Report and Reaction: Undermanned but undeterred – Whitecaps beat sickness and Sounders in derby day rout

Who saw this one coming? Undermanned, understrength, and under the weather, Vancouver Whitecaps put in a performance of the ages to come away with a 3-0 derby day rout of the visiting Seattle Sounders at BC Place on Sunday evening, helped along the way by some self destruction from their opponents.

Homegrown BC boy Jeevan Badwal set the makeshift ‘Caps on their way with his first MLS goal in the 40th minute, before two red cards for the Sounders’ Nouhou and Jon Bell in a three minute spell swung the match firmly in Vancouver’s favour. A rocket from Daniel Rios and a late penalty from Damir Kreilach completed the scoring and the Whitecaps extended their lead at the top of the Western Conference after a week like no other.

Describing this result as remarkable doesn’t even do it justice with all that went before the match.

With nine players away on international duty and Ryan Gauld still out injured, this game was always going to have heavy rotation for Vancouver. Then the GI bug ripped through the Whitecaps and we weren’t even sure if there was going to be a game, but this is MLS, so of course there was.

Saturday’s status report listed 18 Whitecaps players as either out or questionable, but in the end Jesper Sorensen rolled out the line-up most would have expected or near expected. That saw six changes from the team that started last Sunday’s final against Cruz Azul and just four changes from the last MLS match against Minnesotra. There were seven WFC2 call-ups on the bench, but all things considered, this was about as good as it was ever going to get. The burning question though was how long these starters could all last in their drained conditions and the heat?

The first chance fell Seattle’s way, with Ralph Priso’s headed clearance falling to Alex Roldan in the box, but he pulled his effort wide of the right post.

Seattle enjoyed the better of the early play, but then Vancouver started to find their feet and played got into their rhythm, creating a couple of half chances and not showing any signs of fatigue.

Neither side were able to muster a shot on target in the first half hour. Or at least one that counted. Jesus Ferreira was slipped in in the 19th minute, forcing a leg save out of Yohei Takaoka, but the flag subsequently went up for offside.

Seattle turned up the pressure as the first hydration break of the match approached. Cristian Roldan had a goalbound shot deflected by Mathias Laborda, with Pedro de la Vega curling a low effort past the far post from the subsequent corner.

The ‘Caps were putting in a good performance and would have been happy to get in to the break on level terms, but with Seattle looking the team more out of sorts, Vancouver found the breakthrough in the 40th minute.

It was a patient goal as the ‘Caps took a methodical approach moving forward, ending with Edier Ocampo centering the ball for a stretching Badwal to direct the ball past Stefan Frei for his first goal for the first team in his first home start.

Albert Rusnak had a chance to send the visitors in at the break on level terms, but he blasted over from a good position and the ‘Caps headed in with the unexpected lead.

Brian Schmetzer will have fired his Seattle side up at half time, and probably tore a few strips off them as well, and they came out on the front foot. Perhaps they were too fired up because by the 55th minute mark they were down two players.

Laborda broke through on the right wing in the 52nd minute and was hauled back by Nouhou, leaving referee Ricardo Fierro with no option but to send off the Seattle centre back.

The Whitecaps thought they had their second goal a minute later from Bjorn Inge Utvik, but the referee blew it off for a foul.

Seattle’s bad day at the office got significantly worse in the 55th minute when Jon Bell clipped Emmanuel Sabbi as he raced in on goal. The contact seemed purely accidental, but there was a definite clip and all of a sudden it was 11-v-9.

With everything that has gone on in the last few days, even that didn’t meant the game was put to bed, with Seattle making a quadruple substitution to freshen things up. They needed a second goal to relax a little and it came in style in the 71st minute.

Badwal played the ball inside to Priso who touched it to his right for Rios to blast home from outside the box and the Whitecaps had the 2-0 lead.

That felt like game, set, and match, but buoyed by the second goal, Vancouver pushed for more.

Ocampo had a spectacular scissor kick effort saved by Frei, then Priso saw a shot from the edge of the box tipped over by the Sounder keeper.

The ‘Caps kept pushing and they got their reward in the 87th minute when Joao Paulo brought down Sabbi in the box with a reckless challenge. Kreilach stepped up and sent Frei to the wrong way from the spot and a fantastic victory was complete.

This was a stunning result and performance from a team that a week ago was suffering heartbreak and humiliation in a continental cup final and fighting gastrointestinal illness all week. It was simply remarkable. The fight and spirit instilled by Sorenson in his side has been extraordinary to watch.

When you look at games of the season come the end of the year the Champions Cup performances against Miami, Monterrey, and Pumas will all be up there, as will the opening day shellacking of Portland. The nature of this game and the background behind it deserves to be in that mix as well.

The win saw the Whitecaps extend their unbeaten run in MLS play to a club record 11 matches, while Takaoka kept his eighth clean sheet in the league this year and 10th overall. The ‘Caps extended their lead to five points at the top of the Western Conference and retook the lead in the Supporters’ Shield race, all of this with a game still in hand.

It’s been quite the week, in quite the season.

FINAL SCORE: Vancouver Whitecaps 3 – 0 Seattle Sounders

ATT: 24,276

VANCOUVER: 1.Yohei Takaoka; 2.Mathías Laborda,15.Bjørn Inge Utvik (12.Belal Halbouni 64’), 4.Ranko Veselinović ©, 33.Tristan Blackmon, 18.Édier Ocampo; 59.Jeevan Badwal (19.Damir Kreilach 74′), 13.Ralph Priso; 11.Emmanuel Sabbi, 14.Daniel Ríos, 26.J.C. Ngando [Substitutes not used: 32.Isaac Boehmer, 41.Nikola Djordjevic, 43.Antoine Coupland, 44.Jackson Castro, 48.Adrián Pelayo, 54.Daniel Russo, 63.Johnny Selemani]

SEATTLE: 24.Stefan Frei; 16.Álex Roldán, 25.Jackson Ragen (33.Cody Baker 81’), 15.Jon Bell, 5.Nouhou; 18.Obed Vargas, 7.Cristian Roldán; 10.Pedro de la Vega (14. Paul Rothrock 60’), 11.Albert Rusnák (6.João Paulo 61’), 77.Ryan Kent (19. Danny Musovski 60’); 9.Jesús Ferreira (85.Kalani Kossa-Rienzi 60′) [Substitutes not used: 26.Andrew Thomas, 3.Travian Sousa, 75.Danny Leyva, 93.Georgi Minoungou]

SCORING SUMMARY:

40’ – VAN – Jeevan Badwal (Édier Ocampo, J.C. Ngando)
70’ – VAN – Daniel Ríos (Ralph Priso)
88’ – VAN – Damir Kreilach (penalty kick)

STATS:
Possession: VAN 46.1% – SEA 53.9%
Shots: VAN 13 – SEA 7
Shots on Goal: VAN 5 – SEA 0
Saves: VAN 0 – SEA 2
Fouls: VAN 10 – SEA 11
Offsides: VAN 0 – SEA 1
Corners: VAN 3 – SEA 3

CARDS:
52’ – SEA – Nouhou (Red)
55’ – SEA – Jon Bell (Red)

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

JESPER SORENSEN

On the team’s strong response tonight in the face of adversity this week:

“All the credit in this world has to go to our players, because this week has been very rough. I would say maybe some funny words, but it’s not appropriate here, but I think that it’s been a very rough week. I think the players, what they did today was exceptional. And you sometimes need a bit of luck, of course you do. They got two sending offs and that changed everything, of course it did. But they gave everything they had in their body on the pitch. We could see how tired everybody was also in the break. And, you know, it’s been very difficult. I think the result was great [but] I stand by my opinion that I would have preferred this game not to be played. I would not be a hypocrite sitting [here] after a 3-0 win and just say that everything is perfect, because I don’t think so. All our players were clear to play medically, but, you know, they haven’t [trained well]. We had players [whose] first day of training after a long trip to Mexico was yesterday. And I think the preparation as not good. I think, as a coach, that I was very concerned about the players’ health. And also, when we have that many players out, then we don’t have much margin. We’ve played 25 games in three and a half months and we managed to have only one [long term] injury in [Ryan] Gauld. Had we had three or four? I don’t know what we could have done. And we can also bring a lot of MLS Next Pro players and they are big talents, but for me as a head coach I don’t think the first experience should be getting in an MLS game fighting for a low defeat or something. I’m so proud of the players, every credit to them from my side. I think they did everything. I will leave it here with the game but I think that had it been up to me, we hadn’t played this game.”

On Jeevan Badwal’s first start and first career goal:

“Jeevan [Badwal] is a lucky player because he has a coach that actually sees his talent, and I think that he just has to show it. I think he has today. It’s also up to us in the coaching staff to also give him the opportunities. But I think that he is a young player, hasn’t played much this season, but I think that he’s very fast around the pitch. He’s very strong against the ball. He has better time on the ball than most players in the central area because he moves his feet so fast. And then, he can run forever, but also he was sick during this week, so he was not at his best. But what I saw today was promising. He played well together with his teammates, and that’s the most important thing when I look at it. It’s not about getting in and playing a very good individual game; it’s about getting in and playing well with the rest of the team and show that you can fill out the position. And of course, the goal made it special, right? So for a young man scoring at home was beautiful.”

RANKO VESELINOVIĆ

Praising Jeevan Badwal and his character:

“He’s amazing, seriously. I’m not saying that just because it’s a nice thing to say. I mean it because he’s a really nice guy and I always know how I was when I was younger when I entered the team, how my behaviour was. I always respect guys like that, that keep their heads down, they’re always positive, they work hard whatever comes, they don’t complain about anything, and they wait for their chance. And he deserves it tonight. It’s a game that he’s going to remember all his life scoring the nice goal. He was amazing all game, doing the dirty work, doing all the good things in offense and that the reward for his great training that he’s done all season.”

JEEVAN BADWAL

On his first home start and goal:

“It feels amazing. Obviously, growing up in the academy, it’s one main thing, scoring a goal at BC Place. As a little kid, I was in those stands watching a lot. But now, scoring a goal at BC Place in front of family, in front of friends, just means a lot more. It’s amazing.”