Rose makes memorable return to Caps
Midfielder comes back from injury to score the winner in closing minutes against Colorado
Andy Rose, his face bloodied and already beginning to swell from a brutal clashing of heads with Dynamo forward Mauro Manotas, wasn’t about to walk off the field in Houston.
His team needed him in Texas. Down 3-2 with 10 minutes left, the Vancouver Whitecaps were out of substitutes, and were heartbeats away from starting the Major League Soccer season 0-3.
“It was funny. Immediately I knew we’d used all three subs, and I knew the score … I was very aware of the situation … and in my mind, I was playing. I was going to continue on,” he said of the game in March.
A mild fuzziness in vision, thankfully, convinced him to let the training staff lead him away.
“It probably took until halfway down the tunnel that I really realized, ‘Oh, I’m not feeling good here,’” said Rose.
He’d fractured his orbital bone and was — no surprise — concussed. The concussion, facial fracture and a pocket of air near his brain had doctors concerned enough that he didn’t travel back with the team to Vancouver. Instead, he spent eight days in Houston, his wife by his side, before being cleared to fly.
It was 48 long days and six games before Rose stepped on the field again in a Whitecaps jersey, coming on as a substitute in the 68th minute Friday in Commerce City, Col., to score the game-winning goal against the Colorado Rapids 20 minutes later.
Even then, he still felt cursed.
It looked like the Caps had scored the winner off a wondrous, curling shot from Lass Bangoura in the 83rd minute, but while the team was celebrating wildly on the sideline — Bangoura leaped into the arms of coach Marc Dos Santos and both were mobbed — video assistant referee Edvin Jurisevic indicated to head official Alex Chilowicz the goal was offside, and Rose
was the culprit.
It was poetic then, that after Bangoura tried a shot from the spot he had just scored from, the blocked effort caromed around the Rapids’ box to Rose, who took one touch and fired it home.
This time, he got to be the hero.
“Very happy for him because of the man he is. Sometimes, life is just fair with people like that,” said Dos Santos.
“It’s very refreshing and we’re very happy, not only to have Andy Rose back with the team, but for him to get the goal and help the team win the game.”
The Whitecaps had gone up 2-0 after 26 minutes thanks to goals from Fredy Montero and Lucas Venuto, but the PK curse that has broken their hearts so many times this season struck once again.
Former Whitecap Kei Kamara scored two goals from the spot, knotting the game 2-2 and putting the Caps on the canvas. Suddenly, the winless Rapids were in control. But the Caps managed to pull themselves to their feet for a standing 10 count after the Rapids’ No. 10, Diego Rubio, was redcarded for slapping Doneil Henry in the face in the 77th minute, and Colorado was reduced to 10 men.
“As soon as I got on, I made sure … I brought a lot of energy,” said Rose.
When the goal came — his first since Sept. 12, 2014 when he scored a 94th-minute winner for Real Salt Lake over the Seattle Sounders — it was redemption for a humbling and frustrating two months spent watching from the sidelines.
“The injury came at a tough time because I was in the team and was feeling really good,” said the 29-year-old Melbourne-born Brit, who’d started two consecutive games before getting hurt.
“So it’s been an opportunity to watch and learn from the sidelines. I think Rusty, Inbeom, Jon and Felipe have done really well the past six weeks, so it’s been an important time for me to watch, and learn and support. Today, knowing I was back involved, it was a great feeling.”
The Athletic’s Matt Pentz chronicled Rose’s neurotic and anxious experience watching the Caps play his former team, the Sounders, two weeks after his injury in Houston. The 6-2, 175-pound No. 8 missed the Cascadia Cup game that ended in a scoreless draw, but will be available when the Whitecaps host the Portland Timbers on Friday in the second Cascadia game of the season.
The Caps, after starting the year 0-4-1, are 2-1-2 in their last five, and realistically were just three singular defensive miscues from being 4-0-1.
“We shouldn’t get carried away, because we’re not quite where we want to be in the table, but three points today was important and I think the team deserved it,” Rose said Friday. “We have a lot of respect for (Colorado). We knew they were going to be a tough test.”