VANCOUVER—The Colorado Rapids may have been the worst team in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference last season, but this year has been a turnaround for the club, which currently sits second in the standings.
For Vancouver Whitecaps left fullback Jordan Harvey, who will go up against the Rapids on Saturday at BC Place, the success Colorado has found in 2016 is hardly surprising.
Harvey began his MLS career with the Rapids. The California native spent a few seasons playing alongside Pablo Mastroeni, who, having retired following the 2013 campaign, took over as the Rapids’ coach in 2014. And while the first two seasons were a challenge for the squad, plagued as they were by injuries and disappointment, Mastroeni, according to Harvey, has always had the motivational chops necessary to boost a team to better results.
“As soon as he got that job I knew it was only a matter of time before he’d get that team rolling,” Harvey said in an interview with Sportsnet. “When I played with him, he got me up for every single game and every single training session. His attitude is infectious.”
Colorado’s success, Harvey said, boils down to teamwork.
“From the outside looking in, I feel like they have a team that’s all on the same page, that works together and for one another,” he explained. “I think they get that from their coach. He’s a motivator. He’s a great leader and I think he’s [managed to get] everybody to buy into what they’re all about, which is hard work. And obviously they’re playing really well right now.”
Harvey, though, was quick not to oversell his opponent. “They’re a motivated team,” he added, “but we are as well.”
The Whitecaps, who sport a 7-8-3 record and sit sixth in the West, will need to be as driven as their adversaries if they’re going to get a result on Saturday, especially considering the Rapids are currently the league’s best defensive team—and they’ve been bolstered by the recent arrival of star goalkeeper Tim Howard. Scoring could be a struggle for the home side—though that’s hardly a new problem for the team.
At the halfway point of the MLS season, the Whitecaps are once again facing nagging concerns about an inability to score. In the team’s most recent match, a 2–0 loss to L.A. Galaxy on the road, Vancouver outplayed their opponent, but they lacked that crucial finish in front of the net.
Those goal-scoring concerns were perhaps voiced more loudly this week given that Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson chose not to dress 21-year-old winger/forward Kekuta Manneh for the game in Los Angeles. It was curious timing, given that the secondary transfer window had opened on the same day, and Manneh is tied with Christian Bolanos for the second-most goals on the team this year behind captain Pedro Morales.
Robinson would not speak with reporters this week, but Manneh addressed the situation with a kind of stoicism.
“It happens. It’s part of the game,” he said. “We have, I don’t know, 50 games a season. Coach decided to rest me. I understand. We have a bunch of games coming up.”
“We went a different way against L.A.,” said Vancouver assistant coach Gordon Forrest, who added that Manneh had “worked his socks off” in training.
“He’s a very important part of the roster for us,” Forrest said. “At times players will play, and at times they’ll be left out for various reasons. He’s back in the mix for this weekend and he was excellent in training today.”
Whitecaps fans will hope that Manneh can excel, especially now that the deal to move striker Octavio Rivero to Chilean side Colo-Colo was made official this week, meaning the team has even fewer options up top.
“It’s hard to talk about stuff that hasn’t happened yet,” Harvey said when asked whether the transfer window has been a topic of discussion in the locker room.
“We discuss Octavio—he obviously was sold to Colo-Colo, and because of that we’re like, ‘I wonder if they’re gonna be bringing in another striker.’ So those are the conversations that go on. It’s not, ‘I hope they bring in somebody,’ or, ‘I heard about this guy or that guy.’ Rumours don’t come into the locker room, only facts.”
Harvey expressed his confidence that the team already has the pieces necessary to climb up the standings. Of course, an addition wouldn’t hurt.
“I think we obviously have room for improvement, whether that be defensively, midfield, attacking-wise,” he said. “If it doesn’t happen, I do still think we have the bodies in here that are more than capable. With that said, we do need to improve, so it would be nice.”
As Harvey noted, Vancouver will need to sharpen up not just on attack, but at the back. Vancouver’s defence has been unusually porous this season—a turnaround of another sort, given that last year the club’s defensive unit was one of the best in the league. It’s a problem that needs to be solved quickly given what a tight race to the playoffs they’re likely to face in the West.
“They’ve done well defensively, being hard to beat, and then they have these guys who will go and get them goals,” said Whitecaps goalkeeper David Ousted, summing up why he thinks the Rapids have done well for themselves this year.
Ousted acknowledged that he will relish the opportunity to face off against a ’keeper of Howard’s calibre. “It’s always nice to play against some of the best,” he said.
As Harvey and his teammates hope, facing some of the best ought to bring out their best.
“I think we have the bodies and the talent to be able to match that,” he said of the Rapids’ talents. “And beat them.”