Resurgent Whitecaps get a boost from return of suspended Cavallini
Lucas Cavallini is back on the positive side of the news ledger.
Cavallini came off the bench in the second half Saturday night and scored the winner in the 84th minute for the Vancouver Whitecaps in their 2-1 triumph over Real Salt Lake in Sandy, Utah.
The forward from Mississauga, Ont., who was one of Vancouver's key off-season additions, had sat out the Caps' 3-1 win over the Montreal Impact on Wednesday at B.C. Place, serving a one-game suspension for his role in a fracas the previous Sunday in a 4-2 loss to the Impact.
“I didn't like the way I played my last game ... how things happened,” Cavallini, 27, told reporters in the post-game Zoom interview after the triumph over Salt Lake.
“I need my vengeance and luckily today I got it.
“This is a new page for me and I need to keep going like this: positivity and a lot of heart and goals more than ever. We need these to keep getting these points that we need.”
Saturday's win marked the first time the Whitecaps have won back-to-back games all season and gave them three wins in their past four starts. Vancouver (5-7-0) woke up Sunday above the playoff line in the MLS Western Conference, holding down seventh spot.
The top eight teams in the 12club loop make the post-season and, fittingly in these COVID-19 times, the West standings are difficult to gauge.
A mere two points separate the sixth-place Colorado Rapids (4-44) and 11th-place Real Salt Lake (3-4-5).
The Caps have 11 games left in the regular season and they likely all will be played in the U.S., due to uncertainty regarding border restrictions brought on by the coronavirus.
Only two of Vancouver's remaining games have been announced so far, with a visit to Los Angeles FC (4-5-3) on Wednesday and then a trip to the Portland Timbers (5-43) on Sunday.
“It's not going to be nice, our run being on the road for two months,” Caps coach Marc Dos Santos told the media after the game Saturday. “The most important thing is how can we get results. The personality and the attitude of the players was very good (against Real Salt Lake).
“We have to understand what's coming next is still hard. It's still a challenge. We have be strong and keep going.”
Among the challenges Saturday was that the officials tacked a whopping nine minutes of injury time onto the second half as Vancouver tried to cling to that one-goal lead. The ever-quotable Dos Santos had fun with that afterwards.
“I was thinking I'm 43 and I'm going to be 61 after this game,” he said of that injury-time addition. “There was a moment where I looked at my watch and in my head I go, `Four minutes still?' It looked like an eternity.”