I agree excuse time is over for both the coaches and the players. The squad is being rotated regularly so there should be minimal, if any, rust and the coach has said it is the best and deepest squad he's had. Crunch time baby! Show or Go (away, far far away) PS. About half the cuts after last season were from USL2 players who had been signed to MLS contracts. The vast majority just didn't cut it and never took their game to the MLS level with the opportunities they had.
https://www.whitecapsfc.com/post/2018/04/02/welcome-mls-sean-melvin?autoplay=true Homegrown signing so it won't count against the salary cap. He sits third in the keeper pool at the moment. Age 23 so a good age. First player to make it back to the top team from Fresno.
rants are welcome- it shows committment and passion to the game of soccer and the Whitecaps- i have seen what can happen in the vancouver area market- 1978-1982 and, to a much lesser degree, the 86ers-early whitecap days of the 1990's)- it just pisses me off when the owners' (worth as group of billions) dont see what is possible and chose to drift along and be joe average the whitecaps could be so much more!
BUSY BEE REPORT/RUMOR : newest siging- FELIPE SILVA- brazilian playing in japan league 1 with hiroshima interesting that he is a MF and another soccer nomad- a teammate is kudo who played with the Caps in 2017 MY GUESS- some player is on the way out- REYNA ???? supposedly silva is a #10 MF felipe has been on 11 teams in 9 years, often as a loan player Personal information Full name Felipe de Oliveira Silva Date of birth May 28, 1990 (age 27) Place of birth Piracicaba, Brazil Height 1.71 m (5 ft 7 1⁄2 in) Playing position Attacking midfielder Club information Current team Sanfrecce Hiroshima Number 10 Youth career 2007–2008 Rio Branco 2008–2009 Palmeiras Senior career* Years Team Apps (Gls) 2009 Palmeiras B 0 (0) 2009–2012 Palmeiras 6 (0) 2010 → Rio Branco (loan) 13 (1) 2010 → Bahia (loan) 2 (0) 2011 → Olaria (loan) 18 (7) 2011 → Guarani (loan) 29 (8) 2012 → Mogi Mirim (loan) 20 (8) 2012–2016 Paranaense 49 (5) 2014 → Figueirense (loan) 14 (0) 2015 → Ponte Preta (loan) 5 (0) 2016 → Ceará (loan) 34 (5) 2017– Sanfrecce Hiroshima 23 (2) its probably another whitecap classic loan player with little or no money involved- at 27, his career is not stellar and i wouldnt expect a WOW factor- his time in brazil was mostly with division 2-3 clubs
^loans, to lower division clubs , etc..... other than Carl saying "hey we signed a Brazilian #10 !!!" i would not expect much out of this player if he comes. (likely on a loan). Reyna won't finish the year here as I have predicted, so I guess he would be the one that Silva would replace. This does get comical , doesn't it
its like being on a carousel- round and round we go- start the season well- and we end up in the same place- either no playoffs or we gently bow out in the first round reyna- as self-destructive a player as he is- made 2017 a great romp for 7 weeks in july-august- yordy IMO was the most exciting player next to camilo that the Caps have ever had since entering MLS and i agree with Old Fan- yordy wont finish the season in vancouver- how the MLS/Caps get out out of the contract will be interesting- with the peru shit still floating around, its hard to see any team making a pitch for him
it will be interesting to see what the club does with yordy for this coming friday game - is he in town-training ??
HELLO VANCOUVER WHITECAP FANS- we have a problem: did some digging on the amount of players that have come and gone (released, retired, traded, loaned) from coach robo's full tenure, years, 2014-2018 only 3 players are constant for these years- kendall waston, russell teibert, nicholas mezquida 62 players have come and gone (5 retired) WOW!! i maintain that you cant build a quality team with that kind of turn-over- your opinion ?
If you are in a constant state of flux you can firewall yourself with the excuse that "the lads need time to jell." And then the summer window will come, some guys will be bought out/moved and some high interest signings will occur to get the media buzz going again for the second half of the season. For a leadership change to happen, this club will have to go on a big winless streak, especially involving home defeats. But I don't see that happening, considering the inconsistency of teams in this conference as well as the league in general.
The whole mediocrity of this club for these years is a group effort from Kerfoot, to BObby and Rachel, to Carl. Carl, is an average coach who is not a great judge of non MLS talent and doesn't ask the tough questions about why these players are available and cheap. He plugs his players into his same tactic instead of building tactics around the strength of his players. So we have had countless people played out of position, wide players set in that #10, attacking players being put as lone strikers when they are not suited for that, and so on. Davies at LB last night is a glaring example. Rachel does what Kerfoot tells her for the finances. So not only do they offer Carl a near zero transfer budget for salary cap players, they offer nothing or little as far as the 3 DP wage slots. She also implements a very tight and frugal office operation that leads to inexperienced interns, good people leaving to get better incomes, and the stress of being reprimanded for buying a pack of paper when it was not on sale in the Staples flyer. This permeates from top to bottom and is not a passionate way to run a sports club. Bobby is literally "The Snooze" these days. He just sits back ad reacts, nothing is proactive. He accepts on and off playoff years, middling teams, and has little to say beyond tired cliches. This is not the passionate Bobby who ran the 86ers or took our MNT to back to back HEXs. Kerfoot is running this as an investment . Club loses money, so its cut cut cut. That leads to more money lost as fans spend less, watch less, etc... so its cut cut cut more. And our dear executive chair with the mystery responsibilities; whatever he does for the club has shown no impact on anything tangible. He should go as well. Clearing out one or two of the pieces will not turn this club into something special. The entire lot need to be cleaned out , thanked for their service, and start fresh. That includes an ownership change. Heck, Nash doesn't even bother anymore. He towed the line for years trying to be positive but he is ultra competitive, he can't like this now.
one of the most stunning admissions from the team leadership is that they are cutting the player budget for DPs and overall by more than $1 mill USD- robo stated that in the preseason keep in mind that most MLS clubs are spending more than 2018 due to the new and extra owner-driven player budget of almost $3 mill USD- its why we are seeing in many markets the recruiting better players the only DP we have left is kei kamara at $800 000 USD, a 1 mill less salary than the departed fredy montero, although it wouldnt surprise me to see kei's salary above the MLS top level to be paid through a pot like TAM or at least in part truth be told, the whitecap players' salaries are being paid from the MLS head office, except for kei, and brek shea who is having his DP salary paid partly from TAM and MLS the owners would argue that they have to be more thrifty because of the cost of doing business with canadian dollars (30% lower than the USD)- i wonder if there is any compensation from MLS for things like travel (and the whitecaps do the most in MLS) in 2017, the Caps were in the top half for players' salaries; i suspect we will be in the bottom half as we only have owner-paid 1 DP and he is on a modest salary when compared to teams like TFC, seattle, LAG, LAFC, atlanta and NYCFC
Even without DPs, they still have Carl's below average ability to pick players from outside of MLS. The club could do better even under their current financial restrictions.
dont agree with you- this is a team being left behind by better quality in MLS- simply put, we are not keeping up to the better skill level, especially in MF, our weakest area-we are loaded with average (C- to C+) players in MF and we are and will be suffering for that in 2018 been around the MLS whitecaps to know that any fix to the MF will be a cheap player- loan, trade, free agent, TAM, GAM- whatever, but it wont be costly to this cheap group of owners getting totally pissed after watching the success of TFC- our city deserves the same from its owners or get out of the soccer business, take your investment return and let a new owner(s) bring a bold vision to the club in a great market
Interesting, I am surprised you don't agree better coaching would get better results, even with this group of players. If a better coach was spending the existing funds available, they would also have better players.(Carl's recruiting outside of MLS is poor to say the least). I think the coaching can make a difference even under the current financial restrictions.
i am in full agreement that robo is a poor judge of most talent, especially attacking players- he does well with choosing players much like the way he played- gritty, touch as nails, non-dynamic and defensive-minded- like ghazal, tchani, jacobson, mutch- anything beyond the average MLS player is beyond his vision- its why we get players like rivero, kudo, morales, reyna, techera, bolanos and blondell who never or rarely reach the heights that we have been told to expect- they are either over-rated or underachieving now i look at any new signing free agent, loanee, trade who has any attacking talent with huh huh- i've been down this twisting road before-the only good news has been an aged kamara, but injuries do begin to become more common, especially playing on our home surface it isnt surprising that creative players flee vancouver- camilo, miller,nosa and soon, our best, davies, will be gone to bigger fields carl is good at picking plumbers- and MLS is moving away from plumbers to talented, creative,skillful, pacier players- we will be left behind average owners, average FO, average coach, average team, GREAT SUPPORTERS, GREAT SOCCER MARKET
Playing Alphonso Davies as a Left Back What is the effect of playing Alphonso Davies at left back!??!?! The shocking answer may underwhelm you. #VWFC https://t.co/vwa4qIukas— The Third Sub (@The3rdSub) April 14, 2018 God he needs to get out of Vancouver ASAP and get to Europe
placing your best slicer and dicer offensive talent at the rear only helps alleviate the fear from the defenders when phonsie runs at them with the ball dancing on his feet- certainly, shea doesnt bring the same level of fear- so cant agree with the tactic- hell, i would rather see shea on the front left and davies on the front right so he can cut in on his left foot- place teibert or some other DMF on defence- we have lots of those robo-types can you remember the game- i believe it was the game of BOREDOM VS LAG a couple of weeks back? in the last 10-15 minutes in the game and the supporters crying for any type of strike at goal, we had several cornerkicks- robo placed phonsie- quick and dangerous inside the opponent's box- at the center line as a defender for whatever stupid, illogical coaching reason robo's coaching decisions show little growth in 4 years- he takes simple decisions and adds layers of complexity that dont make sense and stifle the attackers- his cement mentality of a single striker says it all- rarely did/does it work for either rivero or hurtado
They'll probably go into KC tomorrow and poach a second consecutive road win there and then everybody we'll be singing a different tune the next morning.
lol- gotta admit that robo is a very good road coach- unfortunately, that is only 1/2 of the games; home games go from the disasterously boring to moments of excitement, and even the odd summer game that leaves you wanting more, especially for 7 weeks in 2017 when reyna was sizzling hot in the #10 role but i have no hope with this present squad that come playoff time, we will be a serious or even possible contender, let alone make the playoffs- with this present squad, making the playoffs would be a major accomplishment IMO