TORONTO – The Vancouver Whitecaps turned some heads at the MLS is Back Tournament.
Despite beginning the competition without a handful of regulars, Vancouver reached the knockout stage and gave Sporting KC a run for their money by taking the game to penalty kicks after a scoreless 90 minutes with the help of a breakout performance from 21-year-old goalkeeper Thomas Hasal.
Having taken over the club at the conclusion of the 2018 season, Marc Dos Santos’ influence is starting to have an impact.
“They have a clear identity,” said Greg Vanney on Monday. “They're starting to build a culture there, the guys are buying in. They showed some real resiliency; they stuck together. They were obviously missing some important players, but they still stuck with the program and they were pretty clear on who they were.”
“They weren't trying to do too many things outside of that,” he continued. “They were going to be pragmatic when they needed to, they were dangerous in the transition.”
So when Vancouver comes to town on Tuesday night, Vanney expects more of the same with the returning players only adding to that base.
“You have [Yordy] Reyna and [Cristian] Dajome, you add in Tosaint [Ricketts], add in [Lucas] Cavallini, guys who provide some speed and some power into what they're doing,” he elaborated. “They have some interesting options.”
Both Ricketts and Cavallini, as well as Fredy Montero, Andy Rose, and Georges Mukumbilwa were unavailable in Florida.
“They showed a lot of organization on the defensive side, a team willingness to defend and protect their goal. Guys got behind the ball and they worked hard and worked hard together,” Vanney continued. “They're building a culture that’s very team-oriented. And you can tell that they are all bought in and engaged in the plan, so that's going to make for a difficult team to beat and a team that has the capability to hurt you in different ways.”
Regardless of how tough the last two seasons have been for the Whitecaps, they have had a tendency to cause trouble for TFC.
The two sides drew 1-1 last May with Montero and Nick DeLeon exchanging late goals and it was a 2-1 Vancouver victory that proved the final nail for Toronto’s season back in 2018.
Toronto know they’re in for a contest when MLS action returns. Summer tournament play in Florida was one thing, but the rush of the regular season with the impetus of setting up a playoff berth, however that may look, will be front of mind.
“I'm impressed in the steps that they're making as a group and now they're going to add some more pieces into that,” said Vanney. “We've got to be smart and diligent and we've got to go into this game with a huge amount of respect for them, but also really try to push the tempo that we were playing in the latter games in Orlando.”
“The first half of the first game our tempo was pretty good,” recalled Vanney of a thunderous 45 against D.C. United. “And then we took gradual steps slower and slower as the tournament progressed. We've got to get our intensity level and our speed of play up to a different level and create some difficulty for them.”
Tuesday night may also mark the return of a former Red to BMO Field.
Tosaint Ricketts spent two-and-a-half seasons with Toronto beginning midway through the 2016 season. When he left, he had helped the club win an MLS Cup, a Supporters’ Shield, and two Canadian Championships.
Vanney is looking forward to seeing Ricketts again.
“Always,” smiled the TFC coach. “He's a fantastic guy; always loved having Tos around. He’s a good pro, but an even better person at the end of the day.”
“I look forward to seeing him,” he continued. “I'm sure he's excited to come back to Toronto, despite the fact that we won't have the fans and his family there to welcome him as they should, but I'm looking forward to seeing him. I know our guys are too.”
Without fans in attendance, his reception will not be the same had it come in different times. That is something to which all the players will have to adjust. The matches in Florida will have helped to some degree, but the energy created by the crowd, something the players feed off of, will be lacking.
“It's sorely missed because everything that leads up to the game is a lot about the energy that's in the stadium,” said Vanney. “We have to manufacture that from internal mechanisms and through each other.”
“It's something that we're a little bit accustomed to now. It’s something that we have to bring on our own,” he continued. “Our guys understand that. They've been around for a long time and the times are the times. We look forward to the, hopefully, not too super distant future, start getting fans back in the stadium, but for now it's on us and we've got to be ready for that.”
While the comforts of home are different, they are still comforts all the same.
“The routine of being at home is incredible,” said Michael Bradley. “We went into the training ground this morning, had our usual day-before-the-game session. There's certain things that are part of the new normal, in terms of masks inside, spreading out and using a few more locker rooms than we typically would to make sure there's plenty of space, but still, it's a normal day before the game. Come home and now everybody gets to prepare in their way to drive down to BMO tomorrow night, walk in that loading dock and into a locker room and get ready for a warm up on our field, in our stadium, and then walk out that tunnel and play a game.”
“We would give anything for that stadium to be packed to the brim like it normally is, but that's not normal right now, that's not reality. And so we are going to try to play in a way that all of our fans, everybody watching at home, anybody who is paying attention, is proud of the way that we're playing and competing and enjoying,” he added. “In a world as crazy as ours right now, 90 minutes at BMO Field on Tuesday night sounds pretty incredible.”
