Coach is OK that ‘bunch of unknowns’ not MVP worthy
Pedro Morales did win the Newcomer of the Year award in Major League Soccer last season, so it’s not like the supposedly isolated Vancouver Whitecaps — up there in Canada, way out on the Left Coast — are ignored.
But it’s at least noteworthy that the league’s second-best club — in terms of points and points per game this season — doesn’t have a contender in the sixth monthly instalment of MLSsoccer.com’s MVP ladder.
It got us thinking: With only seven games remaining in the 34-game regular season, just who is the Caps’ 2015 MVP? First, the leaguewide picture. MLSSoccer.com polls 10 of its editors every month on the top five MVP candidates, with five points awarded to a player who receives a first-place vote down to one for a fifth-place vote.
At the end of August, Toronto FC’s spectacular Sebastian Giovinco (17 goals and 13 assists) was the runaway leader with 49 points. Columbus Crew striker Kei Kamara (18 goals, first in the league) was second with 34 points. The top Whitecap? Goalkeeper David Ousted, with a single fifth-place vote.
The 2015 Caps are hurt in this year’s MVP race by the fact they score by committee, don’t have a dominant superstar, and by the underrated impact of defensive players.
Leading scorer Octavio Rivero (nine) is tied for 12th in the league. Assist leaders Kekuta Manneh and Steven Beitashour, with five each, are tied for 28th.
Caps head coach Carl Robinson isn’t at all troubled his club, which is in the Supporters’ Shield race with eight weeks to go, has no one in the MVP discussion.
“What that tells me is that we’re a team,” he said Thursday after the club returned to practice following three days off. “Sebastian Giovinco, Robbie Keane and Kei Kamara deservedly should be in the running for MVP.
“We’re a team of unknown players, if you want to call it that. We’ve managed to do that on the budget that we have. But we’re a team. We’ll stick together.”
Ousted, second in the league for goals against and shutouts, was the team’s only representative at the mid-season all-star game and has won points for the club with spectacular saves in a handful of games.
Manneh, the 20-year-old who is developing into one of the most dynamic wingers in MLS, has scored five of his six goals on the road. Rivero has struggled, since a terrific opening, to score from the run of play, but his holdup work and runs off the ball continue to create room for Manneh and Cristian Techera (five goals) to shine.
Matias Laba, the midfield destroyer who leads the league in tackles, has often been called indispensable. And veteran centre back Pa-Modou Kah, who had a shaky start to the season, has been solid the past few months.
Then there’s towering centre back Kendall Waston, our choice right now. He is the Caps’ only league leader, tied in the unfortunate category of most yellow cards with 10. But the 6-5 Costa Rican has been a monster at protecting the box. He wins more aerial challenges than any other player in MLS.
Waston, Laba, Kah and Ousted almost certainly don’t have a chance in the final MVP voting, which is all about goals and flashy play. But if the Caps win the Supporters’ Shield, the contributions of those four defenders will be a big reason why.