Report and Reaction: In-form St Louis City put Whitecaps to the sword in comprehensive victory

Thirteen. Unlucky for some, and on Saturday night at BC Place, it was certainly that for Vancouver Whitecaps, as the visiting St Louis City extended their unbeaten run in Major League Soccer to 13 matches with a 3-1 come-from-behind victory against the Western Conference leaders.

Emmanuel Sabbi got Vancouver off to the perfect start in the 2nd minute, but St Louis hit back with three unanswered goals from Simon Becher, Tomas Totland, and Conard Wallem to go into the break with a deserved lead. The visitors comfortably saw out the second half and the most in-form team in the conference came away with a big three points and close the gap on the ‘Caps at the top of the table.

For Vancouver, they will be hoping this result is just a little wobble, but once again the lack of finishing and quality in all areas of the park left you wondering about the team’s depth and how much the team struggles as soon as you move down the pecking order a little bit.

Jesper Sorensen made seven changes from the side that started the midweek draw with Montreal in the Canadian Championship, but started this one with the 11 players that finished it.

Fresher legs? Perhaps, and they certainly got off to a flying start, opening the scoring with barely two minutes on the clock when St Louis’ Daniel Edelman played a pass straight to Sabbi, who took it forward into the danger area before firing low past Roman Burki.

Vancouver pushed for a quick second and Sabbi fired agonisingly inches wide in the 8th minute, as the ‘Caps barely gave the visitors a sniff of the ball, never mind chances.

The Whitecaps failed to turn that pressure into another goal and St Louis started to find their feet, and the better goalscoring opportunities.

In the 20th minute, Edel was tackled outside the box by Andres Cubas. The ball flew up in the air, falling perfectly into the path of Becher, but he was denied by an excellent leg save from Yohei Takaoka.

The former Whitecap wasn’t to be denied, however, and he fired his side level just three minutes later, with a lovely finish after being played in by a perfectly weighted through ball from Alexandru Matan.

Becher almost grabbed a second in the 32nd minute, but his shot was saved by Takaoka, before Mihail Gherasimencov has a long range effort moments later for the ‘Caps.

St Louis were now looking the more dangerous side and they took the lead for the first time in the match four minutes before half time. Totland pounced on a moment of brief hesitation from Gherasimencov, to get onto Edelman’s superb cross in from the right to blast the ball past Takaoka.

The goal sucked a bit of life out of the BC Place crowd and worse was to follow on the stroke of half time when St Louis grabbed a third, and this time the Norwegian was the creator.

It was another good team goal that ripped the Whitecaps defence apart with Wallem taking his time to control a Totland cutback and fire home.

The ‘Caps tried to reduce the deficit in stoppage time, but Rayan Elloumi was denied by a big save from Burki.

Vancouver made three changes at the half, and a fourth as the hour mark approached, to try and find some offensive spark, but the St Louis defence were standing tall.

It wasn’t for the lack of looks at goal for the ‘Caps, with Ryan Gauld, Bruno Caicedo, and Brian White all having their chances to pull one back for Vancouver.

The ‘Caps thought they had a lifeline back into the game in the 75th when referee pointed to the spot for a handball in the box. That was to be correctly overturned after a video review.

And that was to be as good as it got really. The ‘Caps huffed and puffed, but no St Louis walls were really in danger of being blown down.

While it’s easy to describe this one as an uncharacteristic performance from Vancouver, there’s been a few of those of late, so it’s maybe becoming more of the norm than we’d like to think. That said, this is a good team and you don’t become a bad team overnight. The main concern feel like the dip in quality in all aspects of the pitch as soon as you start to rest your key starters whether by choice or enforced.

St Louis were very worth their win and will be a real threat to the Whitecaps in the postseason, not just based in this performance, but the groove they have hit since their last league defeat at the start of May. No team has returned to action after the World Cup break hotter than St Louis and they show little signs of showing up. They got their gameplan right for this match-up and they’ll be hoping they get another crack at the ‘Caps now in the playoffs.

Vancouver had a chance to increase their lead at the top with a win, as results elsewhere again went their way. Instead they saw their lead cut by one and they need to regroup and try and quickly integrate the new guys into rotation as quickly as they can. With the games coming thick and fast, the chance to do that at training is going to be limited, so they need to do it in matches. Next up is the visit of an up and down LA Galaxy side on Wednesday evening. Let’s hope we see something a bit more like the ‘Caps of old in that one.

FINAL SCORE: Vancouver Whitecaps 1 – 3 St Louis City

ATT: 22,320

VANCOUVER: 1.Yohei Takaoka; 29.Mihail Gherasimencov (7.Cheikh Sabaly HT), 2.Mathías Laborda, 33.Tristan Blackmon, 28.Tate Johnson; 59.Jeevan Badwal (8.Oliver Larraz HT), 20.Andrés Cubas (77.Yadaly Diaby 82’); 11.Emmanuel Sabbi (25.Ryan Gauld 59’), 13.Thomas Müller, 14.Bruno Caicedo; 19.Rayan Elloumi (24.Brian White HT) [Substitutes not used: 32.Isaac Boehmer, 3.Sam Adekugbe, 23.Aleksa Cvetković, 70.Rui Modesto]

ST LOUIS: 1.Roman Bürki ; 5.Lukas MacNaughton, 32.Timo Baumgartl, 21.Dante Polvara; 6.Conrad Wallem, 24.Daniel Edelman, 8.Chris Durkin (27.Fallou Fall 90+1’), 14.Tomas Totland (42.Damion Downs 90+1’); 19.Carlo Holse (9.Rafael Navarro 61’), 11.Simon Becher (77.Jeong Sang-bin 80’), 23.Alexandru Mățan [Substitutes not used: 39.Ben Lundt, 4.Mamadou Fall, 20.Rafael Santos, 28.Miguel Perez, 59.Mykhi Joyner]

SCORING SUMMARY:
2’ – VAN – Emmanuel Sabbi
23’ – STL – Simon Becher (Alexandru Mățan, Carlo Holse)
41’ – STL – Tomas Totland (Daniel Edelman, Conrad Wallem)
45’ – STL – Conard Wallem (Tomas Totland, Alexandru Mățan)

STATS:
Possession: VAN 50.3% – STL 49.7%
Shots: VAN 13 – STL 11
Shots on Goal: VAN 3 – STL 6
Saves: VAN 3 – STL 2
Fouls: VAN 18 – STL 18
Offsides: VAN 0 – STL 2
Corners: VAN 6 – STL 2

CAUTIONS:
26’ – VAN – Thomas Müller
36’ – STL – Conrad Wallem
49’ – VAN – Mathías Laborda
50’ – VAN – Emmanuel Sabbi
71’ – VAN – Ryan Gauld
84’ – STL – Chris Durkin
90+3’ – STL – Fallou Fall

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

HEAD COACH JESPER SØRENSEN

On the 3-1 loss:

“I think they [St. Louis] played a very good game, and also tactically they played a very good game. We had some structure problems in the first half regarding our pressure. And, of course, we didn’t make the necessary adjustments until halftime – and that’s of course on me. I think they were very good at playing through us instead of having to play on the outside of us and I think they managed very well in that regard. It was a game where, especially in the first half, we got too long in our pressure and too open. We’ll have to learn from it. When it’s structure problems, of course then it’s on me. When it’s individual-sided – I cannot complain about the effort. Of course, we didn’t have the quality, technically when we had the ball, but that’s sometimes what happens.”

On the momentum of the match:

“It was a back-and-forth game in the beginning – we had some breakaways, we had some opportunities where we didn’t really take them well enough. Sabbi also had another one, after the goal, and we had some good opportunities, but it was like we played very fast and forced the play a little too much at one point. I think that it was a little bit too much back-and-forth on the pitch, it just became too open for us at some points and they utilized it in a couple of situations in the first half.”

On Diaby’s debut:

“Hopefully he can add something extra to some of the qualities that we have up front. He’s very good at going in and turning with the ball and getting direct in that regard. Also he looks to be a very good finisher from what we’ve seen on the training pitch so far. It’s great that we have another option in him and that we can also utilize the fact that we have that kind of quality in the squad as well. He can play from the outside, but he can also go, as today, a little bit more inside and play in more narrow spaces. So I think that he’s a player where we will get a lot of good stuff from.”