<p>Depth. You hear people talking about it a lot, from management to fans to idiot bloggers like me. In Major League Soccer, depth is everything. You carry a limited roster and can only pay your players so much money. Those players will charge out in stadiums of wildly varying quality in one of the most physical major soccer leagues in the world. To sum it up, players are going to get hurt and you're going to have a hell of a time replacing them.</p>
<p>In theory, the Whitecaps should be aided by their strong Residency program, but in practice the Whitecaps have only a handful of Residency alumni currently competing for MLS roster spots. For their first season, they have to make up the depth in their roster the old-fashioned way. They've brought up most of the best players from their 2010 division two team and built from the expansion and entry drafts, bolstering a modest lineup with a handful of international players. The result is a strong-ish team that optimists hope will be fighting for a playoff spot and is built to improve in the long term.</p>
<p>Apart from the expansion draft, however, the Whitecaps have been generally reluctant to add players with MLS experience. Some division two players such as Greg Janicki, Blake Wagner, and Jay Nolly had short MLS careers, but after the expansion draft the only player with MLS experience the Whitecaps have even looked at is trialist (and former Toronto FC enforcer) Kevin Harmse. The result is a team that's one-third MLS players who were exposed in the expansion draft, one-third foreign talent, and one-third young players from college or Division Two.</p>
<p>Depth-wise, it sounds awfully dangerous. Young players and internationals, no matter how talented, are never a sure thing in MLS.</p>
[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK] <p>Those looking for a cautionary tale don'tneed to look too far back. Last year's Philadelphia Union were a good team in many ways. They scored big in the Expansion Draft, adding one of the league's best scorers in Sébastien Le Toux as well as a number of serviceable role players. They took the sublime Danny Mwanga and a few other promising sorts in the SuperDraft, and they brought in a number of quality professionals such as perhaps the best defender in the history of USL-1, former Puerto Rico Islander Cristian Arrieta. They even got out of the gate with some big wins and good results that convinced the world they might fight for a playoff spot. But as the season wore on, the starters grew tired and minor weaknesses grew into major gaps. The Union finished so low in the standings that even Toronto FC looked down on them with pity.</p>
<p>So are the Whitecaps better off? They look good on paper, but it's a long way between paper and the pitch.</p>
<p>In goal, the Whitecaps are fortunate in combining the services of two North American veterans: long-time San Jose Earthquakes star Joe Cannon and two-time Whitecaps most valuable player Jay Nolly. Combined with today's signing of American U-20 international Brian Sylvestre, the Whitecaps seem to have a strong goalkeeping setup for both today and tomorrow. In this area the Whitecaps are well ahead of last year's expansion Philadelphia Union. The Union relied on mediocre former Real Salt Lake 'keeper Chris Seitz and when he struggled their only alternative was Brad Knighton, a man who can generously be called a "journeyman". Either one of Cannon or Nolly could have been the best goalkeeper on last year's Union, and giving the number of points Philadelphia lost to goaltending problems that's a significant advantage.</p>
<p>Moreover, while the Whitecaps are desperately short of world-class talent at striker, they actually have a fairly good number of decent professionals. If Eric Hassli can carry the mail, that leaves Long Tan, Jeb Brovsky, and (probably) Camilo da Silva Sanvezzo as permanent strikers, with Atiba Harris, Nizar Khalfan, and Davide Chiumiento as men who have played that role in the past with the Whitecaps. Come September, they'll also have Omar Salgado. Apart from Hassli there are no potential 10-goal scorers in the bunch, but there are also no players who'll slice the ball into the stands and stumble uselessly around the pitch, only pausing long enough to trip over opposing defenders. If Hassli gets hurt before we can play Salgado then the Whitecaps are in trouble, but you can say that about almost any team with their star striker: that's why he's called <i>a star</i>. Beyond that, the Whitecaps have a good number of solid professional options they can throw onto the field, enough that if Sanvezzo can't adjust to North America or Brovsky never realizes his college potential, there's still a backup plan.</p>
<p>Much has been made of Vancouver's midfield as their most talented position. A starting midfield four of Russell Teibert (still unsigned but fingers crossed), Terry Dunfield, John Thorrington, and Shea Salinas doesn't sound imposing, but so far during the preseason it's handled every challenge. It's also a very well-balanced crew, with Dunfield providing muscle and effortless short-range playmaking in the middle of the park, Thorrington able to move the ball through the centre, and both Teibert and Salinas as speedy, tricky wingers who'll punish mistakes. More importantly for the purposes of this article, every one of them has a solid replacement on the bench. Blake Wagner is a more conservative, less athletic and exciting replacement for Russell Teibert, but he's also a good professional-grade player who can come on when Teibert is struggling or when the Whitecaps need to avoid conceding a goal more than they need to score one. In the centre, Gershon Koffie has looked so good in training that he might take John Thorrington's job, and if healthy nobody has any doubts about Michael Nanchoff's ability. The right side is less clear-cut, but Philippe Davies was a starter last year in division two and all of Nizar Khalfan, Wes Knight, and Cornelius Stewart can and have played that role as a backup; Nanchoff will also be able to do it when he gets off the injured list.</p>
<p>You probably notice I've saved the defense for last. It's here that two of Vancouver's biggest and brightest international names line up: captain Jay DeMerit at centre back and not-quite-Canadian Alain Rochat at left back. They boast reigning USSF D2 defender of the year Greg Janicki as their other centre back, and at right back it's a race between Jonathan Leathers, who's just some guy, and Wes Knight, who was probably the most popular player in Vancouver last year. It's a heck of a combination, and in the Cascadia Supporters Summit they lived up to the billing when they handily outplayed the Portland Timbers attack while Janicki, the theoretical weak point, played every minute of games in two consecutive days and looked fine.</p>
<p>Those are four good players, assuming we're talking about Knight instead of Leathers (I'm convinced that Jonathan Leathers is secretly terrible... but more on him another time). But where's the depth? The replacement left back is Bilal Duckett, a recent SuperDraft pick who even at the time was described as "limited" and who the Seattle Sounders practically corkscrewed into the turf of Starfire as they attacked the left flank like the Germans in 1940. The best replacement centre back is Michael Boxall, a big tall slow type who went in the <i>Supplemental</i> Draft. It must be said that Boxall has also looked excellent and recently got called to the New Zealand national team, but his pedigree is so questionable it might just be a hot streak. And at right back, you have whichever one of Knight or Leathers fails to win the starting role. Roving as a wild card is Kevin Harmse, who hasn't won a contract yet, has been fighting career-derailing injury problems, and even when he was healthy was still just Kevin Harmse.</p>
<p>That's poor. There's not a lot of professional experience there apart from Harmse and Leathers, both of whom have massive warts. Asking later-round MLS SuperDraft picks to step in and be core players immediately is an incredibly dangerous game but if DeMerit suffers another injury or the doubters turn out to be right about Janicki then that's just what the Whitecaps are going to ask. It may seem like a minor weakness, particularly on a team coached by Teitur Thordarson: he's famous for playing his starting defenders very heavily but also for training them to the point that it never winds up being a problem. But the Philadelphia Union only had a few minor weaknesses in 2010. Toronto FC was a minor weakness or two away from being a playoff team in 2009. MLS feasts on minor weaknesses.</p>
<p>It's not a reason to write off the Whitecaps. But it's a reason to be wary.</p>