One streak ended in Houston on Saturday. Sadly it was the Whitecaps winning start to the season, and frustratingly it could have been so different.
Vancouver came away from Texas with some important learning points to work upon and can at least be safe in the knowledge that there aren't going to be many Western teams that head to Houston and come away with anything either.
How the Caps move forward on these learning points is what will shape their season.
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So what are they? Well some for starters...
- Be more aware of what is going on around you
- Get the right players in the right positions at the right time
- Mark up and don't lose your man
- Drastically improve at set pieces, both those gained and those defended
All the basics, I know.
When the fixtures came out you looked at this game and hoped to maybe come away with a point at best. As the build up to the game got into full swing, hopes were raised. This was the best chance we would have of heading into Houston and coming back with all three points. They were tired. They were missing players. Even some of the Houston media were sounding a little worried.
When Darren Mattocks beautifully hit home the opener in the 36th minute, hopes were even higher.
Then the game turned on a couple of minutes of madness. The Whitecaps blew a two on one breakaway and were immediately punished by conceding an equaliser to sloppy defending. It was LA all over again.
Except it wasn't.
Houston were there for the taking but they also rallied well. They earned their win as much as the Whitecaps threw it away and if they had taken their first half chances, they could have wrapped this one up a lot earlier.
The Dynamo had 17 shots on goal, but only four on target. Warren Creavalle didn't have his shooting eye in during the first half and that allowed us Whitecaps fans to get a little bit carried away.
Even understrength, Houston were the better team for a lot of the game, but when the Caps took the lead, we had the game there for the taking. If we'd just been a little bit more clinical, even a little bit more adventurous, we could have done just that as I think the Dynamo were ripe for conceding again. They showed after the second goal that when they attacked Houston, they got chances.
The 2013 Whitecaps can be scary going forward and scary at the back. Get both tweaked correctly and the team could be electric. Fail and there are a number of other teams in the Western Conference that will take advantage.
As with so many games, the Whitecaps loss to the Dynamo came down to not taking our own chances and not having the right people, in the right places in the box.
Playing the blame game doesn't help anyone at this stage. Analyzing what went wrong, working on it and not repeating it does. It's hard not to point some fingers though, whether it helps or not.
There's probably been three main talking points from the game.
Should Mattocks have shot or passed? Who should have started, Hurtado or Camilo? Who should be between the posts, Cannon or Knighton?
We've talked in the first two games of our strikers not being fully aware of their surroundings. Kenny Miller is perhaps the best forward we have in knowing what is going on around him. You'd expect him to be with his experience.
Darren Mattocks, Erik Hurtado and Kekuta Manneh have a long way to go in this respect. So does Camilo, who is still young himself, which many forget.
You want a striker to be selfish to a point. The best ones are. They want to take the shot themselves and if they score, then there's no questions asked. There's that fine line though in going yourself and finding the better option.
Did Mattocks choose wrongly on the two on one breakaway? The ball across to Hurtado or cut back to Reo-Coker were possibly the better options. At the time I was cursing him for being a selfish bastard. On hindsight, which is why we don't write this column right after the game, if he had taken time to look up, he may have had no options on at all and an even worse angle to shoot from. Or he may have found one of them, the Caps went two up and we'd currently be sitting on top of the West.
We have no way of knowing. The Caps management just have to make sure that Mattocks, and all the strikers, become more aware. That will help them become more clinical, because if we don't take our chances, especially in away games where they are few and far between, then we will be punished by the better teams. And we saw that with Houston.
It was great to see Mattocks get a much needed confidence boosting goal though. What is it with him and away games?
Nigel Reo-Coker's comments after the game have brought a lot of debate in Vancouver. If you didn't hear it, he was critical of Mattocks on Team 1040. Martin Rennie wasn't best pleased.
If this had been Barry Robson doing this, there was have been an online meltdown.
It's not the first time Reo-Coker has done this. He berated his Ipswich team-mates in the press during his short time at Portman Road. This was milder and seemed to offer more constructive criticism just the wrong place to do it in.
I personally don't think it's as big a deal as some are making it out to be. I like to see that disappointment and that will to win. Some things are probably best kept to the dressing room though and I could maybe accept it a little bit better if the player doing the questioning hadn't had a shit game himself!
I was surprised when Rennie decided to give Hurtado the start over Camilo, or even Watson.
At first I was a bit excited. Were the Caps going to go for it and finally play an attacking game on the road? But I kept thinking back to the match preview I wrote of the game elsewhere. When talking about Miller's replacement, I espoused the merits of what both Camilo or Watson would add to the team. I then dismissed Hurtado starting as he brought no defensive qualities to the line up, and Vancouver would clearly need this away from home. That soon became very evident.
I don't know how much defending Hurtado's been required to do with his previous teams. Sure, every player needs to help out in the box, but some, Sebastien Le Toux comes to mind, can do more damage there than help. Hurtado sadly showed on Saturday that he needs to really work on that side of his game, although he was in no way solely responsible for either Houston goal.
My question around those incidents is why was he the man in there in the first place? Why was he jumping for a cross after being the only one to track back and pick up the completely unmarked Giles Barnes on what was a beautifully worked goal for Houston? And why was he again the man in the middle of the six yard box for Creavalle's toe poke? What were our actual defenders and more defence minded players doing?
Now again, whilst it's easy to blame Hurtado, as he simply stood out in the middle of it all and looked a little lost as to what to do on the second goal, he at least showed the defensive brain to be back there helping. He is surely the guy you want up the park to get on the end of a long clearance, so the more experienced guys need to be stepping up and being in those positions and let the rookie play to his talents. And he did show some of them, with a lovely pass for the assist on the goal and some strong runs in the first half.
How he bounces back from these mistakes and the criticism will partly show how ready he is to be a MLS starter. It was a bold move by Rennie to play him, but for me, it had to be Camilo for the kind of game he seemed to want to play. Experience on the road is so often key.
With Rennie commenting yesterday that Kenny Miller is unlikely to start against Chivas, you have to feel that Camilo's performance has earned him a spot in the starting eleven for this coming game at least.
The Houston game showed how much we rely on our full backs, and when they have off days, how much it can cost us.
Andrew Driver ran YP Lee ragged at times out there, which really surprised me as he's never impressed me much when he was with Hearts. Alain Rochat fared a little bit better in an attacking sense, but he was caught out of position a few times and was easily pushed off the ball for the second goal.
And that just leaves with the debate that's been going on since the start of the season really. Joe Cannon or Brad Knighton? I was happy enough for Cannon to start the season. What I've felt was important was that he wasn't then dropped for one mistake or one bad game. I don't think that helps the stability of the team or the goalkeepers, who are living on their nerves of messing up.
Cannon has looked a little shaky at crosses this season, often flapping at the balls coming over. His kicking has been a little dodgy too. Does he deserve some more games?
I think yes. Brad Knighton hasn't overly impressed in the reserve games I've seen of late.
But if Rennie does make the change, he needs to stick with this for the long haul. We can't keep chopping and changing. I've had seasons of that back home and both keepers were just terrified of making mistakes and it did affect their overall game.
The Chivas game is going to be a tricky one. I think the Goats are the favourites going in to it, but their defence can be a bombscare at times and if they go with three at the back, our pace guys could rip them apart.
They are also looking deadly on quick breaks themselves, and if Lee and Rochat leave any holes back there, they will exploit them and do that to us. They're on a high right now and will be keen to add to it.
The Caps will need to have the stomach for a tough encounter. Chivas will be playing hard. They've already recorded 76 fouls in their four games so far, racking up 11 bookings and they almost seem to play an old-fashioned rotational fouling system. When you look at the Caps side, there aren't a lot of players there that you feel can respond in kind. This could be the kind of game to get Watson involved in, and one to keep the younger guys on the bench. It may also be one to test Mattocks' new found calmness and hopefully his disciplinary issues from last season won't come back to haunt him.
The next eight opponents for Vancouver are going to be Western Conference rivals. Forget Houston and their streak, these are the teams we need to be beating and keeping ahead of.
'Mon the Caps.
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<b>AFTN 3-2-1:</b>
3 points - JUN MARQUES DAVIDSON (Did what he needed to do back there. He may not stand out in games, but provides a vital role. No one really stood out screaming as the MotM in this one)
2 points - DARREN MATTOCKS (Looking a little more like the player we saw last season but needs to be less selfish and more aware of who is around him. A screamer of goal that shows how deadly he can be)
1 point - CAMILO SANVEZZO (Add some real spark to the attack for the brief time he was on the pitch and tracked back well to cover)
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