Vancouver hasn’t won on the road in the regular season, but now has to change that in Calgary for its Canadian Championship game vs. Cavalry F.C.
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The Vancouver Whitecaps have lost every road game they’ve played this season. A COVID-19 outbreak has decimated their roster. They head to Calgary for the biggest game of their season with two teenage goalkeepers who aren’t even old enough to down a few drinks with the fans lamenting their last-place conference standing.
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One would think the Whitecaps are primed for a Cupset at the hands of Cavalry FC Wednesday night in the Canadian Championship, but the man who pulled the trick off once already wasn’t rising to the bait.
“Sure, timing is everything, but (it’s) a 90-minute game, it’s a one-off. That’s the great thing about club competitions,” said Cavs coach Tommy Wheeldon Jr., whose team became the first Canadian Premier League side to beat a Major League Soccer team in 2019 when they upset the Caps.
“It’s a wonderful opportunity. Vancouver Whitecaps are an established club, they have invested millions into the game and Canadian football. So anytime we have the opportunity to play against them still as a young club, I think it’s great; it can only make us grow.
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But that was then, says head coach Vanni Sartini. This is now.
NEXT GAME
Canadian Championship quarter-final
wednesday
Vancouver Whitecaps vs. Cavalry F.C.
6 p.m. PT, ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows, Calgary.
TV: OneSoccer.ca/FuboTV app. Radio: AM 730.
It’s true the team hasn’t won away from BC Place this season, but they had three wins and a tie at home before Sunday’s 2-1 road loss to Charlotte FC, a game decided in the 85th minute. And they’re still a Major League Soccer team, with a payroll four times their CPL counterparts.
“To be honest, we have a much better (Whitecaps) team than three years ago,” said Sartini, who was an assistant to Marc Dos Santos that year.
“We’ve had a little bit of bad luck with injuries and then concussion and then COVID and whatever. But I think we have to take the bright side… and the bright side is that this period is really cementing the group.
“In the last few weeks, I’m really seeing the group that I saw last season. This kind of togetherness, this fighting for each other first, then fighting for the objective. Last year when I came on, the fact that we had to do a miracle brought everyone together and made everyone do the extra mile. I’m seeing the same thing now.”
While Vancouver’s 2019 team was in a dark, dark place, the Cavs came into their series puffed up with confidence after dominating the first half of the CPL season. They joked about Ali Adnan’s $2-million left foot being more expensive than their payroll, and tactically they relentlessly attacked centre-back Erik Godoy, who was in his defensive and intimidating peak that year, with both goals coming off players he was marking.
And this year, they have the benefit of being at home. ATCO Field at Spruce Meadows isn’t the cow pasture it was three years ago, with more than $8 million being invested in upgrading the turf and facilitybut it’s still the same raucous, rocking stadium it was when Sartini last visited.
“Our fans are massive,” said Wheeldon, whose team is second in the CPL and unbeaten in five games (4-0-1).
“It does feel that extra man on the pitch, the boys had it you know, even when we get a little bit of adversity or teams are trying to pin us back, our fans just keep singing. The Foot Soldiers end, the family end, the grandstand, you can hear it. Sometimes it’s hard for us as coaches to get our voice across. We can make you know 5,000 sounds like 50,000, and that’s exactly what we want. We want this intimate, intimidating atmosphere. We want to make it hard for Vancouver in any way we can and our fans are a big part of that.
“(Sartini’s) teams are very, very organized,” he added. “We know that they’ll be tough to beat, but like any team we approach it the same way. They’ve got their strengths — a dynamic front three on form in terms of goal creation — but we also know they’ve got a few flaws that if, on our day, we can expose them, pick them … you never know.”
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The Whitecaps’ COVID outbreak means they will be without striker Brian White and the status of Pedro Vite, Jake Nerwinski and goalkeepers Isaac Boehmer and Cody Cropper is up in the air until they clear health and safety protocols. Residence goalkeeper Max Anchor, 17, was their emergency starter on Sunday, and they’ve also called in 18-year-old Ben Alexander.
Lucas Cavallini is expected to start as well as Godoy, and midfielder Caio Alexandre could make the bench for the game. Vancouver traveled to Calgary later Tuesday, staying an extra day in Charlotte so they could minimize travel — and any hidden eyes who might have spied on any practices in Calgary.
“We need to step up. It’s a non-appeal game. We embrace the pressure, we need to live with the pressure, and we need to play fearless in the same way that we played last Sunday,” said Sartini. “It’s up to us to enter the game in a way that we’re gonna cut this confidence that they’re gonna have. We need to immediately enter the game and go 100 miles per hour, because we need to not let them grow (in confidence).
“Cup games are always special. There’s always a feeling of something special… we know that we are two games away if we win into a final. We have to be honest, we are not Real Madrid of Manchester City or Liverpool; they play for the end of every year. We know that this game is special and I hope that for everyone, but especially for the Canadian players … it’s going to be something that makes them click.”
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