Match Preview: Vancouver Whitecaps vs San Jose Earthquakes – this is what you call a “must-win”

With the excitement of some new additions, combined with the numerous players who were out on international duty returning, the Whitecaps have the potential to get some momentum going again. Of course, things aren’t perfect as both Brian White and Andrés Cubas are out with injuries, but the ‘Caps hopefully shouldn’t need them in order to beat San Jose, who are by a decent margin the worst team in MLS this year.

The fact of the matter is that purely going by record, this is the only “easy” matchup the ‘Caps have left this season. After this it’s seven more MLS matches, all of them against teams currently in the playoff places. Combine that with the fact that there’s currently just four points separating 4th and 8th in the Western Conference standings, and the range of where Vancouver could potentially finish the regular season is quite vast.

Looking at the positives from the last couple weeks, the ‘Caps have kept three straight clean sheets across all competitions! That’s certainly a far cry from where they were at for a good chunk of the season. The downside is that in the 250+ minutes since White went down in the Canadian Championship semifinal, they’ve scored just one goal themselves. It’s not been too pretty!

(Of course, if Déiber Caicedo had just not been robbed point blank by Jimmy Maurer at the death last weekend then things would feel quite different, but fine lines and all that.)

It will be interesting to see how Vanni Sartini lines things up in the attack in the continued absence of White. Does he go with the combo of Ryan Gauld and Fafa Picault up front and try and forge ahead without a striker entirely, as he did against Austin? Does Damir Kreilach get another start in order to at least have a big body up top? Does Nicolas Fleuriau Chateau (just signed to a first-team contract alongside Jeevan Badwal) get a shock start to see what he can do?

None of those options stand out as a clear pick of where to go, which shows how hard to replace White is on this team (whether or not that’s a good thing roster building-wise is another question). Adding Caicedo, Stuart Armstrong, and Édier Ocampo to the squad provides some more attacking juice, and all three of them will likely figure into the action in some way, but regardless the way the team plays needs to be tweaked when White isn’t out there.

Defensively, Sartini’s men will be hoping for more of the same as they’ve had in the last couple of outings. Tristan Blackmon made his first start in over two months against Dallas and showed well, earning himself a MLS Team of the Matchday nod. Belal Halbouni has made a surprise push for more minutes with another solid performance, although Matias Laborda likely still has the inside track for the right centre-back spot.

Looking at the visitors, it’s been an absolute disaster of a year for the Earthquakes. With just 17 points from 27 games, they’re all but locked into finishing dead last in MLS and have a shot at breaking their club record for fewest points in a season.

The ‘Caps won 2-0 in the road meeting between the two sides all the way back in early March, but have to be wary of giving up a similar result to the last time the Quakes came to BC Place. In that game (in August of last year) the visitors were outshot 19-3 but stole a 1-0 win off a goal from Cristian Espinoza.

Espinoza remains the danger man for San Jose, with four goals and 11 assists (the same amount as the rest of his team combined) this season. Forward Amahl Pellegrino leads the team in goals with six, while Jeremy Ebobisse has just four after bagging 27 in the previous two seasons combined.

Terms like “must-win” and “trap game” might be a little cliché, but the Whitecaps certainly need to come out of Saturday night with more points on the board, especially considering the dropped points last weekend, and how real the threat of falling well down the conference standings is.