Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a good weekend and are settling into your workweek without too many hassles.
Hassles have been the name of the game for the Vancouver Whitecaps lately, with the Caps having basically the worst possible weekend possible.
Not only did the Caps fail to beat an Inter Miami side without their three best players and fail to score an open play goal for the fifth straight match in the process but they did it in front of a record crowd of impressionable people, many of whom were mad at the organization already.
There aren’t a ton of new things to say about the Caps on the pitch at the moment. They’ve been found out offensively and are having a biblically bad run of finishing. Something different needs to happen but with months to go before the transfer window opens, things look a bit bleak.
The disappointment is compounded by the fact that the Caps whiffed on a chance to mold soccer in Vancouver. It certainly is not their fault that Lionel Messi and friends didn’t play and the amount of hate they’ve been getting is ridiculous. Sure, the Caps played themselves a bit by charging the prices they did. You do that, you walk into some criticism.
But the club has more than made up for it by offering tickets to a later match this year and trying to woo back people who swore off the team after Messi-gate. The team didn’t owe anyone anything but they tried anyway. The entitlement of some people is off the charts these days.
Inevitably, however, there will be plenty of people who won’t be appeased. And some of them are bad faith actors who don’t have any interest in MLS. But some of them would be open to coming into the fold.
That’s why the performance on the pitch was so unfortunate. You can lose to Messi or look respectable and either way you might come out ahead. But this was the worst of both worlds and, at the moment, the start of the season is feeling like a fever dream.
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Our match recap takes stock of the rough state of play for the Caps right now. Meanwhile, we look at Pacific’s win streak in the Salish Sea Derby.
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Former Caps man Matthew Baldisimo is earning a Phillipines call up as his career has grown in the CPL
Could this be one of the best Supporters Shield races ever?
Salty is a good guy. If you dont take him seriously
But the sense of entitlement is off the charts. If people think that scalpers wouldnt have bought out the season at normal prices and jacked them up afterwards…. Oh wait, people dont think in the first place it seems like
Spot on for a monday musing with the caps well done to the writer
It’s is depressing the way ulthis team goes forward at least 2 players are required now and the fact no B V boys are e on this team is crazy
I pretty much agree with everything stated above. I think the drama of Messi-gate finally helped a truth sink in for a lot of us…..a truth that a great many of us have probably been unconsciously trying to deny: this is about as good as this team will ever get. Ownership has zero incentive to take this team beyond being a mid-level table filler, there is no plan for success and no urgency. They don’t see a need to pursue a top tier talent….their investment is only gaining in value, despite what they invest or how underwhelming the product and results are season after season. The league structure encourages this – no relegation means there is little incentive to alter this course. As a result, we appear condemned to miss the playoffs one year, lose in the first round the next, miss the playoffs again, so on, and so on…..rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat. The strategy, as far as I can tell, is spend the minimum, wait and see, and hope.
the financial stupidity of a supposedly smart majority billionaire owner like Greg Kerfoot – who is on the MLS expansion committee and has a personal relationship with don garber- makes me suspicious that they want to kill the market and then move the franchise to a USA market and make a huge wad of cash in the process (aka like the NBA Grizzlies)
While I appreciate a well-founded conspiracy theory, I don’t think that’s what’s a play with the Whitecaps investors. For me it’s quite simply that they as individuals and as a group are intelligent and savvy millionaires & billionaires that are sitting pretty in terms of the overall valuation of the team thanks to the SUM pyramid scheme. I’ve no allusions they aren’t going to sell at some point in whole or in part to another, but I think the goal isn’t that the team is elsewhere as a result of that process but rather they all come out WAY ahead financially than the initial $25M investment. And, they absolutely will.
To that end, it is clear the investors decided many seasons ago to not invest more season over season than they take in, in revenue and not until that revenue is gained. There have been a few exceptions in player acquisitions but by in large that’s their M.O. It is evident this season in not acquiring another DP prior to the season starting, when we all know that there’s a pending sale of Davies that if / when it does happen this summer will net ~5M or so that then and only then will there be consideration for filling the open DP spot. An investor group that is willing to spend money to make money, so to speak, would have laid that out in January or Feb. and then recouped it later this year.
It isn’t that they’re supposedly smart, they’re simply not willing to invest more of their own money than they did in the early seasons now and rather take windfalls or secure revenue and then invest just enough of that to support the team competitively at frankly the level it is at now.
There’s no incentive other than being somewhat relevant more than not, and letting the ROI grow as the pyramid scheme feeds it.
According to one semi-regular poster on here, ownership is continually losing money with this team because Forbes magazine says so! According to this person, just be grateful for what you have because of the financial sacrifices this ownership is willing to make.
i agree with you- YOU PAYS THE MONEY, YOU TAKE YOUR CHANCES
the offer of getting a free ticket sounds nice, but isnt costing the owners any big money- lots of empty seats anyways and maybe more if things dont improve- the ownership group will net a profit of over $5 mill for the Miami game- couple that with overall increased attendances for 2024 and the owners are making a lot more $$$$$$$$$ this year
the question is- will they invest in 2-3 higher quality players in July ? NOPE – there will be new players, but the quality needed wont be there – just a rotation of similar deck chairs
why the Team cant be in-charge of the game in their own stadium is a BIG PROBLEM – they falter, especially in big games – mentally and emotionally weak as a group IMO and Vanni refuses to make necessary game changes- before and inside a game – he is far too slow to adapt
we will be #8-12 come october unless the owners give Axel some cash to think BIGGER and BETTER come the summer transfer window – raise your hand if you think that will happen !! (its visually quiet in the room)