Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all have enjoyed the summer weather this week and are settling in for a good weekend.
We begin our column where we have so many times this season: with a disappointing bit of injury news. And while the Sam Adekugbe season ending injury was a big blow, this one probably tops it in terms of impact. After being withdrawn midway through Saturday’s tilt with San Diego due to a non-contact injury, the Caps confirmed Ranko Veselinovic will miss the remainder of the season (and likely a chunk of next season) with an ACL tear.
This was the worst case scenario when Ranko went down on Saturday and you could see he was visibly upset while receiving treatment. This is a potentially season-altering injury for the Caps, who in the span of a week sold one of their best players and then lost another one to a serious injury. It is preaching to the choir to wax poetic about Ranko’s quality this season but he has improved on his MLS Defender of the Year level pace from last year. While Tristan Blackmon definitely deserves his All Star nod, Veselinovic has been equally good.
The other reason this really hurts is that centerback depth was a shortcoming even before this injury. Bjorn Utvik has been in much better form lately but has largely taken a step back this year. Belal Halbouni has routinely impressed me (as he did on Saturday) but isn’t likely a starting MLS level centerback over the long haul. And Mathias Laborda will probably be stuck pitching in at fullback for the foreseeable future given shortages there.
That makes centerback a new priority for the summer window, something Axel Schuster acknowledged to the media Thursday when he alluded to the possibility of a loan deal for Luc de Fougerolles. Even though the youngster penned a new deal with Fulham, one imagines that his parent club will be looking for a place that will play him more regularly. While a young centerback introduces its own risks, no one who has seen Fougerolles play for the national team could doubt that he would be of the required quality. And you could see this being an attractive one for the player and club. Heck, you might even be able to get Fulham to let him join through next summer’s World Cup, at which point he could return to London and fight for a spot in the first team.
Otherwise, the Caps need to be aggressive, potentially scouring MLS for a trade possibility (helped by a mountain of Vite-related GAM). And while Kenji Cabrera’s signing went official this week, it is unlikely he can replace Vite on his own — more reinforcements in the attack are needed as well.
The lone bit of good news this week is that the Caps’ representatives in the All Star Game seemingly made it through uninjured. In fact, all four players saw the field and Brian White scored the first Caps goal ever in the competition. Plus, Yohei Takaoka sealed the Skills Competition win for the MLS side by coming through in the crossbar challenge. Its all fake and doesn’t really matter but after the bleak news to start the week, I’ll take what I can get.
Shameless Self Promotion
You won’t want to miss Caleb’s regular deep dive on Kenji Cabrera. And he still managed to find the time to offer his semi-regular analysis of the Whitecaps 2 side. Meanwhile, it is another win for Vancouver Rise in the midweek.
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