The Vancouver Whitecaps were playing a game, but it didn’t really matter. Yes, you can say they tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it didn’t even matter.
It was not part of any tournament nor did it matter in the MLS standings. Wrexham AFC were in town. Yeah, those guys. The third oldest club in the world and the oldest club in Wales. But they are made famous by their owners: Actors Rob McElhenney and Vancouver native Ryan Reynolds. Of course, they are also known for the famous FX/Disney Plus series Welcome to Wrexham.
Yes, Mcelhenney and Reynolds were in town. Reynolds came out to cheer on as a neutral and sat in one of the press boxes at BC Place after over a week of promoting his latest film, Deadpool and Wolverine. But unlike that movie, (which I have yet to see) many didn’t expect much. After all, this was a friendly. It was nothing more than a game for money, exposure and…well…money and…marketing.
For once, there was grass at BC Place! It was rolled in for this game and despite some rough patches, it looked great. I could even smell it from the press box.
There seemed to be more Wrexham red than Whitecaps blue and white at BC Place. It was weird to see but not surprising.
Obviously, with Leagues Cup starting soon, Vancouver played a heavily rotated side.
Whitecaps and Wrexham play an entertaining affair
Wrexham had more chances in the first half and was a back-and-forth one. Whitecaps goalkeeper Isaac Boehmer had to come up big with a couple of big saves. It’s not like Vancouver didn’t have good chances. Their best chance was an Ali Ahmed chance right after he stole the ball but Arthur Okonkwo came up big.
The Welsh club got on the board first courtesy of Seb Revan. It is a preseason game but the backline of Bjorn Inge Utvik, Belal Halbouni and Finn Linder looked shaky on that goal and on many Wrexham chances. Keep in mind, that Linder is a Whitecaps FC 2 player and Halbouni has barely played for the first team this season. Still, Revan was given a lot of space on the goal.
The second half opened up with some flurry from the Whitecaps. They started crowding Okonwo’s goal and their transitions looked more dangerous and it paid off. Giuseppe Bovalina scored a bullet of a goal and there was some good link-up play from Ahmed and Pedro Vite.
Since this was a friendly, players from Whitecaps FC 2 got minutes. defenders Buster Sjöberg and Mihail Gherasimencov, midfielders Eliot Goldthorp, Malcolm Simmons and Liam Mackenzie. It was kind of a baptism by fire and Wrexham scored two quick goals.
The first was from James McLean (who the Irish fans say hates the queen or I guess, the king now.) from Elliot Lee’s free kick. Then a few minutes later, Lee also got a goal for himself from Ryan Barnett’s cross. I Bet Ryan Reynolds liked those goals.
Vancouver was ball-watching and giving Wrexham a lot of space. That’s a theme of this game kind of like breaking the fourth wall is a theme of the Deadpool movies. Wrexham got their fourth in the 82nd minute thanks to Jordan Davies sneaking behind the Whitecaps defenders to finish the cross from Luke Bolton.
What was said
Whitecaps head coach Vanni Sartini wasn’t wearing a Deadpool costume. However, he wasn’t too upset with the performance.
“In terms of the preparation for the Leagues Cup, the first 60 minutes were the preparation that I looked for,” he said. “I would say Belal Halbouni had a good game. I saw Alessandro (Schöpf) in the rhythm of Alessandro at the beginning of the season.”
Sartini wasn’t too upset by the number of Wrexham supporters in the crowd. He actually liked it.
“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s like the fact that this tells you the power of storytellers. So, Wrexham tells a story with the documentary…This tells you the power of storytelling. We need to, as a team, as a club, try to put on our story, and our identity every time and that would be a reminder to us to stick to being us.
“Like in the sense like we are not a certain kind of club that doesn’t pay the player 100 million dollars for a player to come here. We go to a certain way and we need to stick to the story and to be proud to do it because that’s what I think in the long run brings fans.”
And yes, Sartini told the media after the press conference, he did meet Reynolds after the game.
Giuseppe Bovalina spoke about his time as a Whitecap so far.
“I’m really enjoying my time here,” he said. “It’s not easy but we’re working hard and all the boys are great so it’s really helpful. I’m trying to understand the tactics and understand what everyone is doing for me and my team.”
Wrexham head coach Phil Parkinson was also very happy with the support in the crowd.
“It’s fantastic, diving to the stadium and being around the city this morning, there’s loads of red and white,” he said. “It’s just amazing to see. We’ve got an incredible reception when we arrived at the stadium. It meant a lot, it really did. I said to the lads that it’s really important that we put on a display.”
Wrexham midfielder George Evans spoke about what he thought of MLS.
“We’ve been really intrigued since coming here,” he said. ” We’re really close to the standard. Everyone seems to have different identities, and when you play football, it’s the same for us. England’s obviously more different, a bit more direct in their play. and I think that’s what the league is.”
Wrap-up
The Whitecaps League campaign begins on Tuesday. They go to Los Angeles to take on LAFC and kickoff is at 7 pm.