Coffee with the Caps, Monday November 7

07/11/2022 19:10

Good Monday morning Caps fans, hope you all had a relaxing and well-earned weekend and are gearing back up for another week of living the dream.

Well, another MLS season is officially in the books and I have some good news: Maxime Crepeau and Marc dos Santos are MLS champions, something which would pleasantly surprise fans if you took a time machine back a few years ago. The bad news? Well, they did it with LAFC.

While the best team in the league doesn’t often win MLS Cup, they sure did in 2022 and LAFC’s defeat of Philadelphia Union came in what might well go down as one of the greatest finals in league history.

The Union thought they had it won after Jack Elliott scored deep in stoppage time in extra time, only for Gareth Bale to score even deeper into stoppage time. LAFC then blanked Philly in the penalty shootout to capture their first MLS Cup.

Creapeau, however, was not party to the PKs, having been sent off for denying Cory Burke a clear goal scoring opportunity in extra time, a move that actually was probably a net win for LAFC.

Even had he not been shown a red card, however, Crepeau would have been unable to continue after potentially breaking his leg in the scary collision with Burke (I would not recommend watching a replay).

It was a brutal moment for Crepeau on many levels, including the fact that he will now almost certainly miss the World Cup, despite being a steady hand for Canada during qualifying and more than earning the starting goalkeeper role.

Caps fans have mixed feelings, to the say the least, about Crepeau but this is a place where everyone can quite easily put their feelings aside to wish him the best and a speedy recovery that sees him back for most of next MLS season.

As much as the Caps missed an elite shot stopper this season, LAFC’s victory on Saturday was, in part, a reflection of the fact that they got the quality goalkeeper they needed (though Denis Bouanga didn’t hurt). It is a tough pill to swallow to see two guys who left Vancouver on not the best terms win a cup but fair play to them and congratulations.

The good news for Canada fans is that a bad day seems like it wasn’t a catastrophe. Alphonso Davies exited Bayern Munich’s match against Hertha Berlin with a leg injury. And while he might miss the next couple of Bundesliga matches, it seems he will be OK for the World Cup.

Best of the Rest

More on the wild MLS Cup game — should this LAFC team be in the conversation for one of the best ever?

To cap off the awards season, we also have the MLS best XI. Unsurprisingly, no Caps feature but these are always interesting to parse through

A reminder that the MLS trade window opens today and there are signs the Caps could be players

Christine Sinclair has a new memoir dropping and I imagine it will be a much read

San Diego and Las Vegas appear to be the top contenders for the final expansion slot