Caps hit road after more home woes
Vancouver has one goal at B.C. Place this season, a problem team struggled with before
“Men lie, women lie, numbers don’t. Ain’t nothing changed … except the year it is.” — Jay-Z
The Whitecaps have been here before, stuck in a scoring slump where nothing seems to go right.
It’s been 200 minutes since Alphonso Davies’ one-timer trickled over the line in the March 4 season opener against Montreal at B.C. Place Stadium. There hasn’t been another scored by the Caps at home since.
“It’s all statistics. You can read into statistics all you want,” said midfielder Russell Teibert. “At the end of the day, it’s the numbers — like Jay-Z said — the numbers don’t lie.”
The last time a drought like this happened it was the start of the 2017 season. A scoreless draw at home against the Philadelphia Union and a 2-0 home loss to Toronto FC sandwiched a 3-2 road loss to San Jose. It almost seemed to be a carry-over from the late-season swoon the season before, when Vancouver had just two wins in their final 14 games, including a brutal winless stretch between the end of July and September that saw just one goal, two draws and five shutouts.
“It is a tough time right now, but it’s only a couple games. We’re able to bounce back — we’ve done it in the past.” — Russell Teibert
Boos rained down from the crowd at B.C. Place Friday after the Caps were shut out for the second straight home game, losing 2-0 to LAFC. While part of the result can be attributed to the injury that knocked starting striker Kei Kamara out the day before the game — disrupting the team’s mentality and detonating the game plan — there were still some of the same underlying issues that have previously plagued the team on offence.
There’s the lack of possession, the much-maligned vertical long balls from the back end, a dearth of creativity centrally in the attacking midfield and the dreaded “lack of quality in the final third.”
Tactically, while there are evergreen components to the Caps’ offence, they do adjust their game plan for each game — as well as personnel, with coach Carl Robinson mixing up his starting XI every game this season. The same goes for formation; they’ve played a lone striker four times, three forwards twice and two forwards once.
“Sometimes you score by chance, by luck, most often you score by quality,” said Teibert. “As a system, I think we switch it up more than anyteamintheleague,andIthink we switch up personnel more than any team in the league. I’m not sure what more we can do in that sense.
“Systems, I wouldn’t say that’s the problem. I wouldn’t say that’s the solution, either. It’s just a matter of quality.”
The Canadian international remembers the latter stages of 2016, but he also remembers what happened after. They may have missed the playoffs, but they won the Cascadia Cup and knocked Portland out of playoff contention with a 4-1 win — at home, thanks very much — in the final game of the regular season. The next year, they were among the league leaders right up until the final weeks, and posted their first playoff win — a 5-0 thumping of the San
Jose Earthquakes.
But the offensive shortcomings were once again on display against the Seattle Sounders in the West semifinals, as the Caps stumbled out without scoring in the two-leg series, including a stinging scoreless draw at home.
“You gain experience from those times. It’s going to be something we’re going to have to get through as a team. It’s only going to be one of those things that’s a character builder, and that will make us better in the end,” said Teibert. “It is a tough time right now, but it’s only a couple games. We’re able to bounce back — we’ve done it in the past.”
It’s a tough ask for that to happen this week. The Whitecaps travel to Kansas City on Friday to take on West-leading Sporting, who have gone undefeated since a season-opening loss to league-leaders NYCFC and top the conference with
14 goals scored.
Vancouver has just one win at Children’s Mercy Park, though that 1-0 decision came last year in the team’s trademark counter-punch style.
“As odd as it sounds, as ironic as it is in sports, we’re lucky to go on the road, because that’s where we seem to play our best,” said Teibert. “We’re a road team that counters; we don’t necessarily have the most possession, we’re not going to go through phases where we maintain the ball, but we stay compact, we have good shape … That’s how
we’ve had results on the road, and that’s how we’ll continue to do it.
“And I think teams are wary of that. I don’t know how confident they are when they’re in possession, because they know they’re just playing into our tactics.”
Robinson is waiting to see how his team responds to this challenge.
“We’ve had two defeats in a row … but teams go through seven, eight, nine defeats,” said Robinson. “But you have to deal with it. You find out about your team. You find out about your roster, or you can go and hide. I’ve not got a group of players that wants to hide. They want to come out, they want to play, they want to prove people wrong.
“You’ve got to remember what we’ve done … and how far we’ve come. I think sometimes people have short memories. I don’t. We don’t.”