Mid-Season Recap

By: Lee | June 27th, 2009

The last week has been pretty crazy. Big changes at work, meeting long-lost friends in unexpected places and fun nights out on the town. It’s a good time to sit back, take a breather and reflect upon things.

Crazy might not be the way one would describe the the Whitecaps season so far. However, it has certainly been very interesting.

After a bit of a slow start, the Whitecaps heated up and were briefly at the top of the table, despite injuries to key players. The young squad stepped up and was playing beyond expectations. The high point so far has been defeating Toronto FC 2-0 at Swangard Stadium, seemingly locking a place in the Champions League.

However, at the same time the team couldn’t duplicate the success it was having in the Canadian Championship in league play. The team’s weaknesses of an aging backline and inexperience showed in losses to Rochester, Portland and Montreal.

And then the game against Miami happened. Fights in football are rare. Even rarer are fights BETWEEN TWO TEAMMATES. The imbecility of both Charles Gbeke and Wesley Charles would have lasting consequences and signal the beginning of a cruel period for the team. It canceled out a victory that ended a three game league losing streak.

In the following week, the Whitecaps would witness first hand their spot in the Champions League vanish thanks to a disgraceful effort from the Montreal Impact. To add insult to injury, they would lose to their ‘A-team’ a few days later, with the absence of the suspended Charles certainly being felt. The team would regroup and dominate the Cleveland City Stars in the first half, yet somehow was down 2-1 at halftime. In line with the season’s weirdness so far, the team salvaged a draw in the 90th minute thanks to a sublime Martin Nash volley.

The Whitecaps now have a break and a chance to regroup. There is still plenty to be positive about. The play from young players like Gage, Haber and Knight has been promising. We aren’t even at the halfway point and the team is just out of a playoff spot with games in hand. It will interesting to see how this young team applies what they’ve learned so far after this layoff.

Be Champions!