2011 Whitecaps Need To Avoid Becoming Worst Team In MLS History

We talked in our Metro column today about what the Caps have left to play for this season.

That basically boiled down to the Cascadia Cup, pride and not finishing rooted to the bottom of the 2011 MLS overall standings.

When it comes to talking about pride though, I’m not just looking at avoiding being the worst team in MLS this year, I’ve also looked at the League’s history and how we’re shaping up there.

It’s not looking good.

The 2011 Vancouver Whitecaps could be on course to become the worst ever team in MLS history!

Looking back on MLS’ previous 15 year history, the lowest number of wins recorded in any season is FOUR – that’s twice the total we’re sitting on right now with just a dozen games left.

This has been “achieved” twice.

Tampa Bay Mutiny notched up just four wins in 2001, but this was a season cut short by the 9/11 attacks. The other Club with the ignominy of this record is 2005 expansion side Chivas USA.

When it comes to points, the lowest recorded was again by Tampa Bay in that 2001 season, with just 14, but who knows how that season would have ended up if it hadn’t have been for the terror attacks.

The Metrostars recorded 15 in 1999, when MLS still had no draws and a ridiculous shootout, so we can’t compare that too much. They had seven official wins that season, but only four of those came in regulation.

Chivas USA finished their inaugural season with 18 points from their 32 games, for technically the third worst record, but realistically, this is the one we should be doing a proper comparison with.

Doing some pro-rata calculations to take into account the current 34 game season, we need to record 5 wins and 20 points to avoid being the worst MLS side EVER.

That should be more than enough motivation for the players!

Is this doable?

The points total, I think yes, the wins…. I just don’t know where three of those will be coming from.

If we look at Canadian pride, we should also look to see how the 2011 Whitecaps are faring compared to the 2007 Toronto FC.

TFC finished their inaugural season with a record of Played 30, Won 6, Drew 7, Lost 17, Goals For 25, Goals Against 49, Points 25.

Again, looking at the pro-rata figures, we need to finish with 7 wins and 29 points to not be the worst Canadian team in MLS history.

Now that’s a tough ask.

We can only hope that Montreal mess things up even worse than we did when they enter the League next year, to avoid having that tag around our necks.

Vancouver Whitecaps have a proud history and Tommy Soehn should be putting these stats up on the dressing room wall to fire the players up.

They don’t/shouldn’t need it and we’ve already seen plenty of passion on the training ground this week.

Every little helps though and no player wants to go down in the history books as being part of the worst team in the history of a League.

The fans don’t think this group is that, so let’s see them go out there for the remaining 12 games this season and show all of MLS that they’re not the worst the league has seen.

Chicago on Sunday are not going to know what’s hit them.