The Vancouver Whitecaps will attempt to recover from their Canadian Championship disappointment midweek by taking on Real Salt Lake this Saturday.
The Whitecaps badly need a win, with their lead in the Western Conference hovering at three points, albeit with a game in hand, and a string of road games upcoming, starting with the match at America First Field.
After matches where it seemed like the Caps were catching teams on a heater, that certainly won’t be the case for RSL. Salt Lake hasn’t won in the league since May and has plunged out of the playoff picture following a bright start.
Youngster Zavier Gozo is no longer in the picture after being sold to Crystal Palace, while star Diego Luna is out for a while with a knee injury. Breakout striker Sergi Solans remains the focal point of the attack, but this team lacks the high-end attacking talent it had at the beginning of the year. Morgan Guilavogui and Saba Lobajanidze have been decently effective in supporting roles, but this team doesn’t seem as scary as it did earlier in the year.
Defensively, RSL has consistently struggled to get its spacing right and find a cohesive solution without Justen Glad on the pitch. With their star defender out for the rest of the season, that problem isn’t getting any easier to solve. This is a team that hasn’t kept a clean sheet since mid-May. Pablo Mastroeni has pivoted to a three-at-the-back strategy to try and add a bit more control.
All of these things should point the way towards a comfortable Caps win. Of course, that was also the case on Sunday against Austin FC and in both legs of the Canadian Championship semifinals against CF Montreal. And the Caps have just not been able to stay out of their own way.
The attack has undoubtedly been in a massive funk. Ryan Gauld and Thomas Müller on the pitch together couldn’t even help things on Wednesday, and the wide players have not been consistently dangerous in awhile.
The defense, meanwhile, has been mostly fine, except when they’re not. The pairing of Tristan Blackmon and Mathias Laborda has been a rocky one, with both players frequently not on the same page, both in and out of possession. Both guys like to bomb forward and join the attack, which means the spacing gets funky and leaves openings for, say, Christian Ramirez, to finish off a simple, direct counterattack with ease. The return of Ralph Priso could help here, though it’s unclear if he’ll be fit for all 90 minutes.
But there also has been a mentality problem. The Caps have been playing down to their opposition for awhile now and haven’t had the killer instinct that we’ve come to associate with Jesper Sørensen’s side. Perhaps being knocked out of the domestic cup will be a wake-up call. And, usually when there is a wake-up call delivered, the Caps respond and throttle their next opponent.
Salt Lake City has been a place where weird stuff, most of it bad, has happened to the Caps in recent years. Indeed, before last season’s away win, Vancouver hadn’t won in Utah since 2020. So while RSL is down bad right now, they also can’t be overlooked.
If the Caps are going to get right and regroup with an eye towards the playoffs, they will need to rebuild their momentum, which has come to a screeching halt. No better time than the present to do so.