Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a relaxing weekend and enjoyed your last Saturday without the Whitecaps for a long while.
It felt weird watching the opening weekend of MLS, knowing I had no match duties and didn’t have to concern myself with the Caps. I did a bit of recon on their opponent next week, Charlotte FC, who had a tidy 1-0 win over NYCFC and look much better drilled than they did last year. You’d hope the Caps would remain the favorites but new manager Dean Smith clearly is instilling an English level of rigor and discipline on what was a pretty motley crew.
One tidbit of Caps news that I thought deserved attention was Vanni Sartini’s comments late last week when asked about the goalkeeper position. We’ve given Joe Bednik’s arrival in Vancouver more ink than is probably necessary and Vanni sort of confirmed as much, saying that he believes Isaac Boehmer is more or less the number two.
Reading between the lines, Vanni seems to be indicating that Boehmer will be getting regular MLS Next Pro minutes, while Bednik rides the pine if anything happens to Yohei Takaoka mid-game.
I thought Takaoka was one of the most promising parts of the Tigres tie. But there is no doubt that he seemed to get ragged over the course of last year as he adjusted to the scheduling demands of MLS and the matches, with Leagues Cup and Canadian Championship, really piled up.
Vanni’s most interesting comments were that all three keepers will play and while I still don’t know that I feel comfortable with Bednik out there, I do think there is a real pathway to Boehmer getting meaningful minutes. Perhaps this is the Thomas Hasal fallacy but Boehmer has looked promising when given first team looks and you have to think the Canadian Championship will be the perfect way to let him get his feet wet again.
If that goes well and he keeps training well, I could see Boehmer being used to spell Takaoka and keep him fresh for the stretch run, when hopefully Vancouver will have lots of consequential matches for playoff purposes and when Taka’s drop off last year was most concerning.
Maybe this is overthinking what is a fairly straightforward position for the Caps. But I take Vanni at his word and don’t think it is a bad thing at all that we could be getting a little taste of Isaac Boehmer.
Shameless Self Promotion
We’ll have more season preview content to come this week but the podcast gets a head start in breaking down what is to come from the Caps this year.
Best of the Rest
Ryan Gauld was officially named the captain for the upcoming year, perhaps officially signaling that Russell Teibert’s time in Vancouver is over
A busy first week in MLS gives a lot to chew over — heroics from Messi, bad performances from the Champions Cup teams (except for the Crew), a blowout in Portland
Our thoughts with former MLS-er Alberth Elis, who had to undergo surgery and was placed in an induced coma after a serious head injury
Canada is off to a hot start at the CONCACAF W Gold Cup, with another dominant win over Paraguay on Sunday night
I posted this on Saturday: don’t think Sartini deserves the tactical genius. I think he gets out coached rather than vice versa. He’s stubborn with his christmas tree formation even when it’s not working. There’s lots of teams still using 4 at the back. It’s a tried and true setup. Also, Sartini, IMO, is too slow to make subs. When the wingbacks can no longer attack or defend Sartini seems to take 10-15 minutes trying to decide what to do. It’s so easy. Get Raposo off after 55-60 and get Brown in. Wait why is Raposo starting over Brown? Brown is bigger, faster, stronger and the off shore interest is in Brown not Raposo. Not having your best players playing the majority of the time is a problem. Sartini also botched Simon Becher’s season. He hardly played at all in the 2nd half of the season. But still, when we needed a goal against LAFC, who came on for the last 15. It was Becher, but he just wasn’t the player he was earlier in the season and what would you expect from a player who had little opportunity to play himself into form. Sartini should have known that at some time in a crucial match that we would need an opportunistic goal scorer. And that player needed confidence and be in form to make that happen. So that’s my worry with the Caps.
Monday’s thoughts on Brown and Laborda: Laborda is probably the right choice if a back 3 is deployed. Brown gets the nod if it’s a back 4. I think both these players represent the best 11 and should get the most minutes. If it’s a back 3 then play Brown as a right wingback. For me Brown has shown he’s our best on the outside on both sides of the ball. If it’s a back 4 then push Laborda into centre mid alongside Cubas. This would get Cubas more into the attack and I think we’d be stronger defensively, with a bit more height when defending corners and set pieces etc