Good Friday morning Caps fans and congrats for making it this far in the week — hopefully a well-deserved weekend break is around the corner.
The Caps are in the midst of a real break, with the only action this weekend being the friendly against Wrexham at BC Place (featuring real grass!) before two glorified friendlies next week as part of Leagues Cup.
The club got a bit of good news and a bit of bad news (which actually was also sort of good news).
Let’s start with the mixed results of the scans on Ryan Gauld’s knee. The injury sadly caused him to miss the All Star Game festivities in Columbus, an honor that would have been richly deserved based on the quality of the first half of his season.
But while the Grade 1 MCL sprain will keep him out until early August, this isn’t the worst news in the world (as the words “Ryan Gauld knee injury” seemed at the time). That effectively means he will miss the Leagues Cup matches and the Wrexham game (which he was unlikely to feature in extensively anyway). You would expect the Caps to play it extraordinarily safe with Gauld’s health, given that the fate of this team’s season effectively hinges on his health. Even if his recovery timeline is slowed down a bit, the worst case scenario was certainly avoided.
This will hopefully serve as a wakeup call for Vancouver to locate another chance creator, pronto. Gauld has no peer in the team (and few peers in the league) in terms of his skillset but there is really no backup that can provide any sort of like for like replacement. The knee injury scare shows how dangerous that is.
The good news, however, is that signs are pointing towards the Caps moving in on Edier Ocampo, the Colombian fullback we discussed in this column a week ago. I’m still a fan of this signing and it seems like Ocampo is held in high regard by at least one European club, Toulouse. Given his age, this is certainly one where the Caps will be hoping for some resale value.
I’m keeping expectations low, however, that Ocampo will be able to play much this season, having been burned too many times by the Canadian immigration bureaucracy. But this points to a savvy signing that will boost the side during the stretch run and next season. Let’s just get the deal across the finish line and breath a sigh of relief.
Best of the Rest
More on the endgame of the Ocampo deal, including the estimated fee.
The Canadian national team program is consumed in scandal, with Bev Priestman removed after revelations the Women’s National Team were using a drone to spy on opponents, something which may also implicate the men.
A look ahead to the League 1 BC playoffs, starting up this weekend for both the men and women’s sides.
A nice preview of Leagues Cup (which I’ll talk about more on Monday) and where each team stands entering the competition.
Pedro Vite isnt anything more than what you see- he has reached his ceiling IMO- sometimes good with his passing and then in tough games, he fades; in critical situations to score, he cant pull the pin and usually blasts the ball too high, too wide or offers a soft shot at the goalie- if the Caps can sell him for over $1.5 mill, they should do it
Gauld now has time to heal his injury and rest his body as he looked gassed some games due to the heavy demand on him to be everything for the Team
as i have said before, the summer transfer window wont give us any player to be excited about – if Edier Ocampo were a really good prospect at age 19-20, he would have gone to a euro or mexico team, so i trust he will be an addition that will give us depth.. and thats the best we can hope for
there might be a trade – Javain Brown for ??, but it wont be what we really need – and we all know what that is; keeping Fafa Picault is a priority, allbeit, his soccer DNA is that he is always looking elsewhere, rather than having a successful season with 1 Team and helping them succeed- and his age means he is done with going beyond MLS quality
the Canadian Mens and Womens game is in a mess and it WILL get much worse- certainly at the core of it is John Herdman who is a highly narcisstic person and will deny, skirt, weave and bob in order to try escape the fall-out… but it wont work- we can all hope that the CSA leader, Kevin Blue, will get to the bottom of it quickly, be transparent with his findings and take decisive action … but this scandal is going to be HUGE and affect a lot of people in very sad and professional ways- hold onto your hats, get the popcorn, suffer with the lack of sporting integrity and wait for a sunrise again- the impact on the Teams will be significant and the players and their results over the last 8 years will suffer the most
TRANSPARENCY IS IMPERATIVE TO GET AT THE ROT IN ORDER TO CREATE A BETTER PROGRAM
Glad it’s not as bad as it could have been for Ryan but ya we are too thin up there. Maybe Ali Ahmed could slot into that spot to try. Pedro Vite has been so very very quiet this year, I’m wondering if he’s got much more upside, last year I had higher hopes after he showed some scoring touches.