Tag: Vancouver Whitecaps

This MLS playoff race is an absolute mess

Put on your boots, because we’re about to wade into a mess

The race for the MLS playoffs is promising that Decision Day will be as bonkers as it ever has been.

The final day of the regular season is less than a month away, with 28 of the league’s 29 teams set for two breathless rounds of simultaneous kickoffs, one for each conference (sorry D.C. United, you’re just going to have to follow along at home).

There’s an old MLS truism that a team just needs to stay in touch until late August or so, and that if said team can start to heat up around Labor Day, you’re looking at a major threat coming from what on paper is a low playoff seed. Plenty of teams with multiple MLS Cups in their trophy case have at least one season where they followed this plan to a tee.

However, in 2023 it’s not so much about getting hot at the right time as simply ending up next to an empty seat during a poorly-played game of musical chairs. Seven teams have clinched their playoff berths already, and two more are simply abysmal.

That leaves 20 teams vying for 11 postseason spots in what is an extraordinarily forgiving set-up. The problem is that almost none of this group seems able to get a solid hold on their invite to the big dance.

Put on your boots, because we’re about to wade into a mess:

Alphonso Davies: Barcelona didn’t want me because I’m Canadian

The left back moved to Bayern Munich in 2019, though he had plenty of options in Europe

Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies has claimed that Barcelona turned down the opportunity to sign him in 2018 because he is Canadian.

At the time, Davies was a teenage star with the Vancouver Whitecaps, marking himself as one of the top prospects in North America after making his MLS debut at age 15.

Davies would eventually complete a transfer to Bayern Munich in January 2019, joining for a fee of up to $22 million in what was at the time the largest outgoing MLS transfer ever.

The left back/winger has gone on to become one of the top left-sided players in Europe, winning five Bundesliga titles and a Champions League while making more than 150 appearances for the club.

In an appearance on the Say Less Podcast, Davies revealed that Barcelona was among the clubs interested five years ago, but the La Liga giants were put off by his nationality.

“Barcelona actually reached out but the president said that they didn’t want me,” Davies said. “They said that they didn’t want me because I was Canadian.

“Not gonna lie, that crushed my feelings a little bit.”

Davies clarified that he did not receive that message directly from Josep Bartomeu, the Barcelona president at the time, but instead from media reports.

“That’s what came out in the media. I don’t know if he actually said that but it’s what came out.”

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Whitecaps deny reports of interest in Mexico winger Lainez

Sporting director Axel Schuster said he doesn’t even know who Lainez’s agent is

Vancouver Whitecaps sporting director Axel Schuster has denied any interest in signing Diego Lainez after reports in Mexico linked the MLS club with a move for the 22-year-old.

Lainez is currently on loan with Tigres from Real Betis, but he’s been unable to make a major impact with the Liga MX side. Since joining the club in January, Lainez has started just four of his 12 appearances and is still looking for his first goal or assist.

That has once again put Lainez’s club future in doubt. The winger is on loan through the end of 2023 with Tigres, who don’t seem likely to pick up his reported $7 million purchase option at present.

Could a surprise move to MLS be on the cards? Schuster said if it is, it won’t be with the Whitecaps.

“I heard about this for the very first time when a friend forwarded me the message and the tweet, and I hadn’t heard anything about it before,” Schuster said on The AFTN Soccer Show.

“So it would be a big surprise if there was anything to that because if I don’t know, I don’t think that there’s anything to know.”

Asked if he’s spoken to Lainez’s agent, Schuster replied: “I don’t even know who his agent is. Maybe I have talked to his agent but not about this player. We have never started discussions about the player. And he was not brought up to me so far.”

Lainez’s contract with Betis runs through 2025, but he likely doesn’t have a future with the La Liga side. The Mexico international was sent on loan to Portuguese side Braga ahead of the current season, but that move was cut short after Lainez failed to establish himself as a regular.

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Aaron Long’s lifeless body is a better defender than most conscious players

The defender was nearly a corpse when he made an amazing first-half block

Good defenders can scramble over at the last minute to make a desperation block. Great defenders are a step ahead of the game, arriving at the perfect spot before the shot is even made.

Aaron Long may have vaulted into a category of his own on Wednesday night, as he managed to get injured and park his lifeless body exactly where a shot arrived several seconds later.

That allowed the LAFC defender to make the defensive play of the night (year?) in a CONCACAF Champions League match against the Vancouver Whitecaps.

With the game scoreless, Long went down injured early in a Vancouver attacking sequence. The ball eventually found its way to Javain Brown, who teed up an inviting first-time strike.

But there was Long, nearly a corpse, getting in front of the ball like any alive defender worth his salt is trained to do.

Long’s incredible anticipation set the stage for a second-half blitz by LAFC, who scored three goals to take a commanding 3-0 advantage into the second leg of the quarterfinal next week.

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Former Whitecaps and Japan striker Masato Kudo dies at 32

The striker spent the 2016 season in MLS with the Whitecaps

Former Vancouver Whitecaps and Japan national team striker Masato Kudo has died at age 32.

Kudo’s team Tegevajaro Miyazaki confirmed the news in a statement, with the Whitecaps releasing a statement of their own later on Friday.

“Kudo was loved by all who had the pleasure of knowing him. He was kind, gracious, and his smile would light up the room,” the Whitecaps statement said.

“A Japanese international who represented his national team, Kudo joined Whitecaps FC for the 2016 MLS season.

“In-between his time in MLS, the striker played in his native Japan for Kashiwa Reysol, Sanfrecce Hiroshima, Renofa Yamaguchi FC, and most recently Tegevajaro Miyazaki, as well as in Australia with Brisbane Roar.

“Whitecaps FC offer our condolences to Kudo’s family and friends at this difficult time.”

According to Tegevajaro Miyazaki, Kudo had been in the ICU since Monday after complications from brain surgery on October 11.

Kudo earned four caps for Japan during his career and played one season in MLS with the Whitecaps before moving back to his home country with Sanfrecce Hiroshima.

MLS Madness spreads nationwide as league breaks goalscoring record

MLS was, even by MLS standards, completely bonkers Saturday night

Summer in MLS can be a rough time. You’re too far away from the real pressure of making or missing the playoffs, it’s hot and humid everywhere, teams are figuring it out after transfer window moves. It can feel very much like everyone’s biding their time for September and October.

Not August 6. MLS Madness™ took hold in nearly every corner of the country, with goals galore, teams scoring and conceding in the deepest depths of stoppage time, big-name stars scoring bangers, and everyone basically went bananas. It was a perfect advertisement for the league: fun, flawed, weird, and inexplicable.

For one thing, MLS broke a league record for goals scored in one night. Across 13 games Saturday night, teams combined for 57 goals, an average of well over four per game. The old record of 46 was left in the dust.

As the league itself once said, This Stuff Kicks!

In chronological order, let’s go through one of the wildest nights in MLS history:

Vancouver Whitecaps win Canadian Championship, Vanni Sartini loses shirt

If you win a trophy, you get to pop your shirt off

The Vancouver Whitecaps are the champions of Canada, lifting the Voyageurs Cup after defeating Toronto FC on penalties at BC Place late on Tuesday.

Brian White put the Whitecaps ahead in the 19th minute, nodding in a Ryan Gauld cross after Vancouver had two chances to recycle a corner kick. TFC—featuring Lorenzo Insigne and Federico Bernardeschi—had a set piece answer of their own, equalizing in the 75th minute. Bernardeschi’s outside-foot service on a short corner picked out Lukas MacNaughton for a point-blank header to level the scores.

Neither side found a late winner, setting the stage for penalty kicks. Vancouver converted all of their first four opportunities, while Jonathan Osorio struck the post in the third round for TFC. Tristan Blackmon went down the middle as Alex Bono leapt left on the Whitecaps’ fifth, setting off wild celebrations at BC Place.

None were wilder than Vanni Sartini, though. The Whitecaps head coach appeared to very quickly go left as Blackmon’s penalty hit the back of the net, in what turned out to be a sort of barrel roll on the BC Place turf.

Sartini got in several fist-pumps from his knees before hopping up to to acknowledge Toronto’s Bob Bradley before taking off towards the rest of the Vancouver bench, popping his shirt off and windmilling it, and then adding in a couple of jumps and a particularly strong fist-pump for good measure.

Sartini then found himself shirtless for a bit longer than planned, as his “Home Is Vancouver” shirt was inside-out, and Whitecaps staffers kept coming over for hugs while he tried to get things sorted out. The shirtlessness lasted for a solid 30 seconds before Sartini could get back into all of his clothing.

The victory means Vancouver are the sixth team to qualify for the 2023 CONCACAF Champions League, joining Haiti’s Violette AC (who won the Caribbean Club Championship) and four Liga MX representatives (Atlas, Tigres, LĂŠon, and Pachuca).

Celebrate Sartini’s celebrations

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Who’s the Vancouver Whitecaps goalkeeper? It’s complicated!

The Whitecaps are facing the kind of problem familiar to anyone with a few seasons of rec league soccer under their belts.

The Vancouver Whitecaps are facing the kind of problem familiar to anyone with a few seasons of rec league soccer under their belts: they don’t have any goalkeepers available.

The Whitecaps have been left scrambling to find someone to start in goal in Sunday’s game against Charlotte FC. A finger injury suffered earlier this month is keeping starter Thomas Hasal out, while Cody Cropper and Isaac Boehmer have been placed in MLS health and safety protocols, leaving them unavailable as well.

Vancouver does have a fourth goalkeeper on their books, but Evan Newton is on loan to El Paso Locomotive in the USL Championship, and recalling him from a U.S.-based club would require clearing his International Transfer Certificate, a process that generally takes a couple of weeks.

Similarly, the MLS pool goalkeeper system would require an ITC to be processed, or for MLS to have a pool goalkeeper whose ITC is held by a Canadian club. It’s not clear that such a player exists, and MLSsoccer.com‘s Tom Bogert reported that the system was “not an option” for the Whitecaps this weekend.

As such, Vancouver got creative. First, they looked to the Canadian Premier League, signing Niko Giantsopoulos on a short-term loan just for this weekend. His club, York United, played a CPL match on Friday (Giantsopoulous went the full 90 in goal), and do not play again until a Canadian Championship cup match on Tuesday. Helpfully, both games are in British Columbia, with Pacific FC hosting York twice in a row.

Earlier on Saturday, the Whitecaps then relied on an only-in-MLS deal, signing Canada Under-20 goalkeeper Max Anchor out of their academy system to a deal in MLS Next Pro.

Anchor has signed a pre-contract on an MLS homegrown deal to start in 2023, and with him in the fold at the MLS Next Pro level, Vancouver has the ability to sign him to a four-day MLS contract (per the terms of the MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement, teams can offer a player four such deals in a year before they’re obliged to sign him to a full-time MLS contract), which

All of this means the Whitecaps will have two actual goalkeepers available to do that against Charlotte. The situation echoes one they ran into during the MLS is Back Tournament in 2020, where Hasal (then a new homegrown and clearly third-choice) ended up being the only goalkeeper Vancouver had available for their knockout round match against Sporting Kansas City.

The Whitecaps will be hoping Giantsopoulous or Anchor can replicate what Hasal did that night, as he posted a shutout despite Kansas City attempting 37 shots. While the Whitecaps were eliminated in a penalty kick tiebreaker, Hasal managed to save a penalty there as well.

Vanni Sartini’s side will have a tough night at the office, as the missing goalkeepers are not the only players out. Jake Nerwinski and Pedro Vite are also in the health and safety protocol, while Tristan Blackmon and Caio Alexandre are both out with injuries, and striker Lucas Cavallini is suspended due to yellow card accumulation.

That leaves Sartini with just 22 players (including Giantsopoulos and Anchor) to call on as they host Charlotte Sunday evening.

 

Sporting Kansas City vs. Vancouver Whitecaps, MLS is Back Tournament Live Stream, Schedule, Start Time, TV Channel

MLS is Back Tournament has reached the Knockout Stage, Round of 16. Sporting Kansas City will take on the Vancouver Whitecaps.

Major League Soccer has just wrapped up the Group Stage of ‘The MLS is Back Tournament’, and will now move on to the Knockout Stage, Round of 16.

The tournament champion will qualify for the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League. The Champions League 2020 season is scheduled to resume after the completion of this tournament.

Sporting Kansas City  vs. Vancouver Whitecaps

  • When: Sunday, July 26
  • Time: 11:00 p.m. ET
  • TV Channel: FS1
  • Live Stream: fuboTV (watch for free)

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SCHEDULE OF MATCHES

  • July 25-28: Knockout Stage (Round of 16) begins
  • July 30-August 1: Quarterfinals
  • August 5-6: Semifinals
  • August 11: Final

MLS Odds and betting lines

MLB odds courtesy of BetMGM Sportsbook. Odds last updated Sunday at 8:45 p.m. ET.

Sporting Kansas City (-295) vs. Vancouver Whitecaps (+800)

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MLS: Sporting Kansas City vs. Vancouver Whitecaps odds, picks and best bets

Previewing Sunday’s Sporting Kansas City vs. Vancouver Whitecaps sports betting odds and lines, with MLS betting picks, tips and best bets.

Sporting Kansas City and the Vancouver Whitecaps lock horns Sunday at 11 p.m. ET in a Round of 16 knockout stage game in the MLS is Back Tournament. The match will be played at the ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex near Orlando, Florida. We analyze the Kansas City-Vancouver sports betting odds and lines at BetMGM while providing MLS betting tips and picks around this matchup.

Sporting Kansas City vs. Vancouver Whitecaps: Key injuries

Sporting Kansas City

  • M Felipe Gutierrez (knee) out
  • D Andreu Fontas (quadriceps) out

Vancouver Whitecaps

  • M Janio Bikel (adductor) out
  • D Erik Godoy (quadriceps) out

Place legal sports bets on MLS action in CO, IN, NJ and WV through BetMGM. Sign up and bet at BetMGM now!

Sporting Kansas City vs. Vancouver Whitecaps: MLS odds, betting lines and picks

Odds via BetMGM; access USA TODAY Sports’ betting odds for a full list. Lines last updated Saturday at 9:30 a.m. ET.

Prediction

Sporting Kansas City 4, Vancouver Whitecaps 1

Moneyline (ML)

SPORTING KANSAS CITY (-200) is a bit expensive at this price, but there is no way they’re falling to the Whitecaps (+475). SKC has posted a 4-0-1 mark over their past five meetings with Vancouver across all competitions, outscoring the ‘Caps by a 17-3 margin. Sporting has posted at least three goals in four of those outings, including a 3-1 win before the pause button was pressed back on March 1. In addition, betting SPORTING KC TO WIN AND BOTH TEAMS TO SCORE (+180) is a very nice value as well.

A winning $10 wager on Sporting Kansas City (-200) to win outright nets a profit of $5. A $10 wager on Vancouver (+475) to win would net a profit of $47.50, while a Draw or Tie (+375) would fetch a $37.50 profit.

Over/Under (O/U)

OVER 3.5 (+135) should be a pretty solid value here on the alternate line, as Sporting Kansas City has the offensive firepower to take care of the total all on their own. As mentioned above, they have netted at least three goals in four of the previous five meetings against Vancouver.

Want some action in this one? Place a bet with BetMGM today. For more sports betting picks and tips, visit SportsbookWire.com.

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