Report and Reaction: Records fall as Whitecaps control own fate in Supporters Shield race after win in KC

(Photo Credit: @WhitecapsFC/x.com)

Another assured performance from Vancouver Whitecaps saw them move to within two points at the top of the MLS Western Conference following a comfortable 2-0 win away to Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night.

First half goals from Edier Ocampo and Kenji Cabrera were enough to see the ‘Caps return to Canada with all three points, and it felt like they didn’t really have to get out of second gear to get them.

The victory saw Vancouver set an all-time MLS points record for the club as they moved onto 55 points in the standings. They also broke their MLS regular season goals record and tied their most wins in a season, all while keeping their league-leading 13th clean sheet with a makeshift backline. Not a bad year so far and there’s still five games of the regular season to go. It’s incredible stuff from all.

Jesper Sorensen deserves a lot of the credit, and the Dane made two changes to the starting line-up from last week’s demolition of Philadelphia, and five from the midweek Canadian Championship semi-final rout of Forge. Thomas Muller didn’t travel with an adductor strain, with Cabrera handed his first start as a Whitecap in the number 10 role.

The Whitecaps got off to the perfect start, taking the lead just 73 seconds in and after that they never really looked like giving it up.

Ocampo started the move with a pass to Emmanuel Sabbi, who in turn played the ball forward for the overlapping Ocampo and the Colombian raced in on goal and fired past KC keeper John Pulskamp from a tight angle and the ‘Caps had the early lead.

It was the fastest Whitecaps goal of the year and having never lost a game this season when they’ve taken the lead, you could almost chalk up the three points there and then.

An early booking to Andres Cubas 10 minutes in was one of the few blights on the night, with the talismanic midfielder now missing for Wednesday’s Cascadia clash with Portland. It felt inevitable that the Paraguayan was going to pick up a yellow and miss one of the next two matches, so it does feel better that it is this home one and not next Saturday’s huge trip to Seattle.

The Whitecaps chances kept coming, with Ali Ahmed cutting the ball back for Sabbi in the 12th minute, but he just couldn’t get on to the end of it, and then Daniel Rios played a similar cutback from the byeline moments later, this time to Cabrera, whose shot crashed off the right post.

Sabbi hit a shot inches past the far post in the 31st minute, but the Whitecaps finally double their advantage three minutes before half time.

Ahmed played a touch inside to Cabrera and the Peruvian danced his way through the home defence to fire home his first Whitecaps goal in his first start.

The second half was pretty much a non-event. The Whitecaps had done enough to get the three points and the intensity wasn’t really there, whether intentionally or not. With so many key matches coming up in such a short period of time, saving their energy is a definite factor.

KC had some half chances, without really testing the ‘Caps too much. Yohei Takaoka saving a well struck Erik Thommy free kick was their best of the bunch in the 67th minute.

Ahmed and substitute Jayden Nelson had a couple of late chances for Vancouver, but they easily saw out the match and claimed three big points on the road on a night where results elsewhere made very happy reading for the Whitecaps, with Western Conference leaders San Diego dropping two points in Atlanta and Minnesota dropping all three at home in a big 3-0 loss to Chicago.

They’re now back up to second in the West. A win on Wednesday sees them reclaim the top spot for the first time since June. The Supporters Shield is also firmly in their own hands.

Portland and Seattle won’t be easy matches, and Cubas and Ocampo missing Wednesday through suspension for an already short-handed Whitecaps might prove to be a factor. But this is a team with a belief, a swagger, and a depth like we’ve never seen in Vancouver in their MLS era. It’s next man up and whoever that seems to be, they all rise to the demands.

This has been a fantastic season for Vancouver and it’s nowhere near finished yet.

FINAL SCORE: Sporting Kansas City 0 – 2 Vancouver Whitecaps

ATT: 15,026

KANSAS CITY: 1.John Pulskamp; 18.Logan Ndenbe, 23.Alán Montes (15.Jansen Miller 85’), 2.Ian James, 11.Khiry Shelton; 22.Zorhan Bassong (16.Jacob Bartlett 84’), 17.Jake Davis; 26.Erik Thommy, 7.Santiago Muñoz (21.Manu García 65’), 93.Magomed Suleymanov (13.Mason Toye 65’, 30.Stephen Afrifa 74’); 9.Dejan Joveljić [Substitutes not used: 36.Ryan Schewe, 6.Nemanja Radoja, 8.Memo Rodríguez, 14.Tim Leibold]

VANCOUVER: 1.Yohei Takaoka; 18.Édier Ocampo, 12.Belal Halbouni, 2.Mathías Laborda, 28.Tate Johnson (27.Giuseppe Bovalina 90’+2); 16.Sebastian Berhalter, 20.Andrés Cubas (59.Jeevan Badwal 82’); 11.Emmanuel Sabbi (26.J.C. Ngando 65’), 17.Kenji Cabrera (7.Jayden Nelson 65’), 22.Ali Ahmed (6.Ralph Priso 90’+2); 14.Daniel Ríos (75.Rayan Elloumi 81’) [Substitutes not used: 32.Isaac Boehmer, 42.Nelson Pierre, 53.Mark O’Neill]

SCORING SUMMARY:
2’ – VAN – Édier Ocampo (Emmanuel Sabbi)
42’ – VAN – Kenji Cabrera (Ali Ahmed)

STATS:
Possession: SKC 48% – VAN 52%
Shots: SKC 10 – VAN 12
Shots on Goal: SKC 1 – VAN 4
Saves: SKC 2 – VAN 1
Fouls: SKC 7 – VAN 16
Offsides: SKC 0 – VAN 1
Corners: SKC 8 – VAN 1

CARDS:
10’ – VAN – Andrés Cubas
44’ – SKC – Zorhan Bassong
53’ – VAN – Édier Ocampo
56’ – VAN – Belal Halbouni
66’ – VAN – Daniel Ríos
82’ – SKC – Alán Montes
90’+6 – VAN – Sebastian Berhalter

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

JESPER SORENSEN

On the match:

“First half, very good. I’m very pleased with the pace we had on the ball, with the movement, with the positions. I think that we were aggressive, I think that we waited for the openings to come. Of course, we scored a very early goal and that helped us settle in the game very fast. But I think that we had some very good attacks and we played some very good football in the first half. Second half, we played not the cleverest, [not the] most clever game. We didn’t play with enough quality on the ball, and we didn’t run in the second half forward, and when we broke the pressure we played back into their pressure instead of continue forward and sit them down a little better. We didn’t have as much control in the second half, but it’s always difficult to play away, and it’s been a while. Overall I’m pleased with the result. The performance, we can and have to, and will be better. It was a very good first half, and a second half where we have to improve that.”

On setting a new club record for points and looking at the standings:

“What we’ve seen for a while now is that we have been looking strong. The entire squad has been ready for the games and we’re performing at a good level. The other teams we have seen, they settle their games. Playing away is always difficult and I just think that throughout the season, we have been playing well and focusing on our performance and not too much on the results and the standings…I think the other teams are playing up to their standard, and we’re playing up to ours. I think our standard right now is pretty good. I’m just positive that we look good. For me, it’s not that important about the standings and stuff because we look at it later on and the most positive thing is now that we look solid defensively again and that we created a lot of chances. That’s what I am looking at.”

On Kenji Cabrera’s first start, playing centrally:

“Our decision to play Kenji centrally was that we’ve seen that he can play in a lot of spaces. He can play in the small pockets in-between the central defender and the fullback. We know that Ali [Ahmed] can attract pressure, so when the fullback jumps, we can have Kenji also be able to play in the back space – which he can also do and I think he’s a talent. His fitness level needs to go up, he has to be able to play with high intensity, but that’s something that has to come along. But he is a great talent, and we can see that him and Ali might be able to click well together, also together with Tate [Johnson] in the left side. So I think that worked out pretty well.”

WINGER ALI AHMED

On the match:

“A tale of two halves for us. We emphasized coming out strong, [and we] went in the first 10, 15 minutes setting the tone. We get a goal in the first two minutes and I think, first half, we played the way we wanted to play, we played our football on both sides of the ball really well, and we got two goals, and maybe could have got more. But, it set the tone for what kind of game it was going to be for us. And, second half, I think we were just resilient. Not the greatest half of football from us, but still didn’t let any goals [in], kept our clean sheet. You’re going to have halves like these in football, especially maybe in the playoffs. So it was good from us to fight it through and come out with a clean sheet and a 2-0 win.”

On the mentality:

“Next man up has been a big theme for our group this year. Everybody, when their name has been called, from Rayan [Elloumi], to Jeevan [Badwal], to anybody. Belal [Halbouni] being ready when his name is called upon. I think a lot of guys, a lot of quality, long-time experienced guys going down – some inexperienced guys coming in and looking like they’ve been here before. And it’s a big reason why we’re where we’re at, in this time of the year. Another big away win with guys going down is not easy to win in this league, but we did a great job of it today.”

SPORTING KANSAS CITY

INTERIM HEAD COACH KERRY ZAVAGNIN

On how the early goal changed the gameplan:

“Big time. We talked about coming out and being on the front foot. We’re at home. We want to start quickly. It’s my responsibility. We didn’t start well. We didn’t touch the ball before they scored. It shook us a little bit, but not enough and we didn’t have enough punch even through the first half. To give another goal away right before halftime like we did last week is another disappointing moment. Walking into halftime, you can imagine, there were a lot of things to correct but actually just one thing. It was the energy, the intensity and the determination. We didn’t have that in the first half. I think in the second half we came out a little bit better, but on the night we didn’t create enough. We weren’t dangerous around goal. We were passive in our confrontations and when you play against a team like Vancouver, who’s near the top of the table, you have to bring your A game. And unfortunately, tonight we didn’t.”

On the second half performance:

“Sure, the ball was on their end more than ours. That was encouraging. But the game state also said that they were up 2-0 and what they did extremely well is while they conceded a little bit of the possession, they didn’t give away anything in their box. That’s where the game can be a little bit deceiving. Although we had the ball a little bit more, we still weren’t dangerous enough.”

CAPTAIN ERIK THOMMY

On motivation for the coming games:

“The motivation is to win every game. We are soccer players. We have that competitive mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s a training session or a real game. I want to win everything. We don’t need to talk about the motivation. It’s really important for us as a club to finish strong and to win games because that gives us the path for the next season. When you look around, what’s clear, the people and the players who are here right now, we won’t all be together next season because there will be a change. Also for us, it’s to enjoy that time and get the maximum out of it. We tried it even today. There is no doubt that we wanted to win today. When we talk about the game, we just couldn’t figure it out. Second half was much better. We were unlucky in front of the goal. A lot of things came together. It’s always difficult if you’re not on the top of the league and when you need that point, it’s harder. We will keep going and try to finish strong.”

On the offense in the second half:

“First of all, huge respect for Vancouver and how they played away with the calmness on the ball, especially in their half. The defenders did a really good job trying to play out. They broke us a couple of times. We couldn’t figure it out because we felt like we were one man down. That was our feeling sometimes on the field. Second half we could figure out. We pressed a little bit higher, tried to step earlier, and therefore we tried to create some chances. It’s always more difficult if you need points. We couldn’t be effective in front of the goal today.”