Caps get a late ‘Brek’ to roll past Rapids
If you want to even step to the door leading to the room of being taken seriously, you need to present wins like this among your credentials.
Friday night, the Whitecaps looked to be cruising to a tidy 0-0 Major League Soccer draw on the road against the Colorado Rapids. Instead they came away from Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colo. with a 1-0 win on the back of an 84th-minute goal from Brek Shea.
Wait, Brek Shea?
Yes, the big American forward didn’t just return to playing fitness, he found a goal along the way, too.
Shea and his substitute comrades — Nico Mezquida and Alphonso Davies — all made an impact, exactly what coach Carl Robinson would have hoped they’d do.
It’s not like the Whitecaps were looking poor before they came on; but in the thin air of Colorado, you knew the Whitecaps would probably need a late spark to keep their tight effort together and they did that. Davies came on for Tony Tchani in the 65th minute. Shea came on four minutes later for Cristian Techera, pushing Davies out to the right. Once there, the teen proved an able replacement for the once-again energetic Bug, with driving runs down the right. He even picked up some of Sheanon Williams’ work too, as the right back had played off Techera really well all night.
Mezquida came on in the 80th minute and did what he’s done all season as a key sub for Robinson: he ran his tail off. He also delivered the perfect diagonal pass to Shea, putting him into space just inside Colorado’s half after a Rapids attack was cleared from the Whitecaps’ end.
Shea sprinted on to the ball, kept a defender at bay and fired the ball past Rapids goalie Tim Howard, who had raced out in hopes of closing off the space, but no such luck.
For the third consecutive game, Robinson went with a 4-1-4-1 formation and it clicked once again.
The Whitecaps’ attacking group — Fredy Montero up top, Techera and the again impressive Christian Bolanos out wide, with Tchani and Andrew Jacobson in midfield — showed lots of movement and
might have had a goal or two before Shea struck, but for some poor finishing in front of Howard.
On the defensive end, the Whitecaps again looked solid, as the decision to play Matias Laba on his own in defensive midfield continues to look like a master stroke.
Laba looks to have returned to his seek-and-destroy form of 2015, keeping the area in front of centre backs Kendall Waston and Tim Parker clear of trouble. The two big men gave Colorado’s lone striker, the veteran Alan Gordon, little space.
Only once was David Ousted called upon to clean up — and of course it was in spectacular fashion. A cross into the box was missed by the centre backs and somehow bounced off Gordon’s knee before a scrambling back Jordan Harvey got his foot on the ball. The clearance went flying toward the goalline but rebounded off the left post.
Ousted dove back and swatted the ball off the line while he was still a foot off the ground.