Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you all are having a good week — the weekend beckons soon enough.

The Whitecaps are back in action on Saturday, taking on the mercurial San Jose Earthquakes on the road. The Quakes are one of those teams that you flip on just to see the chaos that ensues — they have one of the league’s most entertaining attacks and also one of its worst defenses. So whatever happens at PayPal Park, you can rest assured it won’t be boring.

The Caps won’t have Thomas Muller but with their new superstar officially unveiled, it sounds as if the German will be making his debut in some form against Houston in 10 days time. That’s a pretty quick turnaround and one likely facilitated by a) visas being easier to get if you’re an international superstar and b) Muller being in decent fitness after the Club World Cup. I doubt he’ll be starting anytime soon but even cameos off the bench will be thrilling.

It doesn’t appear, however, as if Vancouver is done in the transfer market. Glass City is reporting that the Caps are kicking the tires on Norwegian left back Christopher Cheng, who plays for Sandefjord in Norway. I doubt many of us are real experts on the Norwegian league but a bit of Googling makes me interested. FotMob lists Cheng as the player with the highest average rating on Sandefjord, who sit in sixth place currently in the league table — not bad for a 23-year-old. He has six goal involvements in 16 matches this season, which isn’t too shabby.

Cheng seems like a defensively solid player who uses his pace and carrying abilities to progress the ball, rather than pinging around long balls or progressive passes. On one hand, that seems like a nice profile for this team and one that Axel Schuster has gravitated to at times. On the other hand, it makes it a bit hard to understand whether Cheng will be able to affect the game as much in a stronger league. Scandinavian leagues have often been an underutilized market for MLS clubs. But I think it is fair to wonder whether this sort of skill set will scale up to an MLS level.

The Caps have generally done pretty well with these sorts of signings previously but you do worry about a Giuseppe Bovalina-type situation here. Sam Adekugbe might be ready for next season, though this is admittedly not a guarantee, nor is it likely that he will remain available consistently moving forward. If all three left backs are fit, that’s a crowded position, particularly given that the Caps would have to burn an international spot on Cheng. But there is no doubt that this is a position of need in the near term, unless the Caps want to keep running Tate Johnson into the ground or playing Mathias Laborda out of position. It doesn’t seem like a deal is imminent but this is certainly a logical signing and one to watch moving forward.

Best of the Rest

A great behind-the-scenes look at how Thomas Mueller came to Vancouver.

And a story on how Alphonso Davies got one more assist for the Whitecaps when it came to this transfer.

I think we now know why Ismael Kone got banished at Marseille …

A glimpse at where things stand after the Leagues Cup group stage.