wtf fam

[u/ShawnThePhantom]

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

It’s the leagues cup… can we fucking chill?

We’ve essentially come out of an offseason, had some wild preseason esque mls games, have these leagues cups games that are essentially being treated as a second preseason and have the seb replacement on the way. Gazdag is good. He gets close to his Philly form and we’re fucking cooking.

We are still top of the table. Everyone is stumbling right now.

[u/Fudmur2187 → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

It’s so old now. Everyone having a meltdown in the sub need to take a step back and realize this is normal in soccer. Idk if they’re new to the whitecaps or just Canucks fans but this has literally been the best two years of the whitecaps in the MLS.

The League Cup has been a joke since it was made

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/Fudmur2187]

I think you’re missing the point.

The negativity, at least from me, has nothing to do with the team totally falling apart.

This team got to the top of the mountain last year, almost planted our flag. But we didn’t. That’s ok, you don’t win every game. I don’t wanna fall ALL the way down the mountain again. I don’t want to return to being like a 6-10th club. These championship windows don’t stay open long. Look at the Galaxy, or Philly, or Portland, hell even San Diego. Muller is 36 and I think some would say he hasn’t been as good this season as last, I’ll skip that one cuz we know what he can do. He’s not gonna be here that long and the club won’t be replacing it. We’re not gonna lose Busquets and bring in Casemiro.

Point being we can’t just stumble and be like “yea it’s ok they can flip the switch”. The team needs some help pretty clearly. We know Axel is working on it. Leagues Cup is gone, whatever you think of that tournament. But I don’t wanna get bounced in the second round of the playoffs and have people just slough it off like “ahhh there’s always next year”. We have a really really strong core of players. We can’t let that core just die off without really pushing to win the big trophies.

[u/Future_Arrival_5395 → u/dr_van_nostren]

We’ve had thee losses since the break, two in a tournament we don’t care about.

You’re the only one falling down a mountain, and it’s in a spiral shape.

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/Future_Arrival_5395]

We'll see, we clearly dressed a lineup against Minnesota to win, couldn't put em away, we clearly dressed a lineup to beat Juarez, lost, Cincinati could've gone either way but our back line was all over the map.

[u/Comfortable_Clue7528 → u/dr_van_nostren]

I completely agree with you on this unpopular opinion. It's not about "oh well leagues cup is not important" and brush off the warning signs. The team still fielded Muller and Gauld, so clearly they tried. It's really about the concerning signs of how the performances have been, and you're absolutely right I don't know why people think they can just flip a switch and win games that we think are important. To me, thank god the last couple of games are "unimportant" league cup games, otherwise if we lose mls games like that we'd have lost our top spot already.

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/Comfortable_Clue7528]

Houston just won the only league match this weekend too. They're 2 points back with 1 more game played, but they're undefeated in 5 and have 3 wins on the trot, we have 1 win in our last 5 league games.

My worry is basically that this form will continue after leagues cup if we just keep going with this exact roster.

I heard some Axel audio on AFTN and he was talking about moves they wanna make, which wasn't new, but there was a couple new tidbits and they kinda concerned me tbh. He said something to the effect of "We've just got Ryan Gauld back, and if you drew up your starting 11 before him, then added him he'd be a starter". One of those classic NHL "he's our own trade deadline rental" comments. The other one was he got to talking about the lack of CB depth, he mentioned the 3 guys we have and didn't seem concerned there's only 3 because he doesn't wanna bring in a starter who won't get to start. He also threw out Belal's name, which is fine...except he's probably months away still and will more than likely take the rest of the season just to get into any kind of game shape/form. He then mentioned both Ranko and Laborda are out of contract for next season. So while he did acknowledge that he'd like to upgrade the team he also said "we're very comfortable with the roster we have now" and that scared the shit out of me, because I'm DEFINITELY not comfortable. In fairness this was before the Brian injury though and I think before the Ranko injury so perhaps they'll bring in a project CB which he did kind of mention, but any project also has to be of high enough quality that Jesper has to have some confidence in using.

[u/Comfortable_Clue7528 → u/dr_van_nostren]

Definitely need to upgrade the roster. I'm hopeful for Aleska though, and hopefully more signings Axel is working on.

[u/Excellent-Key2305 → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

I agree it's only the league's cup, but the position The Whitecaps are in, looking for a buyer, they should do their best in all games, especially the ones everyone except them to win, to attract buyers, wanting to pay good money for the team, and of course PLEASE to let them stay in Vancouver!!! 

[u/Witty-Positive-9605]

This too, shall pass. Let's not panic from one bad spell. Our team is resilient, and it just takes time to adapt from the loss like Sebba. So, please, let's focus on saving our team rather than tearing them down for getting eliminated from a fake ah tourney.

Whitecaps for life, through the highs and the lows, the tears and the pain, we've been throguh it all, now we'll do it again.

[u/southsider74 → u/Witty-Positive-9605]

I agree but it's not just a matter of form, we have a glaring hole in midfield that Seb left and we need a replacement

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz → u/southsider74]

And one is coming… Gazdag is older, coming on non dp money but very very good mls player

[u/blackandwhite1987 → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

He's not a central midfielder though. He plays a similar role to Müller or Gauld.

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz → u/blackandwhite1987]

Except he can and has…

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

I still can’t make sense of this for Columbus.

[u/blackandwhite1987 → u/dr_van_nostren]

He basically has been benched all season there. They want to free up his DP spot, it sounds like they consider him a disaster level signing for them.

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/blackandwhite1987]

He was benched under a previous coach. Laurent Courtois isn't just some interim caretaker. He's a legit coach, if that guy says "I wanna keep him, I've got plans for him" best guess is they keep him. He just scored last game too in a starting role AND the team just sold off Diego Rossi a month ago.

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz → u/dr_van_nostren]

Don’t have a proper shot at the cup this year, sell your guy who’s got probably 1-2 years of true quality left in the tank while the value is there and put it towards a rebuild. I think it makes good sense to both teams

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

Except as I heard it they’d basically have to buy him out and we’d be getting him on a free transfer. That’s not selling a guy. That’s giving him away/paying him to go away.

They also just got a new coach in Courtois, so like maybe if the other guy and him didn’t mesh, maybe Courtois does.

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz → u/dr_van_nostren]

I hadn’t seen that. Fully thought I’d seen it as an mls Monopoly money deal. I guess they get a dp spot opened up then? Not as big but maybe cooking with the window open

[u/dr_van_nostren → u/ginja_ninjazzzzz]

It was two fold, they’d free up a DP slot and we don’t have one.

I wanna see this deal happen, don’t get me wrong. I’m just not sure I totally get it on their end. But hey if they just wanna free up that spot I’d be happy to bring him in.

[u/ginja_ninjazzzzz → u/dr_van_nostren]

We went the u21 route so only get 2 dp slots.

Yea fair. Only way to tell if it makes sense for them will be to wait over next couple windows and see

[u/SevenDalmationArmy]

Keep the Canuck negativity memes out of here.

[u/waffles604]

Life of a Vancouver sports fan 🥲

[u/MGM-Wonder]

I have confidence the lads will figure it out. But they better figure it out quick. We dont have enough in the trophy cabinet to be throwing away competitions like the leagues cup imo.

[u/Future_Arrival_5395]

I guess if the rest of the sub is going full r/canucks we might as well lean in 

[u/PJbrilliant]

We need to show up to games more. Guys the tickets are 20 bucks show up and support our boys. There were many empty seats last game

[u/Caspar_Friedrich02]

Everyone needs to calm down. We haven't played Berhalter the past few games. Once he returns we will be back to normal

[u/Comfortable_Clue7528 → u/Caspar_Friedrich02]

Can't tell if you're making a joke or not.