From this week's Flying Kiwis.
Stefan Marinovic – Vancouver Whitecaps (American Major League Soccer)The season is over for the Cappies but the drama continues, with a few players dropping lines about an apparent divided dressing room. The coach was fired a couple months back so you know there were issues, but having a few blokes openly admit that was a surprise. Even more so when there’s talk from the boardroom about ‘culture’ problems. Stefan Marinovic had a bit of a yarn about the situation although he later clarified those comments in an IG post.
MLS.com: “Goalkeeper Stefan Marinovic noted that the cultural divide between players of different backgrounds that, to some extent, is inevitable in all dressing rooms in MLS, was more pronounced in Vancouver.
"In the teams that I've been with before, I've never seen a team that had such a lot of cliques," Marinovic said. "From what I understand from talking to players here and around the league, that is synonymous with MLS that you're going to have certain cliques. You're going to have the North American clique or you're going to have a Latino clique. That definitely was apparent here and I think there's a lot of clubs in MLS that are like that. Here it became difficult because we weren't doing too well. It became more apparent when certain people got away with things that they shouldn't, in the eyes of the rest of the team. It doesn't really build a strong team culture."
Vancouver ended up missing the postseason by two points, and Teibert had previously criticized some of his teammates for "giving up" as the season wound down. Marinovic suggested, at the very least, some didn't rise to the occasion. "I think it was pretty apparent this year that when the going got tough, players didn't come together as we should have," Marinovic said. "Your true nature comes to the forefront I think, and that's what happened so some players here."”
A post shared by Stefan Marinovic (@kiwi_man1) on Oct 30, 2018 at 4:19pm PDT
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bpk1E9-Hmih/?utm_source=ig_embed
Ooh, scandalous. Here’s the full exit interview he did, which has way more interesting insights than just the personality troubles that the club may or may not have had to deal with…
Some insights on the challenges with having Latino team mates who can go all Carlos Hernandez when the going gets tough and/or they don't get their way. Plus a few tips to Vancouver wunder kid Alphonso Daviers on how tough Germany will be, and a brief mention of AWs in last 5 mins
