ProSoccerTalk’s weekly soccer Panic Quotient (®) takes the temperature of stress and distress in the streets of Major League Soccer and along the boulevards of the global game.
Vancouver: About the time Martin Rennie’s team began marking over the roster, results took a southward turn. The Whitecaps are 2-5-2 since early July, and at least one of the moves is looking less than game-changing. Suffice to say, Scottish striker Kenny Miller needs to start making an impact, or it will be increasingly tough to justify the moves that helped secure his BC Place arrival. Overall, it’s not that Vancouver looks awful, particularly. It’s just that things were never that bad. And when you make over a team that doesn’t obviously need making over, you are placing your head squarely on the chopping block.
Panic quotient = moderate: Flat tire. “Transitional” neighborhood. No cell signal. This just ain’t your day.
Portland owner Merritt Paulson: The club’s passionate top man cut loose his coach almost two months ago, and the chosen replacement has yet to win a match. It probably wasn’t a good idea for Paulson to get into a Twitter fight with a bunch of passionate fans who feel as badly about all this as he does. That’s like having a really bad day at the office, knowing that special person in your life had one, too, and picking that moment to point out all their annoying habits.
At any rate, Portland hasn’t won since July 3, so whatever secret sauce interim man Gavin Wilkinson had in mind, he’d better start pouring. A don’t be stingy with it, man!
Panic quotient = moderate high: Lighting overhead; golf club in hand.
Colorado Rapids coach Oscar Pareja: Colorado Rapids technical director Paul Bravo ran off a successful manager in Gary Smith less than a year ago. So, you have to figure that a failure for the new man now in charge, Pareja, will be seen as a failure for Bravo, too. For that reason, the first-year head coach will surely be afforded every possible chance to put things right around DSG Park. But the bottom line here is that Colorado has collected just 4 of a possible 27 points since June. The playoffs are just about out of sight.
Oh. And they play at San Jose this weekend. The Earthquakes lead the league, you know.
Panic quotient = Moderate high: Summer almost over; finally time for the in-laws to leave. “Honey, mom says she can stay through the fall. Isn’t that great!”
