Good Monday morning Caps fans. I hope you all had a good weekend and are ready for whatever comes your way this week.

The vibes somehow managed to sink even lower for the Whitecaps, with a 3-1 loss to Liga MX bottom feeders Juarez on Friday, demoralizing even Leagues Cup haters like myself.

I cautioned patience on Friday and I do think a dead rubber match in a relatively meaningless competition doesn’t outweigh the fact that we should all have belief in Jesper Sorensen to figure this out. But there is no denying that things were a bit bleak on Friday.

The finishing continues to let the Caps down, while they even struggled to get shots away for much of the second half against a disciplined low block from Juarez. Those have been problems in some capacity all season long and the loss of Sebastian Berhalter has seemed to exacerbate them.

But Berhalter is well and truly gone and ruing his absence won’t help anything. Recent matches have underscored the need for reinforcements and it sounds like there is some progress on that front.

Whether Daniel Gazdag is sufficient on that front remains to be seen, however. The rumors about Gazdag’s possible move to the Caps have cooled a bit and he started and scored for Columbus in their Leagues Cup match on Friday.

If this move does go through, it represents a savvy buy low opportunity on a guy who, in Philadelphia, was an excellent attacker in this league, even as it doesn’t necessarily fix what ails the Caps at the moment.

Gazdag has historically been a guy who can pop up in the box and finish, something complicated by the fact that his finishing while in Columbus has been pretty abysmal. He also can drop deeper and create or pop up in wide areas as a second forward or number 10. But the Caps already have a surplus of those players with Thomas Müller and Ryan Gauld, both of whom do those things better than Gazdag has post-Union. While Gazdag has played in a deeper lying midfield role before, it isn’t his best position nor is it likely he does so for Vancouver.

If Columbus is picking up most of the contract, bringing Gazdag aboard is fine. Having another talented attacker won’t hurt. But it won’t necessarily solve some of the bigger issues the Caps are wrestling with.

But wait, there’s more! Serbian media are reporting the Caps are closing in on u21 midfielder Aleksa Cvetković
from OFK Belgrade. I won’t pretend to know anything about him but a quick glance at FotMob shows he was near the top percentile-wise of the Serbian Super Liga in passes completed, dribbles, successful dribbles, and long balls. His defensive work rate seems excellent as well.

That seems like an interesting profile that would be more of a direct replacement for Berhalter. Expecting him to hit the ground running might be a bit too much but it at least would restock the pipeline with another promising player. And given how Sorensen instantly remade both Berhalter and Pedro Vite into elite central midfielders, it is possible that Cvetković could be a difference maker this year as well. Still, hopefully this week involves both some news on the transfer front and sending the youth team to Monterrey to get smoked by Tigres and cooking up some solutions on the training pitch.

Shameless Self Promotion

If you want to read more about the Juarez match on Friday, be my guest.

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Our condolences to the family of club legend Phil Parkes, who passed away over the weekend.

Stay tuned for the third kit drop, allegedly coming later this week.

CONCACAF is helping to try and push Infantino out the back door at FIFA.

Canada will miss out on the 2028 Olympics after falling to Mexico in the semis of the CONCACAF U-20 championship.