VANCOUVER – They were mentor and eager student for a season and a half in Vancouver, the wily English League veteran who counseled the young Canadian kid.

Now in Montreal Wednesday night, Nigel Reo-Coker and Russell Teibert could go head-to-head in a deliciously intriguing battle of give-no-quarter battlers.

After basically sitting out back-to-back MLS games while allowing his banged up body to heel, Teibert, the 22-year-old from Niagara Falls, Ont., is itching to get back on the pitch.

“I couldn’t be more ready,” said the five-foot-eight midfielder, who actually got five late minutes off the bench in Saturday’s 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake.

The question against the Impact is: Where does he play?

Gershon Koffie was brilliant box-to-box against RSL replacing Teibert as a holding midfield alongside the always reliable Matias Laba. He scored once on a long-range shot off an instinctive steal, ripped another shot off the cross bar and had eight ball-winning tackles.

Head coach Carl Robinson has to keep Koffie in the lineup after a performance like that, doesn’t he?

Perhaps Robinson goes back to the 4-3-1-2 formation he surprised everyone with, including his players, in Utah on April 18. Laba, Koffie and Teibert lined up as three holding midfielders. Teibert was his usual disruptive self when the Caps didn’t have the ball, but had a bigger role in the attack going forward out on the flank.

In fact, it was Teibert’s whipped in, left-footed cross that Mattocks finished off with a perfect header in the 80th minute for the game’s only goal.

A return to that role could put Teibert directly up against Reo-Coker, who has been playing right fullback of late for the struggling Impact, who are just 2-4-2.

“I am excited to see him, it’s been a long time,” Teibert said this week of Reo-Coker. “I’ve been watching (Impact) games. He’s been doing well. So I’m excited to play against him and excited to see him off the pitch at the same time.”

Reo-Coker, 31, arrived in Vancouver for the start of the 2013 MLS season after playing more than 200 games in the English Premier League with West Ham United, Aston Villa and Bolton.

He quickly took Teibert under his wing, often spending extra time with the young Canadian at practice.

“Nige is one of my best friends,” said Teibert. “He’s a mentor for me, he taught me a lot about the game.”

Off the field, however, Reo-Coker, a notorious night owl, may not have been the kind of influence club management wanted. He missed a few weeks early last season after sustaining facial injuries and a concussion in what he claimed was a fall over a bike rack, and was eventually traded to Chivas USA in late August for midfielder Mauro Rosales

When Chivas folded after last season, Reo-Coker was claimed by Montreal in a waiver draft.

He had a couple of influential outings in central midfield for Montreal in CONCACAF Champions League play this spring. But forced by back line injuries to play fullback in the home leg CL final against Mexico’s Club America, a slow, seemingly out-of-shape Reo-Coker was beaten badly on a couple of goals. He was also poor at right back Saturday in the Impact’s 3-0 loss in Chicago.

“Where he plays will be a question, whether he plays right back or centre-mid, but he’ll want to beat us, no doubt,” said Robinson, who maintains that Reo-Coker, whom he talked with on the weekend, is a “great guy.”

But asked on Monday what he thought Reo-Coker imparted on Teibert, Robinson did let slip that there was “good and bad.” He quickly added, though, that the Englishman, along with now-departed veteran striker Kenny Miller, did help Teibert mature into a solid professional.

“He’s still got room for improvement,” Robinson said of Teibert. “But he’s a joy to work with day-in, day-out.”

Wednesday night’s game is the first of five in a row on the road for the Caps, while the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup takes over BC Place. Vancouver also faces the Galaxy in Los Angeles on Saturday, takes a weekend off and then comes back for games in New York, New England and Colorado.

“We don’t really look at it as five games on the road,” said Teibert. “You take it one game at a time.

“(The media) were saying we weren’t playing as well at home and we were playing better on the road. So I don’t think it’s a challenge. We’ve just got to be mentally focused, do the same things we’ve done on the road earlier on this season. If we do that, we’ll be successful.”

THREE THEMES

TIME TO GRIND

No team in MLS is as different at home and on the road than the Whitecaps. They have scored 13 goals at BC Place and given up 11 while going 4-3-1. On the road, they have scored just three goals and given up only two while going 3-2-1. “Good teams are able grind and dig out results away from home and we’ve done that so far this year,” says Caps’ head coach Carl Robinson, whose team plays five in a row on the road, starting tonight in Montreal. “But it can change at the drop of a hat. We know that. We’re a decent team on the road, hard to beat. If we do all the small jobs very well, we will create chances. Whether we take our chances . . . “

HEADS UP

Whitecaps centre back Pa-Modou Kah was left pounding the turf Saturday after a header miss off a corner. “It just slid off my head,” he said, pointing to his sloped forehead. “Maybe if I had a four-cornered head it would have gone in.” He and fellow centre back Kendall Waston at least got to more balls on Saturday. With Kah set to be rested and the six-foot-three Diego Rodriguez drawing in alongside the six-foot-five Waston Wednesday night, could we finally see a season first, a goal off a corner. “We’re getting there,” says Robinson, noting that the delivery was better on Saturday. “We’ll continue to work on it and, when we need it, hopefully it will come up big for us.”

BANGED UP

Goalkeeper David Ousted stayed off the field at practice on Monday, choosing to work with the team physios inside. But he is expected to make his 62nd consecutive regular season start Wednesday night. “He’s got a sore hip, but he’s fine,” said Robinson. More doubtful is right fullback Steven Beitashour, who also didn’t practice on Monday after he took a nasty knock to the back of the head on Saturday and is following concussion protocols. Robinson has a couple of options in young South African Ethan Sampson or Tim Parker, this year’s first-round draft pick. Sampson played the full 90 minutes for WFC2 on Sunday, while Parker played just 45 at centre back.

PLAYERS TO WATCH

DIEGO RODRIGUEZ, Whitecaps

It’s been a tough first season in Vancouver for the young Uruguayan centre back. He played well in his debut, a 1-0 win in Orlando on March 21, but a two-game suspension for grabbing Aurelien Collin’s crotch and a nagging quadriceps injury have limited him to just 15 minutes since. Finally healthy again, he says his confidence is high after playing 45 minutes with WFC2 on Sunday. “I’m ready, healthy, ready to play.” He’s set to start tonight in place of Pa-Modou Kah, the soon-to-be 35-year-old who has played more than anticipated this season.

IGNACIO PIATTI, Impact

Montreal has been decimated by injuries. In fact, 27 players have already seen minutes in just eight MLS games. The Impact’s best player has been Piatti, a 30-year-old Argentinian midfielder, who joined the Impact late last season. He has two goals and two assists in MLS play and also scored two goals during the Impact’s impressive run through CONCACAF Champions League in the spring. “He’s unbelievable,” says defender Bakary Soumare. “He’s as good as they come in this league. We rely on him offensively. He draws a lot of players, draws a lot of fouls, scores goals. He’s just fantastic for us.”

gkingston@vancouversun.com

CANADA CALLS ON TEIBERT

Teibert earned a call up from Canadian national team head coach Benito Floro for a two-game World Cup qualifying series this month against Dominica.

But he will likely have to earn playing time in a different position with Canada.

“Russell is a special player,” Floro said on a conference call on Tuesday. “We need to define his position because he can play as a winger or as a midfielder. For our style of play, it will be better for us he plays as a winger.”

It won’t be an uncomfortable position for Teibert, who played mostly as a winger for Vancouver in 2013 when he earned a team-high nine assists.

Eight MLS players were named to Canada’s 23-man roster, including Portland Timbers’ midfielder Will Johnson, who returns after a lengthy absence due to injury and sickness. Strikers Cyle Larin, the MLS first overall draft pick by Orlando this year, and FC Dallas’ Tesho Akindele, the MLS rookie of the year in 2014, also were called up.

Akindele attended a U.S. camp in January, but the former Calgary resident, born to a Canadian mother and a Nigerian father, now has committed to Canada.

“I just thought I was born a Canadian citizen . . . I should just go with what I’ve always felt my whole life,” Akindele told Canadian Press on Tuesday.

Canada, ranked 115th in the world, faces Dominica, ranked No. 165 on June 11 in Roseau, Dominica, and June 16 at BMO Field in Toronto.

The winner enters a July 25 draw to determine third- and fourth-round qualifying in CONCACAF. Floro said there is a lot at stake against Dominica.

“I hope my players understand the situation, because it will be very bad if we don’t play well.”

gkingston@vancouversun.com