Don’t mess with Texas, originally a slogan of the state transportation department’s anti-littering campaign, now is widely seen as an identity, a declaration of Texas swagger.

The Vancouver Whitecaps will see it simply as a huge challenge. Five of their final nine Major League Soccer regular season games, starting Saturday at BC Place Stadium, are against Texas teams — FC Dallas (three) and the Houston Dynamo (two) — they have yet to face in 2015.

Dallas, which knocked Vancouver out of the 2014 playoffs, is four points back of the second-place Caps in the Western Conference with two games in hand. Houston is seventh in the West, desperate to move into a top-six playoff spot.

Head coach Carl Robinson hopes a third party in those crucial games doesn’t mess things up.

“We’ve got a lot of meaningful games coming up, which is good,” Robinson said after his club’s heartbreaking 4-3 loss Saturday at Sporting Kansas City. “But let the teams play. Let the teams decide who is the best team on the pitch — no one else.”

That was part of his post-game rant — to the in-stadium media and on the TSN 1410 post-game radio show — about referee Juan Guzman and the general state of MLS officiating.

Whether it was calculated or not — and it seemed to be a thinly disguised attempt to deflect attention away from his club’s failure to protect a late two-goal lead and lose on a stoppage-time stunner — Robinson went into unchartered territory.

Usually cautious when discussing officiating, Robinson basically threw down a signed cheque. He questioned Guzman’s work, his competency to referee a big game between two top teams, and intimated that MLS and its officials had it in for the Caps and Canadian teams.

“I said to the group, if we’re going to do something special (this season), we’re going to get no help from anyone,” he said. “We’re Vancouver. We’re from Canada. We’re going to have to do it against all odds. No one, and I mean no one, is going to help us — as proven (Saturday night).”

Robinson, though, might want to consider how his own actions are influencing officials. Is there another MLS coach who spends as much sideline time in the ear and the face of the fourth official as Vancouver’s bench boss?

Robinson said he was “super frustrated” by many decisions, the most controversial of which was Matt Besler’s sliding tackle on striker Octavio Rivero in the box with the score 3-3. Guzman was in good position, though, and made a quick, decisive call to allow play to continue.

And that was the odd thing about Robinson’s bluster. Certainly there have been games this season with more egregious refereeing decisions.

Given the way the Caps capitulated over the final 20 minutes, albeit against a very good SKC side, and failed, despite the three goals, to convert enough gilt-edged chances on the counter-attack, Robinson had to be more frustrated with his troops than the referee.

But he won’t call out players. He’s been a master all season at covering their backs, of taking responsibility himself when he could have unloaded on his team.