The Americans brought 50,000 of their closest friends to help defeat Nigeria 1-0 at the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The game itself was less than stunning, a statement with which my Pucked in the Head compadre Chris Withers will be happy to concur. With a berth in the knockout rounds almost guaranteed, the US played a conservative, defensive game. They were more content to limit Nigeria’s forward movement than to create any of their own. Consequently, keeper Hope Solo had little to do but wave at her adoring fans and glare at the officials.
The 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup is set to get underway in a few days’ time. For those new to the game, as they say, you can’t tell the players without a program — so here’s the Team Canada roster, including social media info for your tweeting pleasure.
Team Canada, the host team of the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
Team Canada forward Josée Bélanger moves the ball upfield during an international friendly. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
3
D
Kadeisha Buchanan
19
@keishaballa
Kadeisha Buchanan communicates with her teammates during international friendly action. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
15
D
Allysha Chapman
26
@allyshachapman
Team Canada defender Allysha Chapman during international friendly action. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
16
F
Jonelle Filigno
24
@JFiligno
Forward Jonelle Filigno in her official Team Canada portrait. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
17
M
Jessie Fleming
17
@_jessiefleming
Team Canada midfielder Jessie Fleming during international friendly action against England earlier in 2015. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
5
D
Robyn Gayle
29
@RobynGayle5
Team Canada defender Robyn Gayle moves the ball upfield during international friendly action against Sweden. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
18
M
Selenia Iacchelli
28
@syacc
Team Canada midfielder Selenia Iacchelli takes stock of the situation during training for the 2015 Women's World Cup. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
6
M
Kaylyn Kyle
26
@KaylynKyle
Team Canada midfielder Kaylyn Kyle in international friendly action against England in May 2015. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
21
GK
Stephanie Labbé
28
@stephlabbe1
Keeper Stephanie Labbé leaps for a ball during Team Canada training in Germany. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
22
M
Ashley Lawrence
19
@A_Lawrence99
Team Canada midfielder Ashley Lawrence lays her right foot into the ball during an international friendly against England. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
23
GK
Karina LeBlanc
35
@karinaleblanc
Keeper Karina Leblanc blocks a shot during Team Canada training. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
19
F
Adriana Leon
22
@LeonAdriana9
Team Canada forward Adriana Leon pushes upfield during international friendly action. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
8
M
Diana Matheson
31
@dmatheson8
Team Canada midfielder Diana Matheson scoots along the flank during international friendly action against Germany. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
1
GK
Erin McLeod
32
@erinmcleod18
Keeper Erin McLeod in her official Team Canada portrait. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
4
D
Carmelina Moscato
31
@cmoscato4
Team Canada defender Carmelina Moscato looks to clear a ball during an international friendly against the USA. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
20
D
Marie-Eve Nault
33
@menault20
Team Canada defender Marie-Eve Nault pushes the ball upfield during international friendly action against Italy. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
13
M
Sophie Schmidt
26
@sophieschmidt13
Team Canada midfielder Sophie Schmidt crosses the ball during international friendly action against the Republic of Ireland. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
11
M
Desiree Scott
27
@MsDScott11
Team Canada midfielder Desiree Scott steals the ball during international friendly action against the USA. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
10
D
Lauren Sesselmann
31
@lsesselmann
Team Canada defender Lauren Sesselmann keeps position during an international friendly against France. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
12
F
Christine Sinclair
31
@sincy12
Team Canada striker Christine Sinclair closes in on yet another scoring opportunity during an international friendly against South Korea. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
14
F
Melissa Tancredi
33
@MelTancredi14
Canadian forward Melissa Tancredi chests down a forward ball during an international friendly against Japan. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
7
D
Rhian Wilkinson
33
@rhirhi8
Team Canada defender Rhian Wilkinson directs traffic prior to a throw-in during an international friendly. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
2
D
Emily Zurrer
27
@emme_z
Team Canada defender Emily Zurrer tracks down a ball during an international friendly against Germany. Photo courtesy of Soccer Canada.
Russell and Jason wax poetic on the beautiful game, specifically with respect to the Vancouver Whitecaps upcoming six-week road swing.
• Introduction
• Thanks John
• Whitecaps take a loooooong road trip
• Want to be an MLS referee? Your fraud charge is no problem!
• Whitecaps got jobbed in Colorado
• Even the Rapids thought it was a bad call
• The Whitecaps haven’t inspired much confidence
• July and August will be hectic, to say the least
• Is Pedro back?
• Are Kah and Waston worth the fouls and cards?
• Fix You by Coldplay
• There’s always money in the banana stand
The Vancouver Whitecaps FC scored thrice and earned three points with a 3-nil shutout of the visiting Philadelphia Union. Photos by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.The Vancouver Whitecaps FC scored thrice and earned three points with a 3-nil shutout of the visiting Philadelphia Union. Photos by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.The Vancouver Whitecaps FC scored thrice and earned three points with a 3-nil shutout of the visiting Philadelphia Union. Photos by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.The Vancouver Whitecaps FC scored thrice and earned three points with a 3-nil shutout of the visiting Philadelphia Union. Photos by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.Darren Mattocks scores an impressively athletic goal against the Philadelphia Union to cap off a 3-0 Whitecaps win at BC Place. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head
Welcome once again to Whitecaps Wednesday – and the 3rd installment of Pucked in the Head’s “March to March” series. If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that the Whitecaps have managed to pull five victories from their first nine games.
Now mired in their busiest stretch of games (but not the most frenzied – we’ll see that in Part 4), we take a look into the third month of the season and forecast the results of their five May matches.
Buckle up quick, as their month kicks off with an away fixture in Portland, the first of two Cascadia matches in a three-week stretch.
In the 2015 MLS SUUUUUUUPERDraft, the Vancouver Whitecaps selected, I kid you not, a guy from Hicksville and a Banjo for him to play with. The Caps came into the draft looking to shore up their depth in a couple of key areas, and appear to have ticked all their boxes by selecting Tim Parker from Hicksville, NY via St John’s University, and Kay Banjo from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.
First kick is still months away, but the Whitecaps still managed to steal some ink away from the return of Roberto Luongo this week. The 2015 MLS schedule was released (along with the signing of Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard to the LA Galaxy), giving local soccer fans a case of the tweets. Thankfully, they’re much more pleasant than the trots, which have plagued TFC fans since Jermain “Bloody Big Deal” Defoe was linked to no fewer than four Premier League teams over the Christmas break.
But I digress. This is about the Whitecaps, their newly minted contract with Uruguayan striker Octavio Rivero, and the 2015 MLS schedule. The PDF file is below for your perusal, and doesn’t yet include Canadian Championships or Champions League matches — that’s right, baby, the Caps are reppin’ CONCACAF this year! — but let us give you a few dates to circle on the ol’ calendar right here and now.
There’s no love lost for Camilo round these parts. The man broke his contract with the Vancouver Whitecaps prior to last season, sparking a year-long search for a decent goal scorer. Sure, the Caps made the playoffs, and did so in dramatic fashion, but they sorely missed the diminutive Brazilian in the striker position.
How Whitecaps fans spent the 2014 season: openly hating the man, but behind the whatevs we were eager to see some consistent goal-scoring. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The blue and white saw offensive production drop by a full eleven goals without Camilo. In 2013, the Caps were the only teamwith a positive goal differential to miss the post-season; a year later, they were still in the black (thanks to a wonderful improvement on the back end) but had the lowest GD of any playoff team.
Would number 7 have stepped in the way of the LA Galaxy in their quest for a storybook ending to Landon Donovan’s career had he stayed? Unlikely: the Whitecaps may have gotten shut out in both away games versus the Galaxy this season, but they didn’t fare much better last year with Camilo in the lineup. It’s also not his fault that Coach Robbo elected not to offer Kenny Miller a contract extension in favour of giving the young horses in the stable a chance to run.
What if and if only aside, it was that very lack of scoring finish — I’m looking at you, Darren Mattocks — and a bizarre bit of refereeing that ultimately did the Caps in.
It is unknown at this time whether Benito Floro is familiar with the works of Emily Dickinson. Photo cribbed from a rudimentary foray into Googleland.
As Benito Floro begins the onerous task of hauling the Canadian Men’s National Team — kicking and flailing like Doneil Henry playing fullback — out of the year-long nadir that began with 8-1 and saw Les Rouges fail to score even once in 2013, there is a feeling of wrongness about even trying to hold this discussion. “A World Cup qualification,” we all cry, channeling the timeless incredulity of Jim Mora, “I just hope we can win a game!” But time marches on, and the abysmal 2013 plunged Canada far enough down the CONCACAF rankings that we find ourselves just half a year away from participating in the minnow round of yet another World Cup qualifying cycle. Is there hope this time?
Friday night saw perhaps the most impressive MLS win in Whitecaps history. Vancouver was riding a two-game win streak for the first time this season and sat two points out of the final playoff spot in the West. The Caps had not won three straight since June of last year (and had only done so twice since joining the MLS in 2011); the last away goal of consequence for Vancouver came in mid-July in a 1-1 draw against Real Salt Lake. Since then, they’d been shut out in road games against Chivas USA, Chicago Fire, LA Galaxy and the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ Portland Timbers. (They scored once in Frisco to spoil a clean sheet for FC Dallas, but lost 2-1 to those scurvy, diving dogs anyway.)
Obafemi Martins is one of the most explosive players in the MLS this season, but on Friday he played a dirty, dangerous game. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
To win Friday would require something special. The Seattle Sounders are among the league’s elite teams, and are currently battling the LA Galaxy for the Supporter’s Shield as regular season champions. Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins have been on a tear; with 31 goals between them, they are just 10 shy of the entire Whitecaps roster combined. The Sounders had scored in 11 straight matches, a remarkable streak in any soccer league.
Even the staunchest of the Southsiders merely hoped for three points — not only would a win keep the Cascadia Cup in Vancouver for another year, but it would draw the Caps back into the fifth and final playoff spot with just two games to play and leave Toronto FC six points back late in the charge for the Canadian entry to 2014-15 CONCACAF Champions League play. Oh, and the gravy: Sounders FC had never lost a fixture when more than 50,000 fans packed Century Link Field.
Truly, most Vancouver fans would have been ecstatic with a single point for a draw. All this other stuff was but a pipe dream for idle jawing over yet another pitcher at Doolin’s.
Just a quick tip of the hat to the Whitecaps for honouring the anniversary of Domenic Mobilio’s tragic death ten years ago at the age of 35. Mobilio was perhaps the most prolific, natural goal-scorer this area has ever produced, and certainly one of the best finishers to wear Whitecaps and 86ers colours.
Classy TIFO by the Curva Collective. Photo courtesy of Christopher Vose from the Vancouver Herald.
Saturday’s game at BC Place featured a pre-game ceremony, halftime children’s game with every player wearing Mobilio’s number 10, and this classy TIFO unfurled in the 10th minute by the always-thoughtful Curva Collective. Curva chanted the Vancouver-born striker’s name and passed 170 soccer balls through a hole in the signage — one ball for every goal he scored while dressed for a Vancouver team.
