A strong performance from the Whitecaps was negated by a mental meltdown, as the ‘Caps shipped a late goal to trail 2-1 against Saprissa heading back to BC Place next week.

It was Ryan Gauld who opened the Jesper Sorensen era with a bang, converting a lovely weak footed finish on the Caps’ first real opportunity of the night. The Gauld goal showed the ‘Caps still know how to pull of a well executed transition. Vancouver would see a couple of other golden transition opportunities go wanting, however.

Saprissa fought back with an absolute banger of an equalizer from Mariano Torres who cut inside from well outside the box and hammered one past Yohei Takaoka.

While the home side entered the second half with a bang, the ‘Caps had the better of the opportunities and should have scored at least one or two more goals. Their wastefulness was punished, when the entire ‘Caps backline switched off on a throw in deep in second half stoppage time, allowing Ariel Rodriguez to stab home a winning goal.

Overall Takeaways

This was largely a good performance from the Whitecaps but the overwhelming frustration to lose on some brain dead defending mere seconds away from seeing out a professional 1-1 draw will wash away much of the good will built up in the 90 minutes beforehand.

Drawing any big, sweeping takeaways about Jesper Sorensen’s style will be challenging given the hostile environment and the fact that the ‘Caps had swaths of the second half where they were focused on (unsuccessfully) seeing this one out. But they did clearly want the ball more and Sorensen clearly values central midfielders who want to progress the ball themselves, rather than spray long balls forward to create transition opportunities via Ryan Gauld, et al.

The fact is, the Caps created more than enough chances to win this and on another night they could have easily done so. The lack of sharpness and mental mistakes are fitting for a team early on in pre-season but you can’t let veteran CONCACAF teams like Saprissa hang around. Unfortunately, Vancouver did just that.

Report Card

Yohei Takaoka: 5.5

Made all the saves you’d expect him to make but didn’t do well enough to snuff out Saprissa’s first goal.

Sam Adekugbe: 5

Had some rusty moments and mental lapses in defense, notably totally losing a free runner into the box in stoppage time that allowed Saprissa to get their winner. I think Adekugbe has a real role to play in this team in 2025 and he had some moments of danger going forward but he will need to find his feet a bit after inconsistently seeing the pitch last year.

Ranko Veselinovic: 5.5

He was good in the air and had a couple moments defending 1v1 early but slipped a bit and had some mental mistakes as the match wore on.

Tristan Blackmon: 6

I thought Blackmon was the more comfortable of the two defenders and his skillset is a nice fit for a more possession oriented side.

Mathias Laborda: 6.5

Makes me nervous as a right back but despite getting burned once 1v1 in the first half, he mostly held up alright on the right hand. Clearly Sorensen is looking for a more reserved presence on the right to balance out Adekugbe on the left but Laborda got forward plenty and should have scored a free header in the second half.

Sebastian Berhalter: 6.5

Grew into the match a bit, both from open play, where he got on the ball a bit more as the game went on, and in set piece delivery, where he should have had an assist or two off of corner kicks.

Andres Cubas: 7

Cubas was born for an away leg in Central America and was lucky to only be shown yellow on a wild two-footed challenge at the end of the first half. Was asked to cover a lot of ground and did so quite well, batting five for eight on ground duels won and logging a handful of ball recoveries.

J.C. Ngando: 7.5

He had some license to bomb forward a bit and add another attacking outlet and I really liked what he added in terms of ball carrying and moving the ball well in transition. He had some challenging moments as well (he got dispossessed a fair amount trying to press forward) but I think this was an extremely promising showing for a guy who should be a regular rotational piece this year.

Ali Ahmed: 7.5

It will be interesting to see how a more possession-based model treats Ahmed, who is at his best when he is running at people in the open field. Case in point was his assist on Gauld’s goal, with a nice run and square ball. Good energy and work rate and he caused some real problems for defenders.

Brian White: 4.5

A very quiet game from White, who had only one real clear cut opportunity and never really got involved in the game when the Caps had the ball. Overall, it was one to forget for White.

Ryan Gauld: 7

At the centre of things per usual, though he was clearly getting back into the rhythm of things as he tried to find the right weight on some of his passes and had a couple of questionable decisions in transition. He had no problem, however, finding the perfect weight on his first shot of the year on a lovely goal.

Pedro Vite: 7.5

Had some moments of nice quality, linking up with Ali Ahmed and had a couple of great moments 1v1, including a run where he was barely denied a goal. Also had a couple of more wasteful passes as well but if this is any indication, Vite can be a real asset in Sorensen’s system.

Jayden Nelson & Ralph Priso: 4.5

Neither guy added much off the bench, which is a bit concerning given how central they will be as depth pieces. Instead, they seemed a bit awed by the experience. Nelson looked the better of the two, with a couple of good take-ons but neither made the desired impact off the bench.