Report and Reaction: Whitecaps’ Champions Cup dreams hang by a thread after heavy Sounders defeat

Vancouver Whitecaps’ CONCACAF Champions Cup dreams may not be totally dead and buried, but they are certainly on life support following a heavy 3-0 defeat to Seattle Sounders in their Round of 16 first leg match-up at BC Place on Thursday evening.

The Whitecaps looked a shadow of the team we know them to be and were second best in every department on the night, and when Paul Arriola fired the Sounders ahead on the stroke of half-time, the visitors had the crucial away goal they craved. The goal game from a Whitecaps defensive mistake and it wasn’t to be the only one on the night to be punished by a clinical Seattle side. Arriola added a second two minutes before the hour mark to silence the home crowd and when Paul Rothrock made it three in the 70th minute, the ‘Caps were left with an absolute mountain to climb in next week’s second leg in Spokane.

The task now facing them is not an impossible one, but it’s a very tall order.

Jesper Sorensen made five changes from the team that dismantled Portland at the weekend, with Brian White and AZ Jackson among those dropping to the bench. Whether for rest with Sunday’s match against Minnesota in mind, or with the gameplan to bring them on for a late second half push, it proved to be a costly decision as Vancouver simply failed to have any creativity or firepower in front of goal.

Seattle were forced into some line-up alterations of their own with injuries leaving them short throughout the team, but especially in defence where they only had one healthy centre back. You wouldn’t have known it, however, with how excellently they defended on the night.

Vancouver controlled the early possession, but it was Seattle that had the more dangerous chances with Yohei Takaoka easily saving a weak shot from Osaze De Rosario before Cristian Roldan curled a drive wide in the 13th minute.

The Sounders should have opened the scoring a minute later when Tristan Blackmon slipped while dealing with a cross in from the right and the ball fell to Arriola in front of goal, only for Takaoka to deny him with a point blank save.

The ‘Caps regained control but it took them until the 32nd minute to really threaten the Sounders goal, with Kenji Cabrera forcing a goalmouth scramble. Tristan Blackmon shot over in the 34th minute, before Oliver Larraz did the same 10 minutes later.

Then, from nowhere, Seattle went into the half with the lead and a crucial away goal.

Mathias Laborda misplayed a passback to Takaoka allowing Jesus Ferreira to nip in and bear down on goal. Takaoka came out well to narrow the angle but Ferreira played it inside to an open Arriola, who made no mistake in tucking away the opener, on his first start a year and a day after a season ending ACL injury in this very competition.

It was a poor offensive half from Vancouver, who failed to register a single shot on target, and the changes made by Sorensen to start this game simply hadn’t paid off. Rayan Elloumi was getting no service up front and the Sounders defence were dealing with everything the Whitecaps were throwing at them, which wasn’t all that much.

The only change at the half though came on the defensive side, with Blackmon going out of the game with right calf tightness, replaced by Ralph Priso and coming out for the second half all iced up.

The result was more of the same from Vancouver to start the second half, with an attacking threat lacking. The ‘Caps were punished for this in the 58th minute when the Sounders doubled their lead and once again it was Arriola who did the damage after a quick counter.

De Rosario sprang a wide open Kossa-Rienzi on the right, who looked like he must surely be offside but the flag stayed down. As he tore forward, Kossa-Rienzi’s low cross into the box was met by a sliding Edier Ocampo, but his touch ricocheted off Takaoka, onto Arriola, and into the net and Seattle were in dreamland and in complete control of the tie.

The Whitecaps were now in tough and brought on White and Cheika Sabaly to try and find some offensive spark. Neither could.

Down two away goals, they needed to get the next goal of the game to even give themselves a chance in the overall tie and they came close to getting it in the 69th minute with their best chance of the match so far.

Sebastian Berhalter whipped in a corner from the right and it was met superbly by Laborda, only for his powerful header to be equally as superbly saved by Stefan Frei. The rebound fell to Priso, but he blasted it high and over.

That missed opportunity was to prove critical as the Sounders went right up the pitch and added a third.

Ferreira flicked the ball up the pitch for Roldan, whose cross into the box just eluded the stretching Danny Musovski. Takaoka and Laborda tried to chase down the loose ball but Rothrock got there first to bury it into the far corner and add a third for the visitors and very likely put the tie to bed already.

The Whitecaps were stunned and so was the BC Place crowd. After giving up just one goal in their first five matches this year, sloppy defending was punished big time by the Sounders, who were given so much space to move the ball forward on both of their second half goals.

Vancouver huffed and puffed for the last 20 minutes, but Seattle easily handled everything and defended superbly for the whole match.

AZ Jackson went down in the box in the 88th minute, but the referee waved away the penalty appeals, before Thomas Müller almost got the Whitecaps on the scoreboard four minutes into stoppage time, but he crashed his effort off the crossbar from close range.

The final whistle came soon after and the ‘Caps were blanked at home for only the second time in Sorensen’s reign. They barely looked like scoring, in what has to be considered one of the worst Whitecaps performances in the past year. Seattle were well worth their victory and should be moving on to the quarter-finals, bar a stunning second leg collapse and performance from Vancouver.

The Whitecaps produced many heroics on the road in second legs in this competition on the way to last year’s final, none of those came after trailing from the first game. The only time they had to come from behind was in the first round after trailing Saprissa, but they had the benefit of being at home in the second leg. The fact that the second leg is basically at a neutral venue in Spokane with Lumen Field being unavailable may give them a small glimmer of hope, but Seattle just came to Vancouver and didn’t give them a sniff at home.

It’s half time in the tie. If Vancouver can go and turn this around it would be quite remarkable. It feels very unlikely right now but as Sorensen noted postgame, this was a good team before the match and that hasn’t changed. They just put up four goals down in Portland. Another aggressive and clinical performance like that will be required.

FINAL SCORE: Vancouver Whitecaps 0 – 3 Seattle Sounders

ATT: 12,446

VANCOUVER: 1.Yohei Takaoka; 18.Édier Ocampo, 2.Mathías Laborda, 33.Tristan Blackmon (6.Ralph Priso HT), 28.Tate Johnson; 16.Sebastian Berhalter, 20.Oliver Larraz (59.Jeevan Badwal 75’); 11.Emmanuel Sabbi (7.Cheikh Sabaly 62’), 13.Thomas Müller, 19.Rayan Elloumi (24.Brian White 62’); 26.Kenji Cabrera (AZ 82’) [Substitutes not used: 30.Adrían Zendejas, 32.Isaac Boehmer, 29.Mihail Gherasimencov, 41.Nikola Djordjevic

SEATTLE: 24.Stefan Frei; 5.Nouhou Tolo, 16.Alexander Roldan (35.Antino Lopez 89’), 25.Jackson Ragen, 85.Kalani Kossa-Rienzi; 7.Cristian Roldan, 37.Snyder Brunell; 17.Paul Arriola (14.Paul Rothrock 62’), 11.Albert Rusnák (44.Nikola Petković 77’), 9.Jesús Ferreira (45.Peter Kingston 77’); 95.Osaze De Rosario (19.Daniel Musovski 62’) [Substitutes not used: 26.Andrew Thomas, 50.Max Anchor, 33.Cody Baker, 36.Yu Tsukanome, 90.Sebastián Gómez]

SCORING SUMMARY:
45′ – SEA – Paul Arriola (Jesús Ferreira)
58′ – SEA – Paul Arriola
70′ – SEA – Paul Rothrock (Cristian Roldan)

STATS:
Possession: VAN 64% – SEA 36%
Shots: VAN 17 – SEA 10
Shots on Goal: VAN 3 – SEA 5
Saves: VAN 3 – SEA 2
Fouls: VAN 14 – SEA 7
Offsides: VAN 0 – SEA 1
Corners: VAN 11 – SEA 2

CAUTIONS:
None

REACTION:

VANCOUVER WHITECAPS

JESPER SORENSEN

On his side’s uncharacteristic performance:

“I’m happy that it was an uncharacteristic performance, because we cannot play like this every time. We did not come out that strong. We made a lot of turnovers and we didn’t get the flow of the game and we had to run back. Seattle did a very good job breaking and playing through us in a couple of situations in the first half. Honestly, I think the first half hour was not good from our side and then we started taking over, but then we made a mistake in the last part of the first half where they got the first goal. Then in the second half I think we came out better and gained control over the play, but made some big mistakes that puts us in a very difficult situation.”

What was the difference tonight and what needs to change for the return leg:

“Right now, it’s a little bit difficult to have a strong belief. But I have a belief that we can do a very good game and we can take something back and make it interesting in a week from now. We were a good team three hours ago, we’re still a good team and the players are good players. We will be strong coming back and we will gain the belief that when we go out in six days we know that we will have to do something special, but we think we are capable of doing it.

“We made some mistakes that made things very, very difficult for us. It was not that we were under heavy pressure. The first 20 to 25 minutes Seattle were better than us, but apart from that we took over in the play but then we make some critical mistakes and they utilized. We can’t make those kind of mistakes because then we put ourselves in too difficult of a situation and then we need to score on some of the chances. We also had chances today to score some goals but we didn’t succeed on that account. We have to turn it upside down next time.”

SEATTLE SOUNDERS

HEAD COACH BRIAN SCHMETZER

On what his teams did well tonight:

“It’s not just the goals, I thought the possession in the first half and getting past their pressure was pretty good too. You could watch the tape again, and I’ll watch the tape on the bus, but the possession out of the back was good, guys had big performances.”

On not letting Vancouver score from a set piece after previous struggles defending those:

“We made it a point of emphasis. [Our team] do a lot of work with the film guys to make sure that we understand our opponent’s tendencies. We’ve been practicing set pieces, both offensively and defensively more at the start of this year and so you’re seeing some of that work translating into good performances on the field.”

On Paul Arriola’s performance:

“That’s the Paul Arriola that Sounders fans are going to be happy with, and that I’m happy with.”

On playing the second leg in Spokane and not Seattle:

“We want to go into Spokane and reward some of the Sounders fans that are on the Eastern side of our State. There’s soccer people everywhere in the Northwest. It’s a great soccer culture everywhere and going there to Spokane kind of reminds me of the USL days. We used to go over to Yakima and places like that and play exhibition games, do camps over there. So I’ll enjoy that trip… The soccer part of it, a result like this helps us because we don’t really know the stadium that well. We’re going to go a day early and try and get a feel for it. It’ll be challenging because it’s not a Lumen Field home game, so the three goal cushion certainly is going to help us.”