Coffee with the Caps, Friday January 29

Good Friday morning Caps fans, hope you are on the downhill slide towards a relaxing and pleasant weekend.

It was a busy, good week in Caps world, what with the long-awaited arrival of Deiber Caicedo. My colleagues have covered Deibar’s arrival in-depth so I don’t really feel the need go into much detail here (I’ve also discussed him in past columns) but suffice to say, I’m excited.

To be fair, I often talk myself into liking many players the Caps sign (Stockholm Syndrome I guess?) but Caicedo is young, with a high ceiling and a floor that hopefully winds up being somewhere around what we saw out of Cristian Dajome last season, just with a bit better passing. Seems like a pretty good equation to me and given his age he is an excellent candidate to get moved on in a couple of years for a profit, assuming everything works out.

But what shouldn’t be lost in the shuffle was the confirmation that Andy Rose will be back on a one-year extension.

This is hardly a surprise; Marc Dos Santos and Axel Schuster have all but confirmed Rose’s eventual return.

In and of itself, this is good news. Rose went from being a much-maligned member of the Caps’ midfield to an entirely respectful option at centerback and, given the uncertainty with Jasser Khmiri (and his international slot), it isn’t a bad idea to have a cheap, domestic option around as cover.

Rose knows how to organize a backline but he is also a genuine threat on set pieces, is strong in the air and is willing and able to build out of the back, something which hopefully will be less disastrous now that players like Caicedo and (hopefully) a DP creative midfielder are on their way in. And in the absolute worst-case scenario he can slot in at midfield as well (although we absolutely should not be doing that!).

Rose is also clearly a leader and MDS praised him as such in the news release announcing his return. That underscores the other bit of good news: Rose will be pitching in as an assistant U-19 coach. Some of the academy players actually appeared in the slick video the Caps produced announcing the move, all (unsurprisingly) with praise for Andy.

This seems like a small thing but for a 30-year-old to already be well on his path to establishing a coaching career is pretty neat. Rose apparently already has his UEFA A license, so this has clearly been in the works for a while.

The Caps actually have a pretty good track record of veteran players moving on into coaching, with Robert Earnshaw and Pa Modou Kah coming to mind. It isn’t a bad thing to be able to show players: If you come to Vancouver, we’re loyal to you and, if you are of a certain age and want to get into coaching, we can make that happen!

The team should be targeting younger players but this kind of thing can’t hurt and the fact that Kah has carved out a nice CPL managing career already also helps boost the whole endeavor. It isn’t the biggest thing in the world but it is a nice positive for Andy Rose and the youngsters he will be working with.

Shameless Self Promotion

With Deibar finally a Whitecaps player, Caleb can also at long last publish his in-depth look at our new Colombian starlet. And Sam jumps in with some notes of his own, as well as a roundup of other offseason activity.

Best of the Rest

The Caps appear to have nabbed a backup keeper, which is good for the “Thomas Hasal loan” brigade

The Province’s profile of Caicedo, if you really want to go ham on our new signing

More on the Caps’ search for a DP 10, with quotes from the top brass

Of course, whether any of these player see the field anytime soon is unclear — the threat of a work stoppage is hovering over everyone right now due to CBA turmoil. The league already sent a memo to teams telling it to prepare for a stoppage

The Canadian provincial leagues are growing, hopefully boding well for future expansion