A Post-Game Rant on the Voyageurs Cup
by Benjamin Massey on Jul 2, 2011 12:22 PM PDT
in Hysterical Ranting
Email
Print
The better team won. I don't mean that in a "better team on the day" sense, I mean that in "Toronto is the better team, and they won." A Canadian-friendly neutral should be glad for this result because, while Toronto is obviously going to have a tough time in the CONCACAF Champions League, Vancouver under Tom Soehn would have embarrassed us all.
Long-time readers will know how much I hate match referee Dave Gantar and how eager I am to throw responsibility for the result onto his shoulders. Unfortunately, we can't blame the refereeing, which was poor but even: Joao Plata's joke of a penalty made up for Jay DeMerit's joke of a clearance off the line. The penalty never should have happened but the earlier goal should have counted; we can't complain. Nor will I rant about Mikael Yourassowsky clipping Alain Rochat's heels en route to the winning goal: there was contact but it looked incidental and accidental to me with Rochat just being unlucky to lose his balance on the run. A close but fair no call in my books.
I'm going to come back to the coaching. Again and again. I've said before that the Vancouver Whitecaps were bloody lucky to beat the Philadelphia Union and even luckier to draw the Seattle Sounders: as far as my eye can tell, Vancouver hasn't played a good game since Soehn came aboard and the Philadelphia game was the only one that was even decent. For the most part, the Whitecaps have been getting the shit kicked out of them by teams like Toronto, Chivas USA, and Sporting Kansas City.
Under Teitur Thordarson, the Vancouver Whitecaps took on Toronto FC while suffering from a number of key injuries. Yet they thoroughly outplayed Toronto in the home opener (a 4-2 win) and were even more dominant in the first leg of the Voyageurs Cup final that the team was spectacularly unlucky to only draw. In the abortive second leg, Vancouver well outplayed Toronto (although the FCs had some chances) and were en route to a well-earned 1-0 victory. This is without counting the USL-1/USSF D2 Whitecaps' performances where, with the exception of the last match in 2010 where the Cup had already been decided, Vancouver always played Toronto extremely tough and compiled a winning record.
Under Tom Soehn, Toronto has beat the everloving hell out of Vancouver twice.
His prized prodigy Jeb Brovsky was the second-worst player on the field. A goalkeeper he believes in so much he fired Mike Salmon over it, Joe Cannon, could have single-handedly cost Vancouver three goals through rank incompetence on another day. Soehn built the team. Soehn picked Cannon in the expansion draft, writing off $200,000 in valuable salary cap room for an increasingly erratic has-been. Soehn decided that Terry Dunfield can play attacking mid until he realized how crazy this was and put Brovsky in the role (which turned out to be no less crazy). Soehn decided that, when he was playing a must-win game against Toronto FC with his captain limping from a groin problem, Blake Wagner would be adequate insurance against injury. Soehn decided to play the reserves on Wednesday, which I supported, but then he decided as soon as they started losing that he had to wear out Eric Hassli and Camilo Sanvezzo trying to turn the game around, which was completely nuts.
Of course the players aren't blameless. Jonathan Leathers gave Joao Plata far too easy a time most of the night, Jay DeMerit looked like he should have ruled himself out of the lineup, and Michael Boxall's inexperience allowed Toronto's attackers to get around him. The midfield, with the exception of Dunfield, spent too much time trying to crash the ballcarrier, which led to some nice takeaways for Gershon Koffie but also gave Toronto miles of passing room they didn't hesitate to exploit.
Yet how many of those weaknesses were absent when Thordarson coached the team? Under Teitur the central midfield was a position of strength; the ball movement was limited but you simply would not run passes by Dunfield and Koffie. Under Soehn, with the same players, it's been a catastrophic weakness for seven games and counting.
I don't pretend Teitur Thordarson was some wonder coach. He's here as the most convenient point of comparison, not because he's the saviour and we desperately need to bring him back. Detractors said he was overwhelmed in MLS and in ways it seemed like he was: he was sometimes slow to adjust, sometimes held onto his tactical substitutions until it was too late for them to help. Some of the criticisms of Thordarson were unfair but many of them weren't.
The problem is that Thordarson's replacement is leading this team into a spiral of horrible games against mediocre opposition and they're not getting any better. Old strengths are now weaknesses and old weaknesses are not improved. His lineups seem almost whimsical and you have a better chance of making the gameday eighteen if you're one of "his" boys. The players then go out and get creamed, we make excuses, and then the whole thing starts all over again.
Firing Tom Soehn mid-season right after firing Thordarson would make the Whitecaps look like a Mickey Mouse organization. This is undeniably true. But keeping a leader so obviously out of his depth might do far worse damage.
27 comments
|
0 recs |
Do you like this story?
Comments
Cannon
I completely agree on everything you said here, except, Joe Cannon – while I concede had a fairly poor day – was actually a very good pick up. An experienced a consistently top MLS keeper, not unreasonably compensated and a great veteran to have backstopping an expansion side. He’s been miles better than Nolly had this year. Nolly is consistent, but simply doesn’t have that top drawer save in his repertoire. He isn’t an elite player, he’s an MLS back up calibre player who can start in a pinch. Cannon can win you games.
Either way, that doesn’t address the fact that Soehn has completely failed to turn round the team and made the Thordarson all the more embarrassing and heinous.
I see Cannon and Nolly as fairly equivalent. Nolly is a terrific reflex goalkeeper with weaknesses (hard hands, awful distribution, iffy communication). Cannon is a fairly good reflex keeper with fewer weaknesses. I think they both give up more-or-less the same number of goals behind this defense.
I’ve seen Nolly steal the Whitecaps some games in his time, though not at the MLS level: he came as close as any human being could have gotten to stealing that New England Revolution game, though. I really don’t care that much about either one of them, but I’d rather have the younger, far cheaper Nolly on the roster than an older, $200,000 Cannon. I can live with Brian Sylvestre as the backup (although I was agitating for the team to keep Simon Thomas for the role last year).
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
by Benjamin Massey on Jul 2, 2011 3:24 PM PDT up reply actions
I was lucky enough to miss this game as I was travelling, but looking at the brief highlights it looked like we were a complete shambles in defence, and the continued selection of Brovsky is a complete mystery to me (especially in any kind of attacking role).
It really doesn’t speak well of the coach when the team is immediately worse after the half time break. Lord knows what he said to them but every post-match interview has highlighted the fact that the performance dipped straight after half time.
by Russell Berrisford on Jul 2, 2011 4:12 PM PDT reply actions
Frustration!
Now here is where I need to vent, what I witnessed today was beyond frustration. The final of the Nutralite Championship and and we shit the bed! I don’t even know where to begin, I think there is a serious chemistry problem on this team. At times it looks like an elementary school yard with the players off in little groups only passing to their pals, and then in nearly every game there is a complete break down. The result, sheer panic as everyone runs around and into one another, this can be quite painful to watch.
I miss Teitur, yes he had his worts and all ( still can’t figure out everyones facination with Jeb Brovsky) but through countless injuries and bad officiating, even worse than that other team from Vancouver was subjected to ,his team was exciting. The comeback from 3-0 against Kansas City, the 9 men New England game, we believed anything was possible. There were also times we thought it was time to change Cannon for Nolly, get Mouloud into games (when match fit), sit Wagner, move Chimiento, etc. The Soehen experiment is failing miserably, there is no heart, players seem to play to their pay scale, " you make more, you chase the guy down" and a team consciouness that deflates when they get down a goal. They seem a disinterested bunch, “look at the touchline, see that trophy?, you could win that today!”
Cannon tried his best today, opposing fowards were allowed to pretty much walk in on several occasions. The first penalty shot and save should have stood. Joe also made alot of outstanding saves today, but to hear the anouncer blame his bad misjudgement on the “sure to be a goal” that Demerit cleared off the line ( we all know it was in) was due to his not being use to playing on grass come on! Guaranteed everyone out there has played a hell of a lot more soccer on real turf than artifical. The penalty should never have been awarded in the first place, nice handball by the little weasel Plata.
My last vent is the treatment of Akoul, here is a guy they signed, broke his ankle, worked his ass off to get back, never complained, always had a good attitude, said to be a great team mate and character player, scored a goal to get us to the Nutralite final and then Soehen has the gal to say" oh, by the way, you won’t be playing anymore your contract is to rich for us". I don’t think he had a fair chance this year, he played quite well in my opinion beside DeMerit. They bloody well be bringing in the second coming of Alan Ball in midfield the next few weeks or someone that can fill some deepening holes. With the other team in this city I will admit I do bandwagon, but the blue and white I always believe in, sadly until now. I am contemplating donating the rest of my seasons tickets to " Kid’s Up front", yes I am a hopocrite and will go to the Man City game, but the frustration is real. Thanks for listening, if you could just open the window I will come in off the ledge now.
p.s. how about a petition to get Teitur back? Worked for the loose the HST people forseems to be working for the HST
Could live with that.
It is obvious here that we are all upset. When Teitur Thordarson was given the heave hove it was disappointing. We would have liked to have seen more wins under him but there was a slowly improving team. I could live with that.
Tom Soehn seemed to be doing well until he took on his present role. I now see two steps forward, two sideways and three backwards. I don’t think they will change the coach again this year so I am about the write of this year off. I hope I am not having this conversation next year.
Let it die
I don’t want to interrupt the TT love-fest here but does anyone remember how TT guided us to only 32 goals in 30 game last year, 17 games this year where we got (count ‘um) 1 goal off of set pieces, the constant cheap turn overs, etc. Come anyone even remember Jay Nolly ever getting the ball to a Whitecap with his feet (if anyone care to dispute that I have all the games PVRed). Soehn is not my dream coach and things are pretty sucky right now but we can’t go backwards and get a weak coach like TT.
How about we get a petition to never get TT back
I was actually thinking about last year’s garbage offensive team recently. And it was garbage. (Of course, Teitur led quite a good offensive team in 2008 and a very good offensive team in 2009).
What I was thinking about was how, before the first match of the season, Teitur actually came out to the Southsiders tailgate with Salmon and Miller and pretty much shot the shit. One of the things he harped on, even then (remember, we haven’t played a game yet) was how much the team needed a forward and they were going to go out and get some. He recognized a weakness and they were determined to fix it.
But by this point Teitur Thordarson wasn’t making decisions on players to acquire. Tom Soehn was. And we never did get anybody of consequence. The first year Teitur Thordarson didn’t pick his own team was also the first year the Whitecaps couldn’t score to save their lives.
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
by Benjamin Massey on Jul 3, 2011 8:14 AM PDT up reply actions
Again, the point is not that Teitur was an incredible coach. The point is that Soehn is a staggeringly bad one.
Manager at Vancouver Whitecaps and western Canadian soccer website Eighty Six Forever and infrequently-posting flunky at Edmonton Oilers blog The Copper & Blue.
by Benjamin Massey on Jul 3, 2011 8:18 AM PDT up reply actions
Many good comments posted, shows there is a lot passion for this team. I would hope Lenarduzzi and the lot over at the management team have a read on some of the fan blogs, see the frustration and lack of support for Soehn. It is highly unlikely there will be a second coaching change this season, not even TFC would pull a stunt like that. Lets all cross our fingers and hope the transfer window brings much needed reinforcements.
Question: What is mandatory retirement age for referees in the Premiership? Would be nice to see MLS offer some of these experienced officials a one or two year contract, and improve on the knobs we are subjected to.
an good article http://aftncanada.blogspot.com/
Sooo, when do we start deluging the ‘Caps front office with requests for Soehn’s resignation?
"Kompromise, my friend, is the essence of diplomacy, and diplomacy is the kornerstone of love... sweeeeeet looooOOOve"
there is a big difference
teitur’s team never looked like it knew when it was beat, they were entertaining and the lack of wins was quite baffling to me.
soehn’s team just lied down and took it, twice.
Managing editor of SBNation's Toronto FC blog,Waking the Red .
Yes, I am patient man, but it’s hard to fight the feeling that Soehn is totally incompetent and if he is allowed to remain in charge of the Caps for very long we could be looking at Mo Johnston/TFC 2.0 and see the organization set back three or more years. If he comes up with another player from the Swiss league I’ll just laugh. And we desperately need some men in the midfield. Right now it is filled with boys.
Something to be said for bringing TT back
would be: we’d only be on our second coach rather than 3rd after 18 games, but Soehn’s got to go and now. Management could always cynically say it was Tom Soehn’s decision all along and they never agreed with it, but their hands were tied, he’s the G.M. Since this whole episode is cynical I’d take any excuse to get rid of Tom Soehn at this point.
Bobby Lenarduzzi once paraphrased he’d rather lose playing exciting soccer than win playing Bob Lilley soccer, so we hired TT and by and large they were great to watch until May 30, 2011. Since then they’ve been atrocious. They’ve been hanging on trying to win 1 nil, but fail to do so.
They fired TT on the basis they wanted to make the playoffs. If I met Tom Soehn I’d stuff this quote from Marc Weber down his craw:
Coach Tommy Soehn is in no mood to hear the word “playoffs” these days. The team is 1-2-2 since he took over from Teitur Thordarson on May 30 and he’s been in “one-game-at-a-time” mode since then.
The whole justification for the firing was making the playoffs and the NCC wasn’t good enough, though TT had all but won the NCC already. Tom Soehn will now accomplish neither.
It’s obvious the players disagreed with the firing, except for some who weren’t being played. They at least had some coherence of a system the players bought into; Soehn ball is just sad. Though, it seems Soehn is coming around to the same verdict as TT had made on the quality of the players he’d been dealt by Tom Soehn himself. So, we’re 3 steps backward and going in the wrong direction with the wrong coach. And now he’s alienated his captain. I don’t think we need a petition, we’ll soon have a players revolt and good on them for doing so.
It’s amazing some sports personnel aren’t more self-aware of their own shortcomings. Tom Soehn could have stayed here for a number of years finding mediocre talent (with the occassional gem) with the team not realizing his incompetence. Now, there’s likely no one out their finding any talent, because the person responsible is on the sideline running the team into the ground. But, Icarus wasn’t just vain, he was stupid.
שלום
Whitecaps FC
Unlike Barcelona and the Seattle Sounders the ability to fire the G.M. should be expanded to the coach since fans were neither calling for TT’s dismissal on mass or expecting it, showing the fans would have made a far wiser decision than this fiasco by the custodians of the city’s club.
שלום
I doubt we’ll see another coach this year, much as I might like it, and as much as it makes sense. The Tom Soehn experiment has failed, at this point, and continuing it for the sake of not looking like a “mickey mouse” team is poor logic. Better to get a new guy in, hopefully see some turn around, and carry that into next year. Of course, finding someone to come in would be awfully difficult, even with assurances from upper management that Soehn would be fired from all his duties.
I don't think we need to wait years
We got the skills, all I see lacking is chemistry and spirit of the team. Even on a good day, they seems just want “do the job”, “defending the lead”, not having the heart to excel.
It doesn’t matter it’s a league game or whatever, you need passion. I won’t watch a game with no passion.
The team spirit must be lifed. If this coach can’t, get someone can.
Haven't followed
the Whitecaps as close as I should, but was there one individual responsible for TT’s firing? Struck me as a bit of a panicky move, so early into their inaugural MLS season.
I'll do it tomorrow, that seems like a pretty good idea to me
What's wrong with tomorrow, I'm watching him but who's watching me?
Nothing has come out about it from the FO, that I know of. But the fact that the manager took over the coaching position suggests, to me anyway, a bit of power tripping.
At the time of the firing Tom Soehn paraphrased he appreciated the Whitecaps because all were in agreement, so to my mind that meant he was the point man pushing for the axe and somehow conviced management he could make the playoffs, as that was Paul Barber’s subsequent justification. If so, they’re all guilty of not taking a second look at the person making the impetuos decision being in a conflict of interest firing someone after 12 games and a little too eager to hire himself.
Soehn recruited many of the players on the Caps squad and doesn’t think it will take a lot to turn the team’s fortunes around.
Bruce Constantineau
שלום
Oh how that comment will come to haunt him…
by colombianbrew on Jul 4, 2011 11:06 PM PDT up reply actions
Tom Soehn and Paul Barber’s comments after this game made me sick. To say that this should be a learning experience is unacceptable. Nobody should have to teach you to show up and play for a big game, especially not if your a professional. The learning experiences should have been not winning in ten matches (or whatever it was). Those weren’t even the comments that upset me most. To hear Paul Barber go off about how there’s still so much to play for made me see red. You just blew your chance at a cup, and not only that, you conceded a league game a few days before it. It’s time for some people around this organization to man up.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
