Good Friday morning, Caps fans, hope you all are winding down your work week and that the weekend is coming into focus.
The Caps will have one fewer competition to worry about after bowing out of the CONCACAF Champions Cup on Wednesday night.
It was always going to be a tough ask to overcome a three-goal deficit in this one. As I wrote in the match preview, this would have been a historic comeback (made slightly less historic by the fact that Tigres did it on Thursday), and we rarely see these kinds of comebacks in CCC outside of the Liga MX/Central American team variety. Sure, this team is more than capable of putting four goals past an opponent, but it always felt unlikely.
You definitely can’t overcome a three-goal deficit if you don’t take your chances, and that felt like the story of this one. Jeevan Badwal’s screamer gave some hope, which then proceeded to fizzle out over the course of the evening. The Caps should be applauded for fighting and playing hard in this one, but they just didn’t quite have the quality in the final third to be incisive and really take it to Seattle.
Obviously, it sucks to exit relatively early in a competition where you were the finalists last season. The spin is that this helps reduce the fixture load at a crucial time for Vancouver. Two straight years of bossing MLS while making a CONCACAF run is tough (borderline impossible) to do. Given that the Caps have had a historically strong start to league play, there is no reason they shouldn’t be focusing on making a run at the Supporters’ Shield, and not having to fight on two fronts will help.
The quest to remain unbeaten in the league continues on Saturday, as the Caps host San Jose. At the start of the season this wouldn’t have seemed to be a marquee fixture, but the Quakes have won three of their first four games and looked leaps and bounds better than the defensive mess that they were last season. Adding Timo Werner has helped and Preston Judd seems to be on a Brian White-esque trajectory for the Quakes. Now, their hot start has been inflated by playing some pretty bad teams (Sporting KC, Atlanta, and Philadelphia), but they hung in there with the Sounders last weekend, and this is their chance to really make a statement. After more CCC disappointment, you’d expect this team to be revved up and ready to go in what will be a must-watch fixture on Saturday night.
Shameless Self Promotion
More on the Caps’ CCC exit and a disappointing Wednesday in Spokane.
Best of the Rest
A nice look at the evolution and growth of Ralph Priso. In related news, he earned a deserved call up to the national team.
Congrats to Priso, as well as Seb Berhalter, Andres Cubas, Kenji Cabrera, Rayan Elloumi, Tate Johnson, and Mihail Gherasimencov on call ups this window.
The 2027 Sprint Season is official, with MLS confirming details about the awkward bridge between the summer and winter schedules.
Don Garber might be leaving as MLS commissioner sooner than expected.
i dont understand supporters that quickly go to the ‘knife’ with a player or 2 because we lost a game- every player will make mistakes over the course of a season- hold fast- we have had a lot to cheer for 2025 and into this year
actually i am happy this issue of defensive blocks by our opponent down the I-5- better to address it now than get shocked in the play-offs
Salty
That’s a good take on the Caps game last wednesday. The caps battled hard and pretty much returned to their crisp passing and attacking runs all over the field. The goal in the 1st half had me believing that taking this game to extra time was possible. It was a, as titled in the Match report, valiant effort. At the same time I was impressed with Seattle’s defensive structure and their overall individual play. Seattle was at times able to hold possession in our half and looked very dangerous playing in and around our penalty area. There’s a lot more to say but I’ll end it by saying that the post, beating down Laborda, was unfounded. Neither of Seattle’s goals could be pinned on Laborda. Seattle’s 2nd goal is concerning as again our back line is beaten playing a flat 4 offside line. I’d say our opponent’s are seeing a weakness in the Caps defensive structure.
By the time that 2nd Seattle goal happened, the aggregate was 4-1 already and it was the 82nd minute. The team was chasing for 3 goals, of course they’re going to be suspect at the back in that period of the match
Link to Don Garber leaving goes to the 2027 sprint article? Need to correct?
Thanks for spotting that! Should be good now