TIMBER! CAPS FALL FROM FIRST
Club must see way through San Jose
In a game that was supposed to define their season — and who they are — the Vancouver Whitecaps were outplayed, outworked and outsmarted by a clearly superior side.
The resulting 2-1 loss to the Portland Timbers cost the Whitecaps first place in the Western Conference, which was bad enough. But, just think how bad it would have been if they hadn’t scored the game’s first goal.
“I’m disappointed for the guys but they shouldn’t be disappointed,” said head coach Carl Robinson outside a solemn dressing room. “Our body of work is 34 games (of the MLS regular season) and we finished third by one point. We can all say we should have done this or we should have done that. But every team can do that.
“Cup football starts now. Now it’s win or go home and we knew that would be the occasion, irrelevant of what happened today. Now the real stuff starts.”
And it will start Wednesday at home with a single elimination against San Jose but the road through the playoffs could have been a lot easier for Robinson’s squad.
With a chance to secure top spot in the West with a win or a tie, MLS decision day turned out to be decidedly depressing for the Whitecaps. Before a raucous, sellout crowd of 21,144 flagwaving loonies, the Whitecaps opened the scoring on Kendall Waston’s first half header, then spent most of the next hour defending desperately as the Timbers came at them in waves.
The final scoresheet would reveal Liam Ridgewell scored the tying goal three minutes after Waston’s marker and old friend Darren Mattocks scored the eventual game-winner early in the first half but it didn’t reveal the constant pressure the Timbers applied to the Whitecaps’
defence or the futility of the visitors’ attack. The Timbers directed 18 shots at Whitecaps goalie Stefan Marinovic, including a startling 12 from inside the box. The Whitecaps directed just seven shots at Portland goalie Jeff Attinella.
Portland also had 60 per cent of the ball possession and a huge lead in the all-important ‘ohmy-god-how-did-that-not-go-in’ category. In their MLS history, the Whitecaps have one win and four draws to show for their 11 games in Portland. They’ll also remember this latest loss longer than most.
“The game panned out as I thought it might,” said Robinson. “It was a tactical battle and we got our noses in front then we give away a bad goal and they were on top for the next 15 minutes.
“We came out in the second half and said, ‘Start strong.’ And we conceded again. Those are the little details and if you don’t get the details right it will bite you on the backside. When they’re ahead, they can change the way they play.”
Robinson, as it happens, left himself wide open to secondguessing when he opted to start Marinovic in goal over David Ousted, the Whitecaps starting goalie for the last four years. You couldn’t pin this one on the New Zealander but he could have done better on Ridgewell’s goal when he failed to parry Darlington Nagbe’s shot to safety.
The Whitecaps’ bench boss also opted to give midfielder Nosa Igiebor his first start as a Whitecap for Fredy Montero, who had been nicked in training on Thursday. Igiebor wasn’t the team’s biggest problem but, with Bernie Ibini, Christian Bolanos and Yordy Reyna, he was part of a midfield that generated little flow or possession in the first half.
Reyna, in particular, looked lost in open play without Montero as his running mate.
“Fredy said he felt he could (have started) but I knew we’d have another game. But I made the call,” said Robinson. “I’m the manager. I make calls.”
Now he has some huge calls to make in the playoff game with San Jose, the team the Whitecaps failed to beat at home last weekend which put them in their current predicament.
“We gave it away in the San Jose game at B.C. Place,” said Waston. “Now we have another opportunity against them and it’s a nice opportunity. Every team is fighting at the beginning of the season to get in there. Now, hopefully, we can take our opportunity.”
They’re also going into the San Jose game with one win in their last five starts but Robinson chose to look at things differently.
“There’s no spin on it,” he said. “Over the course of the season we’ve fallen a little bit short. We have to accept that but the club should be proud.”
Maybe, but a first-place finish would have made them prouder.