WHITECAPS MISS CHANCE TO ELIMINATE ALL DOUBT
Securing first with win over San Jose would have turned page for MLS franchise
They came for a memory Sunday, the kind of memory the Vancouver Whitecaps have seldom provided in their MLS story, and for 77 minutes, the script was being written.
There was a wonder goal in the 29th minute, a brilliant piece of choreography that started with a throw-in and ended with a Yordy Reyna tap-in after six Caps had touched the ball. There was the customary stout defending that made it seem like that goal would stand up. There was the everpresent threat of the Whitecaps’ counter-attack that threatened to blow the game wide open.
It was all there for this team and its supporters. A moment to cherish. A moment to call their own. It just never came.
But the disappointment that has hounded this franchise did.
“Listen, there’s no pressure on us,” said head coach Carl Robinson shortly after his team fashioned a 1-1 draw with the San Jose Earthquakes that feels like a loss. “We’re at the top of the table and everyone is trying to knock us down, which is fine. But we’re happy we’re there. We prefer to be there than fifth of sixth hanging on to our playoff lives.
“It shows how far we’ve come that we are disappointed. We’re sitting at the top of the table and we’re disappointed because we couldn’t find three points at home.”
But, really, those three points weren’t that hard to locate. They were sitting in front of them the entire game.
On a brilliant fall afternoon, the stage was set for the Whitecaps to provide a moment for their impassioned supporters. A win against the Earthquakes would have clinched first place in the West. More importantly, it would have sent the message that this is a different Caps team, a team that could leave its mark on MLS while proving the kind of memory that’s been missing from the club’s archives.
And who knows? Maybe they’ll provide that moment. But Robinson’s squad made things infinitely more difficult for themselves by surrendering a late tying goal to San Jose’s Valeri Qazaishvili after they’d done all the heavy lifting on their way to glory.
The net effect of this lost opportunity? The Whitecaps now have to travel to Portland next weekend — a city that has generally been as hospitable to the Caps as the Bates Motel — where a tie or a win will still deliver top spot in the West.
One supposes that’s possible. It just would have been a lot easier with a win on Sunday and that win was right there for the Whitecaps.
Reyna’s goal gave them the lead but, early in the second half, the Caps had a series of gilt-edged chances to blow the game open. Fredy Montero and Reyna were in the middle of most of those opportunities, but they couldn’t convert and, slowly, the Earthquakes awoke to the thought they were still in the contest.
Qazaishvili would strike the decisive blow on a nifty backheel from Chris Wondolowski and the Caps couldn’t respond.
“It worried me when you don’t get the second goal and kill teams off,” Robinson said. “This league is very tight. When that happens, when you miss chance after chance, it comes back to bite you on the bum sometimes and it certainly did today.”
It often has for the Caps, even this year when things looked and felt so different. Since July 1, about the time Reyna emerged as a difference-maker in their lineup, the Caps have gone 9-4-4 and answered most every question asked of them. True, there had been a couple of hiccups on the road. But the larger impression was the deepest, most compete team in the Caps’ MLS history; a team that could defend, a team that could score, a team that had star power.
So does a tie in their penultimate game against a team they should have beaten change any of that?
It shouldn’t. But, on top of everything else, the Caps now have their own history working against them. This is a team that hasn’t won a playoff game in its MLS history. This is a team that has generally been competitive, but never terribly relevant.
That’s why Sunday’s game carried so much weight for Robinson’s team. That’s why this game represented a chance to distance themselves from past iterations.
“We know we have to go to Portland,” Robinson said. “It’s a difficult place to go to. They’re a good team. It should be a good game. It all sets up nicely.”
Especially if they get the ending right this time.
A moment to cherish. A moment to call their own. It just never came.