WASTON AND PARKER ONLY FIGHT WHEN THEY’RE HAPPY
Whitecaps defenders showing chemistry and are off to a terrific start to the season
If Kendall Waston had played any better last week for the Whitecaps, centre-back partner Tim Parker would have spent this week in hospital.
Waston is six-foot-five and 215 pounds and one of the fiercest defenders in MLS. His effusive celebration after Friday’s emotional 2-1 win against the rival Seattle Sounders could have killed Parker.
“It was kind of like ... a collegeroommate-happy-celebration thing,” Parker explained. “It was kind of like one little smack happened, and it turned into a harder smack and then a harder smack. It was kind of funny. But it did hurt.”
But not as much for Parker as it did the Sounders, who saw Clint Dempsey’s last-second shot in injury time cleared off the goal-line by Waston. Waston made an even-braver block early in the second half when he put himself in front of Nic Lodeiro’s blast after a terrific save by David Ousted left the Vancouver keeper stranded.
Parker was the first to congratulate Waston at the final whistle — with a playful slap that was repaid with interest.
Both Waston and Parker, who is “only” six-foot-two but equally chiselled, were in beast mode against Seattle. And they’ll need to be again Saturday when the Caps play their first of four straight road games, in Portland against another powerful Cascadia rival, the Timbers.
It wouldn’t have been surprising had Waston, 29, and Parker, 24, come to blows last season when their lack of cohesiveness in the middle of the defence was symptomatic of a porous team that plummeted out of the playoff race.
The Costa Rican Waston was, in his words, “terrible,” and was neither disciplined with the referee nor disciplined positionally as opposing forwards torched the
Whitecaps with balls played in behind the back line.
And Parker, who is from Hicksville, N.Y., went backwards from a strong rookie season and looked lost as the structure around him — and next to him — eroded.
“Kind of the first year, you don’t really have expectations and no one really has expectations for you,” Parker said of his first season, in 2015. “People think it’s just a constant increase in form from there. For me, it wasn’t so much of having a bad year (in 2016), but trying to take it all in as a full-time starter.
“I don’t think either of us were at the levels we’re at this year. I think it’s showing already. Last year, we might have over-thought the game, we might have been trying to cover for one another’s mistakes. I think that could have been one of the reasons why we weren’t as good as we are this year.”
The Whitecaps are 2-3-1 through six regular-season games, but we hardly know what to make of them because two of the losses came after Vancouver players were ejected and the other during a Utah snowstorm.
Dominant and disciplined, Waston looks like an entirely different player from last season and, with Parker, is providing Vancouver a stout, sound defensive platform on which to build.
Subtract the white snow and red cards — none of them to Waston — and the Whitecaps have surrendered just three even-strength goals in MLS.
They will be tested Saturday by a Portland team that is 4-2-1 and leads the league with 16 goals, but will be without five-goal forward Fanendo Adi, suspended for an elbow during the Timbers’ 1-0 loss last weekend to Sporting Kansas City.
“(Kendall) and Timmy have both been outstanding at the start of the year,” Caps coach Carl Robinson said. “I look at Friday’s game as an example — 10 minutes to go and Seattle is putting us under pressure. And I wouldn’t want any other player (than Waston) in the box defending headers and clearances and putting his body on the line. I think being captain has made him more responsible.”
Yes, Waston, who gathered eight yellow cards and three reds last season and was still suspended at the start of this one, is wearing the captain’s armband for Robinson, who challenged him to show more discipline and lead by example.
“When he give me the armband, I was like, ‘OK, this is a serious thing, a lot of responsibility,’” Waston said. “So I have to be the best I can to be the best example for myself and my teammates and Robo himself.
“It’s not only for the good times. I think the majority (of leadership) is on the times when things are not going well. You can raise up the spirit of your teammate when he is down. Sometimes not everything is brilliant or positive. Sometimes you are going to have hard times. And that is the time you need your other teammates.”
Parker said: “I don’t think we had someone who stepped up and took that (captain’s) role and really owned it for us last year. I think this year, with Kendall getting that armband, he feels very responsible on the field and you can tell. I think he cares for everyone on the field ... and he wants to make sure we’re doing the right thing.”
Waston praised the play of Parker and said the central defenders know each other so well that they can communicate on the field with just eye contact.
“It’s hard to explain,” Parker said. “English isn’t his first language, but we speak English to each other all the time. As scary as Kendall can be, he’s kind of just a teddy bear and you’ve got to embrace that. I’ve been around guys like that in the past. I’ve been one of those guys in the past. You just learn how to get along with one another.”
And learn to take a punch when everyone is happy.