VANCOUVER, B.C. – There may be no place like home, but Vancouver Whitecaps haven't exactly been clicking their heels with joy at BC Place in recent matches.
Home form used to be the Whitecaps' source of strength, but with just three wins and 11 points dropped from their seven games in Vancouver this season following their 2-0 loss to the Seattle Sounders two weeks ago, it doesn't seem like there's much home-field advantage for the 'Caps these days.
Head coach Carl Robinson disputes that – fervent sold-out crowds help to some extent – but he admits his side needs to get back to making BC Place an impenetrable fortress once again.
"You always have home-field advantage when you're in this league," Robinson told reporters at training this week. "The league is very tight and sometimes you go through runs where you don't get the results that you want. At the moment we've lost some games at home but we've been fortunate to pick some games up on the road.
"We want to try and make it a fortress, like every team does, and when you don't you've got to bounce back, so we'll have to bounce back."
Vancouver get the chance to do that on Saturday when they face Western Conference foes Real Salt Lake (6 pm ET; TSN1 in Canada, MLS LIVE in US), and they'll get to do it on a new pitch.
The much-maligned BC Place turf has been ripped up and replaced in time for next month's Women's World Cup. As pleasing as that is for the Whitecaps, the downside is neither side will get a chance to fully train on it before the match – apart from a brief stint on Saturday morning.
Could that further Vancouver’s struggles at home?
"No, not really," Robinson said. "You've got to play in certain conditions at certain times, on certain pitches. We would have liked to have trained on it a couple of days, but we aren't, so we just deal with it and it's about winning the game on Saturday. Ninety minutes of football, so we won't use that as an excuse."
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The Whitecaps are looking to get back to winning ways in general – not just at home. With only two wins and eights points taken from their last eight games, Vancouver have slipped back into an ever-tightening pack after their strong start to the season.
Getting to the root their home woes is what is troubling the Whitecaps right now.
Midfielder Mauro Rosales feels the team gets "too excited" at home and don't pace out their attacks and intensity throughout the match, and it's a view that Robinson shares.
"Our mindset at home is we want to play well," Robinson said. "We want to get off on the front foot and we want to be proactive. Sometimes that can be our downfall, and it was in the last game.
"We have to make sure that our tactics are right and if we sit back for 85 minutes at home and we win one-nil then I'm sure people will say that we need to attack more. We're just trying to find that balance at the moment."
