Caps add depth with centre-back
Salvadoran Dominguez, who has been capped 15 times for his country, lauded for ‘great technique’
Carl Robinson hasn’t gone off the deep end. The crafty coach just wanted some depth.
The Vancouver Whitecaps’ acquisition of centre-back Roberto Dominguez last week initially seemed to be a head-scratching transaction, considering the Caps ran deep with four bonafide starters and a capable fill-in at the position, and there were other areas of need that seemed to be higher priority.
But Robinson’s pursuit of the El Salvadoran player turned out to be prophetic, as the centre-back corps, the backbone of his team, suffered a figurative ruptured disc.
Jose Aja strained his left quad in training earlier this month, and likely won’t return to the lineup for a few more weeks. Doneil Henry had Monday surgery on his fractured right wrist and is “touch-and-go” to play this weekend, and Robinson is wary of the workload for a player coming off a major injury and who hasn’t played high-load regular minutes in two years.
Team captain Kendall Waston is healthy, but will likely be called up for Costa Rica’s friendlies against South Korea and Japan in early September.
That leaves Aaron Maund, who has put in solid performances in three consecutive Major League Soccer starts, as the lone healthy centre-back. Aly Ghazal, who’s seen some minutes in the centre of the back line this year, seems to have found his rhythm in the defensive midfield.
“If you look at all the teams in the league, they’re strengthening, bringing in players not to leave themselves bare. We couldn’t afford to risk leaving ourselves bare,” Robinson said. “So it was an important signing for us.”
Dominguez, who has been capped 15 times for his country, had a weeklong trial with the Caps in June, but returned to his club (Santa Tecla). After the 21-year-old and his team
mutually agreed to terminate his contract before the close of the MLS transfer window, Dominguez joined Vancouver on a free transfer, signing through 2018 with club options through 2021.
Dominguez hasn’t played since July 25 at the 2018 Central American and Caribbean Games with his national team, when Los Cuscatlecos were bounced from the tournament after losing 3-0 to Venezuela in round robin play.
“Good to have him,” Robinson said of the 5-10, 180pound defender, who has spent the past four seasons with Santa Tecla, including the 2016-17 Santa Tecla team that won both the Apertura and Clausura titles, along with the Copa El Salvador, the most respected tournament in the country.
“He’s very calm on the ball. It’ll probably take him a week or two to get up to speed.”
Waston was impressed in what he saw in the first few training sessions, and while Dominguez laid down a few crunching tackles on his new teammates, has begun to fit in well with his new team — one that has fellow Spanish-speaking players all through the lineup.
“It’s always easier when you have players who speak your own language. You feel more comfortable, you get into the group easier. I think Roberto … he comes in with a lot of enjoyment because it’s a new country, a new place that he wanted to improve all of his quality. Hopefully he can join us to play soon,” said Waston.
“He’s a guy that plays hard, has a great technique, and obviously during (the next few days) we’re going to see a lot more of him.”
It will be interesting to see if he sees any game action in the nine remaining matches. While the Caps are battling to claw back into the playoff picture — they’re three points behind the six-place Portland Timbers — they may not want to throw an untested player into a crucial match.
Conversely, they have been defensively porous.
Only three other MLS teams have conceded more than the Caps’ 49, so Robinson may deem it time for a shakeup.
He won’t be in the lineup when the Caps travel to San Jose to face the Earthquakes on Saturday.