“It is very difficult to predict what other humans will do, and considerably more difficult to anticipate the behavior of aliens.”

James L. Cambias, A Darkling Sea

VANCOUVER - The aliens he’s referring to, of course, are the hypothetical beings from another world.

But an alien can also be defined as a foreigner, especially one who is not a naturalized citizen of the country where they are living.

And that covers a good chunk of the newcomers to MLS, guys like Vancouver’s Octavio Rivero and Diego Rodriguez and Toronto FC’s Sebastian Giovinco, Benoit Cheyrou and Damien Perquis.

So we’re going to leave predictions on the Whitecaps’ 2015 season to others. And in fact, those predictions have been all over the map – from a top three team in the Western Conference to a club that will struggle to make the playoffs, even though six teams now make the post-season in each conference as opposed to five in 2014, when the Caps just squeezed in.

TFC, who face the Caps at B.C. Place on Saturday in the regular-season opener, are hoping a significant overhaul – again – of its roster spells playoff success for the first time in the club’s nine-year MLS history.

But who really knows. How will guys, from young players to those on the downside of fine careers, fit in? How they will adjust to a more physical game in North America? How challenging will it be do develop chemistry on a team of different personalities and cultural backgrounds?

The Vancouver Sun’s soccer blogger, Russell Berisford, made a case Thursday that the Caps could actually be a worse team than they were last season.

That’s a bold statement given they will get full seasons from crafty midfielder Mauro Rosales and imposing centre back Kendall Waston and potentially more consistency from second-year captain Pedro Morales. Vancouver has also added young Uruguayan striker Octavio Rivero, a proven goal scorer, though not in MLS.

If the Caps, who led MLS last season with 13 clean sheets, are going to challenge reigning champions Los Angeles Galaxy and the Seattle Sounders in a West that is even tougher with the additions of Kansas City and Houston, they will need to add 20 to 25 more goals than the piddling total of 42 they got last season.

Rivero will carry the major part of that burden. But returning forwards Kekuta Manneh, Darren Mattocks and Erik Hurtado need to tally more than the 15 they combined for in 2014. Head coach Carl Robinson also wants more goals from his midfield contingent and expects more off set pieces with the dangerous Waston in the box.

“Goals have to come from everybody on the team,” says midfielder Russell Teibert, the 22-year-old beginning his fifth MLS season. “We can’t rely (solely) on our strikers.”

“We need to find 20-plus goals from somewhere,” says Robinson. “But it’s going to be a team effort. That will be a big focus this year because the reason we got into the playoffs last year on the last game was we were a team and we dragged ourselves in.”