Whitecaps striker Blas Perez finding form after slow start

Blas Perez is making a minor trade look like a masterpiece.

After an innocuous start to his first season with the Vancouver Whitecaps, Perez has two goals and and unofficial assist for distraction in the past two games. He is likely to figure more prominently from Saturday, when the Whitecaps (5-5-2) visit Toronto FC (4-3-2) onward as the Whitecaps battle key injuries and inconsistency at the striker spot.

Masato Kudo is out of the lineup indefinitely with a broken jaw – and Octavio Rivero, the subject of trade speculation before a transfer window closed during the past week, missed their last game with an ankle injury. Rivero, a designated player, remains an enigma when he is on the pitch.

Perez, 35, is making his acquisition from FC Dallas for Mauro Rosales in February look like a steal, especially after scoring on a bicycle kick in the 89th minute to give Vancouver a 2-1 victory over the Chicago Fire on Wednesday night. The goals came after Perez subbed in for Kudo following a collision with Chicago goalkeeper Matt Lampson in the 11th minute. Kudo lay on the pitch for seven minutes before he was transported off the field on a power cart.  A Whitecaps spokesman said Kudo during the game that Kudo suffered a concussion and facial cuts.

But Perez, a Panama native who spent four seasons with Dallas and has also toiled in Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Colombia, Uruguay and his homeland, took his heroics in stride.

"Any time you see a colleague, a friend, a brother of yours on the field hurt, obviously it's a little surprising and it's not nice," he said through a Spanish interpreter. "You've got to be ready when you're on the bench. You've just got to be ready to come on and do your job."

That attitude should help the Whitecaps as Kudo, a former Japanese League star who is in his first MLS season, remains out for an extended period. While Rosales was a popular figure with his Whitecaps teammates and media, his minimal offensive production and relatively low playing time did not pay sufficient dividends on the pitch.

Perez, known for his physical play and unpopular with fans before he arrived in Vancouver, provides a mean streak not seen among Whitecap strikers previously. And, with 38 career MLS goals, he also has a nice finishing touch – as demonstrated by Wednesday’s winning tally.

“I thought the referee called the foul, so I was a little surprised because normally balls like that high up in the air, the referee sometimes calls fouls for high feet,” he said. “But that’s what I normally wanted to do, when I saw my teammates coming towards me, that’s when I realized the ball had gone in.”

Perez said the planned bicycle-kick goal ranks among the best of his career. On his first goal, which provded the Whitecaps with a 1-0 lead at half-time, he sneaked in behind a defender and tapped in a Christian Balonos pass inside the far post.

The goals were a nice follow-up to last weekend, when the six-foot-one Perez distracted Portland goalkeeper Jake Gleeson and Bolanos gave the Caps a 2-1 comeback win over the defending MLS-champion Timbers. Bolanos was actually attempting to lob a pass to Perez for a header, but the ball skipped through Gleeson’s legs instead as he was kneeling down to get it.

But Perez was not about to rave about his recent performances after a slow start.

 “I always come to work and do my job,” he said. “I just support my team. I just haven’t scored goals and I was working hard and that’s the result.”

Such a low-key approach was no longer good enough for the FC Dallas brain trust as Perez was sent packing. But Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson had no problem adding him to Vancouver’s roster.

"He's an exceptional, experienced professional — and he's still going," said Robinson. "Every time we played against him, he caused us problems. That's why I wanted to bring him to the club. I did my research on him with his character."
Physical play and some hard fouls aside, there seems to be little debate about Perez’s character. But there has been ongoing debate about the Whitecaps’ scoring ability for some time – and he might help mute it for a while.

For Whitecaps, one good test leads to another

Which version of the Vancouver Whitecaps will show up against Sporting Kansas City?
That’s the question that fans and media types will be asking tonight as the Caps host Sporting K.C. in the second of three MLS games this week. One good test leads to another after the Whitecaps blanked Western Conference-leading FC Dallas 3-0 at home on Saturday.
If the decisive win was any indication, the Whitecaps could be an even better squad against K.C. than they were while going scoreless in three games prior to Saturday.
“We’ve had a few bad results in the run in and we got together and met as players, and we decided that we need to change things around if we want to have a good season,” said Vancouver winger Kekuta Manneh.
He is also showing signs of a personal turnaround after leading the charge against Dallas. His cross into the box led to a Dallas own-goal that gave Vancouver the only goal it needed and then closed out the scoring in the second half with a shot through the legs of goalkeeper Chris Seitz following an overhead pass from Blas Perez moments after he came on a substitute.
“We just keep believing,” said Manneh. “We're creating chances. "If we weren't creating chances we would have been worried.
"We knew it was just going to be a matter of time."
The performance was promising after Manneh, now in his fourth season with Vancouver despite being only 21, had failed to score and struggled earlier in the season.
Defender Jordan Harvey showed that he might have an offensive knack again as he scored his second goal of the campaign off a Cristian Techera corner-kick in the 63rd minute. Harvey went without a goal in 2015 after scoring four in 2014.
Despite the offensive heroics, which resulted in Vancouver’s first goal of the season from the run of play, David Ousted was spectacular at times. Ousted, who wore the captain’s armband Saturday while Pedro Morales remained out with a hip injury, has displayed strong leadership while the Whitecaps go through roster adjustments that have led to the departure of veterans and changed their core over the past two seasons.
But Ousted is confident that the Caps have enough leadership to weather a difficult season.
“I’ve said in the past few weeks that we were just going through a rough patch and that’s the time when the leaders of this team step up,” he said. “It’s when especially the veterans of this team take responsibility and I think they have. You see a lot of guys stepping on the pitch (Saturday) wanting to take responsibility and take the ball. The young guys wanted the ball as well, and that’s what it takes.
“MLS is such a long season that you’ll go through patches where it’s going to be pretty tough once in a while, but that’s when the leadership steps up. We got a great locker-room and we’ve got everything we need in there to be a successful team. But once in a while, it takes the leaders on this team to step up a little bit more.”
This week will be one of those times as the Caps (3-4-1) host Sporting K.C. (4-4-0), a former MLS champion, and then visit New York FC on Saturday.
Consequently, tonight’s game will feature a revised Vancouver lineup, as coach Carl Robinson manages his players’ fatigue levels.
Which brings us back to our original question: Which version of the Whitecaps will show up against Kansas City?
The Whitecaps’ answer: Hopefully, one that keeps scoring.