Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all are having a nice holiday and that your weekend has been going along swimmingly.
It was a classic smash and grab for the Whitecaps on Saturday, as they used a late penalty to snag a point on the road against Seattle. The 1-1 result, however, marked the fourth straight match Vancouver failed to score from open play and they looked as lost as ever going forward.
We’ll dispense with the controversy first. Seattle fans will correctly feel hard done after Javain Brown was judged not to have committed a handball in the box, which certainly looked to be the wrong call. I would argue Jordan Morris committed a foul winning the header that Brown blocked but you rarely see that called. That being said, Nouhou Tolo certainly handled the ball on the other end and the Caps will feel a bit of poetic justice after Bjorn Utvik’s red card in the midweek.
Nonetheless, the concern will likely grow as the type of incisive attacking that characterized the early part of the year has been nowhere to be found. This is possibly some measure of regression to the mean but the team looked loss on the attacking end last night unless they pushed the centerbacks up and overloaded one of the flanks. Even then, that wasn’t enough.
Seattle should be credited for absolutely locking down the center of the park, which leaves the Caps little room to do what they like to do best on the counter.
But this match showed the need for two of these three things (and possibly all three will be necessary to return to the top echelon of the Western Conference): 1) Sam Adekugbe to get healthy and give Vancouver more options at fullback; 2) a viable secondary chance creator to play in Pedro Vite’s role and 3) a DP version of Fafa Picault.
Adekugbe’s return would give the Caps more options at fullback, creating less pressure on Alessandro Schopf, who still doesn’t look comfortable at the position. A secondary chance creator means the Caps are less reliant on Ryan Gauld and helps unpick teams that are difficult to break down. Pedro Vite, as always, could be this guy but lacks the consistency to be truly dependable.
And a somewhat more dribbly, higher level version of Fafa (who has been excellent but might be falling back to earth somewhat) would give Vancouver another attacking piece to increase their ceiling, which is probably limited relying solely on Gauld and Brian White.
It seems unlikely that all of these things will happen in the summer window. But if the Caps are to try and make a real go of things this year, they will need to make some sort of move or send Vanni Sartini back to the tactical drawing board because things look a bit questionable right now.
Shameless Self Promotion
More on the Cascadia drama from Saturday night in our match recap.
Best of the Rest
Life is better for the Academy side in League 1 BC, as they go top of the table. The Whitecaps 2 side, meanwhile, fell to Colorado Rapids 2 on Sunday.
Jesse Marsch is already throwing fuel on the fire of a rivalry with the U.S.
Charlotte FC is reportedly trying to woo Marco Reus and holds his Discovery Rights. You could be forgiven for forgetting about Discovery Rights.
An interesting look at Federico Bernadeschi’s resurgence but my guy needs a new hairdo
You forgot to add a fourth point: Gauld and White to re-connect.
so if you are right and the summer will give the Caps no serious upgrades, then what have we learned ?
the majority owner- GREG KERFOOT- sees the funding of Canada’s Mens team as more important than funding the Whitecaps to make the Club a serious competitor
and that is a disturbing story that the MLS Caps are nothing more than his piggy bank due to increased media money and MLS expansion money- but its been that way since 2011
we have a lot of worthy grunt players and 3 others that are notable- gauld, cubas and white
i think kerfoot is seeing the increased attendances as a reason not to do anymore– and that bubble will burst – rather than catch the moment of Messi mania and renewed Greater Vancouver interest, he is twiddling his thumbs
I mean from what I read the donation from all 3 is around $1.5million, so probably around $500k each, which is not huge but definitely not tiny either… I don’t think it’s fair to say he’s not investing in the Whitecaps, they’ve definitely spent that amount on the team, but I do think it’s an interesting question of what he thinks the benefit is… Is it really just a donation since he wants the Canadian soccer to thrive or does he see it somehow as an investment that if Canadian soccer does well it’ll help the caps somehow?
I think for sure for all the MLS clubs if the MNT does well and the sport grows as a result in Canada it helps attendance. So it’s a bit of an investment with a longer term payback but its for sure not pure altruism. Plus if Toronto and Montreal did it and we didn’t it would look bad hehe.