquisitions.
LA were firmly in command, with 69 per cent of possession and nine corners to Vancouver’s zero, but the Whitecaps didn’t get blown out; they proved both they can make the playoffs and look not too far out of place. So progress as the goal is over; now the franchise is getting into the year-on-year fight. Maybe they can get a little bit farther next year.
So we’ve learned that the Whitecaps can defend in a pinch.
The big worry ahead of next week’s playoff wild-card game in Los Angeles is a matter of confidence in the Whitecaps’ road performance. Can they fight on the road? Can they pull off a result? On a national stage, will the game be more like the testy 1-1 draw in Vancouver, or the shameful 3-0 drubbing from last July?
Going by Saturday’s 0-0 draw against Real Salt Lake, we know the Whitecaps, at least, can hold on for a draw away, and even if they don’t score, a 0-0 draw in Los Angeles through 120 minutes will send them to penalties. But what we still don’t know is how they intend to score a goal if they ever fall behind.
The biggest surprise in the starting line-up Dane Richards and Darren Mattocks were swapped in on attack for Barry Robson and Kenny Miller. Whether it was a rest for the Scots or a concession to those worried that the new Designated Players aren’t clicking, it makes it clear that the real problem in the Whitecaps attack is distribution.
The ‘Caps have to find a way to get people the ball. Richards and Mattocks had an okay, but unspectacular day (though Mattocks came so close with his disallowed goal); Robson and Miller, who replaced the Jamaican duo, fared no better. So that’s the real question; can they figure it out against LA? If they concede, can they come back from that?
The good news is that the defensive game is working. The Whitecaps parked the bus, and of RSL’s 17 shots, only three hit the goal, and all were saved. Y.P. Lee continues to be good, but tired, and Jordan Harvey was not the strongest, but at the very least it worked.
And that at least solves a problem for the Whitecaps. If they play like this in California, they can keep it close, and that means there’s reason to hope, and that hope will only be stronger if they score a goal.
