Whitecaps found legs first in opener, and then Toronto woke up

Captain Pedro Morales takes a corner in the Whitecaps’ home opener against Toronto FC. (Photo RosieTulips/Flickr)

During the off-season, a soccer team doesn’t exist in any of the important ways, like the way it does during the ebb and flow of a game. The pre-season is used to prepare and predict what the team will be like when it exists again for real; come the opening whistle it blips back into the physical plane. With some new limbs and some limbs missing, it lumbers into motion and begins to walk and pass and try to score a goal, just like it did the last time, but for the first time as a new group.

The Vancouver Whitecaps figured this out early and had a good first half in its opener Saturday against Toronto FC. Then Toronto woke up, and they had a very good second half en route to a 3-1 win.

Two of the biggest new faces introduced to the Caps this year, and the only two new players in the starting lineup, were Pa-Modou Kah, the centre-back picked up from Portland, and Octavio Rivero, the Uruguayan striker brought in to fill the fans’ hunger for a goal-scorer and whose predecessor had not quite managed to satisfy.

Their integration was a success, with Kah picking out the new central striker from almost 30 yards away that released him on a run that culminated in Rivero beating Joseph Bendik on his right side. Rivero basked in the moment, getting a chance to make his mark on his debut early, like Sebastien Le Toux in 2012.

By contrast, Toronto looked nervous, bending under the expectations that come with their wage bill. When a ball from Michael Bradley deflected through the box to their winter signing Sebastien Giovinco, the new man turned at the same rate as everyone around him, a second behind the ball like he was surprised to be alone with it, before putting a blistering shot just wide on the 17th minute.

But even without cohesion, individual players can still shine. Jozy Altidore, fresh from a disappointing term with Sunderland in the English Premier League, was given a gift of a Giovinco ball across the carpet and, as though through muscle memory, deftly turned past the goalkeeper.

The Caps stayed good for the rest of the period and were more aggressive at finding space to exploit, but didn’t convert it to goals. Kekuta Manneh, on 39 minutes, couldn’t work the same magic 1-on-1 with Bendik that Rivero had earlier, and Vancouver went into the tunnel on even terms with a Toronto side that hadn’t figured out how to make all of its expensive pieces snap together.

But you can’t count on your opponent’s ill fortune. The Toronto that came out of the tunnel was more determined and less nervous, converting that with a smooth run from Justin Morrow that bamboozled Vancouver defender Stephen Beitashour and put him in a position to pick out Robbie Findley.

It was now Toronto, not Vancouver, that was striding past back lines and executing smart runs. On 62 minutes, there was a strange crossover that looked almost like a Whitecap stole the ball from another; on 83 minutes Pedro Morales recovered the ball from the defense, but through fatigue couldn’t find an outlet before being overrun in his own half.

The penalty that ended the team’s chances was cruel, although not undeserved. After Gershon Koffie had a foul shout at the other end, Kah, fulfilling jitters from fans that don’t fondly recall his performance in Portland, clattered into Altidore on 89 minutes. If he touched the ball, he launched his frame into the air so clumsily that nobody could really argue.

The 2015 Whitecaps exist now, and the result was promising, if not disappointing. They lacked the ability to control Toronto’s firepower, when it woke up, and with more time for Kah and Kendall Waston to work together and more time for Rivero to earn the confidence of fans in a way past strikers couldn’t, they might be able to assert themselves down the road. It begins now.

Stats after the jump.

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“Lost” goals and off-season blunders aren’t the problem or solution for the Vancouver Whitecaps

Jan22 by Andrew Bates

Camilo's 22 goals in 2013 didn't help the Whitecaps make the playoffs and now that he's gone, the club must concern with scoring when it counts rather than scoring in his absence. (Photo Vancouver Southsiders/flickr)

Camilo’s 22 goals in 2013 didn’t help the Whitecaps make the playoffs and now that he’s gone, the club must concern itself with scoring when it counts rather than scoring in his absence. (Photo Vancouver Southsiders/flickr)

It’s been a long, dark off-season for the Vancouver Whitecaps, but the good news is that none of the blunders, miscues or departures have made the team’s biggest problems worse.

Nothing has stung as stung as bad as Camilo, the league’s top scorer in 2013, who ducked a club-triggered contract option and appeared in another team’s jersey in a successful attempt to force a move to Mexico. Whether you blamed Camilo for being an amoral mercenary or the front office for not working harder to make sure the man who wore a Golden Boot was happy (or both!) it was an emotional tragedy that seemed impossible to recover from.

It’s not the only time the five-person panel of front-office staff led by Bob Lenarduzzi at the helm has been left looking poor this winter. It was clear the club wanted former U.S. national team manager Bob Bradley for Rennie’s spot. He passed, forcing the Whitecaps to very publicly settle for their second choice, the able and patient assistant manager Carl Robinson. Usually-moribund Toronto FC brought in two stars in the same week while YVR’s international arrivals section was devoid of blue and white. It had appeared, briefly, that first-round draft pick Andre Lewis was, in fact, committed to the New York Cosmos before the league clarified that they had arranged a deal with the NASL club.

I am here to tell you that none of this matters. Camilo’s unreliability is as legendary as his brilliance, the Whitecaps will sign a new designated player or they won’t and Lewis, if desired, will be prised from the Cosmos, unless he isn’t. Carl Robinson is as well positioned as any man to deal with the only problem that matters for the team, which can only be solved in the pre-season: the team’s inability to take and hold games in key situations.

The intensity of despair that surrounds Camilo’s departure is based on two assumptions. The first is that Camilo somehow took his 22 goals with him when he left, and the second is that replacing those goals is an unlikely task that is necessary for the team to succeed.

The reality is that the value of goals is fluid. Camilo and Eric Hassli combined for a talismanic 22 league goals in the Whitecaps’ 2011 last-place finish (next on the scorers list: Alain Rochat with three) and scored seven (five and two, respectively) the next year. The Whitecaps “lost” 15 goals then, but five >3 goal scorers (Sebastien Le Toux, Darren Mattocks, Barry Robson, Gershon Koffie and Dane Richards) scored 20 goals between them in 2012 and the club made the playoffs.

That team scored 35 goals; next year’s edition scored 18 more times and missed the playoffs by two places. They only allowed four more goals. The point I’m making is that none of these numbers matter. They’re a good indicator of individual contribution, and indeed Camilo was important: his boot sealed that 2-2 draw against Portland and kept the Whitecaps on course to win their first Cascadia Cup since 2008.

But goals alone do not deliver a playoff spot. Secondary scoring was fine in 2013, with Koffie, Mattocks, Kenny Miller, Kekuta Manneh and Jordan Harvey (!) contributing 24 goals between them. But the team lacked a cohesiveness and consistency that harmed them at key moments, combining a narrative of early failure with an inability to hold key results. The hypothetical nine points lost from winning and drawing positions in the last 20 minutes would have put them in a tie for first place in the West.

That Camilo’s last game as a Whitecap saw him score a hat trick at home against the Colorado Rapids one game after the Rapids eliminated them from the playoffs on the road with a 77th minute goal tells the whole story of the team’s season. A sorry August 14 road loss to the Rapids when the Whitecaps were in the playoffs by two points and four places was another opportunity lost that typified the club’s troubles.

Intangibles like organization and desire can’t be pinpointed and diagnosed, but instability on the backline started with captain Jay DeMerit’s Achilles rupture injury in the home-opener that kept him out for most of the season. His age and injury history make him a question mark, but he is a leader in the locker room and his return for the new season is a positive omen. Brad Rusin, Andy O’Brien and Jonny Leveron wavered in and out, and the trade of Alain Rochat remains a puzzling question mark that kept the defensive unit in constant flux.

This is why I don’t think there’s a lot of pressure on draftee Andre Lewis, but I have high hopes for Christian Blake. We get a new influx of young, talented attackers that need time to grow into the league every year. But if Blake can come under the wing of DeMerit and O’Brien and can help add energy on defense without getting hurt, that will work wonders. A replacement for Young-Pyo Lee must also be found.

The cohesion of the team makes the pre-season camp vital. Can the well-liked Robinson succeed in forming a indefatigable unit where his boss couldn’t? (First, let him diverge from Rennie’s path by ditching the suit. It didn’t seem to fit him well at the draft.) It remains to be seen, but this is a matter of chemistry that you can’t predict. Let’s see how it works.

Offensively, the only thing that matters is picking people who can deliver when it really counts. Let it sink in that Jordan Harvey scored more goals than Darren Mattocks and the need for a reliable striker who can deliver results is obvious. If the Whitecaps have got $1.5 million for Camilo, that plus the extra breathing room in salary cap helps improve their prospects in the transfer market dramatically. In MLS, this decision can never be taken lightly.

In the end, you could never predict whether Camilo would score 22 goals or 5 or whether he’d end up in training camp when he had a theoretically valid contract. That’s not going to put you in the playoffs, and though it seems a lot of these off-season headlines won’t either, the path back to the MLS Cup hunt starts only one place: on the training pitch next Monday. Let’s hope for greener pastures.

Is Camilo gone? Probably.

Jan7 by Andrew Bates

Whether or not Camilo is contract is valid, he's wearing a Queretaro F.C. shirt. He's probably gone. (Photo Club_Querétaro/Twitter)

Whether or not Camilo’s contract is valid, he’s wearing a Queretaro F.C. shirt. He’s probably gone. (Photo Club_Queretaro/Twitter)

In weird off-season transfer sagas, the safest position to take is “I’ll believe it when I see him in the shirt.”

So on January 1, when ESPN Deportes reported that Querétaro F.C., a club with a strange history in Mexico’s top division, were about to sign Camilo and the Whitecaps denied they had agreed to any such thing, the safe money was on waiting and seeing. And on Monday, when Querétaro’s twitter account published photos of Camilo in the Mexican club’s kit, no amount of money seemed safe any more.

This debacle seems complex, and it is, but it can be boiled down to this: Camilo’s 2012 contract extension gave the Whitecaps the option to renew automatically without negotiation, which the Whitecaps did in November. Camilo’s camp doesn’t believe they have to submit to that extension and, after his pretty impressive 22-goal 2013 season, looked for a deal and found one in Mexico, where ESPN reported his transfer was seen as a done deal as early as December 17.

So, what’s about to happen? Regardless of whether or not club options are legal (and Ben Massey has written a great post on that topic), there are FIFA rules that permit breaking contract, with penalties, in the off-season. (Open your FIFA Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players copybook now.) But when it comes to international transfers, matters are a bit more hazy.

The Canadian Soccer Association must pass Camilo’s “soccer passport”, called an International Transfer Certificate, to Mexico before a Mexican team can sign him. When Querétaro asks, the CSA, which has provided proof of Camilo’s registration, must say no, and then we’re heading to arbitration.

The former association shall not issue an ITC if a contractual dispute has arisen between the former club and the professional. In such a case, the professional, the former club and/or the new club are entitled to lodge a claim with FIFA. (Annexe 3, 1.2)

While FIFA could annul the contract, the rules only explicitly forbid breaking contract during a season. What we’re dealing with, now, are issues of punishment: should Camilo and Querétaro be hit with fines and suspensions for this, or were they acting within their rights?

Either way, Camilo is wearing a Querétaro shirt. He can’t sign a contract until the FIFA hearing, which has 60 days to reach a conclusion, and appeals complete; since those regulations handle sporting sanctions before making any decision on the ITC, that could be a very long time. (Querétaro just played its first game of the Liga MX winter season last Friday.)

Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi told reporters that the club hopes the self-evident nature of Camilo’s contract will make their case for them. “The process in world football is pretty straightforward… the CSA will the look at his contractual status, realize that he’s bound to the Whitecaps, they’ll send the information back to the Mexican federation and say that he’s signed, you can’t sign him,” he said. “The club has acknowledged receipt of the documentation, we’re assuming that they’re going to back off, but they’ll need to take the next step.”

It is unlikely that Queretaro is going to back off. According to these two articles (and I’m going off of Google Translate here), the club was relegated last year. Its owners’ response: purchase Liga MX team Jaguares de Chiapas and move it to the city of Querétaro. This created a strange relocation carousel that resulted in Chiapas and Querétaro retaining top-division teams. Regardless of whether or not Camilo’s contract is valid, we can assume that this is not a club that is likely to beg off with an “oops, my bad” and flip him back to Vancouver.

So it all comes down to Camilo. Lenarduzzi said he thought that Camilo was misled: “I really believe that the situation has been misrepresented to Camilo,” he said. “I think he’s put a lot of faith in an agent and has gone with the agent’s advise and has got himself into a situation where it doesn’t look good on him.” But Lenarduzzi also said that Camilo has been contacted twice by the club since this story started, and informed that he wasn’t free to go.

Realistically, there’s nothing stopping Camilo from turning around and coming back to the Whitecaps; he’s not under contract in Mexico, after all. Querétaro, who announced they had signed DaMarcus Beasley last month before retracting the announcement, could decide it’s too much work and close the door on the deal. The Whitecaps might get money, and Camilo and his new club might get punished. Either way, FIFA is unlikely to stop it from happening.

Regardless of whether or not his agent was right to say that he could duck the club option, Camilo chose to do it. The club told him he was in the wrong, and he didn’t come back to Vancouver. He’s in Mexico wearing another team’s shirt.

You can now safely assume that he wants to stay there.

EDIT: Querétaro’s president has told a journalist the club hasn’t signed Camilo (which makes sense, because of the ITC situation) and all of the tweets and publicity have been deleted. Cold feet? Maximum penalty for the club for aiding in the breaking of a contract is a two-window transfer ban. The story continues.

Canada’s Gold Cup opener was going okay, I guess, until it wasn’t

Jul7 by Andrew Bates

Buh. So I watched the first Canadian game in the Gold Cup. Are you sure you want to hear about it?

Martinique aren’t bad so much as they’re static, drawing from a player pool that’s half French oldsters and half natives of the French overseas department. They spent most of the time pushing Canada without finding any luck, going into second-half injury time tied 0-0. That’s sort of a result if your expectations were shattered by the most recent World Cup qualifying campaign but not at all a result when you think that six years ago, Canada were ranked fourth in CONCACAF and now they’re getting bossed around by a non-FIFA team. Milan Borjan was dependable. Canada’s rising stars need more time with each other, and Canada was not without chances.

That would have been something you could settle for, until they scored from outside the box on 93 minutes. By all accounts, Canada need 4 points to succeed, which would mean they need at least a point against Mexico. So there’s that.

Whitecaps take control of their own destiny with landmark 2-0 win over Seattle

Jul7 by Andrew Bates

Photo RosieTulips/Flickr

There are few experiences so helpless for a fan as watching a lead slip away.

But on Saturday, the Vancouver Whitecaps did not meekly let a victory slip away or even sheepishly escape with points they did not deserve. They improved at half-time, pushed hard in the attack and scored at the very beginning and the very end to finally pick up a 2-0 victory against the Seattle Sounders.

Seattle, of course, has made Vancouver feel helpless before. Despite a respectable record against the Sounders in the second division — 5 wins, 7 defeats and 9 draws from 2004 to 2010 — Seattle has made Vancouver miserable in MLS, with the Whitecaps losing six times, drawing four and winning precisely never.

This especially hurts because it is Seattle. With the great success Seattle had entering the league, both in terms of results and community engagement, the Whitecaps made noise about copying their approach when they made the same jump. But of course, the 2011 season didn’t go nearly as well. For Vancouver, the results against Seattle (and Portland), coupled with the image of crowds over 40,000 uniformly standing and singing, scarves aloft, is enough to make the Whitecaps fan despair that perhaps they are miles behind their Cascadia rivals as they watch tourists in green dance up Robson Street after the final whistle.

At least three times, the Whitecaps have given up leads against Seattle. 2011 brought a 3-1 home loss, the last game played in Empire Field, which started so brightly with a goal from Camilo. Last season’s rollicking 2-2 draw at BC Place was going to be a win until Fredy Montero scored in the 90th minute. And of course, there was the defeat in Seattle last month, when the other shoe dropped in the form of a 2-1 road win flipping to loss late, again.

Surrendering points from a winning position has become The New Problem for the Whitecaps after the demoralizing loss to Montreal in the final of the Canadian Championship, a thread that runs through the Seattle game and to the last game against Kansas City. I mean, we will take a point from an out-of-conference road game and four from six points on the trip, thank you, but it’s been worrying.

So when Kenny Miller cut through with an early goal at BC Place on 4 minutes, the first feeling was elation. The goal came from nothing, a great ball that Corey Hertzog arced from the halfway line without looking speculative. Miller bamboozled Hurtado with a cut to the right and slapped the ball with the side of his foot, leaving it to run past two sprawling Sounders. The effect Miller’s return has had on this team has been tremendous; his technique and experience has now wholly eclipsed his disappointing first season.

However, the next feeling was fear. The Whitecaps were defensively terrifying in the first half. All the defenders produced decent plays, but Seattle, especially the tandem of Obafemi Martins and Lamar Neagle, found it just too easy to slice through. For the fan bruised often and recently by collapses from early leads, it seemed saner to prepare for disappointment again.

Brad Knighton’s performance in this half was one of the most important of his career. Despite winning the starting role mid-season two consecutive years there remains, as Ben Massey recorded, a feeling that perhaps neither Knighton nor Joe Cannon are good enough.

Just as the club’s move to bring in David Ousted from Denmark validated that sentiment, Knighton has been fighting like hell to retain his grip on the spot in the two weeks between the signing and when Ousted is eligible to suit up. A save on Martins as he drifted over on 22′ and two quick saves in procession after a Neagle corner were crucial in keeping the Caps level by halftime. Ousted is active now, and will play in the reserves tomorrow. Knighton’s seven-save clean sheet was a fierce effort to ensure he stays there.

Despite Knighton’s heroics, the outfielders did not inspire confidence in the first half. But something shifted in the second period.

Jun Marques Davidson, who had been invisible before the interval, stepped up and took control of the fulcrum at midfield, helping create a logjam in the Whitecaps area. (Most notably: Intercepting a dangerous Brad Evans pass from the goal line.) The midfield was a lot more challenging to pass through for the Sounders, and that’s because the Whitecaps were much better off the ball, depriving Seattle of time and options in possession.

When Corey Hertzog, admirably filling in up front for the absent Russell Teibert, was taken off on 63′ with a left-ankle sprain, the TSN commentators wondered aloud: defense or attack? Should manager Martin Rennie bring in a pacy young forward like Kekuta Manneh to cause problems or act conservatively, perhaps bringing on a midfielder to folding the 4-3-3 into a more defensive formation to grind out a 1-0 result?

The way the Whitecaps handled this question can tell you everything about how they did not simply avoid defeat but seize victory. Before Daigo Kobayashi’s introduction, the ‘Caps had a total of four shots, only two on goal. But Daigo helped reinvigorate the attack, pushing the play up the pitch so that Seattle had to make up ground to try and mount any kind of assault of their own.

The next sub sealed the attack-is-defense approach: Darren Mattocks. So quiet lately, appearing only once in the last six games, Mattocks exploded onto the pitch, matching the intensity of the crowd with a rapid five shots and quick runs, terrorizing poor Djimi Traore.

The decision to play attacking players like Kobayashi and Mattocks is what sealed victory. And when a Knighton goal kick — clean sheet and an assist! — was flicked on at the centre circle by Gershon Koffie, Mattocks did the rest himself, chesting the ball down, cutting through Traore and batting a half-volley up and over.

2-0. With 11 minutes left, that was something like certainty. Knighton stayed strong. Mattocks kept coming out of nowhere to terrorize Seattle on the break. There would be no capitulation. The fear of lingering oblivion that was thick and black after the Canadian championship vanished into thin air. The Whitecaps are on top of the Cascadia Cup standings.

It was a good night to walk down Robson after a Seattle game for the fans in blue, for once.

Stats after the jump.

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Canada WNT build their game in friendly loss to strong Germany

Jul4 by Andrew Bates

Photo courtesy Ville Vuorinen/Canada Soccer

So we can agree now that Canada can defend, right? They can defend.

The Canadian national women’s team did that in spades June 19 against Germany. But a great performance on the backline, highlighted by Rhian Wilkinson and a stunning performance by goalkeeper Erin McLeod, is only half of the game. Coach Jon Herdman will need to build their play in the other two thirds of the pitch in the two years before Canada host the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Describing every event that takes place for Canada between now and 2015 as a prelude could become cliche pretty quickly. But it’s true: CONCACAF has retired the Women’s Gold Cup in favour of a standalone qualifying tournament, meaning that there are very few competitive games between now and then for the hosts. So a chance to get a blue-chip challenge like this — away to second-ranked Germany, who didn’t go to the Olympics — is a valuable chance to see what Canada needs to do in order to hang with the world’s elite teams.

The key: go forward. It wasn’t just that Germany had the balance of the play, but that Canada was powerless to even start a move. They were outshot 8-2, and Germany won a stunning 15 corners to zero pour les rouges. The passing needed to be crisper; I recall seeing slow passes roll on the carpet only to be picked off before Canada even made it past the centre line.

Part of that is power and part of that is organization. They’ve got a good solid bedrock: they’re committed to winning and pulling off tough wins against good opposition as well as frustrating offenses that should have done better. (Célia Okoyino da Mbabi was half crazy by the end.) Part of that is building an offence that works. Without Melissa Tancredi, Christine Sinclair had nothing to work with, though I really liked debutant Melissa Busque.

What they have is what they’re going to have to work with; they’re going to have to take that attitude they take to defending and spread it to a resilient attack. They’ve got time. But they’ve got to start now.

Programming note: Still dealing with hacking issues; this was sitting half-written in the can until now. If you notice anything fishy, please notify me immediately by email.

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

Jun2 by Andrew Bates

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.

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Unexpected wonders lift Whitecaps to break slump, beat LA 3-1

May12 by Andrew Bates

Players exhale after the Vancouver Whitecaps’ 3-1 win over the LA Galaxy at BC Place. Photo courtesy frostcake/pic.twitter.com

Sometimes you spend forever planning, and then something entirely different and wonderful happens instead.

The Whitecaps were in a rut of seven league games where everything should have worked and little did. So many chances, but not enough finish, not enough runs on. No combination of players or formations — go back to the diamond! Switch to 4-3-3! Koffie! Davidson! Koffie and Davidson! — seemed to produce the desired result.

The starting XI against the LA Galaxy felt like that: 1. Run out players who have had issues like Rochat, Davidson, Kobayashi and, most notably, Darren Mattocks. 2. Hope they turn it around. 3. ??? 4. Profit?

And yet, the player who did the most to change the game didn’t even start on the pitch. Injuries are always unfortunate, especially because Daigo Kobayashi’s 14th minute exit came as he tried to stay stuck in after being brought down by a tackle, keeping in mind recent criticism around soft play in the team. However, Kobayashi had been having trouble as of late and his early substitution created an opportunity that Russell Teibert seized with both hands.

Teibert, whose parents had come from Ontario to watch him play, stuck with the starters instead of peeling away with the subs in the pre-match warm up, and seemed determined and not a step behind upon his introduction.

His first goal was the most impressive. It was the kind of play the Whitecaps have been flubbing repeatedly of late: Teibert got himself on the end of a ball, weaved in and out of the box looking for an opportunity and was able to create something dangerous. It immediately changed the complexion of a game that had been thoroughly tentative to that point.

Though out-possessed, the Whitecaps had looked like they could still, with luck, get something from the game at half-time. But oblivion loomed. Thanks to out-of-town results, even a draw in this game would leave the Whitecaps back on the foot of the Western Conference table. Mattocks was, regrettably, still looking out of ideas on the ball.

LA defender Omar Gonzalez had a header that, though it was just past the far post, cut through the Whitecaps defence like hot butter two minutes before the goal. Had it gone in, these would all have been different conversations.

But it was Teibert’s confidence that put a different stamp on the game. Watch his second goal again to see how thoroughly he masterminds the opportunity. First, he calls for the pass. Not recieving it, he buzzes around Y.P. Lee until the ‘Caps defender decides to leave it for him anyways. He sends a ball through to Gershon Koffie, who holds the ball up and turns to see Teibert blazing into the box. Koffie’s pass is simple, like the shooting drill the team ran just before kickoff. Teibert, who that morning had never scored a professional goal, blasts in his second to give the Whitecaps, whose stalemate looked so tenuous just fifteen minutes earlier, not just a lead but a cushion.

These elements of the game are hard to describe or quantify, because they’re so immaterial. Why does one chance go in and another spill just wide? How can you turn around a team having such trouble with finishing when it seems so often to come down to circumstance? Teibert managed to do it.

And speaking of confidence, let’s return one last time to the issue of Darren Mattocks’ luck. It is impossible to overstate how mystifying his lack of success has been in front of goal has been week-in, week-out. He brought a portable raincloud to the attack in the first half against Edmonton, and nothing seemed to be working. Management was pleading for ideas, and supporters were anxious to know how long Mattocks needed to sputter before he could produce.

When I saw Mattocks pounce on a turnover and break in one-on-one with a defender only to put it right on LA goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini, I thought his confidence may have broken for good. He collapsed onto his knees and stayed down for moments. When he got up again to contest the resulting corner, he hung his head and A.J. DeLaGarza, the defender marking him, gave him a consolation pat on the back. I thought I had seen a low from which it would be nearly impossible to recover.

And yet.

It is, like I said, hard to quantify confidence or belief. But Mattocks, who has been so often out of position or ideas or plain unable to find and complete opportunities, saw a ball get away from Jordan Harvey and float tantalizingly in front of him for just a moment. He broke away from DeLaGarza easily and whacked it in off of Cudicini’s insole. The relief for Mattocks but also his whole team on seeing that goal go in is palpable. What makes this different than all the other attempts of late? Can’t say. But he was in the right place. He went for it. He made it count.

It remains, regardless, Teibert’s night. And perhaps it’s better that way; now Mattocks and the ‘Caps can put this long, dim run of three points from a possible 21 behind them. They managed to neutralize the defending champions in front of a (as far as the club claims) sell-out crowd. Nobody could have laid out, prior to the game, the road map to this victory. But it happened. Onwards.

Stats after the jump.

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Whitecaps U-23 turn frustration to a comeback win in PDL opener

May11 by Andrew Bates

Vancouver Whitecaps kick off their PDL campaign against Kitsap Pumas. Previously spread out around the lower mainland, Thunderbird Stadium at UBC will be the home ground for PDL games. Photo Andrew Bates/Little Rubber Pellets

It could have been a lousy way to start the season, but it turned around fast.

The Vancouver Whitecaps U-23 team started off their USL Premier Development League season against Kitsap Pumas with a 2-1 win Friday night at Thunderbird Stadium.

The league occupies a weird spot in the Whitecaps’ player development system. Players are often identified for loans to lower-division teams, NCAA programs or first-team spots already by the time they turn 19.

So the PDL is a place for Residency grads and other players who have promise but aren’t not ready to step right into the first team get games against good opposition. This year’s crop of 11 college players include UBC’s Gagandeep Dosanjh, UVic’s Cam Hundal and SFU’s Derrick Bassi. The team also has MLS players Simon Thomas, Adam Clement and Aminu Abdallah.

Thomas is a bit more of a known factor, starved for minutes due to being third on the depth chart behind both Brad Knighton and Joe Cannon. But Clement and Abdallah are more recent signings, with lots of hours in practice and less game experience.

The new crop of players did not, however, start their season off on the right foot. On six minutes, a ball bounced straight up out of a scramble in front of the Whitecaps goal. Kitsap forward Sebastiaan Jansen found it with his head to stab home and establish a lead.

The early deficit was especially painful for the ‘Caps, who had the greater share of chances in the first period. Forward Bobby Jhutty sent a wonderful free kick low on the right post and Dosanjh fired high right, both saved by Kitsap keeper Dustyn Brim.

The finest chance of the half belonged to Jhutty. He was wide-open on the left when he got his head on a cross around the 40th minute, but Brim somehow leapt across to claim it. Despite being up 8-4 in shots, the Whitecaps went into the half down a goal.

The early parts of the first half did not seem to improve. The emboldened Bremerton, Washington side pushed the Caps defence and goalkeeper Thomas, who earned his first two senior caps for Canada in January, keeping a 0-0 clean sheet against the US men’s national team.

But the Whitecaps were still generating chances, including an attempt around sixty minutes where Cam Hundal slapped a volley on goal only to be saved again by Brim.

It was Hundal who would equalize for the Caps on 69 minutes. Taking a pass from substitute Spencer DeBoice, he fired a right rocket of a shot from high on the left side of the penalty area that went across a diving Brim and beat him on the right side.

Three minutes later, the Whitecaps reversal was complete. A ‘Caps player was bundled over in the box, but play went on despite penalty calls and the ball fell to DeBoice, who smashed it into goal from 12 yards to put the ‘Caps up 2-1.

Kitsap did not go down easily, with forward Andrew Sterling hitting the crossbar on 81 minutes, but they did go down. They have started the season at the bottom of the PDL’s Northwest Division, having played in the only other game of the year so far, a 3-0 loss to the Victoria Highlanders.

The Whitecaps will see the Highlanders next week on Friday, the Salish Sea derby being this year’s principal decider for the supporter-purchased Juan de Fuca Plate.

It’s a bright start for a team that missed out on the playoffs by a point last year. Their strength was their quality rather than their chemistry, but the rest can come with time.

Stats after the jump.

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

May7 by Andrew Bates

“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.