Report and Reaction: All to play for in second leg as Vancouver and Montreal play out Canadian Championship draw

It’s all to play for at Stade Saputo in two weeks time as Vancouver Whitecaps and CF Montreal played out a 1-1 draw in their Canadian Championship semi-final first leg at BC Place on Wednesday evening.

Montreal were outplayed for much of the match, but had the ball in the back of the net three times. Only one was to count, Dani Pereira’s stunning 50-yard lob of the ‘Caps keeper in the first half. A 72nd minute equaliser from Ryan Gauld pulled Vancouver back level, but they couldn’t find the go-ahead goal their pressure deserved, with the clinical finish in front of goal once again lacking for the ‘Caps.

Jesper Sorensen made five changes from the side that won comfortably in Kansas City at the weekend, with Isaac Boehmer, Sam Adekugbe, and Jeevan Badwal all coming in and hitting the Canadian quota for the side.

With Montreal destroyed in Miami at the weekend, you knew they’d want to prove that they were a better team than that scoreline would suggest, but Vancouver had the better of the early running.

They didn’t have much to show for it though, with a Brian White blocked shot eight minutes in the only real look at goal.

The visitors took the lead against the run of play in the 16th minute, and it was a goal that mirrored one in the recent Leagues Cup game against Juarez.

Oliver Larraz gave the ball away at the halfway line, a mistake quickly capitalised on by Pereira, who took a couple of touches before seeing Boehmer off his line and lobbing him from about 50 yards out. Superb awareness and skill to give Montreal the lead.

A terrible mistake by Larraz, and although you can’t fully blame Boehmer for being caught so far off his line, it is the ‘Caps M.O. to play that way, was he perhaps a little slow to react and pedal back towards his goal? Or is that just being a little harsh? Either way, two goals given up in a month like that is going to give opponents a way to get at Vancouver and the ‘Caps need to be aware that more teams will look at this option now. Not giving the ball away as cheaply as that plays a huge part in this of course.

The ‘Caps got right back at it, but were finding little opportunity to test the Montreal defence.

A short free kick was played inside to Gauld, but his shot was parried away by Sebastian Breza.

Montreal briefly thought they had a second in the 36th minute, when Fabian Herbers put the ball in the net from close range, but the flag rightly went up quickly for offside on Prince Owusu, who headed the ball into Herbers path.

Vancouver had a couple of half chances to round off the half, but they clearly needed a fresh spark for the second half. That came in the form of a triple substitution, two tactical and one forced, as Edier Ocampo was take off as a concussion sub and is likely to miss Saturday’s match with St Louis, and the ‘Caps laid siege on the Montreal goal.

But once again, some solid defending and some disappointing finishing, frustrated the ‘Caps.

Montreal, again, thought they’d grabbed a second in the 68th minute when Owusu played a neat one-two and set up Alexis Sanchez to knock the ball home from a few yards out in a two-on-one with Boehmer, but the flag went up quickly for offside once more.

This one felt really harsh on Montreal. Lines drawn on the television broadcast showed the narrowest of margins that led to the goal standing, but you’re talk the width of a bawhair here and Vancouver dodged a massive bullet and a potential tie-defying moment.

And they made the very most of it, levelling the game up four minutes later.

Bruno Caicedo was sprung on the left, leaving Jalen Neal in his wake. His perfectly weighted cross into the six yard box was met by Gauld, who fired it past Breza and we were all tied up once again.

Jeevan Badwal and Caicedo both had decent chances late on, but the ‘Caps couldn’t find the second they were looking for and the teams will face of in Montreal on September 16th for a place in next month’s final.

The Whitecaps’ fivepeat dream is still on, and they should be more than strong enough to go and get the job done out in Quebec. Montreal can take a lot from this match though. They steadied the ship after their Florida hammering and in the few forays forward that they did have, they showed they can cause the Whitecaps some problems.

You still have to question some of the Whitecaps depth at the moment, although the new additions will certainly help once they are good to go. You saw the difference in quality the subs made and they need to make sure they go to Montreal with the strongest line-up they can put out as they strive for five.

FINAL SCORE: Vancouver Whitecaps 1 – 1 CF Montreal

ATT: 18,437

VANCOUVER: 32.Isaac Boehmer; 18.Édier Ocampo (29.Mihail Gherasimencov HT), 2.Mathías Laborda, 33.Tristan Blackmon, 3.Sam Adekugbe (28.Tate Johnson 76’); 8.Oliver Larraz (20.Andrés Cubas HT), 59.Jeevan Badwal; 7.Cheikh Sabaly (13.Thomas Müller HT), 25.Ryan Gauld, 11.Emmanuel Sabbi (14.Bruno Caicedo 66’); 24.Brian White (19.Rayan Elloumi 83’) [Substitutes not used: 1.Yohei Takaoka, 23.Aleksa Cvetković, 41.Nikola Djordjevic]

MONTREAL: 1.Sebastian Breza; 3.Brayan Ceballos, 2.Jalen Neal, 5.Brandan Craig, 13.Luca Petrasso (27.Dawid Bugaj 88’); 22.Victor Loturi, 7.Dani Pereira (6.Samuel Piette 89’), 21.Fabian Herbers (8.Matty Longstaff 57’); 17.Dante Sealy (18.Hennadii Synchuk 70’), 9.Prince Owusu, 14.Daniel Ríos (10.Alexis Sánchez 57’) [Substitutes not used: 33.Emil Gazdov, 16.Wiki Carmona, 35.Owen Graham-Roache, 41.Samsy Keita]

SCORING SUMMARY:
16’ – CFM – Dani Pereira
72’ – VAN – Ryan Gauld (Bruno Caicedo)

STATS:
Possession: VAN 65% – MTL 35%
Shots: VAN 18 – MTL 5
Shots on Goal: VAN 6 – MTL 1
Saves: VAN 0 – MTL 5
Fouls: VAN 19 – MTL 17
Offsides: VAN 0 – MTL 2
Corners: VAN 9 – MTL 2

CAUTIONS:
30 – MTL – Daniel Ríos
43’ – MTL – Dani Pereira
66’ – VAN – Jeevan Badwal
73’ – MTL – Brayan Ceballos
90+1’ – VAN – Tristan Blackmon
90+6’ – MTL – Hennadii Synchuk

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

HEAD COACH JESPER SØRENSEN

On the 1-1 draw:

“It was a good cup game. It opened up with, I would say if I was them [CF Montréal] a brilliant goal, well-taken from him. From my side, I think it was unfortunate, but that’s how you look at it. We’re all biased in this business. But it was a game where I think we played a little bit too slow in the beginning. I think we played too far away from the first pressure line and that made it easy for them to move when we tried to surpass them. I think the pace of the game was not really sped up in terms of moving the ball quick enough and go closer to them. So, it was a little bit not as aggressive with the ball. And then in the second half, I think it got better. We played faster and moved earlier and faster up the pitch and attacked them a little bit more, in the half spaces, where there were some opportunities. Of course we had difficulties scoring. We had some very big opportunities that we didn’t covert into goals.”

On Bruno Caicedo’s impact:

“He’s a player who has an impact with his one-against-one abilities and with his acceleration. I think after he came back from injury, I think that he looked good and he looks fresh now. He looks also stronger than before he got injured, so I think it looks good for him. He’s a player who can do something on his own, and create opportunities on his own. It’s difficult for our opponents to control his accelerations with the ball, and of course it’s not all actions that turn into a goal, but he’s dangerous. And he has these moments where he can really make a big impact.”

CAPTAIN RYAN GAULD

On his goal:

“Just winning the ball back in the middle and seeing Bruno kind of set off, I watched that a lot from the stands last year, Bruno just eating up the space. So, once he got in all that space, I just tried to make it to the box, and do what I could.”

On approaching the 50-50 club across all competitions, which would be a first for Whitecaps FC in the MLS era (currently at 49 goals and 53 assists with the club):

“It would be nice, but at the end of the day, it’ll just be another goal. Like you say, I’m not one to think on that kind of thing too much. Just another goal at the end of the day. Hopefully it’ll come sooner rather than later… obviously you don’t achieve anything in football by yourself. It’s a team game, so, just grateful for the positions I get put in.”