Report Card: Vancouver Whitecaps vs Sporting Kansas City| Sisyphean Edition

Maxime Crepeau: 5.0

He conceded 3 goals on 4 shots on target. Not a great return. I don’t think you could really blame him specifically for any of the goals but he also didn’t stop them either.

Ali Adnan: 5.5

He is still very much the same guy. He won a lot of headers. That’s good! He had a 0% tackle completion rate. That’s bad! He completed 3 dribbles and created a very good chance for Lucas Cavallini. That’s good! He had a 60% passing accuracy. That’s bad!

Jasser Khmiri: 6.5

You know what? Everybody is really down on him but he was not that bad. He had a shaky start but he didn’t lose any headers, was not dribbled past at any point, lead the team in interceptions, and completed 91.3% of his passes. Now I will grant you that he looked supremely awkward and made some bad passes at the start of the game. But at the end of the day outcomes are a lot more important than aesthetics.

Derek Cornelius 4.0

Derek Cornelius actually had the game everyone seems to think Khmiri had. He had a poor clearance on the first goal, got caught ball watching on the third goal and had another weird incident where he seemed to duck down as the ball was in the air.

Jake Nerwinski: 6.0

He scored a goal which was very nice. It was actually a pretty good bit of awareness to get into the right position to get the goal. He had astonishing 97.7% passing accuracy. Beyond that though? Meh. He seemed to be trying hard.

Russel Teibert: 5.0

He, too, is very much still the same guy. Completed a lot of passes, made some tackles. Didn’t exactly wow you.

In-Beom Hwang: 4.5

It’s good to start with the positives. He had 3 key passes, though all of them were from set pieces. In-Beom Hwang took set pieces very effectively in this game. That was about it though. Sporting Kansas City very smartly overloaded the midfield spaces which meant that In-Beom was frequently double marked. He lost the a lot and looked frustrated.

Cristian Dájome: 7.0

He falls down a lot. I wish he would do that less. But he had 2 shots, a key pass and 3 successful dribbles (100% success rate). If he does that every game it will lead to goals eventually.

Yordy Reyna: 6.5

He spent a lot of time standing waiting for the ball. I felt like he should have dropped deeper to counter balance SKC’s midfield overload. But when the ball got to him he was reasonably effective. 66% dribble completion and set up a couple of shots.

David Milinkovic: 7.0

Had one very successful dribble that lead to the goal and generally looked menacing. He also lost the ball a lot but if he assists a goal every game I won’t be mad.

Lucas Cavallini: 6.5

He through himself about a lot but looked isolated. He still managed a shot from inside the 6 yard box which rattled off the post and another good chance that was well saved by Melia. We will have to wait until the xG statistics for the game become available but I would imagine from eye balling it those chances would have resulted in at least one goal maybe 40%-50% of the time. If his luck changed a little bit maybe we would be talking about a goalscoring debut for Cavallini. It would be nice if the Whitecaps were less reliant on luck and outshot the opponent by a great enough margin that it didn’t matter. Here is the thing; When the ‘Caps got to the final 3rd they were great! They had more shots inside the penalty area than SKC did but spent half the amount of time in the final 3rd of the pitch that SKC did. They were very efficient at turning final 3rd time into chances. If they controlled the game, or were just equal to their opponent, then you have to think they would have won. But that didn’t happen because we are stuck in purgatory and will be saying “if only their midfield were a bit better” until the end of days.

Fredy Montero: Whatever

Tosaint Ricketts: Incomplete.