FIFA’s intervention into the Québec Soccer Federation turban debate on June 13^th[1] was a welcome reprieve, allowing Québec Sikhs to return from their backyard exile and back to the soccer pitch. I had cynically expected FIFA to do nothing and see the matter resolved until it went to the courts, whether through the parties aggrieved the QSF or the Canadian Soccer Association. Thankfully, that did not happen.

It was striking how favourable FIFA’s release was to the QSF; they could have hardly had a more favourable release if they wrote themselves.

The one issue FIFA’s release did not address was the QSF’s concerns about the safety of turbans on the soccer pitch. Of course, this turgid kerfuffle was never about safety in the first place. The QSF failed to present any evidence corroborating their safety concerns. Furthermore, the Québec Soccer Federation hasn’t exactly been quick to act when other safety concerns are raised, even in the case when there has been a death^[2].

What is in FIFA’s release is as interesting as what is missing. Notice that the release makes no reference to the Canadian Soccer Association’s directive in March extending the approval of the wearing of headscarves to the wearing of turbans^[3]. Rather than explicitly (and retroactively) affirming the CSA’s decision, FIFA’s release reads like a new, development only reached after the QSF acted out.

That is why the ruling is great for the QSF. Not only did they manage to perform an end-run around the Canadian Soccer Association and get away with it, the end-run and the turban ban can be justified because they caused change. With the QSF reinstated in what appears to be a return to the status quo ante^[4]. I believe we will see the QSF emboldened by the outcome and their insubordination.

When he wrote about the turban ban, Duane Rollins pointed out that the ban in the realm of soccer was as much about a reaction to recent CSA reform as anything else^[5]. FIFA’s intervention makes the CSA look weak.

This probably will not be the last time the Québec Soccer Federation tries to assert itself in an attempt at independence and given that they faced few consequences (other than outrage outside of Québec), I do not see them being reluctant to do so in the future. I hope that the next time they do so their actions won’t be seeded with bigotry.

(notes and comments…)

Holy crap it’s the big one-oh for Two Fat Bastards. I know, I can’t believe we were able to keep it up this long either! But out little podcast has somehow made it into double digits without the NSA sending assassins to our doors because we keep talking crap about Landon Donovan.

This week our discussion is of course dominated by the blockbuster Alain Rochat trade: yes, even after all that ranting about it yesterday afternoon I was still able to find something to say about the damned thing. On a brighter note, we also recollect with fond smiles the Whitecaps’ victory over the New York/New Jersey Metrostars last weekend and look forward with limitless hope to our near-certain victory against the Seattle Sounders on Saturday. (At least, I would have limitless hope if we hadn’t traded Alain bloody Rochat).

Follow Two Fat Bastards on Twitter at @2FatBastards. Please remember this podcast contains mature language and govern yourself accordingly.

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Christ almighty, what a catastrophe. If you’re living under a rock, this morning the Vancouver Whitecaps traded defender Alain Rochat to DC United for a 2015 second-round MLS SuperDraft pick and a conditional 2016 MLS SuperDraft pick^[1]. This trade is disgusting. There’s no other word for it.

What else do you want to call it when the Whitecaps trade a quality player, one who was my Whitecaps team MVP in both 2011^[2] and 2012^[3], the Whitecaps’ all-time MLS leader in minutes played^[4] who has played most of those minutes extremely well, a domestic player who’s been apparently comfortable in Vancouver for several years, for next to nothing? MLS SuperDraft picks below the first round are extremely poor propositions; even in the first round they’re crap shoots below the top 5. Trading a player of Rochat’s calibre for a second-rounder (a couple drafts down the line) and a conditional pick (yet another draft down the line) is trading a dollar for a dime and a mystery coin that may be a quarter.

Yes, Rochat’s first third of this season hasn’t been fantastic (not bad, not the weakness in our defense, but not great). His first two seasons were both excellent. If you’re saying that Rochat needs to be traded for garbage because he’s had a few mediocre games after a history of performing in this league (indeed, on this team) when he’s only 30 years old, you are an imbecile. I used to praise Martin Rennie for his big picture outlook, such as knowing the early-2012 Whitecaps were not a good team in spite of some lucky results. Trading Rochat for marginal value demonstrates quite the opposite.

Up until this point the canonical Worst Trade in Whitecaps History was on July 26, 2007 when Vancouver traded Joey Gjertsen and David Testo to the Montreal Impact for Zé Roberto and Alen Marcina. Gjertsen and Testo were both borderline stars in the USL First Division, Roberto was a former quality league player who spectacularly washed out in Vancouver and has spent the rest of his days in indoor soccer, and Marcina was a journeyman who never achieved much but at least bounced around the league for a few years achieving something in cameo roles. I think that trade was still worse: we lost two important players (Gjertsen and Testo) for nothing valuable rather than just one. But this really isn’t a comparison I wanted to make this week.

Bright-siders are trying to say that this move frees up salary cap space for a major Whitecaps signing. Even if you are signing a player guaranteed to be better for longer-term in MLS than Alain Rochat, which is pretty fucking unlikely, this is still atrocious asset management. You’re trading a major, major player, one who has been almost without question the team’s best defender over its MLS history, for next to nothing. Devotees of Maple Leaf Forever! will recall that I found back in February that second-round MLS SuperDraft picks play on average less than eight matches per season^[5]; you’re lucky to get a fringe player in the second round, never mind an automatic starter like Rochat. As for the conditional 2016 draft pick, well, without knowing any of the conditions it’s impossible to evaluate, but anything outside the top five is unlikely to be worth Rochat. The second-rounder is worth next to nothing: the conditional pick is worth anywhere from absolutely nothing to probably still less than the player we’re giving up. This is a Toronto FC-style move.

If you need salary cap space that badly, there are far worse contracts to move (JOE CANNON). Moving Cannon plus a second-round draft pick to some team with salary cap space in exchange for a bag of balls would have been a better deal than this. Rochat makes $190,000 in guaranteed compensation this year; Cannon makes $83.23 less^[6]. Sorted. Or how about moving Brad Rusin on $120,000 plus, say, Jun Marques Davidson on $78,019.66? I bet you could dredge up equivalent assets by moving those two without hurting the team nearly as much. Even just Corey Hertzog plus Jordan Harvey clears almost all the salary without eliminating a single player you want starting every game (although now one of them fucking will).

Rochat was the only defender on the team who was definitely worth the money. If we’re moving him in a salary dump then we are the stupidest bastards in MLS. I have no real problem with Jordan Harvey; I did at first, but then he got fit, seemed to screw his head on straight, and is now a player I’m quite happy to have on my bench whose salary is a bit high but whose contributions are worthwhile. This in no way means we should hack Rochat in Harvey’s favour, particularly given Rochat’s team-leading versatility. God, I can’t believe I have to explain this but apparently the Whitecaps themselves need a whack upside the head with the obvious stick once in a while.

If I were to guess, I’d say that Rochat was playing hardball on a contract extension and that was the primary motivation for the move. I doubt there’s any “big signing” coming up in the immediate future; at least, not one big enough to make up for the loss of a player like this. Our defeat in the Voyageurs Cup, and the resulting loss of the CONCACAF Champions League allocation money bounty, might have sped Rochat out the door. If there isn’t any money and Rochat is gone for free at the end of the season then one can see Rennie trying to cut bait; on the other hand, given how much we need Rochat to fight for our playoff lives and how worthless our trade return was, it would have been far better to keep him.

Or maybe Rochat himself wanted a trade? I dunno, did he call Martin Rennie and say “this Vancouver place is nice, but I really want to while away my thirties in that urbanist mecca of Washington, D.C.”? I doubt it. Even if he did, Rennie should have done a better job getting a return. This one lands squarely in the laps of the Whitecaps front office no matter how you try to slice it.

I’ve never been on the Fire Rennie bandwagon in my life, but if this is the way he does business maybe it’s better to can him before he does any more damage.

(notes and comments…)

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK?

WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYY? WHY? WHY? WHYYYY? WHY?

If I don’t say something about the soccer games earlier this week I know I’ll regret it down the line. So I’m forcing myself to, against the desires in my gut. I’m still not quite over it. That’s a pretty rough week, soccer-wise.

First, the Voyageurs Cup loss on Wednesday. Comprehensive analysis of the game is besides the point. If, by chance, you need such analysis, I suggest Michael McColl, whose staccato paragraphs sometimes seem to convey a lot of emotion for a pretty formula match review^[1]. My thoughts, in brief, are that the Whitecaps played well enough to win, had no passengers on the pitch even if they had a few who weren’t quite at the top of their game, and that Martin Rennie managed it well (the much-maligned Jordan Harvey substitution was good theory and “the absence of a second forward” was hardly the reason Montreal drew a corner kick with Vancouver’s midfield way up the pitch, then scored). Vancouver had almost twice as many shots directed as Montreal, twice as many shots on target, they hit the woodwork twice… I mean, what else do you want? It’s Martin Rennie’s fault that Johnny Leveron’s wide-open header off a corner hit the crossbar but Hassoun Camara’s went in? Fuck off. Vancouver played extremely well and the soccer gods shit all over us.

Haven’t we lost this tournament in as many ways as possible? I mean, we had the Feisty but Inferior Team (2008), the Screwjob (2009), the Desultory Team That Was Never Good Enough (2010), the Weather Screwjob (2011), the Underachievers (2012), and now the Shit Out of Luck Gang (2013). Just heartbreak on top of heartbreak; sometimes because we weren’t good enough, sometimes because we were but the gods conspired against us, and now, when we did absolutely everything but get that final goal, hitting our breakaways off Evan Bush, hammering the post again and again, having our ultra-late last-minute sure things go so close and into the side netting that the person I was standing next to actually turned to me, eyes wide, and asked “Did that go in?!”

What should I say here? It’s been two days and my reaction still essentially amounts to fuck. It’s not like I can’t go about my life, I haven’t been laying at home in bed with my pillow over my head or anything, but every time I try to turn my brain back to soccer there’s this wrenching sensation in my head like I’m being lobotomized by a jackhammer. I was out for lunch with my co-workers this afternoon and the Voyageurs Cup came up; it was like a shell had hit next to me and I was wiping my buddy’s brains off my face. I think I have the soccer version of PTSD.

Jesus. How did we not win? How did that Harvey shot not go in? Why was nobody on the near post? How could a team which played so well, and so earned a trophy it had never won and desperately needed against a moral rival, wind up losing on away goals? As long as I live I will never understand. Ours is a primally unfair world. Most people die terrified and alone, screaming in the dark. That game was a miniature of why the universe is so horrifying and unjust.

I don’t blame the players. As a fan I sometimes wonder, do the players care about a competition like this as much as I do? But the Whitecaps gave a glorious effort in a losing cause. Nobody slacked off. There were no perfect games and both of Montreal’s goals capitalized on Vancouver mistakes. But a perfect game of soccer has not yet been played, and in most game those errors pass without exploitation. The difference is that Montreal capitalized, their shots went in, and Vancouver missed, our shots hit the woodwork. Vancouver outplayed the Impact, made fewer errors (against an excellent team playing its blood out), and it just didn’t happen. It didn’t fucking happen.

I don’t mean to take much away from Montreal. They were inferior, they were lucky, but they were still very good. Jeb Brovsky and Alessandro Nesta fighting back from injury and making major contributions was every bit as impressive as Kenny Miller and Daigo Kobayashi doing the same for Vancouver. No doubt their fans are rightly overjoyed. But look at the shots again. Look at the passes. Look at the chances Vancouver just couldn’t put away. I will go to my grave convinced the Whitecaps were the better team over the two legs everywhere but where it counted.

That really was the worst game I have ever seen. Those who went to watch Canada lose 8-1 in Honduras will suggest that one but at least it was over quickly. A shot to the back of the head, then Honduras is up 4-0 and you’re ordering the highest-alcohol beer you can find. “Losing a Cup final at home to a mortal rival on away goals”… I don’t know. Penalties might have been worse. That’s it.

As for the Canada game in Costa Rica, what stood out was how little our bubble guys showed. The players who are or should be automatic (Hainault, Edwini-Bonsu, Borjan, okay that might be it) showed well enough. The players on the bubble did absolutely nothing to convince me they deserve another look. Naturally, every single bubble player made Canada’s 35-man preliminary Gold Cup roster^[2], because Tony Fonseca has an insane and indefensible bias against NASL players (oh, yeah, Stefan Cebara, Daniel Haber, two U-20s who have never played a professional game, and one Scottish U-20 who has never played above the Scottish Third Division are all well ahead of Shaun Saiko on the depth chart). Paul Hamilton isn’t named, of course; if the Carolina Railhawks ever played a team like Los Angeles they’d get killed. Simon Thomas, who will be backing up for FC Edmonton on Saturday, is named. John Smits, who will be starting ahead of Simon Thomas for FC Edmonton on Saturday^[3], is not. It’s actually hilarious (and I like Simon a lot). No bias against the NASL here! No sir! Kyle Porter materialized out of thin air rather than spending three years as a B or B+ player in the USSF D2 and NASL, right?

While the Canadian game was frustrating, it’s a different sort of frustration from Vancouver. The Voyageurs Cup was an apocalypse, our own little Hiroshima. The continued incompetence of the Canadian men’s national team is just, well, the continued incompetence of the Canadian men’s national team. There was no risk of them making any noise at the Gold Cup, we all knew it, and it was nice to see my prejudices confirmed on so many levels. It was equally nice to see Canada back playing on the prairies, a gesture so important it canceled out any result.

Soccer is the worst sport in the world.

(notes and comments…)

After… after all of that, I don’t know how I roused myself to record (a day late) another episode of Two Fat Bastards. But I did. Brention is just unconscionably cheerful, given what happened. It’s disgusting. We should be wailing in the streets and praying to whichever gods we can remember for deliverance from our long soccer nightmare, not recording (less-well-prepared-than-usual because I couldn’t bring myself to think about soccer much since Wednesday) podcasts.

I kinda let the side down in this episode. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m basically unprepared and spend most of the half hour sounding like I’m going to go away and cry when it’s all done. I’m not quite over it yet. (That’s why I haven’t posted anything on the blog in a while, for starters!)

Anyway, here’s the episode. Maybe you’ll like it?

Follow Two Fat Bastards on Twitter at @2FatBastards. Please remember this podcast contains mature language and govern yourself accordingly.

EDIT, 10:20 AM: The previous version of this podcast had all the audio coming through the left channel. The new version should fix this. Thank you for your patience.

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I am typing this from my phone so please forgive the everything.

Apparently Kenny Miller is close to coming back! He’s missed the past I-can’t-look-it-up (did I mention I’m typing this from my phone?) with a stubborn hamstring injury but has been taking full training recently. A scare with him wearing an ice pack on his knee late last week doesn’t appear to bode ill; everybody I’d expect to know is saying he should be available for selection on Wednesday.

The Internet physiotherapists are saying that the Whitecaps should play it safe with Miller. His hamstring problem has already lasted longer than usual and he’s a key player, 33 years old, not one with whom we should take chances. Normally I would agree, in my own capacity as an Internet physiotherapist. Better safe than sorry, if only psychologically. There are fans convinced that the Whitecaps rushed Jay DeMerit back and cost him 99.9% of the 2013 season and/or that the Whitecaps rushed Miller back and made his hamstring worse. If Miller started Wednesday and the worst happened, even if just by coincidence, the knives would be out.

As I say, normally, I’d be all for easing Miller in. Normally. This week is not normal.

Wednesday is a Cup final, as close to must-win as you can get without actually being must-win. The Whitecaps could theoretically draw Montreal 0-0 and nick ‘em on penalties, but realistically we’re going to need a goal, and up against a competent offensive team we’re probably going to need more than one. When he played earlier this year Miller was maybe Vancouver’s most valuable player, linking the midfield up with the attack in a manner we haven’t enjoyed since Martin Nash retired. The Whitecaps attack is mediocre, but adding Miller makes it almost fine.

If Miller can contribute to the game Wednesday then he must, regardless of the consequences. Winning the Voyageurs Cup is well worth sacrificing Miller for a few more weeks. It’s silverware, which is the entire reason we’re here. It’s a trophy, the Voyageurs Cup, which we have never won in twelve attempts while finishing runners-up six times. It’s our ticket to the CONCACAF Champions League. As I’ve been at pains to explain, the influx of allocation money would also allow us to improve the team; maybe not to the point of bringing in a new designated player but still meaningfully.

There are times where you’re cautious and conserve your strength, and there are times where you ride the horse to death. This is one of the latter times. If Miller is physically able to start he should do so and play until either he is unable to contribute or the game is won. The Whitecaps are not likely to have a bigger game than this all season. If Miller contributes 60 minutes to a win but it costs him the rest of the season, the Whitecaps come out ahead.

Tomorrow I am going to spend pretty much all day on the go so I won’t have time to genuflect on Wednesday’s Voyageurs Cup final against the Montreal Impact. I therefore do so now.

Not often discussed in Vancouver is what a justification the Montreal – Philadelphia game was for Martin Rennie’s tactics. The Impact hammered the Union, going up a leisurely 3-1 in the first half and plinking home a couple more goals while Philadelphia went all-out trying to get back into it, winning 5-3 in an utterly one-sided affair.

It made Rennie look brilliant. The Union and the Whitecaps are both basically respectable teams; I think Vancouver just has the legs on Philadelphia but it’s hardly clear. Philadelphia ran with Montreal at Stade Saputo and got smoked. Vancouver sat back, tried to absorb pressure, and succeeded. Not just in terms of the scoreline but in shots as well.

When the Whitecaps limited Montreal to two shots on target last Wednesday, that was the fewest shots the Impact managed at home since June 27, 2012 against Toronto FC. It wasn’t just that Montreal was shooting inaccurately, though that helped: their ten shots directed was the fewest at home since September 22 since March 16 (also Toronto; what is it with Impact shooters and Canadian teams?) and one of only four such games in their MLS history (including Voyageurs Cup). It was a first-class defensive performance in Montreal, one which was achieved entirely without Lee Young-pyo or Jun Marques Davidson, resting them and others up for a Portland game that weekend they should have won.

Teams which try to slug it out with the Impact at Stade Saputo come to bad ends. Real Salt Lake played a good game and got unlucky; the rest were meh at best going back to late 2012. Had the Whitecaps opened the offense and gone for the vital away goal the odds were against them (Montreal’s home record in games with 9 or more combined SoG since June 2012: 7W-1D-2L, losses both flukes, wins over New York, San Jose, Toronto, New York again, Chicago, fluke over Salt Lake, and Philadelphia). Obviously a 1-1 draw would have been good, a fluke victory fantastic, but more likely the Whitecaps would have lost 1-0 or 2-1 and come home in trouble. If you can choose between a 30% chance of a good result and a probability of a very-nearly-as-good result, I’d go for the latter. So did Martin Rennie.

(Pardon me while I have a strange interlude. This brings me about to a minor nit-pick. In the Canadian Championship the away goals rule still applies in extra time. So let’s say Vancouver and Montreal draw 0-0 after 90 minutes Wednesday. They go to extra time, each team scores once, Montreal wins 1-1 aet. This seems stupid to me, as it gives an advantage to the team playing away in the second leg. Montreal may get thirty “extra” minutes for their goals to be worth more Wednesday than Vancouver could at Stade Saputo. It’s unbalanced. We had the same problem a couple of years ago when Ali Gerba nearly won it for Montreal by tying it. This advantage is needless and easily dispensed with by stating that the away goals rule does not apply in extra time. Like the Rain Game, it seems like a minor issue until it decides a championship.)

On Twitter this morning I was musing about the Montreal Impact’s percentages. Now that Troy Perkins got ventilated by Philadelphia on the weekend there’s nothing really outrageous. However, all their percentages are just a hair above last year’s mean. For example, they have 42.75% of their shots directed landing on target (2012 MLS average 34.44%), 33.90% of their shots on target becoming goals (2012 MLS 29.76%), and a save percentage of 73.08% (2012 MLS 70.24%). It’s not a lot and some is doubtless skill (hello Marco di Vaio). But some of that is luck, and while none of the numbers are individually outrageous it’s all a few goals here and there making the Impact look just a little bit better than they are.

I think this may show up most on the road. So far the Impact are a damned good road team in 2013: a win at Portland and a commendable draw at San Jose gives them two Cup-winning road results against west coast teams who are better than the Whitecaps. But in Portland the Impact got 66.67% of their shots directed on target (fuck off) and in San Jose they managed 83.33% (fuck off!!!). Neither Portland nor San Jose obviously undercount shots directed by teams visiting their stadiums: those numbers are probably approximately legit, and indicate that for whatever reason in those big wins Montreal was shooting more accurately than it is possible to maintain. Again, Montreal is a good team, they play well away, they will be a stiff test for Vancouver, they just don’t play as well as their impressive record would suggest.

Vancouver’s big advantage will be in fatigue. As has abundantly been discussed, the Impact played at home on Saturday whereas the Whitecaps had an off week. The Impact are traveling from Montreal to Vancouver; there are plenty of direct commercial flights, annoyingly, but that’s still three time zones worth of jet lag. The Whitecaps will, of course, have been home and comfortable for almost two weeks by game time. This is not a decisive advantage (again, the Impact did well in one test of travel-and-short-rest this year) but it’s another factor in the Whitecaps’ favour.

On Saturday the Impact ran their best horses into the ground. Bernier, Nesta, Felipe, and Ferrari all did the 90 and are all key players who are aging, fresh off injury, perpetually faintly unfit, or all three. Di Vaio went 85 minutes. Brovsky did 77 minutes with his face smashed in like a chocolate orange. That’s a tough turnaround for these players both physically and psychologically. Imagine Nesta, 37 years old, having spent most of his career on Serie A’s hallowed turfs, just recovered from a groin injury, and facing both the physical barrier of big minutes twice in a week and the psychological problem with artificial turf. I almost expect him not to play.

Those better versed in soccer psychology than I may be able to predict whether we’ll see the Whitecaps go other the way: overprepare, get wind-up because of the long period to look at one massive challenge, particularly straight off a hardly-relaxing Portland draw. I’m sure if the Whitecaps do lose, somebody will make this point after the fact. Soccer psychologists are a lot like message board doctors.

My prediction in last Wednesday’s Two Fat Bastards was Vancouver 2, Montreal 1. I’ve seen nothing since that makes me change my mind. The Whitecaps should have a slight advantage. They’re better-rested. They’re at home. Montreal and Vancouver have identical SoG/90 differentials so far this year of +0.636 and their differentials have been in the same range for the past month. They’ve both played six home games and five on the road. In skill terms they are extraordinarily evenly matched, to a degree that makes me want to lie down with a gin and tonic and a cold towel on my forehead. So home field and long rest should prove decisive for Vancouver, unless of course they don’t. And there are two Quebec linesmen for Wednesday (Belleau and Gamache)^[1]; what will that mean? Probably nothing, unless of course it does. No result, other than a blowout, would be an upset worthy of the name. Montreal winning by a couple, Vancouver winning by a couple, a close game, away goals, penalties… if you’re betting on this game you are a moron.

This is shaping up to be a hell of a thing.

(notes and comments…)

What time is it? It’s Bastards time! What time is it? It’s Bastards time!

As promised (yes, for once we’re keeping our promises) the Two Fat Bastards preview show is here, on schedule. This week, Brenton and I cast an eager gaze forward to the Montreal Impact in the Voyageurs Cup final on Wednesday. We think about tactics, how best to handle the Impact’s potent attack, just whose defense is better than whose, and whether it’s a bad thing that the Whitecaps haven’t really played with an individual style this season.

And, of course, because we are about Canada as well, we have some Canadian national team discussion. At least, I have some Canadian national team discussion and Brenton has some open antipathy. The Canadian women’s roster, the Canadian men’s game (as this podcast was recorded before we knew the Canadian men’s roster)… we cover it all with the barest skim of almost-useful analysis. It’s probably worth a listen, if the alternative is silence!

But the Montreal bit’s not bad.

Follow Two Fat Bastards on Twitter at @2FatBastards. Please remember this podcast contains mature language and govern yourself accordingly.

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