The Vancouver Whitecaps will hope to keep their season alive Sunday night, welcoming LAFC to BC Place for the second match of the best-of-three playoff series.

A win (either in regulation or a penalty shootout) is a must if Vancouver wants to send the series back to Southern California and avoid the fate they met last season, when poor finishing and poor officiating saw them lose to LAFC 1-0 in the home leg.

If you’re looking for reason to be optimistic, consider this: The Caps played better in their first leg this time around than they did in 2023. While Vancouver ran out of gas in the second half, they dominated the first part of the first half and were unlucky to not have scored. They were even more unlucky to concede a penalty (a la the second match in the 2023) and fall behind.

That doesn’t mean much more than a moral victory at this point. But the Caps have played LAFC tough at home consistently over the years. Prior to last season’s woes, the Caps had a four match winning streak against their rivals at home.

In terms of tactics, I don’t think we’ll see much difference in game two as opposed to game one, barring a likely shift in field tilt towards Vancouver.

LAFC will be fine with less of the ball, as they like to feast on the counter attack, much like the move that prompted the penalty in match one. The Caps did well to largely contain Denis Bouanga in the first half (the move before the penalty notwithstanding), before letting things get looser in the second, when they were lucky LAFC hit the bar a couple of times to prevent them from having an even larger lead.

The Caps don’t have anyone who can match Bouanga in terms of pace (which makes them just about everyone else) but playing Mathias Laborda at fullback has provided a bit of cover, while also giving Sam Adekugbe the license to get forward. The Caps need to avoid risky plays, like the turnover Adekugbe made before the handball penalty, but their blueprint from match one should be used again in this game.

The task for the Caps will be breaking down LAFC, which isn’t easy to do — this is one of the stronger defensive sides in the league.

But here again, the Caps have a blueprint to follow after Andres Cubas matched up favorably with the LAFC midfield in match one and Stuart Armstrong, Pedro Vite, and Ryan Gauld looked like they had a plan to take advantage of the Lewis O’Brien/Timothy Tillman pairing. Vite was particularly sharp — Armstrong has really unlocked a new level of play, and this is a midfield that is humming at exactly the right moment.

There are no injury concerns for the Caps as they return home and I would expect minimal changes to the starting XI, with one exception. I’d imagine Vanni Sartini will re-introduce Fafa Picault into the the starting XI after going with Ali Ahmed in the first match, only to see him not get much of the ball and fail to make any meaningful impact on the game. Picault was better in his sub appearance and should be added into the mix in this one, as his pace stretches defenses (particularly a slower backline like that of LAFC) in different ways.

We saw last year in the playoffs that returning home didn’t help the lower seeds much in the best of three, with a lot of series closed out after two matches.

Vancouver has everything they need to take the match to LAFC and force a game three, they just have to put it all together. They did just that against Portland and it saved their season.

Managing that type of performance against a superior team is, of course, a different task but the time is now for it to happen. The first match provided a road map for success against LAFC and a full week of rest might allow them to better execute it for 90 minutes. The room for error is slim but there is a chance to break the curse against LAFC and get over the hump when it matters most.