Caps hope to salvage their season
Coach vows changes are coming; ‘there will be more hunger inserted’
If you go to the Vancouver Whitecaps’ website and click the box to watch highlights of Tuesday’s Champions League win in Kansas City, a promotional ad for season tickets appears that features 15-year-old sensation Alphonso Davies.
He is the hope the Major League Soccer team is marketing for next season.
Makes sense. Davies is a wonderfully gifted, attacking player still two months shy of his 16th birthday. And he’s Canadian. People want to see him.
But since he is that good and that marketable, why have we seen Davies only five times in MLS this season, for a total of just 100 minutes?
Because the Whitecaps and their coach, Carl Robinson, stuck with players who pushed the franchise to a second-place finish in the Western Conference last season and, the theory went, would carry the team at least as high again this year.
Instead, the 9-13-7 Whitecaps play their biggest rivals, the Seattle Sounders, here this afternoon trailing a playoff spot by four points with five games remaining and with only one win in their last nine regular-season contests. The good news is that victory was last weekend, 3-1 in Columbus, and the Whitecaps carry at least a little confidence and momentum after adding a 2-1 win by their reserves, including Davies, in KC.
When the season began, this game on a Whitecaps’ schedule looked like it might be coronation day. Instead, it could be the Whitecaps’ last gasp.
But win or lose today and in the final month of the regular season, significant changes are coming.
There will be more Alphonso Davies, probably less Pedro Morales, for instance. There will be more bite and defensive backbone. There will be, in Robinson’s words, more “hunger,” which means less complacency. But there will not be a new coach.
Before the Whitecaps practised Friday at CenturyLink Field, president Bob Lenarduzzi told The Vancouver Sun “unequivocally” that Robinson will return to guide the team through its seventh season in MLS. And Robinson may finally have the money to buy that star striker or playmaker the Whitecaps have lacked for much of the first six.
“Big players win games,” Robinson said Friday. “Look at Toronto, (Sebastien) Giovinco has assisted or scored in so many games. And rightly so because he’s paid a lot of money.
“We don’t rely on one player; we rely on the team. And I think it’s fair to say the majority of players haven’t played to their maximum levels a lot of the season. But we’re all to blame. Will I name one player? No, because you could go from the goalkeeper all the way to the (centre forward).
“There will be more hunger inserted into the team. I can accept not having the quality in the final thirds based on the players we have. But I won’t accept mediocre performances. The last six weeks have shown me that, with their future on the line, the majority of (players) want to be here. But it took me to challenge them. There will be changes at the end of the season. We need to be better.”
The Italian Giovinco, who has scored or set up 25 goals in 26 games for Toronto FC and is probably the best player in MLS, will cost more this season ($7.1 million) than the entire Whitecap roster ($6.5 million).
But Vancouver is not a smallmarket team. In terms of support, the Whitecaps are a flagship franchise. They can afford to pay more than the $1.25-million Morales is making as the team’s highest-paid player. That figure, or something approaching it, seems to have been the Whitecaps’ unofficial internal salary cap since joining MLS.
And with that limit, their succession of designated players — the supposed difference-makers who earn premium salaries in MLS — has been Eric Hassli, Mustapha Jarju, Barry Robson, Kenny Miller, Matias Laba, Octavio Rivero and Morales.
Morales and Laba, his current teammate, are the best of these players but haven’t been consistent difference-makers.
To be fair, other high-priced Whitecaps such as goalie David Ousted, defender Kendall Waston and winger Cristian Techera also struggled badly for periods this season.
“The last two years, we have evolved,” Lenarduzzi said. “And this year we’ve regressed. When you look at our roster and our depth, we’ve got the guys who can grind it out and give you a chance to have success. What we’re lacking is that handful of players that provide leadership and are difference-makers. That is something that will be big for us when we go into the off-season.”
Asked if he will authorize Robinson to spend more of majority owner Greg Kerfoot’s money to get an elite scorer or playmaker, Lenarduzzi said: “The (salary) category you’re referring to, we haven’t gone there, yet. But I don’t think we’ve ever said we wouldn’t go there.”
Lenarduzzi said the Whitecaps’ plan since their MLS inception was to develop players so they didn’t need to sign expensive stars from elsewhere. But after a decade and many millions invested, the development program has produced as a Whitecaps regular only Russell Teibert, and he has appeared in just 11 games this season, his fewest since he was a 19-year-old rookie in 2011.
Lenarduzzi defends the development program by noting it was “unique” in MLS when the Whitecaps started it, so the franchise had no template to work from and is learning as it goes.
We’re not sure what will work, but we know what hasn’t.
Starting with today’s survival game, the Whitecaps may need to win out. Three of their final four games are at home, three against teams they’re battling for a playoff spot.
They were in a similar situation two years ago when a 1-0 win in Seattle was part of a 4-0-1 finishing kick that allowed the Whitecaps to make the playoffs by a point.
“We’re going to probably need a run of something like that to even get close,” Robinson said. “If we don’t get something close to that run, we’re not going to get into the playoffs and we won’t deserve to be in the playoffs.
“On the one hand, you can say we’re still close — four points from a playoff spot. On the other hand, you can say we’ve thrown away so many stupid points.”