Good Monday morning Caps fans — hope you all had a lovely summer weekend and that the start to your workweek hasn’t been too painful.

The Caps trotted out mainly backups and Whitecaps 2 players in a 4-1 defeat to Wrexham on the grass or BC Place on Saturday, signaling how seriously Vanni Sartini and company took the friendly, Ryan Reynolds be damned.

My response personally is “who cares?” but I imagine some who are more Eurosnobish will scoff at the Caps getting beat down by a League One side. Meh. Vanni wisely treated it as a chance to get some young guys some minutes and, at this stage in the season, it was silly they had to do this at all. I guess someone has some bills to pay.

That is largely my attitude about Leagues Cup as well, with the second year competition kicking off over the weekend. Things don’t start for Vancouver until Tuesday against LAFC, a matchup which carries some juice in its own right.

I was dismissive of Leagues Cup last year and wound up enjoying it. And despite my ambivalence, Sartini and the team took it seriously and put in some excellent performances, treating it as the chance to win a trophy that it was.

But this season is a bit different. The novelty of year one has worn off and the tournament can’t rely on Lionel Messi’s much ballyhooed arrival to bail it out. I’ll watch (because I’m a sicko) but it won’t really move me very much, one way or another.

Meanwhile, the Caps have work yet to do to win a trophy — the Canadian Championship — and they could use a rest to ensure they can finish strong and earn a home playoff spot. Ryan Gauld is out, which weakens their cause considerably, and this team looks gassed up and down the pitch. This team certainly has something to prove and some success in a knockout tournament would be welcome. I just don’t see a world in which this team has the goods to make a deep run. And, at that point, I would be fine with punting.

Of course, regardless of what I think, the lads will take this competition seriously. And if they do make some progress I will be duly impressed. But I’m not expecting it and, I would imagine, most fans have largely checked out of this one.

Shameless Self Promotion

What should we make of the Wrexham match? AGR weighs in on that question with his recap of the friendly.

Best of the Rest

Bev Priestman has apologized for drone-gate, as she is hit with a lengthy ban. Meanwhile, the Canadian Women’s National Team kept their Olympics hopes alive by stunning France, despite their six-point deduction.

The U.S. has been aware of past Canadian drone use, further implicating John Herdman.

The Whitecaps 2 team nabbed a point (but fell in the penalty shootout) against Real Monarchs on Sunday night.