Persistence pays off for rookie Raposo
‘Too small’ Whitecaps midfielder/winger takes advantage of opportunity in win over Galaxy
Ryan Raposo wasn’t supposed to be there. Then again, he’s never supposed to be there:
Too short, too small, too Canadian, too American, too NCAA.
There’s always a reason why he shouldn’t be doing something. But Raposo has never listened.
The Vancouver Whitecaps rookie made his professional debut on Saturday in the Major League Soccer club’s 1-0 win over the L.A. Galaxy in Carson, Calif., a road trip he was part of only because the last-minute sickness of starting forward Yordy Reyna opened up a spot on the 18-man roster.
But the five-foot-seven, 140-pound midfielder/winger was pressed into action as a 67th-minute substitute for Cristian Dajome, injecting a flush of energy into the Whitecaps and earning an assist on the only goal of the game.
“I’ve heard from almost every coach at a youth level, that ‘you’re too small, it just won’t happen for you, blah, blah, blah.’ So I’ve kind of heard that my whole life,” the Hamilton, Ont., native said. “So the fact that I did travel and got some minutes and proved myself … that’s what soccer and life is kind of about: Taking (your) chances when given.”
Raposo was the fourth overall pick by the Whitecaps in the 2020 MLS SuperDraft, the league mechanism used to select NCAA players, but one that is fading in relevance for MLS teams since it rarely bears fruit.
Jake Nerwinski (seventh, 2017) and Tim Parker (13th, 2015) are the only two out of 18 Whitecaps picks in the past five years to see first-team action, which made Raposo’s appearance in L.A. a rare moment. And consider the situation: A scoreless game, the Whitecaps desperate for a result after a season-opening thud at home, facing the likes of Premier League legend Javier (Chicharito) Hernandez
and MLS MVP front-runner Cristian Pavon in their home opener, in front of a rocking Dignity Health Sports Park crowd of 27,000.
But Caps coach Marc Dos Santos trusted his rookie enough to put him in the game — even before both Fredy Montero and Leonard Owusu — with 30 minutes of game time left to play. Any nerves the 21-year-old might have felt evaporated when he stepped on the pitch, as he dashed about with purpose, skill and effect.
Seven minutes after coming on, he played a give-and-go with left back Ali Adnan, sliding a perfectly weighted, no-look through-ball that sprung the Iraqi international to set up Tosaint Ricketts’ goal.
The moment didn’t intimidate Raposo — and that’s no surprise when you consider his journey.
At age six, he was taking two-foot tackles from his older brothers Lucas and Spencer (Lucas just finished a stint with Hoofdklasse A Saturday in the Dutch lower leagues, Spencer is a kinesiologist now after his high-level playing days).
By 11, he was with Toronto FC’s academy, only to be cut with no explanation two years later. Raposo cracked the under-15 national team tournament for a camp in Costa Rica, scoring a goal in one game against older competition.
With no MLS teams knocking at his door, the Burlington Bayhawks youth player took the European route, training with German clubs TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, FSV Mainz 05 and SV Sandhausen as a 15-year-old, before returning home to play with Vaughan SC. Despite leading Ontario to a gold medal and being named top player at the 2017 Canada Summer Games, Raposo earned only a partial scholarship, to Syracuse University in New York. But it was enough — his foot was in the door, and he set scoring records in his two years there before being drafted by the Whitecaps as a Generation Adidas player.
“It’s been like that for me my whole life, so I really don’t expect it to be anything other than that. Even going into the national team at 15, I was the only kid on that team that wasn’t with an MLS team. Everyone was with the Whitecaps, TFC or Impact, and then I was just from a local club team. And I got subbed in and scored a goal. So … I’m just taking my chances when given.”