‘There will be changes,’ Whitecaps coach says
Pedro Morales was on the first team during Tuesday’s scrimmage at the University of B.C. So was Kendall Waston. Read what you want into practice. Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson said he’d take Tuesday night to decide on his lineup for the second leg of the Canadian championship semifinal in Edmonton. But he isn’t big on trickery. “There will be changes,” he conceded. “It’s an important game for us. It’s a game we need to win.”
Ideally, Morales and Waston wouldn’t even be on a flight to Edmonton.
They’d be resting up at home, getting ready to face the Colorado Rapids at altitude Saturday.
But the Caps’ second-stringers didn’t get the job done at B.C. Place last Wednesday. Colin Miller’s Edmonton Eddies, who play in the second-tier NASL, took an early 1-0 lead at the Dome and held on for a 1-1 tie.
In this two-leg aggregate-goals series, that means the Caps must now win outright at Clarke Field, or earn a 2-2 tie or greater, as away goals are the first tiebreaker.
The Montreal Impact, who struck a late blow against Toronto last week, await the winner in August’s two-leg final.
On the line is the Voyageurs Cup, which the Caps have never won in 13 previous tries, and Canada’s berth into the 2016-17 CONCACAF Champions League.
“It’s just three games (now) to win the cup,” said Morales, who lined up behind Darren Mattocks on Tuesday.
“(Wednesday) is a tough game, but if we work hard and play together, it’s no problem to win.”
Morales made it sound simple enough. With him in the lineup, it might just be. But there were too many passengers in the first leg. Only Tim Parker, a rookie, and Jordan Harvey, who came on for injured Sam Adekugbe, stood out.
Robinson made mention of all the missed chances in the first leg, and with stud forward Octavio Rivero unlikely to start in Edmonton, it will be down to the likes of Mattocks, Morales and the wingers to find the net.
Edmonton has conceded a whopping 15 goals in six NASL games and the Caps let them off the hook at B.C. Place — Mattocks and Erik Hurtado especially.
Hurtado won’t play Wednesday. Both he and forward Robert Earnshaw picked up minor injuries this week.
Winger Mauro Rosales and centre-back Diego Rodriguez are back to full practice, but Robinson said that Wednesday was likely too soon for their return. At UBC on Tuesday, Robinson had Parker partnered with Waston in central defence. Russell Teibert seems a shoo-in to replace Deybi Flores in defensive midfield, as Flores is off with Honduras’s U20 team for the World Cup.
“I don’t think it’s too much about (Edmonton)…” Teibert said.
“If we play to our levels, we can come out of there with a result.”
Everyone expects them to, but Edmonton’s made it interesting.
And if the Caps don’t deliver, it will mark the low point of a tumultuous tenure in this tournament. They’ve bowed out in all sorts of strange ways, but never by losing to a second-tier side in the semis.