Games like Vancouver’s 3-0 loss to the Colorado Rapids are not very fun to watch and, I can assure you, not very fun to write the Report Card. But let’s try to get through it nevertheless.

Yohei Takaoka: 4.0

After two important saves, including a penalty stop in the first half, Takaoka was well on his way to being the Whitecaps’ man of the match. But a disastrous third goal which killed the little bit of momentum the Whitecaps had built quickly washed that away.

Mathias Laborda: 3.0

Despite a pretty impressive goal-line clearance (a situation he was partially responsible for creating in the first place), I thought Laborda struggled quite a bit. He got his wires crossed with Berhalter on the first goal and didn’t have the greatest defensive performance thereafter.

Bjorn Utvik: 1.5

I think this has to be in the top 10 of disastrous Whitecaps centre-back performances in the MLS era. He was totally bossed by Navarro on the second goal but even beyond that nothing was going right for him. He seemed to have cement in his boots, totally unable to do anything on the ball or make any defensive interventions off it. I thought it was particularly telling that he was pulled for Ranko Veselinovic at 70 minutes. The game was already lost at that point, there was no reason to risk injury to Veselinovic unless you couldn’t stand to watch another second of Utvik playing centre-back for the Vancouver Whitecaps. The question is, how many seconds are there left for him? Was this his Greg Klazura game? Or am I just being over dramatic?

Tristan Blackmon: 5.0

Definitely the least offensive performance by a Whitecaps defender, in my opinion. I don’t particularly fault Blackmon on any of the goals and he was one of the few players who actually looked like he could play a pass in this one.

Tate Johnson: 4.5

Johnson was guilty of not closing players down a few times but stabilised as the game went on. He did manage a couple of offensive contributions but was not his usual assured self in possession.

Ralph Priso: 5.5

To be fair, I thought Priso did a decent job of winning the ball. Backing up my thoughts is the fact that he led the team in tackles on the night. However, in possession, he was struggling quite a bit. To back up that second thought, he had the lowest pass accuracy of any Whitecap outside of the front three.

Pedro Vite: 2.0

If I never see Vite play as a winger again it will be too soon. I think we’re at the point now where we have to say that just isn’t a thing he can do. Playing there limits Vite’s greatest strength (his ball progression) and emphasises one of his biggest weaknesses (a lack of goal threat). I also have to put a little bit of the blame on Sørensen because Vite’s weakness on the wing could potentially be offset if he is coming narrow in possession and Ocampo is overlapping. But bombing forward is not Laborda’s game so there were a lot of times where Vite got the ball and had no option wide. That said, I really want to put emphasis on the phrase “a little bit of the blame” because even accounting for less-than-ideal deployment, Vite was very bad! Whoscored credits him with three key passes but I am having a hard time recalling any of those so they can’t have been very dangerous. He was also totally anonymous in the build-up.

Sebastian Berhalter: 3.0

Gold Cup hangover seemingly in full effect in this game. Berhalter also had a nasty case of cement boots. What was particularly disappointing was that he was not able to bring the emotional energy that has made him such a key contributor this season. I don’t know how you would quantify emotional energy but I know for sure I saw the absence of it in this game.

J.C Ngando: 2.0

I honestly forgot he played in this game until I went to double check I didn’t miss anyone. But can you blame me? Ngando’s stat line is nothing but zeros. 0 shots, 0 key passes, 0 tackles, 0 interceptions, 20 touches (a 0 with a 2 in front of it).

Emannuel Sabbi: 4.0

I thought Sabbi’s performance was inoffensive. He didn’t get the ball in attacking positions very often but there were a couple of moments. He might have drawn a red card from Maxsø on another day, he almost set up Brian White with a heroic flicked-on header. Of course, he did some of the usual frustrating Sabbi stuff but overall he was not truly awful.

Brian White: 6.0

Honestly, I thought pretty much every one of Brian White’s 27 touches (according to Whoscored) was positive. He managed to pull off three shots with just about everybody else on the pitch having a stinker. I think that’s impressive! Of course, here we run into one of the weaknesses of the individual game report card format. Every player’s performance is at least somewhat contingent on the performance of the players around them. White did about all you could ask with what he was given but he was given very little. So, what score should that get? A 6.0 apparently.

Subs:

Daniel Rios, Jeevan Badwal, Nelson Pierre, and Edier Ocampo entered this game as substitutes. Only Ocampo did anything worth commenting on, I thought he was not bad. He had a goal-line clearance, a cross that somebody probably should have converted, and a penalty shout that was far from a slam-dunk but a lot more of a penalty than the one that was awarded to Colorado!