‘Backup plan’ lacks beauty
WHITECAPS 1 » SOUNDERS 1 Beastly match: With MLS rivals resting their stars, best thing about Champions draw is extra time wasn’t required
Well, it could have been worse for soccer Wednesday night at BC Place Stadium. The Champions League doesn’t play extra time in the first round.
With lineups as barely recognizable as the rivalry between the Pacific Northwest teams, the Vancouver Whitecaps’ reserves played to a 1-1 draw against a mostly-second team Seattle Sounders. With five games in 15 days and eight games in August, Caps coach Carl Robinson had to rest some players Wednesday. He rested all 11 starters who impressively beat the Sounders 3-0 Saturday in Seattle in a compelling game that was everything Wednesday’s lab test was not. That was Major League Soccer. This was the CONCACAF Champions League.
If Robinson’s secondary objective Wednesday was to test the Whitecaps’ organizational depth, he illustrated that it is one thing to incorporate two or three or four changes in a cohesive, winning lineup, but quite another thing to entirely replace it. What the game really tested was the love affair between the club and its fans, who paid a lot of money to see the Caps’ Champions League debut and saw a reserve game.
“That was not champagne football today,” Robinson conceded. “But there was a lot of hard work and I’ll never fault that. I think it was an OK game. It was important that we didn’t lose. We didn’t play great. Sometimes that happens when you make that many changes. I’ll accept that. I think it was probably a fair result.”
Asked if he was at all conflicted between resting his starting 11 ahead of Saturday’s league game against Real Salt Lake and putting enough quality players on the pitch to win and entertain the crowd of 19,683, Robinson was emphatic in his reply.
“No,” he said. “You have to do that as a manager. When you win, you get pats on the back. When you don’t win or you don’t entertain, people are quick to criticize. That’s fine.”
The first half was unwatchable. The second half amazed mostly because it produced two goals, albeit on glaring defensive mistakes. In the 61st minute, Whitecap central defender Tim Parker scored from Pedro Morales’ corner kick on a running, glancing flick with the outside of his boot that would be impossible to replicate. But with a chance to steal the three points — winning at home in the Champions League is essentially just holding serve — Vancouver surrendered a tying goal in the 72nd minute when Lamar Neagle, abandoned by Russell Teibert and unmarked above the six-yard box, turned in Andy Rose’s cross from right wing.
Seattle coach Sigi Schmid retained three starters from his side that lost Saturday, although the Sounders’ starting lineup had considerably more MLS playing time this season than Robinson’s 11. In the first half especially, the Whitecaps looked like a makeshift reserve team, disjointed and without ideas when they had the ball. Even laden with inexperience, Vancouver should have been strong down the middle of the park with Teibert, Morales and forward Darren Mattocks — three players who are often or always in the MLS lineup — in key central roles. But Morales, still working his way fully back from a calf injury, failed to generate anything until his near-post corner was run to by Parker.
It looked like the Whitecaps’ default play was to lash long balls in the general vicinity of speedy Mattocks and Erik Hurtado. Mattocks looked occasionally like he might answer these prayers; Hurtado looked like he had lost faith.
For a player desperate to regain some footing in Robinson’s first team, Hurtado was especially disappointing. The same could be said for Teibert, although the Canadian was active defensively, which was a good thing since the Sounders usually had the ball.
“I know people say it’s about the (11-man) team, but squads win things,” Robinson said Tuesday, hinting at the lineup switcheroo to come. “The deep squads, L.A., they’re always there. I wanted to build a squad. But to keep the squad happy, you’ve got to give squad players opportunity. I will give everyone an opportunity.”
A man of his word.