Category Archives: MLS

Portland’s win should end MLS in 2020, but the sports machine keeps running

by Andrew Bates
The Portland Timbers lifted the MLS is Back tournament trophy Tuesday.
The Portland Timbers lifted the MLS is Back tournament trophy Tuesday, but the league is determined to play more games. (Photo: Jared Martinez, Matt Stith & Devin L’Amoreaux/MLS)

Could you imagine, as MLS pulled FC Dallas from the MLS is Back tournament on July 9 due to 10 positive COVID-19 tests – with two more in Nashville that would become nine before knocking it out of the tournament as well – that 36 days later a hoarse commissioner Don Garber would get up on the microphone to hand out a trophy and say “Difficulty is an excuse that history never accepts?”

Difficulty is something that has beset us all, as the COVID-19 pandemic descended on the world, infecting more than 20 million people and killing more than 745,000 globally. The struggle of health professionals to keep us alive is one, as is the act of keeping on as tragedy mounts and the places we turned to for community become places of danger.

It was the difficulty of hosting a sports tournament that didn’t need to happen in the first place that Garber was boasting about overcoming when he handed the MLS Is Back trophy, an improvised honour, to Diego Valeri of the Portland Timbers Tuesday night. The Timbers beat Orlando City SC 2-1 in an impressive, efficient performance that left one in awe of how they remained effortlessly in control for most of the game, allowing the Lions to get frustrated in possession and then flip the script and execute ruthlessly on attack.

Despite the focus on whether Portland’s Sebastian Blanco or Orlando’s Nani would prove their case as tournament MVP, it was centrebacks who were Timbers heroes. First a Diego Valeri free kick floated with impossible precision to Larrys Mabiala on the far post, to which Orlando soon replied when Mauricio Pereyra caught a laser pass from Nani and somehow had the time to turn while being tackled to fire his own. In the second half, Eryk Williamson dummied a shot, then fired a ball through the area that grazed Jeremy Ebobisse and then found the boot of Dario Zuparic, a defender who scored his first MLS goal since arriving this past offseason.

When the goal went in, there was joy; when the final whistle blew, there was joy; when the players rushed to a giant projection screen to greet the families they had to leave to be there, there was joy.

“The more difficult the fight is, the more beautiful the victory is at the end,” Mabiala said after the match. “We’ve been through many difficult games. … in the quarantine time, we’ve been talking a lot about what we wanted to accomplish and how we wanted to play.”

It was the end of a strange tournament, whose groups were adjusted in progress when teams withdrew, and in which interesting sides tended to do better than famous ones, some missing their best players after opt-outs. Orlando, who hadn’t placed higher than second-last in the east since 2016 (when they were third-last), beat much-hyped expansion team Inter Miami and last year’s No. 1 seed New York City in the group stage before knocking out Supporters Shield winners LAFC in penalties on their route to the final, thanks to the partnership of Nani and Pereyra as well as the contributions of fullbacks Joao Moutinho and Ruan. Cincinnati, which won all of six MLS games last year, won two of three in the group stage, including beating vaunted Atlanta United 1-0. Neither 2019 MLS Cup finalist made it past the first knockout round. Even the Vancouver Whitecaps, who were missing up to 11 players including their two best goalies, leaving 18-year-old Thomas Hasal in net, somehow won a game and made it to penalties in the first knockout round despite being outshot 106-27 in four matches.

In those circumstances, in some ways you can’t watch soccer the same. With players out of form and a pandemic on their mind, how can you judge someone for not placing every pass perfectly? How can you be expected to get results? As a fan, it’s done for your entertainment, but as sports, what is it for? What did anyone prove?

For the winners, the trophy and its place in the CONCACAF Champions League (whenever, you know, that happens), winning is enough.

“I’m very happy, because we made it count,” Blanco told reporters. “I want to thank my family, I want to thank my daughters, it’s been 40 days, it’s been very difficult for them, not only because of the loneliness but everything that is happening now. But like I said, we made it count.”

“The last ten days have been very hard because I had my son calling me every morning crying, asking me when I was going to come back,” said Mabiala, who has three kids, two of them toddlers. “When we had these conversations, we just told ourselves that we need to make it worth it.”

This league is a machine that produces sports, built to make its clubs overcome adversity and keep trying, and which sometimes rewards sacrifices with victory. But is every sacrifice worth it in the name of sports? For players who had to reheat their competitive form and left with an injury instead of a trophy? For Caps goalkeeper Bryan Meredith, who was far from home when his mother died suddenly? For Orange County residents, who faced a turnaround time of six days for COVID tests while MLS got theirs back in 12-24 hours?

Minus two teams, MLS was able to pull off the balance of the tournament without further positive testing after July 14. They wanted to play, and as frustrated as I was with the fact that the tournament should have been called off, I kept watching, up to the end. I got a little bit of joy.

But this is a machine built for one thing, and it hasn’t been turned off. Garber’s boast wasn’t just in defiance of the critics who thought the tournament couldn’t be done (safely), but against the backlash to the league’s return plans revealed last Saturday. Not 24 hours after he handed off the trophy, MLS played its next regular season game in Dallas in front of 2,912 fans at Toyota Stadium, against Nashville. More matches are planned, with fans where local rules permit. A risk assessment tool provided by Georgia Tech estimates that the chances that a group of 1,000 people in Collin County will have at least one person with COVID-19 is over 99 per cent. “If we have issues, we’ll deal with them,” Garber told reporters Saturday, but fans will have to sign a waiver to enter that prevents them from suing if they contract the disease.

The league asked its players to take a risk, and some of them did. But holding mass gatherings of this size, with this amount of danger, is reckless. We miss being in groups, and soccer companies and professionals face the financial penalties of not playing more of it. But this should have ended in Orlando, to wait to see if things are better next year.

After Tuesday’s game, when asked about the risk to fans, Caitlin Murray says Garber responded by citing player safety protocols, and added, “We’ve just got to get started, Taylor. We’ve got to get back and see if it can work.” You actually don’t have to try! The pandemic is not an opponent, and the only winning move is not to play. This is one difficulty that you can actually sit out. Regardless of our longing, the stakes are too high.

Dallas manager Luchi Gonzalez exhibited this sports-brain mentality when he told the AP that results in this match were secondary to a “celebration of getting to play” despite the ordeal in Orlando. “We’re gonna keep learning and we’re going to keep getting back up, and we’re gonna keep playing the game we love.”

Those are words generated by the sports machine. 745,000 deaths, with at least 165,000 in the U.S. Not everyone gets back up, and soccer shouldn’t increase that number by one.

How Vancouver loved and left Kei Kamara

by Andrew Bates

Kei Kamara walks into the Vancouver Whitecaps end-of-season press conference Oct. 30 with snacks. (Photo: Andrew Bates)

This piece originally ran in a Howler Magazine newsletter email sent Jan. 16, 2019.

The Vancouver Whitecaps have had a striker problem. In the years since Brazilian star Camilo bolted for Mexico while still under contract in the cold early months of 2014, nobody had managed to stick for more than a season as the star centre forward for Vancouver. So what was it that made Kei Kamara click with fans almost instantly?

“Me,” he says with a smile. “Kei Kamara.”

Despite the clamor—the fans “tell me how much they love me every day,” he has said—Kamara has been shipped off, his name added to the club’s list of one-and-done strikers. But his ability to bond quickly with a fanbase ensured he will be remembered fondly in Vancouver.

The 34-year-old striker’s arrival last off-season, through a trade with the New England Revolution, was looked on with wary eyes. In 2017, former Seattle Sounder Fredy Montero arrived, scored a serviceable 14 goals, and left. For his replacement, fans were hungry for a big name that could rival those pulled in by clubs like Toronto FC and LA Galaxy. Kamara’s MLS veteran status almost hurt him in that way, as if to say, “Instead of someone flashy, here’s someone reliable.”

But almost instantly, Kamara started winning favor, whether it was with his popular Instagram account or the goal he scored on his debut against the Montreal Impact. Here was someone that injected positive energy into the team.

“It’s different than where I played last year. Being in New England, played there, I loved it,” he said at the Whitecaps’ season-ending press conference Oct. 30. “But the connection that I had with people here was so much different.”

Kamara describes himself as someone who uses positive energy to lift up the people around him, a weaponized charm that has followed the 34-year-old wherever he goes.

“When I feel like people were down, when I feel like people are sleeping … I’m really loud, because I’m trying to wake everyone else up,” he said. “No matter if they were down, I was trying to inject some kind of energy into them to get, you know, some kind of positivity of whatever the situation was.”

He said he prefers playing where people feel the team represents the city, which gives him a sense of belonging.

“I click with the people around. I make them, not just friends or fans, they’re kind of part of me somehow,” he said. “And when I enjoy that … I have that different energy when I’m on the field, or off the field when I’m doing stuff, it just makes me want to keep going.”

For his birthday, the Curva Collective supporters group made a group tifo where they dressed in Kamara’s Sierra Leone jersey and flew a banner showing his heart-shaped hands goal celebration over the country’s flag.

“Sierra Leoneans around the world started posting that picture and started talking about … the fans of Vancouver, look at the love that they’ve shown our brother,” he said. “It’s not just about me, if they were just thinking, okay, we’re doing this for Kei, at the end of the day it went around.”

He was drafted in 2006 by the Columbus Crew, and bounced around San Jose and Houston before landing at Sporting Kansas City. He stayed there for five years before stints in England with Norwich City and Middlesborough. Eventually he returned to the league, rejoining the Crew.

“I did really well when I was in Kansas City, because I felt at home, I connected with the fans and all that,” he said.

He demurred about Columbus, saying “it was only a half season, really,” despite the fact that he tied for the Golden Boot and made a run to the MLS Cup final in 2015. He got into a public fight with Federico Higuain the next year and was subsequently traded to New England.

But his time in Vancouver was more positive. He scored 14 goals, same as Montero, and collected his 100th MLS goal and 300th MLS appearance in the process.

“Since I’ve been here I’ve felt like I’ve been here longer (than I have),” Kamara said.

That’s not to say it wasn’t a tumultuous year for Vancouver, who fired coach Carl Robinson and missed out on the playoffs by two points. Players lashed out at the end-of-year press conference, with longtime midfielder Russell Teibert saying only there are only “a few” players who played for the crest. Kamara passed on arguments over whether division cost the team wins.

“You’re gonna have that in every team … where you think that one or two of those players didn’t give it their all,” he said. “(There’s) still the energy that you can inject into those people that you think are not giving it. That’s my personality.

“I’m loud as hell in the locker room, I’m loud in the game, I’m always loud until I’m really annoying, but I’m only doing it for one reason, because I want all of us to succeed.”

Kamara also bonded with Alphonso Davies, the teenage sensation who moved to Bayern Munich this fall, from a Black Panther-inspired goal celebration in the first game. He said that being there for his last moment on the team, when he was substituted for the team’s new project, 16-year-old Simon Colyn, is one of his proudest.

“I didn’t come here to be a babysitter, even though I ended up being one, but good thing the kid graduated. He’s going to college,” he said. “I could be here next year, maybe I’m not, but to say that I was a part of that … then I’m proud of that day.”

It may now be his lasting legacy. He was one of an eye-watering 18 players to leave the club, with the team announcing they would not be renewing his contract Dec. 10. New manager Marc Dos Santos told MLSsoccer.com he just didn’t fit into the team’s “big picture.”

A day later, he was picked by FC Cincinnati in the MLS Expansion Draft and immediately traded to the Colorado Rapids.

“I felt good that I was going to stay in Vancouver for a little longer,” he would say in an article on the Rapids’ site. “Maybe I was reading the energy wrong. When I got the news that they weren’t interested in keeping me and I was being traded, I was shocked.”

Kamara cited that his new club has a “positive structure in place for me” as reason for optimism despite the team’s third-from-the-bottom finish in 2018. Back in October, he said that while money is good, being wanted is better.

“I could have stayed in England, but I came back to the league knowing the fact of what I want,” he said. “I want to be in a place where I’m appreciated. I want to be in a place where I’m connected to the people, the fans, on and off the field. And when I feel that, then I feel at home.”

For a moment, home was in Vancouver for Kei Kamara. That moment has passed, but he still left a mark on a city, if only for a year.

Opener win a bonding moment for Vancouver Whitecaps

by Andrew Bates

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.

Monday Review: In a time loop, does your GAA go down?

by Andrew Bates

"Do you feel like... we've done this before?" Photo illustration Andrew Bates, original photo courtesy Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star

“Do you feel like… we’ve done this before?” Photo illustration Andrew Bates, original photo courtesy Lucas Oleniuk/Toronto Star

As Vancouver shipped its third consecutive goal in the first five minutes of the second half on the way to its second consecutive 2-0 road loss, Toronto dropped points after conceding in the final minutes of the game for the fourth time in a row. All this repetition leads me to wonder: How would this affect a goalie’s goals-against average?

If you realize you are playing the same game over and over, are you statistically putting in multiple shifts or are you just doing over the same performance? Would you carry the memories of past goals nobody remembers to haunt/empower you, or would you be doomed to repeat it?

Either way, it won’t help TFC in the standings.

Major League Soccer

Welp, here we are again. Toronto were cruising to a 0-0 draw away to an out-of-conference opponent, and then Logan Emory fell over in the box. The man he was marking, former useless TFC striker Edson Buddle, picked it up and washed it all away. Toronto falls to 1-4-4, and ninth in the East. Six out points of a possible twelve lost in the dying minutes over the last four games.

Montreal bled late too, conceding in injury-time to draw 2-2 against San Jose. In the ever-touchy east, the dropped means Montreal is the bottom team in a four-way tie for first, all on 17 points.

Seattle also clawed back to a 2-2 draw after conceding to Philadelphia’s Danny Cruz twice in two minutes, while Portland never got started, scoreless at home against New England. Sporting Kansas City thumped Chivas 4-0 and Houston made it out of LA with a 1-0 win, which means with FC Dallas on a bye, Salt Lake and Colorado were the only teams from the West to get anything. Vancouver sits eighth, three points back of the fifth-place Rapids.

North American Soccer League

Edmonton, who nicked their first win of the season last week, are still chugging along. They conceded an early penalty kick, but turned it into a 1-1 away draw against joint league leaders Tampa Bay Rowdies. Shawn Seiko levelled it in the 35th minute and the tired Eddies managed to bring it home with them. Edmonton are 5th with five points, but the top is a log-jam on eight points, so it’s not out of reach.

National Womens Soccer League

Sophie Schmidt tried, but she couldn’t get Sky Blue FC past the Western New York Flash. Trailing 2-0, Schmidt buried it late in the first half to bring it within a goal, but they didn’t make it home. In much the same way, Diane Matheson’s penalty kick similarly got the Washington Spirit on the board against the Portland Thorns, but couldn’t stop a 2-1 loss.

Sydney Leroux, villain to Canadians (but let that be a story for another day) scored a hat trick to power the Boston Breakers 4-1 over Chicago, and Seattle has lost again, a 1-0 defeat to Kansas City for the second straight week. Boy do they need Megan Rapinoe to come back from Europe.

Amway Canadian Championship.

Hahahahaha. As Vancouver eased to a 2-0 win to usher out Edmonton, Toronto conceded again and again and again to lose 6-0, 6-2 on aggregate against Montreal. When I got to BC Place Wednesday, I eyed the score, sitting at 3-0 as I waited for the elevator. By the time I got to the top it was 4-0. So that’s how that went. It’s an off-week for the competition before the first leg of the final kicks off next weekend in Montreal.

Pacific Coast Soccer League

The Whitecaps Girls Elite team started off brightly with a 4-0 win against the NSGSC Eagles in the Womens Premier division, with Summer Clarke getting a brace.

Defending Mens Premier champions Vancouver Thunderbirds started with a 2-1 loss to the Victoria Highlanders reserves. The Highlanders then crossed the Georgia Straight the next day to fall 3-2 to Khalsa Sporting Club. Khalsa were fresh off a thumping 7-2 win against Victoria United, sporting a 3-0 hat trick from UBC star Milad Mehrabi.

Bellingham, who started last weekend with a pair of wins on Vancouver Island, weren’t so lucky at home across the border with a 2-1 loss to Estrella de Chile.

2014 Voyageurs Cup to feature NASL play-in round

by Andrew Bates

The second division North American Soccer League's (NASL) FC Edmonton take on the Vancouver Whitecaps last Wednesday. Photo courtesy Lewis/Canada Soccer

The second division North American Soccer League’s (NASL) FC Edmonton take on the Vancouver Whitecaps last Wednesday. Photo courtesy Lewis/Canada Soccer

One of the coolest things about cup competitions is the chance for big-league clubs and second-division dreamers to play teams they don’t often get to see and have a chance to fight it out. But when the Ottawa NASL expansion team debuts next year, they’ll be seeing second-div colleagues Edmonton in the Voyageurs Cup before they scrap with Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto.

Canadian Soccer Association president Victor Montagliani thinks that, provisionally, a five-team Amway Canadian Championship will retain its current two-semifinal home-and-away format, according to MLSSoccer.com. But Ottawa and Edmonton will have to compete in a play-in round before the first round proper, where it will meet the MLS team with the best record from the previous year.

I don’t know how I feel about this. I know I like to see inter-league play, but there could be benefits: You wouldn’t see NASL teams go home from the competition without even a win to their names less often. A play-in round could also weed out weak teams, ensuring that battle-ready squads make clashes between the tiers more competitive.

Something probably has to be done about the Canadian Championship eventually; attendance numbers were bad last weekend and it’s probably not going to be better in BC Place Wednesday, as the game is head to head against Game 1 of the Canucks’ first round playoff series. The CSA is dreaming of a third tier of regional leagues and Montagliani says that those teams might get a shot in the Cup eventually, which could work.

Do you think it’s a good idea? Let’s hear it in the comments.

Monday Review: Ryan Nelsen and the Infinite Sadness

by Andrew Bates

courtesy toronto fc

He just can’t. He has lost the ability to can, just like TFC has lost the ability to defend in the last ten minutes. Photo courtesy Toronto FC

Well, that was a week about getting by for the Vancouver Whitecaps. Behind 2-1 against Edmonton, they left Edmonton a goal up, and then, down 2-0, they managed a draw against Dallas. An alright haul. What else happened? Let’s review.

Major League Soccer

It’s happened to Toronto again. Despite looking like they were going to reverse a trend of late collapses when Jonathan Osorio scored an equalizer on 83 minutes, New York scored just afterwards to seal a defeat for TFC. Tim Cahill’s bruising header flattened poor Ashtone Morgan, but Morgan was really at fault for flipping the clearance right to New York’s Peguy Luyindula moments earlier, who served Henry on the wing like an expert barman. The loss makes five goals in the last fifteen minutes for TFC, and extends an 11-game home winless streak in MLS.

At Saputo Stadium, the Montreal Impact ran up a confident-looking 2-0 win against the Chicago Fire thanks to a lovely piece of work by on-loan Argentinian Andres Romero, an excellent turn-and-shot by Marco Di Vaio, and a red card for Chicago’s Jeff Larentowicz on what he likely feels was incidental contact on Andrea Pisanu, streaking right into the box. It puts the Impact up first in the east. New England leapt past Chicago and 9th-place Toronto to 7th in the standings with a 2-0 win against Philadelphia, while sorry DC United (1-1-6) stay where they are at the bottom of the league after a 3-0 thumping from Columbus.

In the slimmer, fitter Western conference, draws between Chivas (4th) and San Jose (6th) as well as Houston and Colorado (8th) mean most stay where they are. Whitecaps in 7th. Ahead of Vancouver’s visit next weekend, the LA Galaxy defense flummoxed Real Salt Lake 2-0 at Rio Tinto and Portland pulled out a 3-2 win after a shootout of a first half. The MLS recap’s lede says it spoiled both the first two goals of a promising young player’s career and SKC’s “roll-out of its new black third kit with blue argyle trim.” Good. Argyle is our thing, as is having a dumb-looking third jersey. Back off, KC.

National Women’s Soccer League

The Seattle Reign are having a tough time without U.S. national women’s team stars Hope Solo and Megan Rapinoe, and they stuttered to a 2-0 loss away in Kansas City Friday. The best moment from the Blues win was a defensive clearance from Lauren Cheney, who got the ball facing the goal in her own final third and managed to get it on the carpet at centre for Renee Cuellar. Cuellar broke past her two defenders and ran right into the box for an easy one-on-one to seal the points.

The Battle of the Canadian Keepers (as I’m sure everyone referred to it) went Karina Leblanc’s way as the Portland Thorns defeated the Chicago Red Stars 2-0. Erin McCloud had a lot more to deal with in the Chicago goal, though, putting up a lot of solid saves and only conceding the first after the Red Star defense left her all alone with Alex Morgan and Danielle Foxhoven. The second goal was national team comrade Christine Sinclair paying her a visit with a stunner from the top of the box on an individual effort. The Boston Breakers beat the Western New York Flash 2-1, and Sky Blue FC got the same score on the road against the Washington Spirit. Portland still sit on top with a 2-1-0 record.

North American Soccer League

Edmonton had a nicer day than they’d been having! Shawn Seiko scored a penalty against the San Antonio Scorpions to win 1-0 in their home opener, their first win in a season that has started sour (1-1-4). It was like a Whitecaps alumni game, as the Rabbits and the Scorpions shared five or six players with ‘Caps connections, including Greg Janicki, Kevin Harmse, Blake Wagner, and loanee Carlyle Mitchell. Too bad Wes Knight popped his foot.

Amway Canadian Championship

Cup competitions are always a good time for lower division clubs (and Toronto) to try and get a plucky result against superior opposition, aren’t they? Toronto beat Montreal 2-0 and look to go through unless the Impact can produce, uh, the same result they did against Chicago on the weekend. We’ll see how far their good luck in this competition can carry them.

B.C. Provincial Cup

The Thunderbirds couldn’t make it past Surrey, sadly, going a man down and then conceding to lose 1-0. They will face West Van FC at the final in Langford, B.C., who beat Cowichan 3-1. At the Surrey game, a yell of “West Van’s going to beat you!” floated through the stands, almost certainly from the clump of West Van players at the top. Take that as you may. Surrey United FC face Castaways FC in the women’s A final.

It’s Monday! Time for the Monday Review.

by Andrew Bates

Christine Sinclair must have done this to Kaylyn Kyle like, eighty times in practice. Photo courtesy Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Thorns FC

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.

Montreal, sitting third in the East, didn’t play this weekend. TFC is sitting four points out in seventh, while Vancouver is seventh in the west, because oh yeah.

NASL

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.

BC Provincial Cup

Semifinals have been set for BC Soccer’s adult cup competition. On the men’s side, Surrey United Firefighters beat Estrella de Chile and will face the PCSL champion Vancouver Thunderbirds, UBC’s summer team, who offed VMSL champs Columbus FC 3-1. West Van FC and Cowichan won their quarterfinals, and will meet on the other side of the bracket.

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.