It’s a testament to the talent within the Whitecaps’ roster that four integral pieces of their makeup will be unavailable for this evening’s matchup versus the Houston Dynamo. Blas Pérez, Kendall Waston, Cristian Bolaños and Tim Parker will all be on international duty for their respective countries, and as such, allow for the depth of the squad to be truly tested. I’m looking forward to it.
The absences represent a both a significant challenge and a significant opportunity for the club; Parker and Waston have formed into a top central-defensive pairing in MLS while Pérez’s influence on a game was noticeable during last week’s victory in Seattle. He appears to be the solution to the oft-quoted lone striker issue that has afflicted Octavio Rivero with frequency since his arrival to Vancouver last summer. Bolaños, for his part, has yet to fully adjust to the North American game but has shown flashes of brilliance, including the heady-run that drew Vancouver’s first PK against the Sounders. Nevertheless, he is another one of Robinson’s preferred starter and his absence represents an opportunity for someone else to accrue some quality minutes.
The season, to date, has been a struggle for Vancouver and likely not what the fanbase expected from the club. After identifying the need for more offense, Robinson’s off-season moves were largely devoted to addressing just that. Pérez and Masato Kudo were brought in to augment the team’s goal-scoring prowess, while Bolaños was acquired to help Pedro Morales provide stable and creative build-up play from midfield. Neither has really come to fruition in the first three games of the season and without a little help from referee Mark Geiger, we could very well be talking about a team without a win.
In the first three games of 2016: no goals from strikers, no goals from the run of play and just five shots on net from all three strikers combined, all off the foot of Rivero. Take away the season-opener against the Impact and that number drops to just one. Not exactly what fans were expecting from a reinforced offense that seemed poised to flip the switch on a disappointing 2015 season.
It should be noted that Pérez’s first meaningful minutes only came last week and he was the best Whitecaps’ player on the pitch, despite the lack of shots and goals. Masato Kudo, as well, has also played very limited minutes to date (just 15 in total) and Robinson is surely hoping to get him into action more frequently as the season progresses. And that’s why tonight is going to be fun.
Perhaps we get to see Kudo for the majority of the game. Surely he wasn’t acquired to play only garbage minutes and become this year’s Robert Earnshaw. Cristian Techera and/or Nicolás Mezquida could be inserted into the lineup, both of whom were large contributors to the Whitecaps’ best stretch of games in 2015. Techera did get some significant minutes in versus Montreal and Kansas City, but Mezquida’s complete absence from the pitch this year is somewhat baffling.
In fact, Robinson’s deployment of Mezquida has been confusing for the entirety of his stay in Vancouver. Despite the chemistry between he and Sebastián Fernández in the 2014 preseason tournament, Mezquida couldn’t find a way into Robinson’s starting XI, and was rarely used as a substitute. In 2015, after Fernández’s departure, appearances became frequent and he filled in admirably for Pedro Morales, who found himself battling injury throughout the last half of the season. He has done little to lose his spot on the depth chart and in reality, has done everything to improve it. Yet, fast forward to 2016 and we have yet to see Mezquida in action through three games, despite his own assurances that he is healthy and ready to play. Instead, we are treated to the ongoing Deybi Flores Experiment.
Kudo remains a mystery. The highly-touted Japanese goal-scorer has found himself behind the incumbent Rivero and has hardly been afforded the chance to showcase his talents,. One hopes that this changes this evening. Blas Pérez did his part last week by evidencing the merits of running with two strikers – hopefully it was enough to deviate Robinson’s steadfast devotion to the 4-2-3-1 formation.
The difficulty may lie in the fact that running two like-players up top, in Rivero and Kudo, doesn’t present enough of a challenge to defenses and is therefore counter-productive to the Caps’ attack. Kudo, at this point in MLS, remains an unknown quantity however, and if there ever was an occasion to give it a shot, tonight is the night. A little extra offensive prowess could go a long way against the high-scoring Dynamo.
Yesterday we hunted for depth. Tonight that depth hunts for a win. Tomorrow we hunt for chocolate.
