TWO FOR THE SHOW
Ousted stops two penalty kicks in Whitecaps win.
Eight times in his MLS career, Vancouver Whitecaps goalkeeper David Ousted had stood on his line facing the daunting task of stopping a freely taken shot from just 12 yards out.
Eight times he came up empty. Opposing players converted low just inside the post, high to a top corner, or beat him with a cheeky chip down the middle after Ousted had committed too early to his right or left.
But on Saturday, the big Danish keeper was as solid as a Wadden Sea dike, denying New York’s Bradley Wright-Phillips not once, but twice, as the Caps earned a club-record fifth road win of the season, 2-1 over the Red Bulls.
The six-foot-four Ousted, battling illness and wearing the captain’s arm band in the absence of the injured Pedro Morales (calf), became just the third MLS goalkeeper to save two penalties in the same game. More ignominiously, Wright-Phillips, the league’s Golden Boot winner in 2014 with 27 goals, became the first MLS player to miss on two penalties in the same game.
“The PKs are always difficult,” an exhausted Ousted said after the game. “It’s an open chance and no one is pressuring him. Luckily, I got two today and we got the win.”
Luck, or good pre-game scouting by Ousted? Luck, or just bad execution by Wright-Phillips?
Ousted certainly got lucky earlier this season in Portland, when Darlington Nagbe blasted a penalty off the goalpost.
Penalties are one of the most tension-filled plays in soccer. They are a controversial, yet dramatic way to end international matches that are tied after 120 minutes and an often overly punitive sanction when a team is whistled for a marginal foul or innocuous handball in the box.
Remember last season’s MLS playoff game in Dallas? Caps’ centre back Kendall Waston was called for a handball at the edge of the box on a softly headed ball that wasn’t dangerous. Michel converted and FC Dallas won 2-1.
In top leagues around the world, the conversion rate on penalties is usually in the 75-80 per cent range, although MLS players are sitting at just under 70 per cent so far this season. The English-born Wright-Phillips was, however, 2-for-2 before Saturday after going 6-for-6 from the spot in his Golden Boot season in 2014. He got his first opportunity against the Caps in the fifth minute after fullback Steven Beitashour cut down Sal Zizzo just inside the box.
Ousted knew from watching video that Wright-Phillips liked to go to the ’keeper’s right. He guessed right, dove right, and rather easily got two hands on a chest-high shot that the Red Bulls striker surely wished he had put lower.
“Big credit to the guys who do our video back in Vancouver,” said Ousted. “They give me all the video of the penalties of the other team we’re going to face. It helps me get ready and it helps me analyze what we’re up against. You look for the little tells when you’re standing and looking at him.”
Five minutes after the save, the Red Bulls went down to 10 men after Sacha Kljestan was redcarded for foolishly kicking his heel at Waston during a stoppage in play. Five minutes after that, Kekuta Manneh gave the Caps a 1-0 lead converting, from close range, a brilliantly whipped-in cross from Beitashour.
“They came out guns blazing and (a successful Wright-Phillips penalty) would have capped a good first 10 minutes for them,” said Ousted. “It was important to save that and keep us in the game.”
With the score still 1-0 and the Caps looking more like the side down a man, Beitashour was whistled again in the 65th minute, this time for tugging the shirt of Anatole Abang who was attempting to get on a cross into the box. As Wright-Phillips bent at the knees contemplating what he would do, Caps’ centre back Pa-Modou Kah, an aggravating motor-mouth on the pitch, was in his ear. We don’t know what was said, but it may very well have unnerved Wright-Phillips.
He tried to go down the middle with his shot, but Ousted hesitated ever so briefly and the ball smacked into his chest and arm and away.
The Caps went up 2-0 in the 77th minute on a first MLS goal from 19-year-old Canadian Kianz Froese and then gave one back in the 82nd minute before Ousted preserved the win with a brilliant diving save off a low, bouncing ball in the 84th minute.
“He’s been outstanding,” head coach Carl Robinson said of Ousted, who has a 0.94 goals against average and is tied for second with seven shutouts.
“It was my goalkeeper’s night, and my team’s night, and I’m delighted.”
Perhaps Saturday’s performance will inspire fans to start backing Ousted, who hasn’t even cracked the top five goaltenders in fan voting for the MLS all-star game.