Playoff push over despite impressive rally in L.A.
The 22,000 in Banc of California Stadium were rocking.
Diego Rossi had staked LAFC to a 2-0 lead before the game was 15 minutes old, and celebrity fan Will Ferrell was whipping the 3552 Angelinos supporters section into an undulated black-and-gold frenzy. But the Vancouver Whitecaps had made a promise, and — surprisingly, considering the situation — kept it. They’d promised never to give in again, and they didn’t, as Yordy Reyna and Jordon Mutch scored to rally the Whitecaps to a 2-2 tie against one of the MLS Cup favourites on Sunday.
It was a gritty effort, but in the end, only counted for pride as the Caps were mathematically eliminated with the result.
Here’s what we learned …
PHONZIE EFFECT
“Whomever the Whitecaps bring in as new coach is going to have to bring in a major-level talent to replace Alphonso Davies,” says Captain Obvious. The 17-year-old was, by and large, the only offence the Caps could muster for much of the game, and he did it despite being double and triple-teamed.
Davies pounded the point home for effect every time he got the ball in space. With the Caps down 2-0, the Bayern-bound talent collected the ball in his own third and charged down the left flank while being marked by both fullback Danilo Silva and backchecking midfielder Lee Nguyen.
After out-pacing both, he split between them before being blatantly chopped down in the box by midfielder Benny Feilhaber.
Reyna converted the ensuing penalty kick in the 22nd minute for his sixth goal of the season to give the Caps some life.
Davies had six successful dribbles on the day, extending his MLS -leading total to 123, and had a team-high three key passes.
Expect the oft-repeated theme of this upcoming week to be “Portland is the last time you’ll be able to see Phonzie play live.”
FAMILIAR HOLE
The Caps put themselves behind the eight-ball after the usual gamut of half-mistakes and soft defence.
Rossi’s first goal, five minutes in, began from a sequence that saw fullback Jake Nerwinski and Reyna get tangled up and go down in a heap. The Caps defence was on their heels, and it didn’t take much to unravel it, with Carlos Vela’s through-ball the final tug on the string, as Rossi fired it home from 10 yards out.
The second goal was peak Bob Bradley ball. The attack-from-theback philosophy saw it take five touches from the top of the LAFC 18 to the back of the net behind Stefan Marinovic.
Scrambling to keep up with the ball and player movement, the defence saw Aaron Kovar’s cross redirected by a diving Kendall Waston and roll right to Rossi on the corner of the six-yard box.
It could have been four goals in the first half for Rossi but for a sliding block from Nerwinski and another volley bouncing over the bar from seven yards out.
‘GENIUS’ OF DALRYMPLE
Twice, Craig Dalrymple has subbed on Mutch late in games, and both times the decision was initially met by tweetstorms and condemnation veiled as confusion from the broadcasters. But he was vindicated both times.
Against Toronto, Mutch came on in place of Aly Ghazal in the 75th minute, and set up Kei Kamara’s game-winning goal.
On Sunday, he subbed off Reyna, who had been the Caps most effective offensive creator aside from Davies, in the 61st minute. Four minutes later, the former Premier Leaguer unleashed a 25-yard rocket, by far the most impressive goal from distance for the Whitecaps this year, to knot the score at 2-2.
WHAT THIS MEANS
The Whitecaps (12-13-8) had needed to win both their remaining games and top Real Salt Lake’s goal-differential to make the playoffs.
The tie leaves them on 44 points and in eighth place with one game remaining.
RSL (14-13-7, 49 pts.) lost 3-0 to Portland in their final game on Sunday, leaving the door open for the L.A. Galaxy (13-11-9, 48 pts.) to slide into the final playoff berth next week when they host Houston. The Galaxy beat Minnesota 3-1 on Sunday to put themselves in the driver’s seat.
BY THE NUMBERS
LAFC outshot the Whitecaps 20-10 overall — the same total for the second-straight game for Vancouver — but the shots on target were much closer (5-4). All but four of L.A.’s shots came inside the box.
Vancouver only completed 66 per cent of passes — 12 points under their season average — and without Kamara in the lineup, only won seven of 23 aerial battles.