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For those of you that missed my first report card back on Matchday 18, allow me to refresh your memories with the official Rituro Scale of Grading:
- A - Fantastic performance. Few, if any faults. An example of the player's best work and a masterclass in how to play the position. Since this means an A+ would be near-perfection, don't expect me to hand out those any time soon.
- B - Above average. A good day at the office for the player, with no major mistakes to speak of. Was a help more than a hindrance to the team on and/or off the ball.
- C - Average. Made some mistakes, had some good moments. Nothing to put the player in the doghouse, but nothing to write home about, either.
- D - Below average. A worrying performance that will leave coaches, teammates and/or supporters concerned about future efforts. Turnovers, poor clearances, missed big chances and soft goals will earn you this grade.
- F - Atrocious. Get off the field, hand in your kit and never darken the halls with your presence ever again.
- I - Incomplete. Player suffered an injury, was substituted at halftime with a view to later matches or some other occurrence that would leave us with insufficient evidence to assign a grade.
And now, the rankings for a match that can only be described as zzzzzzzzzzzzzz:
David Ousted: C+
Ousted had an average day at the office, making stops when he needed to and barking at his defenders to, one assumes, pass the boredom of the evening. Perhaps it was that boredom that saw Ousted make a callous giveaway in the first half, knocking him from a B grade down squarely into the "average" camp. Of all the 'Caps on the field, Ousted may have been one of the scant few that lived up to his billing.
Ethen Sampson: C
The youngster got his first senior team debut as a replacement for the injured Steven Beitashour and performed like you'd expect an over-eager rookie to: rashly, with moments of aggressive brilliance and appalling positional unawareness. I caught flak in my last report card for giving Sam Adekugbe a C- for a similar body of work, since being young apparently excuses you from being graded on the same criteria as your peers. Wrong. Sampson was average, so he gets an average grade. End of story. (For the record, Adekugbe was a C+ in his substitute appearance today.)
Pedro Morales/Mauro Rosales: B-
Once these two get their chemistry fully bubbling and find a player that can finish off their technical wizardry, the Whitecaps are going to bash heads and take names. Until that point, all Morales and Rosales' hard work is for naught and the frustration it must surely be causing is not going to just die down on its own. But no matter! I'm sure that outlet for MoRo's creativity will be coming along any day now. Aaaaaaaaaaany day now. Yup.
Darren Mattocks: D+
He can't score. He can't pass. He can't play back-to-goal. The only thing keeping Mattocks from being a total washout in this report card is his pace, which still forces defenders to respect him. I'm not sure why that is, though; if the word is out on Mattocks' playstyle, you would have to think the word is out on how Mattocks has been a complete bust this year. His final chance of the first half summed the whole debacle up neatly: no urgency from Mattocks despite being wide open - "Ugh, why bother trying? I'll just miss" - no urgency from the D.C. United backline - "Ha, take a breather boys, it's that guy again! Hey, striker striker striker, hey striker striker striker, sah-WING annamiss" - and no problem for Bill Hamid to deal with the shot - "I can't believe I have to put up with another 45 minutes of this narcoleptic nonsense."
Carl Robinson: C+
A 4-4-2 diamond?! Get out, you crafty bastard! Well, isn't that just a change of pace that almost might've had the potential to do something if you had a functioning striker up top! Once Johnny Leveron is back, I will be imploring Robbo to try a Leveron-Andy O'Brien backline tandem with Kendall Waston as target striker and Nicolas Mezquida as poacher. What, is that really going to be worse than what's happening now? No goals in four games, folks. No goals. Playoff pushes don't move themselves.