VANCOUVER, B.C. – Vancouver Whitecaps' striker Octavio Rivero certainly made an explosive start to his MLS career.
With five goals in his first six matches, the Uruguayan lit up the league in the opening weeks of the season as the Whitecaps powered to the top of the standings.
Initial impact over and with chances proving harder to come by, Rivero hasn't found the back of the net in Vancouver's last four games. The Whitecaps have also struggled in the goalscoring stakes as a result, managing just two goals in those matches.
Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson has been delighted with Rivero’s start and sees his recent run of form as a temporary halt to what he expects from the striker this year. But Robinson has also stressed from the start that Vancouver can't just be a one-man team in terms of goals and is looking for his other attackers to step up and help out more.
"I'm not concerned about Octavio because I thought he was excellent in Portland [a scoreless draw last weekend]," Robinson told media at training on Thursday. "His hold-up play was brilliant, his movement was excellent, he just didn't score a goal. He could be okay between the boxes and score one or two goals and everyone will stick him in the MLS Team of the Week. Is that a big thing for me? No.
"Octavio's been outstanding. If Octavio doesn't score, it's important that someone else scores. It hasn't happened as of yet, but we've got to make sure and keep working that it does."
Rivero has enjoyed his first few months in MLS, but despite all the early season plaudits he's garnered, the striker puts it down to a combined team effort, one which needs to return for the Whitecaps to get back to goal-scoring and winning ways with a home match looming Saturday against the Philadelphia Union (7 pm ET; TSN1).
"We’ve started well, but there are things to correct, and I believe we’re continuing to work on them," Rivero told MLSSoccer.com. "There’s still a lot left. We have a good team. We have to work and keep working, and I believe we can get good results.
"In my first five games, six games, we continued scoring goals as a whole team. I don’t believe that it was just me scoring the goals and the [last] four games, we saw this from the team. A player by himself doesn’t score goals, rather the team as a whole."
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It’s been his aforementioned work rate and hold-up play that’s impressing Robinson at the moment. With the focus on strikers and their goalscoring stats, it's an aspect of Rivero's game that Robinson feels is somewhat undervalued but a crucial one that he expects from all his forwards.
"I look at it more than just putting a ball in the back of the net," Robinson said. "You're there and judged on goals, but what you bring to the team is also what you're judged on or what I judge my players on.
"With Darren [Mattocks], with Erik [Hurtado], with Octavio and with Earnie [Robert Earnshaw], they've got to bring, and they do bring, different characteristics and attributes to the team."
