Match preview: Vancouver hosts Portland in the final game of the season

Final game of the season, at Swangard, and in the second division. Next season we’ll be at a new stadium (two, actually), in a new league, and likely with many new players. This last game against Portland is a very important game for the club, to say the least. I don’t like the phrase “must-win”; suffice it to say it’s big, and to go out on a high note, to go into the play-offs on a high note, would be very nice.

As I’m sure you know, we’ve sucked lately. Consecutive 1-0 losses against Minnesota (Minnesota?) and Montreal piggybacked by a string of draws, with one lonely win in our last gazillion games, makes me sad.

Portland, on the other hand, are on a nine-game unbeaten streak, including six wins. They have the league’s top scorer, midfielder Ryan Pore, and a striker with an eye for the net and a name for the ages, Bright Dike. Between the two of them they have 24 of Portland’s 32 goals. It’s impressive, but it also means that if we can shut those two down we have a great chance of winning.

Of course, to win you have to score, and if there’s one thing we don’t do, it’s score. 30 goals in 29 games is a good return rate for one striker in the Dutch Eredivisie. It’s not so good for an entire team.

One thing working in our favour for this match will be the return from injury of central defenders Mouloud Akloul and Nelson Akwari. Whether either will start is a tough guess; Janicki and Bellisomo have been playing well together at the back and if Akloul and Akwari are short of match fitness they could be big liabilities against a strong Portland side.

Knight remains out with an injury; we’ll likely see Williams slot in at right-back, as Gage struggled to cover for Knight last game. I really hope Thordarson plays Tsiskaridze at left-back; I’m sick of Forko’s limitations and Zurab should never have been dropped.

It would be nice to see someone other than Wagner after his poor performances on the left, but I imagine we’ll see the Wagner-Nash-Dunfield-Davies combo across the middle again, unless Chiumiento gets the start. If he does, I see him bumping Davies, who’s a known-quantity at this point, though he did move into the middle after Koffie was sent off last weekend. Chiumiento at the top of a midfield diamond in a 4-4-2 is pretty appealing. Of course, that would require some tactical change, something that we haven’t seen all season.

(Or, what about three men in the middle? Wild, I know. Bellisomo at the base, Nash and Chiumiento in front, Wagner and Davies out wide, and Mobulu up top in a 4-1-4-1 of sorts. It could happen…)

And up front I expect we’ll see Mobulu and Arnoux…*sigh*… Can someone please explain the Arnoux phenomenon? I’m hoping for Mobulu and Edwini-Bonsuuuuuu, but I’m doubtful… C’mon, Teitur, prove my doubts groundless.

Let’s go boys!

The game kicks off at 4pm tomorrow at Swangard Stadium. Tickets are probably hard to come by, and I forgot to email my friend Chris about coming with me, shit. At least he’ll be able to catch it on Shaw (local channel 4, usually) and on the Caps’ site via livestream as per.

Play-off situation

Carolina beat Austin 3-1 today and lead us by three points in the NASL conference, which means we have to beat Portland by three or more goals to reclaim top spot. Do I need to go look at the season stats to guess at the likelihood of that? We have won only one game this season by that margin, and it was against CP Baltimore, the worst team in the league. I’m going to go ahead and predict that we don’t replicate that feat.

To move up to third Portland have to beat us and hope that Rochester lose to St. Louis, an unlikely event. Which means we’ll likely face Portland in the first round of the play-offs. A home loss would be that much more devastating.

Here is the play-off description from the Caps’ site:

The first round (quarterfinals), semifinals, and championship final will be played as two-match, aggregate score series. The first round of the playoffs will take place from Wednesday, October 6, to Sunday, October 10. In the first round, the eight playoff seeds will be matched as followed – 1 v 8; 2 v 7; 3 v 6; 4 v 5. The four first-round winners will move on to the semifinals, with the highest remaining seed facing the lowest remaining seed. The semifinals will take place from Wednesday, October 13, to Sunday, October 17. The USSF D-2 championship final series will be played over two weekends. The first leg of the final is set for the weekend of October 23 & 24, while the second leg will take place during the weekend of October 30 & 31.

Category: Match preview