BATTLE TESTED
Caps’ Aird keen to tackle Timbers
Vancouver Whitecaps and Portland Timbers. Big, boisterous crowd. Huge rivalry.
Today is Whitecap fullback Fraser Aird’s first Cascadia derby game at B.C. Place. But the 21-year-old has played at least one game bigger and louder, where the rivalry is older and fiercer.
Last season, his third with Glasgow Rangers, Aird experienced his first “Old Firm” game against hated rival Celtic.
That Scottish rivalry, more than a century old and fuelled most of that time by religious bigotry, is unlike almost anything else in soccer, maybe sports.
It is more deep-rooted than Duke-North Carolina in basketball, more menacing than Yankees-Red Sox in baseball and often more violent than Canadiens-Bruins in hockey.
The first professional soccer game I saw as a boy was Rangers at Celtic in the 1970s. There were 80,000 people at Celtic Park that night divided into three armies — Rangers’ blue, Celtic green and police black. Only two people died.
Thankfully, no one perished at Hampden Park 15 months ago when Rangers, struggling to inch their way upward after all the wee tails of Scottish football got together and demoted the big dog to the bottom division in 2012 due to a financial scandal, were beaten 2-0 by Celtic in the League Cup semifinal. It was the first Old Firm game in nearly three years. Aird played the first half. “Even though the result didn’t go our way, it’s still a day I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” he said Friday after training with the Whitecaps at B.C. Place. “The first 10 minutes, you couldn’t even hear the coach or your teammates. The atmosphere was electric. Hampden was full. It was unbelievable.”
Aird’s mum and dad, who immigrated to Canada from Scotland, met at the Rangers Supporters Club in Toronto. Fraser was born in Toronto in 1995 but, due to his parents, his favourite team was always Glasgow Rangers.
“It was a massive day for me and my family,” he said of the Celtic game.
So he is not likely to be daunted or intimidated today playing against the Timbers with a thousand or so fans from Portland screaming for the visiting team.
“Fraser is a battler,” Whitecap central defender Tim Parker said. “He battles for everyone. He really cares about everyone in the locker-room and he shows that on the field. He battles, he fights. That’s what his game is about. When it comes down to these derby games, these rivalry games, that’s when he’s going to show the kind of fight he has.”
Aird joined the Whitecaps on loan from Rangers in January.
Struggling to get first-team starts in Glasgow, Aird was recommended to Vancouver manager Carl Robinson by Kenny Miller, the former Whitecap striker who returned to Rangers after leaving Major League Soccer two years ago. Robinson and Miller have been friends for years. The Whitecaps have an option to purchase Aird’s contract. Aird’s trial-by-fire in MLS included matchups at the start of the season against Montreal Impact star winger Ignacio Piatti, Kansas City’s American international Graham Zusi and Seattle Sounders designated player Clint Dempsey.
As Robinson acknowledged last week: “The league is funny. You spend your dollars on probably attacking players in the league because we’re salary-capped. When you do that, they’re probably going to have a little more quality maybe than the players at the back end of your pitch. I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way. Predominantly, the majority of fullbacks earn lesser money, so the quality there compared to the attacking players is different.”
Friday, Robinson said: “Scottish football is not easy. Sometimes you play in front of 40,000 people, sometimes you play in front of four. But the intensity, the mentality of the Scottish league is very hard. So the physicality (in MLS)? No, it’s not been a problem for Airdy. He’s had some really, really good moments and he’s had some difficult moments, but so does every player. He has handled it well.”
Aird has been terrific going forward for the Whitecaps, delivering lively, accurate crosses from right wing. Defending against some of MLS’s best forwards has been the challenge.
“The wingers, I’ve found, are very good,” Aird admitted. “Very pacy, very tricky — a lot of South American players that are very good with the ball. But I’ve taken it in my stride. I’ve learned a lot since I’ve been here so far, and we’re only 10 games in.”
Incredibly, the first time Aird laid eyes on the Whitecaps and B.C. Place was the last time the Timbers were here.
Aird was in town with Canada’s national team last November, getting ready to face Honduras in a World Cup qualifier and, to fight jet lag from a transatlantic flight, decided to see the Whitecaps’ playoff game against the Timbers. Portland won 2-0 to eliminate the Caps on its way to an MLS championship. This is the Timbers’ first visit since then.
“I’ve been reminded a few times in training this week how big the game is, and on social media everyone is talking about it,” Aird said.
“I think it’s a chance to go out and prove ourselves and kind of put ... what happened last year right.”
Aird was accompanied on his trip to Vancouver last fall by his Scottish girlfriend, Laura-Jane McLeod, and her mother. It was the first time they had been to Vancouver. “They loved it,” Aird said. “My girlfriend actually said: ‘I could live here; it’s that nice.’ Three months later, she was over here living with me. Never when she said that did I think it would come true. We’re loving it here.”