The Vancouver Whitecaps suffered an unfortunate fate on Wednesday night down in Colorado, let’s take a look at how each player fared:
Yohei Takaoka: 7.0
Hard to blame Takaoka for the penalty. He made some saves and looked solid otherwise.
Javain Brown: 6.0
Brown was very active defensively in this game, racking up a lot of clearances and interceptions. But I thought he got pulled around a bit by Colorado’s passing moves and had some difficulty tracking runners.
Ranko Veselinovic: 7.5
Veselinovic was generally well positioned and made a number of key interventions. He was beaten on the penalty which was unfortunate but on the whole it was a strong performance.
Bjorn Utvik: Incomplete
Things were going pretty well up until the red card. The penalty incident, I don’t think you can really call that an error by Utvik. It’s just a bit of bad luck that’s going to happen from time to time, hopefully it will even out over the course of the season.
Ali Ahmed: 5.5
Pretty quiet from Ahmed. Some good defensive hustle but a bit limited on the attacking side of things (which, in fairness, is going to happen if your team is down to 10 men for over half the game).
Andres Cubas: 7.5
Pretty typical Andres Cubas stuff. Lots of interrupting in the centre of the pitch and some good passing.
Pedro Vite: 6.0
Nice to see Vite getting a bit more involved on the offensive side of things with some shots. I think his more defensive role this year limits his ability to take risks with his passing but he still managed a few progressive passes. He did have a bit of trouble tracking runners on the defensive side of things.
Luis Martins: 5.0
Not a huge amount to say about this one. Just kind of quiet. Some good link-up passing but that was about it.
Ryan Gauld: 6.5
Difficult to be an attacking player when the team is down to 10 men for over half the game. A quiet performance by Gauld’s standards but he did still manage four key passes.
Levonte Johnson: 7.0
I think we all kind of get the deal with Johnson at this point. He is not the most technically gifted player of all time and the ball is always going to bounce off of him quite a lot. But at the end of the day his job is to hustle, be fast, and get some shots off. In this game he did that.
Brian White: 4.5
Again, quite hard to be an attacking player on a team reduced to 10. But it was an exceptionally quiet game for White (one missed connection aside). Just the one shot and a few moments where he had the opportunity to create a shot but was not able to do so.
Alright, those were our thoughts on the performances from the 1-0 loss in Colorado. What did you think? Let us know in the comments.
another drab performance
2 things need to happen for this team to make the playoffs:
1. better home performances with at least 60-65% of the points (we now have 44%)
2. an AMF DP along the lines of a Puig at LAG, Loidero at Orlando or Forseberg at RBNY- summer window and sale of Davies to Real Madrid for $$$$$$$$$$$
I thought the Caps eased into the game quite well. From minute 30 on I thought we could win this game. We had some good attacking possession but didn’t really create a final scoring chance from that possession. We are most dangerous on counter attacks. We’d all agree on that? Our downfall? The zonal defence. On the goal we were seemingly in our shape but a simple ball behind the back 3 and a well timed run onto that pass put us in big trouble. Ranko tried to cut out the pass but the pass/cross nutmegged him leaving a Rapids player to tap in from 6 yards out. Utvik made a great effort to get the block in but it didn’t work out. In the 2nd half we were picked apart by the same type of play. Credit to the Rapids coach for recognizing how to exploit the 3 man back line. Even the Apple TV announcers were questioning whether this 3 man back line is effective. And I would guess they were also referencing what happened in the LAFC game….
It isn’t the zonal marking, then, it’s the overall tactical shape that includes the 3 CBs. Add to that the ‘wingbacks’ (if that’s really what they are in the current shape) don’t appear to be switched on their defensive responsibilities without the ball, which in a supposed defense-first tactical approach is to me simply poor coaching. Offensive marking is a hallmark of well-organised, well-coached sides. It is absent in Sartini’s side.
Each of the most recent three opposing coaches have exploited the space wide and the half-spaces between the CBs and outside mids / attackers. Charlotte did so in the first match of the season, also. The book on Sartini’s ‘Caps has been out for a while, and now up against decent-to-good sides, it’s well-read.