Report and Reaction: Perfect no more, as Fire douse Whitecaps’ unbeaten run

Report and Reaction: Perfect no more, as Fire douse Whitecaps’ unbeaten run

Posted on March 23, 2025 by in MLS, VANCOUVER WHITECAPS with 0 Comments

Vancouver Whitecaps suffered their first loss of the 2025 MLS season as Jesper Sørensen’s short-handed side fell to a 3-1 defeat at the hands of Chicago Fire at BC Place on Saturday night.

It was a fairly even game, with both sides failing to fully capitalise on the chances they created. A draw would probably have been a fair result, but both sides will feel they had the opportunities to secure the three points. In the end it was Chicago who did, recording a third straight away victory in the process.

Chicago got off to the perfect start with their in-form danger man Hugo Cuypers firing them ahead less than a minute into the match. The goal caught Vancouver cold, but when Daniel Rios tied things up for the Whitecaps in the 14th minute with his first goal for his new club, you felt that was going to be the catalyst for the ‘Caps to push on and get the lead.

But missing so many key personnel, it was a disjointed Vancouver side. Passes weren’t as slick or connecting, there were more turnovers than we’ve probably seen in all the previous games combined, the defence was looking shaky, and there was simply no real goal threat. Many players who had performed well so far this year seemed to be having an off day all at the same time.

The Whitecaps still felt the more likely to get the next goal, but a draw also certainly seemed to be on the cards. The Fire changed changed that, however, when Philip Zinckernagel blasted home in the 62nd minute after a defensive mistake from Ralph Priso. As the ‘Caps threw everything at trying to get the equaliser, creating but squandering several chances, Chicago caught them cold on a breakaway in stoppage time, with Rominigue Kouame scoring his first goal as a Chicago player to seal the deal and the three points for the visitors.

It was a heavily depleted Whitecaps squad, with seven players missing, four on international duty, Ryan Gauld and Sam Adekugbe still out injured, and last week’s match winner Tristan Blackmon missing for personal reasons. Chicago also didn’t have their personnel problems to seek, with seven players out but just two of those were due to international duty.

All of that saw Sørensen making five changes from the team that dominated in last weekend’s victory in Dallas, with WFC2 homegrown call-up Liam Mackenzie handed his first ever MLS start.

Any gameplan drawn up for the makeshift side was immediately shaken up when the visitors took the lead with less than a minute on the clock.

Leonardo Barroso played a lovely long ball forward to Zinckernagel, who found himself wide open and with time to run in and send the ball across goal for Cuypers to easily tuck away his fifth of the season, with the ‘Caps defence all over the place.

A horrible start and it almost got worse in the 11th minute when Zinckernagel’s had a chance to add a second, but was denied by a big save from Yohei Takaoka.

Vancouver finally settled and got back on level terms in the 14th minute.

Homegrown debutant Mackenzie forced a turnover about 25 yards out, knocking the ball to Jayden Nelson, whose sublime little backheel played in Rios and the Mexican rocketed home his first goal as a Whitecap, in off the post and we were all tied up at one apiece.

That was to be as good as it got for either side in the first half. Both created some half chances, some of them from poor defensive play, but the finishing wasn’t there and the teams headed in level.

Vancouver enjoyed the better of the second half, with Nelson sending a low tempting ball across the box on the hour mark, but with no takers, the best chance they created.

They were stung again in the 62nd minute and once again were the masters of their own downfall.

A Priso slip allowed Jonathan Bamba to race up the left wing. His low cross into the box ricocheted off Bjorn Inge Utvik to Priso, who had recovered to get into the ‘Caps box, but the Canadian hesitated, allowing Zinckernagel to nip in and blast home for the Fire, putting them back into the lead and it was a lead they weren’t to give up.

Two minutes later and it was almost three for Chicago, when Priso found himself at the back, facing a quick two-on-one break, but with Zinckernagel looking set to pounce, Mathias Laborda appeared from nowhere with a crunching, ball-winning challenge on the edge of the box to avert the danger.

As the Whitecaps threw everything at the Fire to find the late leveller, they just couldn’t find the finish from the numerous deliveries sent into the box and as they pushed they were caught on another breakaway and although they had a chance to clear the danger, Kouame kept on it and fired home Chicago’s third on his MLS debut.

The perfect streak was always going to come to an end, but the nature of it and the circumstances around it just leave a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. This was a chance to extend their lead at the top of the West, but instead they saw it reduced by one. The positives are that they are still top and we know this wasn’t the real Whitecaps with so many starters missing. The negatives though as just how big a drop off that saw, with some players looking a shadow of themselves without better players around them.

Will this spur Axel Schuster on to trying to add one or two TAM players before the window closes next month? Hopefully, yes, because champions are built of depth and the Whitecaps doesn’t feel as good as it did a week or so ago.

FINAL SCORE: Vancouver Whitecaps 1 – 3 Chicago Fire

ATT: 18,717

VANCOUVER: Yohei Takaoka; Édier Ocampo (Nicolas Fleuriau Chateau 86’), Bjørn Inge Utvik (Belal Halbouni 86’), Ranko Veselinović, Mathías Laborda; Sebastian Berhalter, Ralph Priso (Tate Johnson 79’), J.C. Ngando; Liam Mackenzie (59.Jeevan Badwal 65’), Daniel Ríos, Jayden Nelson (Emmanuel Sabbi 65’) [Substitutes not used: Isaac Boehmer, Damir Kreilach, Giuseppe Bovalina, Mark O’Neill]

CHICAGO: Chris Brady; Leonardo Barroso, Jack Elliott, Sam Rogers, Andrew Gutman (Justin Reynolds 46′); Mauricio Pineda; Sergio Oregel Jr. (Carlos Teran 87’), Sam Williams (Rominigue Kouame 87’); Jonathan Bamba, Philip Zinckernagel (Maren Haile-Selassie 69’), Hugo Cuypers (Tom Barlow 79’) [Substitutes not used: Jeffrey Gal, Dylan Borso, Omar Gonzalez, Diego Konincks]

SCORING SUMMARY:
1’ – CHI – Hugo Cuypers (Philip Zinckernagel)
14’ – VAN – Daniel Rios (Jayden Nelson, Liam Mackenzie)
62’ – CHI – Philip Zinckernagel
90+4′ – CHI – Rominigue Kouame (Maren Haile-Selassie)

STATS:
Shots: VAN 13 – CHI 9
Shots on goal: VAN 2 – CHI 5
Saves: VAN 2 – CHI 1
Fouls: VAN 10 – CHI 9
Offsides: VAN 1 – CHI 2
Corners: VAN 4 – CHI 6

CARDS (ALL YELLOW):
43’ – CHI – Andrew Gutman
69’ – CHI – Jack Elliott
71’ – VAN – Jeevan Badwal

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

JESPER SORENSEN

On the match:

“I think we never really got in charge of the game. I’m not talking about what the score was. We didn’t get the flow into our game that we usually have, I think that we were not able to play with the same composure as we’ve done in the beginning of the season here but that’s sometimes how it works. Also, congratulations to Chicago, of course. They played a good game and came here and took advantage of their opportunities and also played a very tactical, fine game, I think.”

On how to move forward from the result:

“It’s a bad feeling, always, to go from a game with a loss. I would not be overreacting to games, normally. We got a loss. We’ve been so fortunate – we haven’t had that feeling in a long time. And we know that we have to, we have to work every day to get better because we had a perfect record before today but we’re not a perfect team. I said it before, I’ll say it again: we have a lot of things to work on. And we could also see that today, so yeah, I will not throw everything up in the air. We will just have to continue trying to build the team.”

MIDFIELDER LIAM MACKENZIE

On starting his first MLS match:

“Yeah, a lot of nerves at first, for sure. But it was a great moment. It was a great feeling, stepping on the field, getting my first start. Obviously, I would have liked to get the win, sure, for the team. But, yeah, it was great having my family there – lots of friends and family came over here – from [Vancouver] Island. So, I got to say hi to them at the end of the game as well. Yeah, that was nice.”

On the lessons he learnt from tonight:

“Just take this experience, learn from it, watch [the match] back. See how I did, see what I can improve on, like I always do and then just use it as momentum to keep furthering my career and hopefully, I can add more moments like this, more MLS games.”

CHICAGO FIRE

HEAD COACH GREGG BERHALTER

On scoring an early goal and holding on to the lead:

“We know that they’re an aggressive, attacking team, and they put a lot of pressure on your penalty box and we knew we could expect that. But we also knew that their midfield really has to shift to cover the wide spaces. So the idea was to get it from one side to another. We did that on the first goal, and it was a really good play, really good understanding from the players of how to hurt them.”

On Rominigue Kouamé first goal in his Fire debut:

“He was excited. He’s waited a long time to make his debut. You could see how much the team was pulling for him in the locker room just now, celebrating with him and really excited for him. He’s had a long road to get to this point, and he certainly made an impact in the game today.”

On the quality of chances improving throughout the season:

“I think we’re patient enough to find the right spaces and then to get the ball into areas that will hurt the opponent. We have some good players that know how to make the difference in the final third, and you can see with the type of shots that we’re getting.”

On the performance of Philip Zinckernagel:

”He was the coaches’ Man of the Match for his contributions. We know what Philip can do. He’s an outstanding player, and as he gets into form, I think you’re going to see him score some goals.”

On Leonardo Barroso’s performance in his first start of the season:

“His defending is exceptional, his 1v1 defending. We did a preseason against LAFC and he was going against [Denis] Bouanga one-against-one, and he holds his own. Really pleased for him in that area. Offensively, a really smart ball behind their back line, which led to the first goal, and we wanted to switch field, which means the fullbacks were going to have a lot of touches. We still want to continue to develop him in that area because we think he can make a major impact.”

On the significance of coaching against his son, Sebastian Berhalter, in the match:

“You know, every time there was a set piece, I held my breath because he puts in such good balls. It’s kind of annoying. I was hoping he was going to mis-hit a couple of them, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. We got everyone here. We got aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings. Everyone is here for the game, and you know thankfully we won, and so I don’t have to buy dinner.”

On players stepping up and taking their opportunities while other players are out for injuries and national team duty, and whether having to choose between them is a good problem to have:

“Definitely. To win in this league, you need a deep squad. You need quality. For these guys to get the opportunity and take advantage of it, guys like Sam Williams, Justin Reynolds today, it means a real lot. They get the confidence to help the team.”

On what he saw on Vancouver’s goal:

“I think that we wanted to avoid the middle. We wanted to draw them into the middle and avoid the middle and go wide and we didn’t do that. On this play, we went central where they had their numbers and they won the ball, and you know, the boy makes a nice finish. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit for the finish but it was really a silly mistake from us.”

On Vancouver’s physicality throughout the game:

“Well, it’s a physical game, and that was my message to the team at halftime. We have to embrace this physicality. We have to be better in duels. I think we did improve in the second half. But you can see how committed they are and how much aggression they play with, and you have to match that if you want to get something out of the game. So, nothing wrong with a physical game, as long as it’s well-fought and honest in the challenges.”

On Hugo Cuypers performances so far this season, and what’s on the menu after winning the family bet:

“Vancouver has some wonderful restaurants, and we are certainly going to take advantage of that. But there’s a place called the Beijing Duck House and it’s fantastic. I think it has one MICHELIN Star, and that’s a really good place and that’s what I’m going to choose. In terms of Hugo, he’s the man on the spot. We provide balls for him, service for him and he finishes them up really calmly and collected. But not only that, he works really hard. We still want to work with him on when he’s coming down, how he’s linking up play and how he’s able to bring players into the game. But really happy with Hugo and his attitude and effort and his mindset. I think this is the first time in 16 years that the club has won three games on the road, and it says a lot about this group and their mindset.”

      
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Authored by: Michael McColl

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