The Whitecaps began their third MLS playoff campaign on Sunday afternoon six hours down the I-5 in rainy Portland, Oregon. Hopes were high among Vancouver supporters. The club had just scored multiple goals in a game for the first time in nearly two months, some of their injured players were rumoured to be available, and they’d got the matchup that looked the best, on paper, after the Timbers eliminated Sporting Kansas City in one of the most entertaining penalty kick contests you will ever see.  Then the game started, and the offence was once again maddeningly anemic.

Gone are the halcyon days of summer when Vancouver was scoring at will, and it seemed that any combination of their offensive players could generate a plethora of chances. The attacking corps has managed to exceed ten shot attempts only once in the last eight games, and that game was not Sunday’s. Obviously sub-par for a squad that averaged 13 in the regular season. More concerning is the location of those shots. Vancouver managed to get just four shot attempts from inside the 18-yard box. Gershon Koffie, shoe-horned into the number ten role in the absence of Nicolas Mezquida and the questionable status of Pedro Morales and  Mauro Rosales, did not attempt a single pass into the box in his 60 minutes of action.

My criticism is not of Gershon Koffie. He did a passable job in a role he’s not suited to. My criticism is with Carl Robinson putting him in that role when there is a viable option in the squad. Where the hell was Marco Bustos?

I know the great joke is that the Whitecaps hate Canada, but seriously, I don’t get it. Bustos’ absence from the previous Sunday’s regular season finale against Houston could be excused, as he’d played 90 minutes against Olimpia just two days prior. There were no such excuses in the playoffs. The young Canadian might be the organization’s fourth-best option at central attacking midfield, but he could hardly have created fewer chances than Koffie.

Let’s rule a few things out. I can find no evidence that Bustos is injured. I have not seen him giving us the thumbs up while dressed in a Queretaro kit. Alien abduction would seem to be a stretch. It certainly isn’t reticence on the gaffer’s part to play young players in important situations. This leaves me with the annoying feeling that Robinson knew exactly what he was going to get with Koffie, and played him anyways.

The sample size for Bustos as an MLS attacking midfielder is pretty small,  but what there is looked pretty good. In 29 minutes against Dallas last month, Bustos passed 15/17, completed one key pass (a pass that led directly to an attempt at goal), and had four ball recoveries. Nearly everyone who watched that game pointed to him as pretty much the only bright spot in an otherwise dire game. He was also joint leading scorer for WFC2, despite missing a third of the season with a foot injury.

Compare that to Koffie’s effort in twice as many minutes on Sunday: 18/22 passing, zero key passes, six ball recoveries. Koffie also managed an interception. Koffie didn’t pass my eye test in that role, either. I could see him being effective there if he was pressing hard and high and turning the ball over in dangerous areas, then getting the ball quickly to another attacker for a counter. That didn’t happen Sunday, and I didn’t notice it much against Houston either.

I just don’t see how the decision to start Koffie over Bustos makes either short-term tactical sense or long-term organizational sense. In the short term, it smacks of the worst of the Martin Rennie era. Going into a road game overloaded with defensive players, trying not to concede, and hoping one of the few chances you generate finds the back of the net is a strategy that Caps fans have long since had enough of, and one that we haven’t seen much of this year. In the long term, the club seems to have put the lie to its mantra of creating pathways for young players. If the pathway for Bustos doesn’t include starting when literally every other suitable player at his position is out injured, then you wonder if the path has become a little overgrown and difficult to follow.

You won’t hear me call for Bustos to get minutes during the rest of these playoffs, unless we see more injuries. Mezquida, Rosales and Morales have all seen either the 18 or the field in the last two games, leaving not much room for a fourth-string player. At this point in his career, Bustos shouldn’t be starting ahead of any of them, but I remain disappointed with Robinson’s decision for one of the few times in his tenure. A single away goal could easily be the difference in this series, and it would be a shame if the Caps crash out without having played their best attacking lineup.