Vancouver Whitecaps FC entered Sunday afternoon with just one win in their last six games. They’d dropped from second to seventh in the Western Conference, and seen their league-leading scoring duo of Camilo and Kenny Miller suddenly go dry.
A visit from the MLS bottom dweller Chivas USA was just what the doctor ordered, then. The Caps had never lost at home to the Goats from LA, and surely they’d find their form, attack at will, and score a half dozen at least.
Right?
Uhhh, yeah. Right.
More after the jump.
Against the lowest-scoring team in the West, the Caps managed to find themselves down 2-nil after just 13 minutes of play. “Inexplicably, we started slowly again,” said coach Martin Rennie after the match, pointing at the early goal the LA Galaxy scored just a week ago. “Two weeks in a row after… three minutes, we’re a goal down, so that’s very, very frustrating. What made this one worse is that we then lost another goal.”
A minor consolation: both Chivas goals were highlight reel specimens. After Andy O’Brien’s header failed to clear the top of the box, Erick Torres offered up a spectacular bicycle kick, slotting the ball top left corner past David Ousted. It’s a play that will almost certainly vie for MLS Goal of the Week, although Torres should be DQ’d for his bush league el roboto goal celebration.
Torres would find himself unmarked by either O’Brien or Johnny Leveron just ten minutes later, allowing him ample time to head home a cross from midfielder Edgar Mejia. This time, domo arigato very much, his celebration was less… awkward.
I get that goal-scorers find a way to fill the net. And this kid Torres is, as Rennie put it after the game, “a very talented player.” I also get that O’Brien’s only two games into his return from injury. But Torres has scored enough since coming on loan from the Mexican League’s Guadalajara Chivas that he shouldn’t be taking the Caps by surprise like this. He scored twice against the Red Bulls last week, and now has six goals in six weeks. There’s no way a player of his skill set should have the time and space that he was gifted on both of his scoring plays against the Whitecaps. “We’ve got to be better in both boxes,” said Rennie. “We made it too easy for Torres early in the match, and we missed a handful of chances at the other end… that could have won us the game.”
After David Ousted made a stellar save on Bryan de la Fuente to open the second half, Gershon Koffie finally got the home side on the board. In the 63rd minute, Whitecaps FC midfielder Matt Watson pressured Chivas keeper Dan Kennedy to boot the ball forward from deep to the right of the box. Kennedy’s clearance went straight to Koffie about forty yards out. The Ghanaian-born midfielder quickly put the ball on net, and Kennedy was unable to scramble back to his line in time.
It was substitutes Erik Hurtado and Tommy Heinemann teaming up to even the score in stoppage time, after the Caps maintained a good 15 minutes of pressure to end the game. Kobayashi touched the ball wide left to Manneh, who delivered a perfect cross to Hurtado on the six-yard line. He headed the ball cross crease to the big man Heinemann, who buried it into the middle of the net before sprinting to centre field and pointing to the open roof.
“I had a feeling Heinemann could score if I got him out there,” said Rennie in his postgame comments, “and it’s great that Tommy rewarded that faith. He and Erik had a huge impact on the game in the second half.”
The home side should not use this as an excuse, but referee David Gantar was not the star of the show this night. He made a handful of atrocious calls in both directions, including a stellar miss that should make the networks’ Misplays of the Week features. Kennedy slid wide right to collect a ball before Camilo could run onto it, but the keeper’s momentum carried him outside the 18-yard box with the ball in his hands. Camilo leapt over the prone Kennedy as he tried desperately to push the ball back into the box to his defender. Everyone in the stadium caught this except Gantar, who whistled Camilo for a phantom foul. Replays in stadium clearly showed that the Brazilian didn’t touch Kennedy, but there was the keeper feigning injury and getting the call from a weak referee.
The Caps desperately missed the calming influence of Nigel Reo-Coker in the middle of the pitch. While rookie attacking midfielder Kekuta Manneh showed some promising flashes here and there — and let’s be fair, his cross to Hurtado on the tying goal was a thing of beauty — overall he was dreadful when it came to ball control and distribution. That’s not just a gut feeling from the side of the pitch. MLS Chalkboard bears out my suspicions: Manneh was the only Whitecap on this night to complete fewer than 50% of his passes in this game.
For the second game in a row, Vancouver dominated in most statistical categories. They held a wide edge in ball possession and shots attempted. But against the Galaxy and Chivas USA on home soil, the Caps were only able to earn one out of a possible six points. In both games they gave up a goal in the opening three minutes of play. In both games losing the match boiled down to defensive breakdowns at one end and missed opportunities at the other. Both games left the Caps looking for excuses after the fact.
Now they’ve got three straight away from BC Place, in Dallas, San Jose and Montreal. They sit outside the playoff picture at the moment. They need points on the road or there won’t be post-season matches for the Whitecaps this year.
Martin Rennie, postgame: