Courtesy of @WhitecapsFC on Twitter

Hawaii 0–2: Why That’s Okay

Finding positives from our first two preseason games

The ‘Caps went to Hawaii in the midst of the busiest off-season in team history with plenty of optimism: they had a new coach, a (new) system, and new players. This, combined with less than elite competition meant that we’d surely get to see a wardrobe change from the opposing teams. This… didn’t exactly happen. The games were a bit on the slow side, and the only visible streak was of the losing variety.

There were, however, a few positives to be pulled from this experience — there almost always is. That’s actually what this space is going to be about this season. Excitement is contagious, so hopefully some of mine can rub off on you! I’ll be posting here every so often with a breakdown of a few positives from undetermined stretches of games. Whenever I feel like it, essentially. So why don’t we get started with what we saw over the weekend.

The Press

No, not the folks covering the team (sorry!) but rather the high press MDS wanted to implement early on in training camp. Against V Varen Nagasaki, we saw a few examples of the ‘Caps winning the ball in the opposing teams half. On Theo Bair’s shot on goal in the first half, it was Felipe and PC that stood out:

Felipe’s initial pressure forced the ball out wide. Notice where they both stood after the pass was completed; almost goading the player in possession to pass it back to the central defender by taking away every other passing lane. From here, Theo Bair and Andy Rose enter the picture, each taking away a passing lane respectively allowing PC to make the tackle from the side:

There you go. A scoring chance created by a new system implemented by our new coach involving some of our new players. What more do you want? Don’t answer that, please.

Get Shorty

This one I’ll admit is a bit of a stretch, but there’s reason for optimism that every goal kick was short. In fact, I think almost every touch that either GK had was some sort of short throw/pass. Here we have a quick pass to Brett Levis, launching a flurry of passes between our midfielders, the likes of which we haven’t seen in years:

We then saw a quick roll out to Erice (big fan already) that started up another play:

You: “That’s pretty boring”

Me: “That was pretty boring, finding that footage”

Also me: The Whitecaps are showing a serious commitment to building up every play and I’m here for it. I’m so excited to see what this will look like with more technically gifted players on the field. And that’s not a slight to the players present in Hawaii — I think it goes without saying that we have a few players yet to join the team that will make a huge difference for us in our buildup play.

Creative Set Pieces

There were a few other things that got me excited over the two games we saw. The obvious two being the dribbles that Lass Bangoura made, and the play of David Norman, Simon Colyn, and Kam Habibullah. One that seemed interesting to me were some of the deception plays off of set pieces. To start, we have Felipe drawing a foul (take a drink) and setting up for the free kick. Watch Andy Rose in the background, drawing his marker, and forcing Reyna’s marker to pay attention to him. You’ll also notice Levis slowly drawing his player out wide, creating what can only be described as a space so vast that Billy McFarland tried booking a luxury music festival on it:

Full disclosure: we did not score on this play. We did, however, control the ball in two different dangerous areas. We’ll be missing some height this year, so it will be important to have free kicks that look like this in our arsenal:

We actually won a free kick right after that, in the same spot as before. This time, there are now two defenders close to Reyna, which frees up some space further into the box:

I have a secret: we once again didn’t score. But hey, this is about getting excited for things to come, right?

Random Notes

After any sort of in-depth analysis, I also want to quickly point out a few things that I liked, in point form.

Reyna’s chance on Sunday was the result of some quick passes in the opposing third

Erice is that missing link between our defensive players and our attacking players. Can’t wait to see how the game flows through him.

Bangoura’s greatest asset will be the ability to create his own shot. I feel like our other wingers might be able to exist better in the system, but there’s no substitute for being able to dribble through a player. That will be important when the rest of our team isn’t having their day.

Bair? More like BEAR. The guy is huge.

You’re going to see a lot of hopping-on-your-toes in the box on corners this year, and it’s going to look adorable. Stay on your toes, LADS!

The youngsters actually ended up settling in during our first game. Probably should have been a 3–2 game, but what can you do!

At the end of the day we didn’t have a full team, and it showed. But I’d say we have a decent idea of how we’re going to play, and that’s going to make those $8 budweisers taste even sweeter. Enjoy, ‘Caps fans.