In The Cold Light Of Day: Philadelphia

The elusive second win.

That particular monkey is now off our back and perhaps we can now concentrate on the playoffs and Champions League qualification.

You can read AFTN’s full match report of the Philadelphia Union game over at Prost Amerika.

We’re not ones to get carried away here at AFTN but we know, and we’ve been banging on about it for weeks, that we have the players at the Whitecaps that could, and should, make the playoffs this season.

Our faith has been shaken at times but the players have restored it.

Sure we’re still firmly rooted to the foot of the Western Conference, but more importantly, we’re currently only four points off the final play-off spot, with more than half the season remaining.

Crisis? What crisis?

There’s still a lot of work to do though to be where we need to be.

With summer signings and releases surely imminent, the right acquisition here, the right deal there and we could be looking at a successful end to an inaugural season to remember.

I can’t in all honesty say there’s been a steady improvement since Tommy Soehn took over. Salt Lake was dreadful and went back the way from Chivas and what had gone before.

There has been some improvement though. Some due to Soehn, some due to the players played, some due to injuries clearing up, some due to a tightening up of the defence (at times) and some due to finally getting the breaks.

The last two games have shown a spirit, desire, passion in the team (call it what you like), that we haven’t seen since the early games.

The belief is there and the results are coming.

The players seemed to be as much relieved as overjoyed at the final whistle on Saturday and it was a similar feeling of emotions in the stands as well, as these scenes from the final whistle show:

It was a commanding performance. I don’t really want to say comfortable, as I don’t think many of us were 100% convinced that Philadelphia wouldn’t snatch something at the death the way our luck’s been going.

A well deserved win though.

The defence in particular looked strong. Not so many heart attack inducing moments. A lot of that is down to the partnership between Jay DeMerit and Michael Boxall on Saturday. They bonded and Boxall will only come on leaps and bounds under the stewardship of old man Jay!

It was great to see Boxall back in the centre of the defence and I would put him above Greg Janicki and Mouloud Akloul now in the pecking order. Janicki is great in the air, not so much on the deck. Mouloud I love to bits but is a little bit too rogue at times. The starting centre half position is now the Kiwi internationalists to lose, and vacate whilst away on international duty.

I do have concerns that our left and right backs play too much towards the middle. Been like that for a lot of the season, especially Jonathan Leathers of late. We’ve not been fully punished yet, but there were times on Saturday that a long ball to the wings would have had us struggling.

Alain Rochat’s goal was a beauty. What a strike and worthy contender to follow Eric Hassli’s wondergoal as the MLS “Goal of the Week”. Get voting!

It doesn’t just deserve to win it for the actual finish, the build up was what we’ve been missing. Five passes from the back to find Davide Chiumiento just inside the Caps half, then a mazy run with the ball glued to his feet (including that neat one-two with Hassli).

Like the cuckoo clock and Lindt chocolate, that goal was made in Switzerland to perfection.

The midfield is still the big problem. That surely has to be where we will strengthen during the transfer window.

I was stunned to find Gershon Koffie on the bench. Stand out player all season. Tiredness may have played a part, but he offers so much more than Terry Dunfield, whose star is waning in our eyes.

We could do with two experienced midfielders. A dominant central player that can hold up the ball and spray it about with ease and a wing maestro.

We seem to have too many players that are good impact players off the bench but not from the first whistle.

Camilo doesn’t cut it as a midfielder. Has he played his last game for us? Is he off to pastures new in Kuwait? I, and many others, were hoping to ask him this post game but he was out of that dressing room faster than snow off a dyke.

It would be sad to see him go. He is putting the ball in the net semi-regularly after all and sadly others can’t claim that. I just don’t see how he’s going to fit into the Soehn style of play and formation.

One win does not a season make, but at least we can take some good heart from Saturday and it is a huge springboard to build on.

Going in to the game, so many Philadelphia fans felt they were facing an easy spell of their season. After the weekend, it the Caps fans that can lay claim to that.

Eastern Conference basement dwellers Kansas City are next. They’re looking better at home than they did away. Another six goal thriller? Highly unlikely but it’s the kind of game we need to get three points from. One would be acceptable. Defeat and we almost go back to square one.

Saturday can’t come quick enough for me.

Mon the Caps.

*** You can see our photos from Saturday’s match on AFTN’s Flickr page ***

In The Cold Light Of Day: Whitecaps Taste First MLS Defeat As Hassli Sees Red

It had to happen sometime. The Caps had to suffer MLS defeat and burst the exuberant bubble that was generated with last week’s demolition of Toronto FC.

We’re not going to do a full match report on AFTN, but you can read the report we’ve done for Prost Amerika HERE.

“In The Cold Light Of Day” will be more of a reflection of games.

The Whitecaps can leave PPL Park in Chester, Pennsylvania with their heads held high.

Have to take time to say how much I love that stadium. The setting, the way it’s been built and the atmosphere it generates. Just makes you want that Waterfront Stadium for the Caps all the more.

Vancouver turned in a solid performance today for their first MLS away match and completely dominated the first half. They could easily have gone in a couple of goals up with better finishing and some better breaks.

The turning point of the game obviously came in the 57th minute.

When Eric Hassli caught Philadelphia’s Carlos Valdes late, his momentum clearly took him through. He did leave his foot in a little but the Union player made the most of the kind of challenge you pretty much see in every game. With the referee in the mood he was in, the inevitable second yellow for Hassli followed and so did the early bath.

You could see it coming. I had said just a couple of minutes before the incident that he needed to watch as I thought that he’d had his final chance from a referee who was clearly blowing for every little thing. Should he have been substituted? Perhaps, but you don’t want to take off your most potent attacking threat if you can help it.

I love Hassli’s style. I would much rather have a striker who is not afraid to put himself about than one who shits out of everything. His harrying, bustling style is going to cause a lot of problems for defences throughout the League.

The yellows he picked up are arguably for things he would probably have gotten away with in various European leagues. Looking at replays, I do feel that he knew exactly what he was doing with his clip on Danny Califf that brought about his first yellow. We’ve all seen those passed over though.

He will definitely have to watch himself here in MLS with super fussy referees like Yader Reyes today. His card had been clearly marked early on by the official.

The referee completely spoiled the fluidity of the game. He blew for 39 fouls in total, 24 of them in the first half. Only 7 yellow cards from those (including Hassli’s two) is a bit strange, especially when he seemed to have lost his card after the 57th minute sending off.

Atiba Harris was being kicked all over the pitch at times, with very little punishment for Union players.

The referee was poor for both sides and the match would have been a much better spectacle if he’d just gone with the flow.

Talking of Harris. I can just tell that he is going to frustrate the hell out of me this season.

His finishing is lacking at times and he seems to want to take one touch too many far too often. He can hold the ball up and lay off well. He has played more as a midfielder and I think that this is where he may be best suited for us and not as an out and out striker.

With Hassli now missing next week, we need to have Harris step up big time. I could see him as the lone forward with Davide Chiumiento playing just in behind him in a 4-4-1-1 formation, assuming our Swiss maestro is fully fit.

We certainly missed Chiumiento’s flair. Nizar Khalfan is a worker but you’re not going to get the same input into a game from him and it’s not fair to expect it. He had an above average game but isn’t the most comfortable looking when defending.

The defence stood strong and was solid. Our two centre backs didn’t really seem in any real trouble and it’s a shame for Greg Janicki that the ball deflected off him for the goal. It could have gone anywhere but had to fall into the path of Le Toux!

The agreement made with the Canadian under 20 side to only play Russell Teibert for a maximum of 65 minutes puzzled me when I first heard about it. I don’t like deals like that. Teitur should be allowed to play him for as long as he sees fit, if he is getting to play him. It was have been great to have kept him on the pitch beyond that time as he was having a tremendous match. As soon as he went off, I felt that we were then just looking to see things through to the end for a point.

Our AFTN 3-2-1 award for this week is:

3 points – Joe Cannon (solid, some big saves – boom!)
2 points – Russell Teibert (may have gone under the radar for some today but had a bigger role to play than last week)
1 point – Alain Rochat (solid, led well and I loved his go away dismissal towards Ruiz when he picked up his booking).

Considering the players missing today, I think our guys stepping up to the plate did us proud and nearly brought back at least a point. A few breaks and decisions the other way and we’d still be unbeaten. No point looking at ifs, buts and maybes. Take the defeat on the chin and move on.

The loss is probably a good thing, as it will bring some of the fans back down to earth with a bump after last week’s heroics. We played outstandingly last week and we shouldn’t forget that. It showed that we have a squad capable of doing some serious damage to any team in this League. If we turn up though and don’t take our chances and don’t defend tight, today is a good example of what will happen.

We said in our Metro Column on Friday that the hard work is only just beginning now and so it’s been proven.

The players now need to pick themselves up as we head back to Empire. The home field advantage could prove to be a big asset to the Club this season. Let’s make the most of it again next Saturday.

Mon the Caps.

Sons Of Ben Hit Back At GQ Article

Last week we ran a piece on the horrendous portrayal of Philadelphia Union’s Sons Of Ben and football supporter culture in North America in general by GQ magazine in the UK.

The GQ article has been met with anger from football supporters over here, with writer Andrew Hankinson pilloried by many. Now, I’m sure that the article doesn’t really interest that many people in blighty, so for it to become one of their top read pieces says a lot about the publicity it’s raised in North America and the feelings it has generated.

All of this is just what GQ would have wanted of course, so I’m sure that they are rubbing their hands at all the attention. No such thing as bad publicity and all that, although I’m sure the Sons Of Ben would dispute that old cliche.

Although not impressed by the original article, I have been pleased that GQ has allowed Sons Of Ben member Brody Chacha a right of reply, albeit one reprinted from Match Fit USA.

This of course, only addresses those readers who saw the article online, not those reading it in print.

It was a well crafted response and Brody comes across very well when allowed to be quoted directly, showing himself, his friends and the Sons Of Ben in a way better light, especially when it addresses him being labelled a “nameless skinhead and hooligan”.

Hankinson had Brody’s name from the start, he says, and just chose not to use it. Chacha’s version of how events played out and of quotes given also put a different light on what was happening.

Hankinson still disputes some of the criticism being levelled at him and was also given the opportunity to address this and still claims that “the story is accurate”.

What this story has shown supporters groups throughout North America is to be wary of the press and especially those journalists from the UK. If they want to do a story on you, then a boring old piece about “this is what we like to do on matchdays” is never going to pull the punters in. No matter what they tell you, they will always look for another angle.

It’s hard. You want to grow the group, spread the message and build a proper football culture in North America. Articles like this GQ one can kill that if idiots take it seriously, but I think the bond shown by fans all across the US and Canada has shown that we already have some great foundations, guys and girls in MLS. We have a good thing here and no-one’s going to take that away now. Not journalists, not Garber. The tide of change is in full flow.

Articles like this are good though and that’s when we come back to the whole “no bad publicity” angle. It gets people talking about us and raises some uncomfortable issues around how we behave, what we chant and swearing. We’re not always going to like the answers we hear back but that’s then the ideal opportunity to put our cases across reasonably.

Some journalists will never get football culture. Some will just want to try and paint us all as hooligans Some are really sound though. If you find one. Keep hold of them. They’re like Willie Wonka’s golden tickets and don’t let any fat German kid take that away from you.

Biggest Threat To Football Supporters Culture In North America? Lazy Journalism

One of the hardest things about being a football supporter in North America, is constantly having to explain to friends and workmates that no, you’re not a football hooligan that is going around trashing cities and beating up opposition supporters.

Of course, it’s not just uneducated people close to you that have this perception of us. A lot of the media do too. The ones that look down on football because it’s not American. These are the guys who will quickly laud the NFL’s Green Bay Packers as ‘world champions’, in a sport where only one country takes part. The ones who will happily extol the virtue of a sport like baseball, whilst knocking football for the lack of excitement and scoring.

I’m a fan of baseball. I’m a fan of most North American sports. I have season tickets to the BC Lions, as well as the Caps. All of them can have their great games and their terrible games. Just like football. And you don’t watch a team like East Fife in Scotland for over 25 years without knowing a thing or too about bad football and unexciting games!

All of them can also have a section of assholes who cause trouble, fight and get thrown out or arrested. It’s just that many of those incidents don’t even merit a passing mention in the North American media outlets. If it happens at a football match though, then it’s big news. You can almost see some journalists rubbing their hands when something happens.

These journos are never going to get it. They’re not going to want to get it. And in a city like Vancouver, where a lot of the media will be worried about losing column inches and airtime to newbies covering the new hot ticket in town, they will take every chance they can to diss football, the Whitecaps, the Southsiders and football fans in general.

There will be trouble at some games. There’s been some mild trouble at some of the Whitecaps-Toronto matches the last two years with drunken, big mouth TFC dicks being taken down a peg or two when they’ve overstepped the mark. Times the attendance by four and of course isolated incidents will break out and not all of it football related. Just like at every Lions or Canucks game I’ve been to where alcohol more than hooliganism plays a big part.

What we have to watch though is that we don’t let the press have a field day about football hooliganism coming to the city along with MLS.

We need the Vancouver public to understand fan culture and what it brings to the game and to the atmosphere. Seeing it first hand or on TV will do this, but we also need the media to help spread this message as well.

So we have it tough with journalists in our own back yard. When a journalist from a respected UK publication comes along and wants to write about you though, you think great. Someone from a country that lives and breathes football wants to do a piece on what it’s like to be a football supporter here.

That’s what happened to the Philadelphia Union fans last year with GQ Magazine.

Check this awful piece out for the kind of writing that sets football, football supporters groups and fan culture back several steps in Canada and the US. Thankfully most people here will never read it.

You only have to look at the first picture and the connotations of the “America football factory” headline to know where this particular article is going and what Andrew Hankinson has up his sleeve.

The opening shots are talking about four skinhead fans and as soon as you read the line “They quieten when two big black men get on”, you’re at first rolling around the floor with tears running down your face before becoming angry that someone is about to do a hatchet job on something that you’re trying hard to help build. As soon as you get a few more lines down, the skinheads point out they’re against racism, so no need for the mention of the black guys at all then.

It may not be about me or the Southsiders or Vancouver fans, but we’re a band of brothers here in many regards. A pop at North American supporters culture is a pop at all of us and great ammo for all the critics, including those at many of the clubs around the league – which possibly includes our own.

For all the sensational playing up of the hard lads act that you find inside, the main feeling you’re left with is what a bunch of numpties the Philadelphia Union fans are.

Now that’s me, a hardcore football fan, that’s thinking that after reading the article. What’s a fan who isn’t in a supporters group or someone with just a general interest in the game going to take from it? We all get tarred by the same stick with shit like this.

I’ve never met a Union fan, but I’m pretty certain that from other supporters groups I’ve had dealings with, this isn’t reflective of a group like The Sons Of Ben. They don’t come off in a good light though, with their ‘leaders’ missing a Union game to go watch the baseball. Wtf?! One guy maybe. But three. Ok then.

Someone else who doesn’t come across well from the piece is Don Garbage. “There are two things I worry about. One is that we’re going to have a terrorist attack in an MLS stadium. The second is that we’re going to have a riot in a stadium” exudes Commissioner Don as he goes on about how worried he is about swearing and “lunatic fringes” in supporters groups. I didn’t even know he knew about me!

This man is in charge of running the League FFS. What hope can we have.

The article is sensationalism at it’s worst. We’re great at that in the UK. It’s nice to be away from it to be perfectly frank. It’s not only lazy but both horrifying and hilarious in equal measure. I’m not even sure that some of the stuff I was roaring in laughter at was meant to be funny. The writer hasn’t covered himself in much glory here (there was some interesting stuff in the middle). He comes across as pathetic as the Union fans he is portraying.

It’s one piece though. Nothing to get too worked up about in the grand scheme of things I know, but it does serve a warning as to what we may find ourselves subjected to by some in the Vancouver media and we need to be on our guard.

If fans shouting “asshole” can create such a storm with press and MLS bigwigs, fuck knows what they’re going to make of us come March.

The one thing that is certain though is that some in the media won’t be ready for it.