Sounders oust archrival Caps from post-season play
Sounders forward generates his own storm, scoring the only two goals of the series
Before the deciding game of their playoff series with the Seattle Sounders, Carl Robinson tried every conceivable ploy — and a few that were inconceivable — to give the Vancouver Whitecaps a psychological edge.
The Caps head coach was mysterious about his starting lineup, sending out a series of mixed signals about the availability of Yordy Reyna and Cristian Techera before inserting both players in the starting lineup Thursday night. He was cagey about his tactics, suggesting his team would favour a defensive posture and hope to manufacture an away goal, then played a lineup designed to create offence.
If that wasn’t enough, Robinson broke the cardinal rule of all coaches when he predicted the Whitecaps would win the second leg of the Western Conference. He even gave the final score: One-nil, Whitecaps.
Good one, Carl. At least you didn’t provide any bulletin-board material for the opposition.
Add it all up and, depending on your point of view, they were either the acts of a madman or part of a brilliantly conceived plan to discombobulate the Sounders. But while you can give Robinson some credit for ingenuity, there was one aspect of this game he couldn’t influence, one element that lay beyond his fevered reach.
Try as he might, there was still a chasm between the Sounders and the Whitecaps in the collective abilities of their players. That other stuff made for good copy for the game. Ultimately, the Sounders’ players had the final say on the subject.
Clint Dempsey, the American international, struck the decisive blow in the Sounders’ 2-0 win on Thursday, then counted the insurance marker, giving the home team a berth in the Western Conference final. The 2-0 final was also the count in the two-game aggregate, which suggests this series was a battle between two evenly matched teams that wasn’t decided until the 88th minute of the second game.
In reality, it wasn’t that close. In front of a delirious and moist crowd of 39,587 at CenturyLink Field, Dempsey’s goal in the 56th minute was the inevitable result of near-continuous pressure exerted by the Sounders through the 90-plus minutes. Following a scoreless first half, Dempsey finished off a fivetouch passing play highlighted by a Will Bruin back heel that helped spring the Sounders’ forward. His left-footer beat Caps keeper Stefan Marinovic cleanly.
Dempsey, who was suspended for Game 1 in Vancouver, then iced the win in the dying minutes when he converted Victor Rodriguez’s pass.
Despite Robinson’s — theoretically, at least — more skilled lineup, the Whitecaps again created next to nothing in the final third over the length of the match. After failing to produce so much as a shot on Sounders goalie Stefan Frei in Game 1, the Caps again went without a shot over the first half and their first shot on Frei came on a harmless Christian Bolanos header in the 65th minute. They didn’t win a corner until the 70th.
Following Dempsey’s goal, the Caps did have more of the ball, but that possession failed to generate anything at Frei. Techera and Reyna, who were held out of the starting lineup in Sunday’s game at B.C. Place, were ineffectual in their starting roles. Alphonso Davies, the brilliant teen, came on in the 64th minute for Techera and made no impact.
Even at 1-0, the Whitecaps were a bounce away from a goal that would have sent them through to the conference final, but they were no closer to scoring in the final minutes than they’d been throughout the series.
The Sounders, in fact, looked closer to blowing the game open in the first half, particularly in the game’s opening moments and the latter parts of the first 45 minutes. With the two sides playing in driving rain, the Whitecaps escaped a penalty when Jake Nerwinski hauled down Sounders left back Nouhou Tolo near the area. Nerwinski limped off after the play and was replaced by veteran Jordan Harvey.
The Sounders’ best chance, meanwhile, came in stoppage time when Dempsey’s tap back just failed to connect with a sliding Bruin. Fittingly, it was those two players who combined on the game-winning goal.