Today we parted ways with the once greatly impactful, and fan favourite player, Pedro Morales. I found myself not quite torn up hearing this news. My opinion has remained very close to my original opinion when he arrived here a few years ago. Pedro was a technically gifted player on the soccer pitch. With a ball at his foot, there was very little that he wouldn’t try and a great deal of wonder passes and shots miraculously were successful. Unfortunately, after his first year or so of proving himself within his team and league, Pedro lost a lot of the recognition that he deserved. Being an unknown talent coming into the league, oppositions wouldn’t have a way to deal with him, as he was always pulling new things out of his bag of tricks. However, with his injury problems, off the pitch task of supporting his growing family, and the addition of teams being able to learn how to stop him, Pedro Morales quickly started to become obsolete. From dribbling too much and getting the ball stolen, to taking selfish shots, and becoming less reliable for passing and moving, Pedro was losing his importance on the team, and his threat level throughout the league.

High payed designated players like Pedro Morales don’t have a lot of wiggle room in the MLS. When Robbo brought him in, it seemed like a stroke of genius. Bringing in a reserve player from Spain for cheap who seemed to possess bewildering ability for MLS standards would propel our team to fame, which it almost did when we came first in our conference. However, all good things come to an end, especially when they’re perpetuated in sport by the increasing age of older players. But now, we need a change, theres newer players popping up with just as much talent as Pedro, but faster and younger as well. My main example of this is the newly acquired Miguel Almiron of Atlanta United. From his stats on Fifa 17 alone you can see that he is a different breed of player from Pedro. Being only 22, he has a lot of room to grow, and can function as a long term project, possibly to profit off of in the future. With such a great amount of potential in front of him, and having deadly pace in a league like the MLS where being quick and nifty can get you quite far, I feel like the Whitecaps should be looking for players more like this. It’s not like we have the draw of being in a wonderful city with awesome fans or anything, right? With the right kind of investments, especially in younger players like the Whitecaps mission statement suggests, we have the possibility of getting up and coming players for global leagues, not just unknown players nearing the end of their career.

Anyways, enough about that. Another tidbit of news I’ve read is that the whitecaps are looking at Honduran Romell Quioto. The forward will look to fill in the hole left during the release of Blas Perez. Right now our only options up front are Kudo and Hurtado, and that doesn’t look very good. To be honest, if we don’t use our designated player spot for a tried and true goalscorer, this season would look bleak. He’s 25 and seems to be bagging a couple goals for Honduras and his club team Olimpia, and since he can find the back of the net at least a couple times recently is a step in the right direction.

I guess we’ll have to see what comes of this, and how the winter transfer window unfolds because as of now making any predictions would be grasping at straws.