Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a relaxing weekend and that your body clocks aren’t too thrown off by bouncing an hour ahead.

It was a productive trip to Northern California this weekend, as Vancouver earned their first win of the season, only the second time they have ever won away to San Jose.

It won’t be considered a beautiful win, as the Caps opted to let the Quakes hold onto the bulk of possession, as has been their habit on the road. There are certain problems with this, as we’ll get to in a moment but things went according to plan on Saturday.

Two second half subs grabbed goals with a long range strike from Alessandro Schopf and a great solo effort from Ali Ahmed getting Vancouver across the line. This obscures that San Jose only had a five minute spell where they looked truly threatening — the defense was rock solid.

But the attack was not, at least not until Fafa Picault and Ahmed entered the match on the hour mark. Damir Kreilach has his moments but the front three is just too slow with he and Brian White and Ryan Gauld, at least if the Caps are going to be playing on the counter so much. Picault challenges and occupies centrebacks in a total different way that the Caps sorely needed. Because while the game plan worked on Saturday, this lineup would’ve ultimately struggled against a better side. You hope the coaching staff is seeing the same thing and responds ahead of a trip to Dallas next weekend.

But let’s not over complicate things. Winning away in MLS is always a good thing and these are the types of early season matches that the Caps didn’t find a way to get three points from last season and it ultimately cost them a shot at moving up the table. Good teams win those matches and the Caps were able to do that, with far more positives to draw from it than in their season opener — I’ll take it.

Shameless Self Promotion

More on the Caps’ start to their winning ways in 2024 (hopefully), plus, here is who shined in a classic Vancouver away win.

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Drama around the Canadian Women’s National Team’s watery exit to the U.S. in the CONCACAF W Gold Cup continues

Meanwhile, the U.S. triumphed over Brazil to win the Gold Cup on Sunday night