It was a frustrating day for Vancouver against the Conference’s bottom side
Photo: John May
The worst weekend for the rest of the Western Conference I can recall mitigated the harm done by three mediocre Cascadian performances. All ten Western Conference sides played without a single winner. Perhaps only bottom placed and managerless Houston can look at their result with any degree of satisfaction, and only because expectations have plummeted so low.
San Jose and Dallas played out a dull goalless draw. RSL, LA Galaxy and Sporting KC lost to Eastern Conference opponents. Colorado lost a late goal at home where they have been winning recently.
So the damage done in the table to the Cascadian sides was perhaps minimal, or at least as minimal as could have been hoped.
Vancouver’s problem is inconsistency. If you think that’s bad, consider that the US twins’ problem is consistency.
With few occasional flashes, both Portland and Seattle have been consistently mediocre, though neither has performed as poorly as the Whitecaps did in DC, or as well as those same Caps hosting LA Galaxy. This makes the Caps the most fun to watch.
Watching Seattle this weekend had echoes of watching Leeds United fade gradually from an English superpower to a modern day Preston. That said, Manchester City underwent a similar slide and now look at them. And luckily, there is always the lack of relegation and enforced parity to reduce the reality of such comparisons.
With Portland, there is still value in the ‘but we won MLS Cup’ mantra. However, that should not prevent us from cheekily pulling back the curtain, mixing our metaphors and gazing into the crystal ball.
Portland and Seattle both have a pipeline problem.
Seattle are addressing it by giving youth a chance in the first XI, their problem being those players are not yet good enough to excel at the top level. Still, playing them and losing is better than never giving them the chance to learn. The policy is basically right. Last season it was tougher for the kids to break into the first team and that experiment failed both short term and long term.
The Revs celebrate their winner against Seattle
Photo/Italo Alexander Photography
Besides, if the team scrapes into the playoffs, those same youths may be ready for the big time by then. It also has to be said that some of the experienced players are also underperforming, and on much larger salaries. Osvaldo Alonso is not honey badgering with the same effectiveness he has in better seasons. Chad Marshall has made mistakes and Clint Dempsey, absent Obafemi Martins as his foil, continues to look wildly over paid for what he brings. Herc Gomez may bring some goals later on, in a Chad Barrett kind of way, but hasn’t made a veteran’s impact on the side as yet.
The less hopeful part is that the bulk of their hiring mechanism, Hanauer, Henderson and Kurt Schmid are still there and the news that Sigi’s son has now been given charge of S2 in the indefinite absence of Andrew Opatkiewicz is just depressing. I’d like to inject Garth Lagerwey with a truth serum and find out what he really makes of the current scouting staff which he inherited.
Still, the powers that be can hide behind “Sigi Out” and the distraction of an overpromoted announcer for a while longer. Also dynamic pricing, airline ads and everything else equally awful going on elsewhere. A couple of wins aren’t going to solve the bigger issue.
Portland’s current first XI are simply not among the best in the division if you merely add the sum of their parts. On any given day with no external factors, they will lose more than they win. Of course, a 90 minute football match is never played with no external factors. One side has a home crowd and pitch. A referee’s call will swing the match your way one day and against you on another. Travel, schedules, international call-ups and injuries are inevitable, especially in 2016 with both the EUROs and Copa America taking place. That however should not disguise the fact that the club’s first choice XI needs a boost.
Also there is little below them. Compare the two benches in their away match in Vancouver and the quality imbalance is stunning. Their experienced core of Ridgewell, Borchers and Jewsbury may have reached their peak last year. The bright hope is that the biggest cause is the form dip of Diego Valeri. All players get these and it will right itself. When it does, the team will be better – probably just better enough to squeeze unimpressively into the play offs. Like last year. And you know what happened then.
The Whitecaps overreliance on David Ousted may not be a good thing
Brandon Bleek (Prost Amerika)
Portland’s problem is not unsolvable. Gavin Wilkinson though needs another successful find; more Chara than Urruti; more Fadi than Asprilla.
He had the task of replacing Urruti, Johnson and Villafana this off season and that may have depleted the resources to actually improve the starting XI as well as the back up XI. Nonetheless, his track record is good enough for some optimism despite this not being his finest off season in recent years.
Vancouver’s problem is less infrastructural. They can be great to watch and they have also learned to win when playing badly (as they did against Chicago), an absolute key to success.
The mediocrity below them should see a playoff berth but it’s not possible to envisage a two legged win over Dallas or LA Galaxy once there at this point. Still, they should win the Cascadia Cup.
The best news is that Carl Robinson is improving as a coach and a leader every week. The worst news is that they still rely too often on the remarkable David Ousted to bail them out. It’s great having the best goalkeeper in the league. It’s not so great having to rely on that every second week.
So all three clubs have some reason for optimism in the medium term. The Sounders kids are likely to learn from MLS playing time and not losing Jordan Morris to the USMNT was a boost. Diego Valeri will return to his best form at some point this season and goals will flow. Carl Robinson visibly improves while his basic first 18 is deeper in quality than most in the Conference.
However, the tally as of the start of June 50 points from 41 games is pretty dire. Removing the derbies, the record is 41 points from 35 games.
Two points out of nine against New England, Houston and Chicago was awful. These are not great sides. But sadly, it was not surprising.
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