VANCOUVER, B.C. – Every team strives to have its own identity on the pitch in terms of a distinct playing style and philosophy. Some change over time, some are embedded into clubs' DNA for years.
When one thinks of Spain, "Tiki-Taka" comes to mind, with lots of short passes and maintaining possession. Mention the long ball, direct game to some and English side Wimbledon come to mind from the 1980s and '90s. Going back even further, there was the versatile "Total Football" for the Dutch national team and Ajax in the '70s.
Moving to the here and now, think of the Vancouver Whitecaps and one immediately thinks of a quick team that is packed full of young, speedy attackers, tormenting opposition defenses with waves of runs. It's a tactic and style that saw some success last season and was on full display at times against Toronto in Saturday's season opener.
"We played what our gameplan was, to attack and play nice football," Whitecaps winger Kekuta Manneh said of his team's performance against Toronto. "We created a lot of chances on that. It was just unfortunate that we didn't capitalize on our chances in the first half. It was some really good football and I think we can take positive stuff out of that."
The problem for Vancouver was that Toronto survived the first half onslaught and were able to make it in to the half all square at one apiece. They reorganized and barely gave the Whitecaps a sniff of goal in the second half, leaving them "void of ideas" in the words of coach Carl Robinson after the match.
And therein lies an issue that has plagued the Whitecaps in a number of games. For all the success their fast-paced attack can have, when teams shut them down, Vancouver seem to struggle to come up with another plan of attack.
"I'd say we have the players, both fast and the guys that want the ball," goalkeeper David Ousted told reporters. "We want to be a possessing team and I think we've showed we can be that way. But when something doesn't work, we should be better at implementing 'Plan B' and I think you'll see from now on that we will be. I still feel that we've got other things than speed up front."
One criticism that has been levelled at the Whitecaps is that they are too one dimensional. Packed full of too many similar players – young speedsters who love nothing more than to run at defenders.
It's an accusation quickly shot down by Robinson, who feels his squad have more than enough variation in their armory to "unlock defences in a slightly different way," pointing to the strengths of midfielders Nicolas Mezquida, Marco Bustos and Kianz Froese, none of whom featured against Toronto.
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"They’ve all got different attributes," Robinson said of his attackers. "We’ve got a lot of pace in our team and we displayed that on show in the first half [against Toronto] with only probably one pacy guy in our team with Kekuta.
"We've got good players. We've got players who have got good movement and we've also got quick players. We've got players who have fantastic vision. We've just got to work at it and if we continue to work at it, sometimes we'll get it right, sometimes we won't."
