The Vancouver Whitecaps were frustrated on the road by one of the league’s worst teams, falling 3-2 to the New England Revolution on Saturday.

The Revs had their share of fortune but a Ryan Gauld brace was not enough to steer the Caps’ attack in the second half to get a result, with Vancouver ceding much of the possession despite being down by two goals.

Vanni Sartini opted to return to the 3-4-1-2, with Damir Kreilach joining Brian White up top. No Ali Ahmed meant Ryan Raposo and Luis Martins at wingback and Sartini opted to keep Javain Brown and Bjorn Utvik in the lineup as well at centerback.

The Caps started brightly but were stunned by an absolute banger of a goal from Noel Buck, who tried a long range shot from well outside the box after Giacomo Vironi had his blocked shot fall kindly to him. There was nothing Yohei Takaoka could do and Vancouver quickly found themselves down 1-0.

Vancouver kept their heads down and hit back quickly. The Caps overwhelmed the Revs early from wide areas, with the wide centerbacks bombing forward to confuse the New England defense. Javain Brown did so, whipping in a ball that was met by the deftest of headers from Ryan Gauld, spinning past Aljaz Ivacic to level the match at 1-1 just 13 minutes in.

The blistering pace of the first half continued and this time the Caps shipped a completely preventable goal. A run from DeJuan Jones pulled the midfield out of position, granting too much space for Dylan Borrero, who was excellent for the Revs, to play a line-splitting ball to Vironi, who timed his run well and saw none of the Caps defenders go with him. He slotted the shot by Takaoka to restore New England’s lead.

The Caps actually held the majority of the possession in the first 45 minutes, trying to control the game from the wings and create space with those overloads, using the press to smother New England whenever they turned the ball over. The issue was the Revs had success getting the ball to Carles Gill and Borrero when they broke that first line of pressure.

Vancouver was unlucky not to equalize, with Brian White denied by Ivacic on the doorstep, and Brown again highly effective from the wide area to beat his man and nearly notch his second assist of the night.

The Caps’ bad luck continued. Vancouver was unable to clear their lines but Sebastian Berhalter seemed to get across to close down Esmir Bajraktarevic, but it deflected off Berhalter’s back and floated over the head of Takaoka.

Sartini wasted at the break, bringing on Fafa Picault for a quiet Kreilach, and the pacey winger nearly created a goal for Brian White straight away. The second half was wide open at the beginning and a more clinical side might have taken advantage of the frenetic pace and put the game well and truly away.

Unfortunately, it was the Revs who continued to find the better chances, even as Vancouver had to start chasing the game. New England was perfectly content to put bodies in the centre of the park, forcing the Caps to throw numbers out wide. The Caps, meanwhile, could only create some fairly weak headed chances from crosses that didn’t trouble Ivacic.

What was particularly frustrating is that New England actually held onto most of the possession in the second half, with the Caps not even involved for large swaths of a match they were down by two goals. Instead, it felt like the team with a commanding lead was the one still chasing the match.

Ryan Gauld was able to make the final scoreline look less lopsided, with an absolutely beautiful hit from even further out from Buck’s goal, seeing his strike knuckle past Ivacic, in what will almost certainly be a goal of the week contender. It wasn’t enough for Vancouver, however.

Stray Thoughts

• Let’s start with the gripe: This was one where the Caps had some phenomenally bad luck. New England had 12 goals entering this match and while the first half had one break where Vancouver got cut open, the other two goals were frankly down to luck and there wasn’t much the Caps could do about them. Indeed, there were some positive flashes going forward for Vancouver in the first half.
• The problem is this type of explaining away the result won’t work given the second half. Something is wrong if you’re ceding large swaths of possession to the worst team in the league while chasing a two goal deficit. Vancouver were ultimately lucky not to concede more (if I were a New England fan I would have broken something). There just aren’t any ideas going forward at the moment that don’t involve lumping in crosses from wide areas or playing uber-direct, and it took the Revs about 45 minutes to figure this out. I’m not sure how you have a week off with which to devise a more effective game-plan, only to get carved up by the worst team in the league.
• Fafa Picault looked good for about 10 minutes in the second half and then became completely invisible. Fafa has been so good this year, you’ll forgive it but with Brian White already largely a passenger, that left Gauld being the only one to do much of anything going forward.
• Credit to Yohei Takaoka, who made three or four big saves in the second half to keep things from really getting out of hand.
• I’m not really sure why Luis Martins and/or Ryan Raposo keep getting a run out when Giuseppe Bovalina looks much better and dangerous in that same role. I think it’s been three straight appearances from the Australian where I’ve commented that I want to see more, yet it strangely hasn’t been forthcoming.
• This midfield looks lost without Andres Cubas and it’ll be four matches for them to figure things out.

Three Stars

3. No one

I was trying to think of whether to try and shoehorn someone in here but I couldn’t do it in good faith. The fact that I considered slotting in Yohei Takaoka in a game in which he conceded three goals speaks volumes.

2. Javain Brown

I thought Brown was pretty solid defensively but he falls in this category because of his superb attacking performance in the first half, when the Caps were looking much more goal dangerous. That was in part due to Brown, who used his fullback instincts to have some really nice overlapping runs, including the assist on Gauld’s first goal. He should have had a second assist and showed what he can offer on his day.

1. Ryan Gauld

This one is a no brainer — Gauld not only had two goals, he was the only attacking piece that consistently contributed anything in this one. His strike in the dying moments of the game will go down as perhaps the Caps goal of the season but it came out of clear frustration in a match where he didn’t get much support from anyone else.