The dawn of a new MLS season is upon us and the anticipation surrounding Vancouver’s squad is positively palpable. A new look Whitecaps team, featuring a handful of new arrivals and a new manager, opens their season this Saturday at BC Place stadium against the New York Red Bulls.
The Southsiders will be back at BC Place stadium when the Whitecaps 2014 season kicks off Saturday, March 7. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The defending Supporter’s Shield winners from New York, largely unchanged from 2013, feature a stable of talented forwards and a steady backline. Although, it appears that Thierry Henry may once again sit this one out as his tender French footsies cannot handle the tough turf at BC Place. He has yet to play a game in Vancouver. Shameful.
I was challenged by Whitecaps FC physiotherapist Graeme Poole to Take a Bite out of the Big Apple in a #CapsNomination earlier this week. Needless to say, instead of putting together a half-arsed, iPhone filmed response tout de suite, I took four days to mine the interweb for cheesy sound effects and put together a half-arsed, iPhone-filmed response. FX make all the difference, don’t you think?
The Caps take on Thierry Henry and the New York Red Bulls at 4:30 on Saturday March 8 in their 2014 season opener. As of the writing of this post, there were fewer than a thousand tickets left.
Remember, Whitecaps FC go into the 2014 season with a substantially retooled roster — gone are the underperforming Daigo Kobayashi and the dirty, rotten, stinkin’ traitor Camilo, and in are promising attacking midfielders Matías Laba and Pedro Morales. There are numerous young players looking to stamp their cleats upon this team, and it’s new bench boss Carl Robinson‘s job to get them on the pitch a little more often than his predecessor did.
All the while, this team is looking to defend its fourth Cascadia Cup (more on that here from the ever-eloquent Chris Withers), and challenge for its first-ever Canadian Championship trophy against a massively restocked Toronto FC side (soccer poet Russell Arbuthnot is on tap for some of this action).
The Cascadia Cup looks upon BC Place, its home for the 2014 MLS season, after Whitecaps FC won the trophy for consistent performance up and down the northwest corridor last season. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
The Cascadia Cup looks upon BC Place, its home for the 2014 MLS season, after Whitecaps FC won the trophy for consistent performance up and down the northwest corridor last season. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
One of the great traditions in all of sport is the NHL’s day with the Cup. After the Stanley Cup is won, each member of the winning team is granted one day to take Lord Stanley’s Mug wherever they choose. Want to have an ice cream party with the kids? Doug Weight did. Rather take it to a peeler bar with the lads? Messier beat you there. Here in Cascadia, we’re working on some traditions of our own surrounding the Cascadia Cup. This Cup, however, was created by fans, and it’s the fans that can request a day with it.
The Cascadia Cup is entering its eleventh season and currently makes its home right here in beautiful British Columbia. Contested by the three Cascadian clubs – the Vancouver Whitecaps, Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers – the Cup was purchased in 2004 by the supporters groups of those three teams and is awarded annually to the best team in the region. Vancouver’s nine points in Cascadia derbies (2W-1L-3D) was good enough to secure them their fourth Cascadia Cup victory. (Seattle and Portland, those suckers, are still stuck on three apiece.)
The Cascadia Cup wears Whitecaps FC, Southsiders and Rain City Brigade scarves (and a Curva Collective shirt for good measure) as it looks over Vancouver, its home for the 2014 MLS season, from a piece of prime Stanley Park Seawall real estate. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Unlike most championship trophies, the fans are the keepers of the Cascadia Cup. If the Cup changes hands, representatives of the reigning champions’ supporters groups must turn it over to the winning team’s supporters, who then present the trophy to the team. After that, the supporter groups look after it, bringing it out for Cascadia games to rub in the faces of opposition supporters.
Pucked in the Head’s day with the Cup was a simple excursion through our fair city. We started at False Creek and wound our way through the downtown core to Stanley Park. It was a chance to get some great photos of the Cup, and show off some of the best of what Vancouver has to offer on a gorgeous winter day.
(A big thanks to the Curva Collective’s Zachary Meisenheimer, one of the Whitecaps FC supporters present for the handoff in Portland last season, for joining us, driving round the city, and tying those scarves & shirt so darned nicely for the pics!)
If you have an event that you want the Cup to be present for, get in touch with the Vancouver Southsiders at www.vancouversouthsiders.ca.
Between his amateurish YouTube video and this picture, Jason Kurylo has shed even the appearance of journalistic integrity. Oh well, what were you expecting from a fanboy blogger, anyway? Photo by Zach Meisenheimer for Pucked in the Head.
It was an off-season filled with questions after a second half meltdown left the Whitecaps on the outside looking in at the 2013-14 MLS playoffs. Where did it all go wrong? Would Martin Rennie keep his job? Who would step into the departing Y-P Lee’s boots? Could management finally land that elusive attacking midfielder?
Naturally, these questions can only be answered by a rousing playlist, featuring nothing but classic songs by classic artists.
I pored over the YouTube archives, spending no less than 32 minutes searching high and low for the finest musical contributions of the last 50 years. Now, without further ado, I present to you the:
Hi. Remember me? I’m Chris Withers. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
Hi, I’m Chris.
You may remember me as that guy who used to write things on this site from time to time before inexplicably going away for several months!
I’m back now, having dusted off the ol’ keyboard, and I have opinions about the Whitecaps that I will be relaying to you presently.
(Note: Mr Withers is not only a snazzy dresser and the co-founder of PitH — he’s also pretty active as the Director of External Communications of the single largest Whitecaps FC supporter group there is. So much so, in fact, that he appeared on a recent episode of From the Backline podcast to discuss the Southside experience.)Continue reading Whitecaps Preseason Roundup→
The Whitecaps’ offseason of upheaval continues amid reports the club’s MVP, Camilo, is leaving for greener pastures and paycheques in Mexico. The only problem is, according to the Whitecaps, this isn’t even a possibility considering the Brazilian is still under contract with the team through 2014.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC forward Camilo is the ultimate love-him-or-hate-him kind of player. Whichever side of the fence you’re on, you can’t deny the game is more interesting with him on the pitch. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the head.
Adolfo Rios, chairman of Querétaro FC, contradicted this assertion on January 2nd, telling a website that Camilo’s reps at FootballBrazil had informed him the reigning MLS Golden Boot winner was a free agent.
It’s official — Carl Robinson has received the bump from Assistant Coach to Head Coach of the Vancouver Whitecaps Football Club. Photo courtesy of Whitecaps FC.
This morning, Vancouver Whitecaps FC ended a protracted search for a new manager and settled on Carl Robinson as the 15th head coach in club history. Well-liked by his players, the former assistant coach under Martin Rennie brings a wealth of experience at both the highest levels of English soccer, having played in the Premier League for both Portsmouth and Sunderland, and the lowest levels of Canadian soccer, having spent several years at TFC.
A young Caps fan celebrates amid the smoke after Vancouver drew level in the first half of Saturday’s U-18 tilt. Photo by Chris Withers.
In their last home games of 2013, the Vancouver Whitecaps Residency sides took to the pitch at Coquitlam’s Percy Perry Stadium on Saturday in front of perhaps 200 spectators, and handed the visiting Portland Timbers a pair of losses. The U-18 squad overcame an early blunder to win 3-2, while the U-16’s rode a pair of Dario Zanatta goals to a 2-0 victory.
It was an inauspicious start for Vancouver, and especially goalkeeper Nolan Wirth. Early in the first half, a Timbers attack died when a foul was assessed to one of their forwards. Wirth shooed his teammates away, opting to take the free kick himself from just outside his own 18-yard box. Instead of clearing the ball up the field, however, he tried to kick the ball across the field to left back Sam Adekugbe. The cross was easily picked off by the Timbers player – who must have blended into the turf, or something – and he had acres and hours to roll the ball in for a 1-0 Portland lead. Continue reading Whitecaps Residency Continues Cascadian Dominance→
When Whitecaps striker Darren Mattocks plays at his best, he has some of the fastest feet in Major League Soccer. Less than 48 hours after landing in Jamaica for the off-season, he ran off his mouth on a television program called Soccer GPS, blaming Martin Rennie for both his own lacklustre play this season and the team’s failure to make the playoffs.
Forward Darren Mattocks was one of the few Whitecaps to resort to blatant simulation on the pitch this season. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
“When Darren lead [sic] the team as a rookie, Vancouver was in the playoffs, right?” Yes, Mattocks referred to himself in the third person throughout the interview. It gets better. “In my second season, the coach have me on the bench the majority of the season. We couldn’t agree. The player who lead the MLS in scoring played for Vancouver, couldn’t put them in the playoffs. So you read between the lines.”
Let’s not forget, last Christmas Mattocks predicted it would be him, not Camilo, who would score 20 goals this season.
There has been a lot of banter over the last few weeks regarding Martin Rennie and his uncertain future here in Vancouver. I thought I’d weigh in with my thoughts on the situation and why Martin Rennie should stay, for now.
He was widely regarded as a saviour for the club when it was revealed he would be taking over for Tom Soehn to start the 2012 campaign. His signing was seen as a coup for Bob Lenarduzzi and the front office – bringing in a young, highly regarded coach to grow with the expansion MLS franchise.
Once the players are on the pitch, Whitecaps FC bench boss Martin Rennie can only stand at the sidelines and watch his MLS future unfold, just like the rest of us. Photo by Jason Kurylo for Pucked in the Head.
