Whitecaps do little to impress against first-place Galaxy

Mike Magee

It’s impossible for the Vancouver Whitecaps to find any positives from a 3-0 road loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy on Saturday night.

The result wasn’t a surprise; the team with the league’s worst record capitulating to the club with the best record in MLS.

But, even in a match that pitted David against Goliath, David made Goliath’s game a lot easier than he needed to.

Two of the three Galaxy goals came when men were left completely unmarked in the Whitecaps penalty area to nod crosses home. These were goals you’d expect decent men’s league players to score given that much time and space.

And Camilo didn’t do much for his growing reputation as one of the great pretenders in the league with a dive for each half, each penalty area.

Last week in New York, Camilo could feel aggrieved for having what looked to be a perfectly good goal called back — as he was adjudged to have fouled a Red Bulls defender before barging past and scoring.

But, on days like this, where Camilo throws himself to the turf with abandon, you have to wonder if he’s cementing himself such a reputation with officials that he’s never going to get a call. And, even more worrying, was that Camilo’s dives weren’t particularly good. In each case, he did the things that referees look for in determining whether a fall is real or staged. In the first half, he went down, ankles together, after he felt Galaxy defender Bryan Jordan’s hand on him. When the feet stay together, knees slightly bent, that’s a big red flag for officials.

In the second half, he went down again, searching for a foul after some minimal upper-body contact with a Galaxy defender. This time, he would have served his team better by trying to stay on his feet and barge deep into the penalty area.

Also tough to see was defender, bleeding from both nostrils after a clash with Galaxy forward Mike Magee; but Rochat was able to play the full 90, many of them with wadding in his nose.

The goals the Whitecaps surrendered were stunning in their simplicity. In the first half, Designated Player Robbie Keane came running down the left channel, then fired a low cross that Magee got down to meet and redirect into goal.

In the second half, Jordan was able to make two crosses from the right side that both led to easy goals. Keane has scored many times for many teams in his career, but he might rate his goal against the Whitecaps as one of the simplest he’s ever notched in the professional game. Jordan lofted a cross that got over Whitecaps’ defender Jordan Harvey. Keane was left wide open in the, ahem, middle of the penalty area, where he didn’t even have to rise to meet the ball. He had time to shape himself and place the ball into the corner of goal with his head when the ball came down to him.

It was easy.

And Magee’s second goal of the game came close to Keane’s in terms of ease. Again, Jordan lofted a ball into the area; again, the Whitecaps’ defenders absolutely blew their coverage. Magee was left open to head home the third goal of the match, an insult-to-injury moment.

There have been many times this year where the Whitecaps have played well but have not got results; but those matches happened in the first half of the year. Tonight was a night where the Whitecaps made a statement; that it is deserving of the first overall draft pick in 2012, if only Montreal wasn’t coming into the league to take that away from them, too.