Punchless Caps vow to bounce back after unrivalled rout by Sporting KC
There’s a thin line between love and hate. There’s also a thin line between a close game and a blowout.
Carl Robinson and the Vancouver Whitecaps stepped across both lines after Friday’s 6-0 setback to Sporting Kansas City, the worst defeat the team has suffered in any game, in any competition, during its Major League Soccer era.
Fans who have suffered through two scoreless home games and witnessed the team stumble to its third straight loss while getting outscored 10-1 will be demanding answers, change … or both. Next week’s rematch with Real Salt Lake, who took down the Caps 2-1 at Rio Tinto Stadium two weeks ago, will be a singular moment for the stumbling squad.
“It’s difficult to move forward after that,” goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic said after Friday’s game. “(But) you’ve got 25 professionals in the room that have been in situations like this before. It’s our job to bounce back, especially coming home, after three preventable defeats.
“I can only tell the fans that when we’re at home on Friday that they should expect to see a huge turnaround from every player that plays on that field.”
The red cards handed to Yordy Reyna and Efraín Juárez in the 40th minute on Friday via VAR may be attention-grabbing, and certainly the catalyst for the blowout, but the Whitecaps were already down 3-0 at that point.
They had shown flashes of offensive competence in a 3-4-1-2 formation, using Reyna in a No. 10 role behind Anthony Blondell and Brek Shea, even coming within a Tim Melia fingertip save of Reyna opening the scoring in the game. But the defensive effort on the first three Sporting goals was unquestionably lax.
On each goal — two by Johnny Russell, who finished with a hat trick, and a 25-yard burning rope from Jimmy Medranda, who is the early leader for goal of the week — the Whitecaps gave their opponents acres of space.
Whether it was a unfamiliarity with the alignment — they also went three at the back versus Atlanta FC, and lost that game 4-1 after going down a man — or poor technique, it didn’t matter. The hole was dug far too deep at that point.
“I put 11 players on the field today that could win the game. I think they showed in the first 15 minutes that they were more than
capable of doing it,” said Robinson. “Fine lines; the game is about fine lines. We didn’t get our details right in either box.
“You can blame deflections and things like that but I think it’s lazy defending. You’ve got to stick together in times like this. It’s easy when you’re doing well. I certainly think that everything went against us today, from the early miss to some of the refereeing decisions.
“But we didn’t help ourselves. We lose two men in an incident which they started. We’ve got to be better than that.”
Offensively, things can’t get much worse.
Through eight games this season, the Whitecaps have scored eight goals, the lowest per-game average in the league. The last six games, they’ve mustered three goals.
They have the fewest shots in MLS, both on target and off, and they are the only team averaging shots in single digits. They have the lowest offensive rating in MLS. They haven’t scored at home since their season opener, getting shut out twice in consecutive games at B.C. Place Stadium.
Friday’s statistics were skewed by the fact the Caps were playing down two men, but Sporting still held nearly 60 per cent of the ball in the opening half, before the ejections. They only mustered three shots; two from Reyna and one from Blondell.
“In the second half, we talked about trying to stay in the game and then catch them on the counter,” said Robinson. “We set up that way by playing a 4-3-1 with our nine men we had. Within two minutes, we’re lazy with our decision-making and our detail, and we’re 5-0 down before you know it.
“Then it becomes a game of will, mind and concentration. The guys who were on the field at the end worked as hard as they could.”
And this is a team now facing another two games without injured striker Kei Kamara, who’s been their most effective offensive player this season.
Now, there’s no question the murmurs about Robinson’s job security will become even more full-throated after Friday ’s result, even after getting a public vote of confidence from team president Bob Lenarduzzi last week. Friday ’s match with RSL could just be the thin red line should they lose.