Vancouver Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson has been around the block a few times, and he knows that one week in May – however impressive – doesn’t mean much of anything in the grand scheme of an MLS season.
“The league is very funny,” Robinson told reporters after Vancouver’s thrilling 4-3 win at Toronto on Saturday, their third victory in a week. “You can go through three, four, five games without getting a result and then everyone says you’re in a crisis or you can win three games in a week and suddenly people will go and predict you to win MLS. That’s how crazy it is.”
I’m not here to predict that Vancouver are going to win MLS Cup (again, it’s May), but it sure looks like the Whitecaps have turned a corner following their slow start to the season.
A popular preseason pick to win the conference, the ‘Caps struggled out of the gate, posting a 3-5-2 mark through 10 games, amidst some serious issues scoring from the run of play. They’ve put those woes a bit in the rear view, ripping off three wins – the same number they had in the season’s first two months – in the span of eight days.
The ‘Caps notched 2-1 home wins against Portland on May 7 and Chicago on Wednesday before dramatically spoiling Toronto’s second home game of the season on Saturday. They’ve used a deep attacking corps (one reason they were so popular this preseason) to great effect, with newcomers Christian Bolanos and Blas Perez each playing the hero – against Portland and Chicago, respectively – before wunderkind Kekuta Manneh starred on Saturday at Toronto.
Manneh, of course, is one of the most exciting young players in the league, with his combination of lightning speed, tantalizing finishes and American residency (he’s almost a citizen, USMNT fans!) captivating a much-wider audience than your average ’Cap. People get excited when he does good things, and good things happen to Vancouver when he plays well – they were 8-2-2 in the 12 games he scored or assisted last year.
Like the rest of the 2016 ’Caps, the 21-year-old struggled before this recent three-game stretch, scoring one goal and notching no assists through 10 games, then sitting out the victory against Portland. Manneh returned with an appearance off the bench against Chicago, assisting Perez’s ridiculous bicycle-kick winner.
However, that was nothing compared to Saturday: With 35-year-old Perez dealing with heavy legs and strikers Masato Kudo and Octavio Rivero out due to injury, Robinson tweaked his formation. Switching from his customary 4-2-3-1 to a 4-4-1-1, Robinson moved Manneh from the wing to a central position underneath fellow burner Erik Hurtado.
The results were fantastic, with Manneh perhaps playing the best game of his young career. He scored two goals, assisted on Pedro Morales’ winner and fired the initial shot that led to Bolaños’ first-half strike.
His second goal, Vancouver’s third, was a tour de force – and a pretty good illustration of why so many people expected such big things from him and the ‘Caps this year.
That’s not a scrub defense Manneh cut up, either. Prior to Saturday’s match, Toronto had given up a league-best seven goals on the year and posted shutouts in three of their last four. Manneh made them look like punks, killing Toronto on the counter and helping efficient Vancouver to a huge three points – despite the fact that they were significantly out-possessed and outshot by TFC.
Still, we’ve seen these sorts of performances from Manneh before. As Robinson noted on Saturday, Manneh has a lot of growing to do, and needs to become more consistent if he wants to move into the league’s elite.
In that way, he’s a microcosm of the Whitecaps. Vancouver have plenty of talent, they just need to figure out how to convert all that skill into consistent results, something they struggled with at the beginning of the year.
This is MLS, so the ’Caps will have more ups and more downs this season, but their big week seemed like a turning point. That’s a big deal for Vancouver, and no joking matter for the rest of the league – however funny it sometimes might be.
