Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Union get sweet win at home, thanks to Dockal
For 45 minutes, the Union were in danger of penning the same old story. Dominate possession at home, create chances, deny the opposition looks at goal, have precious little to show for it on the scoreboard.
Borek Dockal ensured that the gathering clouds of frustration broke.
Dockal scored in the 24th and 71st minutes, and the Union deposited two penalties as it marked Sebastien Le Toux’s induction as the inaugural member of the club’s Ring of Honor with a 4-0 pummeling of the nine-man Vancouver Whitecaps.
“We’re at a stage where I know we’re going to play good soccer now,” coach Jim Curtin said. “I know that we’re going to keep the ball. I know that we’re going to attack and create chances. The only question is how will the group respond to adversity? So if Vancouver did score a goal against the run of play, how strong are we to rebound from that? Fortunately we didn’t get to find out today. … I thought we deserved the three points, and it was probably one of our best performances on the season in terms of completing the shutout, four goals, and being fairly comfortable.”
Dockal’s first goal was the only return for a dominant first half in which the Union outshot Vancouver, 15-0, and owned 68 percent of the ball. But they entered the break with a precarious one-goal edge, an all-too-familiar script.
The key to stopping an encore of home wastefulness was more of the same — offense as the best defense against the Whitecaps’ bunker-and-counter strategy, more probing of the Vancouver defense until cracks appeared. And when they did, Dockal had the savage instincts to pounce.
“For the first time this season, I felt like we had control over 90 minutes,” Dockal said. “Usually we make it difficult in the second half for ourselves conceding a stupid goal. This time we had full control the whole game. I think the first half was the best half we played this season.”
The result of that control was a 25-2 edge in shots, holding the Whitecaps without a shot on target.
Ilsinho tacked on a PK in the 74th, and Fafa Picault added one as the last action of the game; each penalty elicited dismissals, with Cory Burke hauled down by Jose Aja for a straight red card and Yordy Reyna picking up his second yellow in felling Picault.
The win ends a two-game losing streak for the Union (6-7-3, 21 points) and temporarily nudges them above the red line in the East, pending results later Saturday.
Dockal admitted the first goal was inspired by a bit of fortune. After Ilsinho penetrated the penalty area down the right flank, he slipped a pass to Dockal, who tried to flick it back to the Brazilian, but the ball hit his standing leg and stayed with him. No matter, as he calmly took a stride toward the penalty spot and curled one on his left past backup goalie Brian Rowe.
That move echoed an approach the Union have deployed all season. With Ilsinho and Alejandro Bedoya, they tilt to the right side of the field. Saturday, that brought them in contact with makeshift left back Brek Shea and young midfielder Alphonso Davies. Early success begat more chances, and soon the left half of the Whitecaps’ backline might as well have sported a bullseye.
“You try to find the weakness of the opponent,” Dockal said. “Today you could really see from the first minute there was a lot of space on our right-hand side to create chances, and we already had two or three good chances in the first 10 minutes. We just kept going to make them busy on the left side. I think we deserved to score even more goals today.”
“We’re a right-side dominant team,” Curtin said. “Ale’s tendency is to drift over there. We’ve talked about it a bunch and it’s a case of if it’s not broke, don’t try to fix it and overthink things.”
Bedoya set up the 71st-minute tally with a squared pass from the right. Left with acres of space after turning Shea inside-out, Dockal coolly slotted home his team-leading fifth goal of the season. Bedoya’s assist is his fourth.
Burke made an instant impact when he replaced CJ Sapong in the 66th after the starter, shaking off an illness that kept him out last week, struggled to make an impact. Burke was hauled down six minutes after entering, Aja getting two arms around his shoulders as the last defender. Ilsinho grabbed the ball quickly and Dockal acquiesced, the Brazilian rifling home his fourth goal of the season.
The Union have won all four games in which Ilsinho has scored, going 0-7-3 when he hasn’t. It’s the third penalty Burke has drawn.
The PK intrigue was greater the second time when Reyna hacked down Picault. Burke looked set to take it before Picault, in Curtin’s words, “threw a little bit of a fit” and Curtin “overruled that” to give Picault the shot. He didn’t miss, powering his second goal into the roof of the net.
“I think it was important for me because we played a lot on the right side tonight, and some games are like that,” Picault said. “I didn’t see as much of the ball. I thought I was effective when I had it. I think I didn’t see it as much, but when I did cause the penalty, I wanted to be the one to shoot it.”
The Whitecaps (6-6-3, 23 points) produced precious little. Their first shot of any kind came in the 53rd minute. It didn’t help that wunderkind Davies left at halftime, worse for wear after a hard tackle by Bedoya.
The dominance bodes well for the Union with a trip to Los Angeles looming. And for Dockal, whose wife is expecting the couple’s second child this week, it’s a good start to the week.
“It’s important to make the results, to have a confident group,” he said. “I can see the potential. I know we can play like we did today, but it’s also about your opponent. I think we played really well today.”