The Vancouver Whitecaps opened their 2026 campaign with a 0-0 draw against Cartaginés in the CONCACAF Champions Cup. The ’Caps played relatively well but did not win. Them’s the breaks sometimes. How did the individual players get on?

Yohei Takaoka: 6.0

Cartaginés didn’t have a single shot on target, so there was not much to judge Takaoka on. His distribution was pretty spot on, and he tidied up a few balls over the top.

Edier Ocampo: 6.0

Ocampo played limited minutes in pre-season due to a minor injury, and I thought he looked pretty gassed as the second half wore on. But he started out alright, combining well with Sabbi in the first half.

Tristan Blackmon: 9.0

Blackmon did an excellent job of cleaning up what came his way. He looked good on the ball and never seemed too troubled defensively.

Mathías Laborda: 9.0

Laborda was also looking good dealing with the few moments where Cartaginés looked threatening. This wasn’t very often, of course, but I don’t recall any moment where he looked particularly stressed.

Tate Johnson: 7.5

Johnson looked good in possession and provided good width with overlapping runs. He struggled to break the last line of defence, but so did everyone else.

Andrés Cubas: 6.5

The Whitecaps were so possession-dominant that Cubas’ best traits didn’t really get to shine. He had a decent long-range strike and dealt with the few defensive moments he had well enough.

Sebastian Berhalter: 7.5

Berhalter did a good job of moving things into the final third and running the team’s buildup. It might have been a good idea to use his long-range shooting a bit more to draw Cartaginés out of the low block. But otherwise, he looked pretty good.

Kenji Cabrera: 7.5

Cabrera was probably the most dangerous-looking of Vancouver’s attacking players on the night, though he failed to find the final ball. I do wish he would have passed to Tate Johnson a bit more. He also seemed to flag a bit towards the end of the match.

Jeevan Badwal: 7.0

I was pleasantly surprised by Badwal’s performance as the #10. He’s never going to be Ryan Gauld, but he ran hard, got into pockets of space well, and won a truly insane number of fouls. I think it also bears mentioning that it was his header in the second phase of a corner that created Vancouver’s best chance of the game.

Emmanuel Sabbi: 7.5

Sabbi dealt with an injury in pre-season, which is probably why he was limited to 45 minutes. But he had Vancouver’s best chance of the game and a couple of other dangerous chances as well.

Brian White: 6.0

White had a limited impact on the game. I don’t necessarily blame him for this; the penalty box was packed so tight that he was basically reduced to hoping for a lucky bounce. But this is the nature of the report card format!

Subs:

Aziel Jackson looked a lot like someone still learning his role in the team and getting used to his new teammates. Thomas Müller appeared to be troubled by something in his lower body shortly after coming on, which you never like to see with a 36-year-old. Overall, the German’s impact was fairly limited. Rayan Elloumi, Oliver Larraz, and J.C. Ngando all came on too late to really judge (it might have been nice to see Ngando a bit earlier considering how many tired legs were out there).