Saturday night in Colorado, the Vancouver Whitecaps wrapped up their road trip with a 1-0 loss to the Rapids at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

For whatever reason, this team seems determined not to build any momentum heading into the MLS Cup Playoffs. This match continued the trend of the Whitecaps remaining at the top of the West while looking rather listless in doing so, albeit with Vancouver’s lead over FC Dallas now down to a single point.

The thing that was both confusing and concerning about this fixture is that the Whitecaps made the Rapids, a play-in team with pretty mixed form, look like an absolute buzzsaw, at least when it came to possession and generally controlling the state of affairs in the match.

I’ve been rather nihilistic, and I think rightfully so, about the results down the stretch of the regular season, as they haven’t mattered much for Vancouver in quite a while. The league needs to fix this regular-season format, preferably by tightening the list of playoff teams, but failing that, by introducing byes for the top teams to actually reward regular-season performance.

Nevertheless, my concern with the Whitecaps lately has very little to do with results. Sure, they haven’t been great in that regard either, but I think you understand where I’m going with this. Rather, it’s the increasingly consistent pattern of failing to exert their trademark control over matches, alongside a subtler but equally concerning trend of making very average teams look good.

Now, when it comes to this match itself, I do think Colorado’s dominance was somewhat overstated. The xG numbers look gaudy in the Rapids’ favour, at 1.87 to 0.36, but unpacking them a little further paints a somewhat different picture. Take away Colorado’s set plays and the unusual tap-in opportunity that produced the goal, and the Rapids’ xG drops to just 0.79. That’s not to discredit the job they did on the night, but rather to illustrate that Colorado was also relatively ineffective in attack. Had it not been for an unfortunate bounce, this match could easily have ended 0-0.

What can’t be excused is Vancouver’s own attacking play. Two shots on target, zero big chances, and no effort better than 0.13 xG simply aren’t going to get the job done against any team. Just through the eye test, it felt like Vancouver was doing a pretty good job carrying the ball into the final third, but the combination play and off-ball runs once they arrived at the edge of the box simply weren’t that sharp. Even when they did pick out a cross, there was rarely someone on the end of it.

I do think fatigue was a factor for the Whitecaps, as they looked gassed in the second half and seemed to have nothing left to give after Morgan Whittaker’s 81st-minute goal. With a busy week ahead and two big home matches upcoming, they’ll have to pick themselves up and turn things around in short order. At this point, I think it’s safe to say there will be some concerns about this team heading into the playoffs, no matter how they manage to close things out. But evidently, a strong closing phase against some familiar rivals can do a lot to instill confidence, and that needs to start on Wednesday night at BC Place.

(Image: Vancouver Whitecaps FC)