Whitecaps deny Waston moving on
With few starters under contract, team could undergo major changes next season
The Vancouver Whitecaps weekend regular-season finale is being billed as the Farewell to Phonzie, the final chance for fans to see Alphonso Davies in a Caps uniform before he completes his move to Bundesliga giant Bayern Munich.
He’s likely not the only player bidding adieu to B.C. Place.
Rumours are swirling around the future of team captain and centreback Kendall Waston, whose cryptic Instagram posts and comments to Spanish-speaking media — notably Costa Rican journalist Yashin Quesada — have him linked to a move overseas. Waston has reportedly been taking Mandarin lessons for several months, possibly pointing to Asia as a destination.
The Caps’ big man in the middle was a loyal soldier for the nowdeparted Carl Robinson, and was visibly displeased after the coach was let go with five games remaining in the season. Waston is a client of Avid Sports and Entertainment group, the agency Robinson has close ties with.
“I’m not happy. It hurts, it hurts,” Waston said after Robinson’s dismissal. “I’m not happy when they trade a teammate. I’m not happy when they move somebody that I care for, that I love, you know.
“At the end, coaches move, players move. The only person that’s going to stay here forever is the club. That is what this is about.”
Waston’s deal runs through 2019 — he’s one of just five regular starters under contract for next season — but that little technicality didn’t stop defensive partner Tim Parker from being traded before the season began in March.
Whitecaps president Bob Lenarduzzi was asked Tuesday if Waston was on the trading block. “Nope,” he said.
“He’s under contract.” Pressed further on the issue, he added: “As far as I’m concerned, he continues to play, does his job, and then if something comes up, we’ll entertain it. As far was we’re concerned, he’s bound to us next season.”
Waston’s stock has continued to rise after strong showings internationally for the Ticos in both the World Cup — where he scored the team’s only goal of the tournament — and again in a friendly during last week’s international break. If indeed the towering 6-foot-5
30-year-old defender does go, it will be a body blow for an already leaky defence that’s conceded a team-record 66 goals this season heading into Sunday ’s curtain call with the Portland Timbers.
Should he play the full 90 minutes in the game, it will mark the fourth straight year he’s logged at least 2,200 minutes. He currently leads all defensive players in minutes played (2,129), aerials won per game (2.7) and total clearances (138). He’s also the most accurate long passer on the team, hitting on 4.1 of his attempts.
Fullbacks Jake Nerwinski and Marcel de Jong are the only two defenders under contract for next season, with the centreback position being a real concern.
Jose Aja is on an option year that would cost the Caps an additional $100,000 Targeted Allocation Money payment to Orlando, while Canadian international Doneil Henry, Aaron Maund and the yetto-be-seen Roberto Dominguez are also on club options. Fullback Sean Franklin’s one-year contract expires this season, as well.
There are 16 players in total who are under options years, and all the uncertainty in the roster since Robinson’s departure is a factor in Waston’s displeasure, according to as.com’s John Rojas.
“Clearly we’re coming to crunch time, which will be early next week. But nothing definitive yet,” said Lenarduzzi. “For now, the focus is on this last game of the season. Clearly we’re having discussions … regarding the current roster, but ideally what we’d like to do is — and there are some that are easy, but there are some that will be likely, if we have a coach in place, would be good to get his assessment on it.”
On that note, the Caps president said the coaching hire was down to its shortlist — “We’re quite a ways down the road at this point’ — but declined to give specific numbers or a timeline.
The Whitecaps were eliminated from the playoffs with last week’s 2-2 draw at LAFC and saw the home side set a new record for points by an expansion team (57), a total that exceeds the Caps’ highwater mark of 53 set in 2015.
While there is likely to be massive turnover in the off-season, this year’s squad was, despite the optics, not far off the hunt. The biggest downfall, aside from a porous defence, was a stretch of games in May where they posted four straight ties, including three at home.
Kei Kamara has scored 14 goals for the Caps this season, but if the team had another double-digit scorer, it might have put them over the edge in the crucial games — including the pair of 2-1 losses to Seattle and Dallas last month that spelled the end of the Robinson era.