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  • Pedro Morales struggling for form and struggling with travel as life in MLS takes its toll


    Michael Mccoll

    Team performances and breaks aside, Morales' own form has dipped since he was given the captain's armband. It's a correlation he refutes as being nothing more than a coincidence and he feels no added pressure since being given the responsibility after Jay DeMerit retired.

    "I think it's on the contrary," Morales said. "I don't think it's more pressure being the captain, it's an honour.

    "I don't feel the pressure on the field, even though I know I have a bigger responsibility as captain, but the coaches put all their trust in me and that helps me get through it."

    So just what is the cause behind the Whitecaps and Morales' current slump? The need to shoot more, especially himself, is one factor that he highlights, but what other captainly advice can he give the Caps' strikers to get them back firing again?

    "I think it just comes down to concentration in the games," Morales feels. "Just being able to score the chance and be more clinical. That being said, I see them train every day with great work ethic and they're doing everything they can to get better."

    The Whitecaps haven't been clinical since May, even then, in the midst of their eight match unbeaten run, Vancouver were a wasteful side and squandered a number of chances.

    One of their most dominant matches during that time came when San Jose were the visitors to BC Place at the start of May. Vancouver were 3-0 up within the first 20 minutes of the game and Morales had scored two of them.

    It's a performance and an end result that the Whitecaps badly need again, so with the Earthquake heading back to town on Wednesday, can Morales and the Caps' management use that previous game, or anything else, as a firestarter for a return to more of the same?

    "We've talked a lot," he said. "The media's talked a lot, we've talked a lot in the room about certain things on the field, including that. I think we just need to bear down and do what we need to do on the field.

    "I don't think we've played bad in the games, even in that last. We've just been unlucky that we haven't been able to convert. A month or two ago those chances would have gone in."

    And that's the problem. Hoping that the chances will maybe start to go in again could be a lost cause, but there are very little options to try and do something differently to change it that hasn't already been tried.

    The heavy reliance on Morales is understandable. Despite not contributing much for weeks, he still leads the Whitecaps in both goals and assists, with no-one coming even close with the latter. If the strikers had been converting more chances, he'd have had even more. To reiterate what we said before, if he doesn't play, Vancouver doesn't play. Neither of them are currently playing.

    Getting to the bottom of Morales' own dip in form is as hard to work out as to why the team's goals have dried up, but you can't help but feel that tiredness, overuse, burnout, whatever you want to call it, has to play a part in it.

    Morales has played 13 months of football and Robinson has made mention of the fear that that has taken its toll on the player. For his part, Morales feels his earlier fitness issues surrounding his back are in the past and he still has enough in his tank to see out the season.

    "I actually feel good physically and mentally as well," he noted. "Mentally I feel strong still. It has been a long time without a break but we've managed it quite well. The issues that I've had with my back before have gone with the work that I've done and I feel quite good in the games."

    Robinson has rested Morales a couple of times so far this season, citing the fact that he needs his influential captain at his peak for the big games. It's all big games now and with three matches in eight days, including a long road trip to Dallas, it would be a surprise to see Morales play 90 minutes in all of those games.

    The player himself agrees, and readily admits that his best form has deserted him on the road this season, as he struggles to adjust to life in MLS.

    "Tomorrow's game [against San Jose] is the most important here at home," Morales said. "Naturally I want to play in that one.

    "For me, I don't do very well with the travel and then especially when I get off the plane and we go to train, my body doesn't react very well to that. I think most important is for me to play in the game tomorrow. I am slowly getting used to it, but in Spain we never really had to travel that far."

    Reading between the obvious lines, don't expect him to start in Dallas, but with the Whitecaps having just one win without their talismanic midfield maestro contributing either a goal or an assist, and with every point now crucial, that's a blow.

    But perhaps not as big a one as Morales being out of form and out of sorts right now in general. He only has eight matches left this season to rekindle that early season magic, and the Whitecaps badly need him to do so.



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