Well, hopefully this is rock bottom.
It was a catastrophic performance from Vancouver against the lowly LA Galaxy, falling 3-0 in their worst performance all season that showed little life in attack, shambolic defending and their one competent player getting sent off.
What does that mean for the report card? Well, read on if you dare.
Yohei Takaoka: 5
We’ve gotten Good Takaoka more than Bad Takaoka this season but the latter definitely came out in the first goal, when Taka spilled it to gift Matheus Nascimento the opener. He responded well with a couple of important saves to try and keep things from getting even more out of hand.
Mathias Laborda: 4
It was not nearly as neat from Laborda in dealing with Joseph Paintsil as it was going toe to toe with Denis Bouanga last week. Struggled to keep up with the quick ball movement down the righthand side and was booked for a nasty challenge in the first half before getting hooked at half time to try and show something else.
Ranko Veselinovic: 5.5
Ranko had several vital interventions early, as the Caps were up against it. Even that spark of quality, however, didn’t last and Ranko looked shakier in the second half. Was deemed to have conceded the penalty that put the game firmly out of reach, though this seemed harsh.
Tristan Blackmon: 5
Was relied on a lot when things broke down to come forward and serve as a creative outlet but, as the second goal showed, this messed up the spacing a lot for the centerback pairing.
Tate Johnson: 6.5
With a vacuum of creative output on the left hand side, Johnson stepped in well with some good work to win the ball and put himself in good spaces. Had a couple of crosses that any sort of runner in the box could have done something with and followed it up with some nice defensive moments tracking back.
Jeevan Badwal: 4.5
It always felt like an awkward fit for Badwal as a number six and it just didn’t work, with Badwal not having enough time and space to create from deeper positions and his positioning out of possession was all over the place.
Pedro Vite: 6
Tried to make his mark on the match, with a beautiful free kick requiring a full stretch save, the closest the Caps came to scoring. At times, however, Vite seemed a bit too timid, not looking to drive forward and test the Galaxy.
JC Ngando: 4.5
Ngando never really had enough space to take players on and do what he does best and couldn’t really offer much going forward and he wasn’t able to double back to cut out the Galaxy’s transition runs.
Edier Ocampo: 5
Had a few dangerous and daring runs early but never really progressed much beyond that point. His positioning and pressing allowed Ocampo to get pinned in too easily, giving space for Julian Aude to bomb forward with relative ease. Moving back to right back initially bore some fruit but it didn’t last and Ocampo was caught out at times.
Daniel Rios: 3
For a guy who generally wants the ball at his feet to facilitate link up play, Rios was not good in this facet of the game. Pressing was lackluster and Rios barely saw any touches. At some point, you’d rather see Nelson Pierre because Rios isn’t fitting with the system.
Emmanuel Sabbi: 4.5
Early on, Sabbi had some glimpses of quality but his teammates couldn’t quite make the runs to take advantage. In the second half, however, he was more wasteful and frankly not good enough when the Caps needed two effective wingers on the pitch.
Jayden Nelson: 5
Brought an instant spark when he came on at halftime and was easily the Caps’ most dangerous player but they weren’t able to build on that five to ten minute burst from Nelson. Frustration boiled over and he committed a silly foul to get sent off, the one thing that he could ill afford after returning from international duty.
Nelson Pierre, Bjorn Utvik, Jackson Castro, Damir Kreilach: N/A
Full team debuts for Castro and Pierre contrasted with a farewell for Kreilach. Thought Pierre was lively in garbage time and will be interested to see him get a longer run out at some point in the future, potentially on Wednesday.
This team has one of the highest ceilings in the league but also one of the lowest floors and we saw that on Friday night. I don’t think you can be a top team with this huge degree of variance. The keeper is an example – yes he can be good but when he is bad he is very bad. Until they can reach a level with higher consistency even among whatever players are present we are not going to be a top team. We had a better team on Friday than we did against Seattle yet the difference was day and night.
Seems that LA Gal just wanted it more on this night given it was on their US holiday and it was a first-vs-last scenario. The Caps’ possession values have gone down each game compared to earlier in the season – hope to see some of the regulars return as the injuries and Gold Cup breaks are starting to have it’s effect.
Playing catch up with the core missing notwithstanding, how about the great switch balls and crosses by Utvik? Before him coming in we looked a lot like the Canadian men’s team-too predictable buildup from CB out wide….
when you have a rookie as your best player- and the only player rated over 6.0- you are in for a long night– 4/5 best MFs not playing was a looser for the night and that isnt Jesper’s fault – the next 3 MLS games are on the road — when White and Berhalter get back, this will give us some more quality- Caps and supporters have to stick it through until mid to late August, see if Axel gets any upgrades (not too hopeful), get our mojo back (i think we can) and hope that Gauld returns by September (not sure about that) to give us a serious bump-up
cant really argue with most of the ratings- i think Rios was a 0.0 (invisible) and Takaoka was a 4.0 (he should have done better on the second goal)
Salty
Horrible, not worth watching in any way. That team couldnt beat a Canadian Premier League team. That goalie is a complete unreliable joke!
Bit of an overreaction