Post Game Report - Sporting Kansas City 6 Vancouver Whitecaps 0

I have the unfortunate pleasure of bringing you home on this unmitigated disaster. This will be more of a post mortem than a match report.

Oh boy did we ever…

On to the match itself. The Caps were actually attacking in the opening minutes of this match. Sporting seemed surprised the caps started in a 3-5-2 and were a little disorganized which led to a fantastic chance for Yordy Reyna in the 7th minute.

From this point on it’s all Sporting. Full credit to SKC, they absolutely unlocked the Whitecaps D. They worked the wide areas of the pitch with almost unstoppable ease. It is clear that the Whitecaps need to work on the defensive side of their 3-5-2 formation if they ever hope to play it again (no one would blame Robbo if he doesn’t). On the first goal Felipe is caught ball watching and fails to drop back in front of his CB’s which leaves a massive gap in front of Kendall Waston, whom gets nutmegged on the shot from Johnny Russel who scores his first of the evening.

Then in the 16th minute Johnny Russell -with all the time in the world on the left flank- walked past Ephrain Juarez and buried the ball shortside on a frozen Stefan Marinovic.

And then in the 30th minute SKC’s Jimmy Medranda scored the third goal of the match with an absolute screamer from distance.

It was at this point the match got worse (yes worse) for the Caps. The “incident” starts in the thirty-sixth minute. Kendall Waston makes a harsh challenge on Roger Espinoza, then stands over and berates him, and predictably a brouhaha ensues. In the ensuing kerfuffle both Efrain Juarez and Yordy Reyna are shown the red. Reyna for throwing Johnny Russel to the ground and Juarez for foul and abusive language (apparently).

About now is when most of the sane Caps fans tuned out, and it was only the masochists left. The Caps soon swapped Sean Franklin for Anthony Blondell and fell into a defensive shell. In doing so they actually managed to get out of the half without giving up any more goals.

In the second half with the Caps down to nine men they bunkered as best they could. They surrendered Johnny Russell’s hat trick goal -a well placed chip- in the 48th minute. Christian Lobato chested one in in the 54th minute. And mercifully the scoring would end with a Yohan Croizet first touch tap in in the 77th minute. Stefan Marinovic also made a handful of nice saves during this time, or this one could have ended up 9 or 10 nil. For subs we had Russell Teibert come on for Phonzie in the 55th, and Bernie Ibini for a beleaguered Brek Shea in the 72nd.

As I’ve said this match was an unmitigated disaster. The Caps leadership group is going to have to have a hard, hard look at this squad and figure out what is going wrong. This team is toxic right now. There has been little to no offensive cohesion for the past few matches and tonight everything boiled over. It will be interesting to see how Carl responds to this sideshow of a match. Will he be able to get the team back under control? Has he entirely lost the team?