The Vancouver Whitecaps were toppled 5-3 in a midweek thriller against MLS newcomers San Diego FC on Wednesday night at BC Place, losing out on the MLS Western Conference pole position, at least for now.
The natural grass was rolled right back up following the CANMNT Gold Cup game during the international break, but Vancouver looked rather uncomfortable on a pitch that has served them well this season. Quite a few streaks were broken on the night, most notably their first loss at home in three months and change, and the first back-to-back losses in all competitions this season.
Fair play to San Diego, who are a well-drilled side under rookie Head Coach Mikey Varas, and probably the biggest surprise in the league, if it’s not Vancouver. Despite missing their two best players in Hirving Lozano and Luca de la Torre, and quite a few other squad players to injury, San Diego were incisive in attack and easily picked apart an abysmal defensive performance.
The game started rather slowly, with each team aiming to play their possession-based brand of soccer, but struggled to generate anything of note for the first 30 minutes of the game. A case could be made for a penalty when Emannuel Sabbi went down in the box early on, but it was 50/50 at best and in my opinion, the right call that neither the referee nor VAR intervened.
In the 35th minute, Milan Iloski buried a fortunate rebound from a Yohei Takaoka save, and followed up just two minutes later with another tidy finish off of a rapid San Diego counter. Not to be outdone on the other end, Edier Ocampo smashed in a weak-foot half-volley following a borderline assist from opposing right back Oscar Verhoven in the 43rd minute. Unfortunately, Iloski completed his hat trick less than a minute later via an extraordinary Andres Dreyer cross to take the lead to 3-1 in the blink of an eye.
The half-time break did little to slow down Iloski, who added his fourth goal in 12 minutes at the 47th, off a dangerous Dreyer through-ball. A long stretch of Whitecaps dominance followed, but despite a Daniel Rios post and intriguing looks for Sabbi, there wasn’t much to show. At the 66-minute mark, Mathias Laborda converted on a beautiful through ball from Vite, and to the Whitecaps’ credit, the team continued to push forward and had a handful of good chances to close the gap, which were unfortunately put to waste. Another splendid Dreyer through-ball finished off the game for good in the 90th minute. Youngster Antoine Coupland added a consolation goal deep into extra time to close out a 5-3 barn-burner.
One positive out of the game was the link-up play between Vite and Ocampo, who, between the two, ran the entirety of the Whitecaps’ attacking momentum. Ocampo’s speed and overlapping runs gave Vite a little room to breathe, and Vite’s left foot thrived from the extra options moving forward. Another standout was halftime substitute Matias Laborda, solid and productive at both ends of the pitch. It was also great to see Coupland grab his first goal.
On the other hand, the Whitecaps’ midfield trio of Andrés Cubas, Ralph Priso, and Jeevan Badwal had a particularly tough night and were passengers in both directions for the majority of the game. Sebastian Berhalter and Ryan Gauld can not return fast enough to reinforce a rapidly thinning midfield. Takaoka and Tristan Blackmon — who, alongside Brian White and Vite, were named MLS All Stars today — looked far from stars, while Ranko Veselinovic and Tate Johnson really struggled to defend through balls. The backline will certainly bear most of the blame for the collapse in this one. However, like the rest of the team, the starting defenders have earned more than enough goodwill to this point in the season, and it’s still way too early to start drawing knee-jerk conclusions.
Of course, most around the league will be talking about the two performances of Dreyer and Iloski. Dryer was untouchable and sliced up Vancouver like a hot knife through butter, while Iloski’s perfect haul of goals means the American striker is on a streak of seven goals in three games. Credit must go to San Diego FC, who looked good in their first-ever MLS game against the Whitecaps.
While a disappointing loss, it’s important to keep things in perspective. The Whitecaps are still just a point behind San Diego FC with a game in hand, and are still second in the West and fourth in Supporters’ Shield standings. At the same time, the cracks have been showing in the last month, and the second transfer window can’t come soon enough. Injuries at the international level for Ali Ahmed and Sam Adekugbe are deeply concerning.
It’s a quick turnaround to the next fixture down the Pacific Coast against rivals LAFC, with the away fixture just four days down the line. It’s paramount that the Whitecaps halt the slide and continue their stellar season into the second half of the year.
Our midfield were appalling unfortunately, with Cubas having his worst game since the fiasco in Mexico. Taka made his usual mistake for the all important first goal – parrying a shot straight back into the danger zone instead of pushing it around the post. Johnson was totally lost – will be a big learning game for him.
Having said that, we missed two big chances in the second half (Blackmon’s easy header and someone scuffing a shot with an open goal in front of him) that could have ended the game as 5-5!
Cubas was very poor. Priso doesn’t have an engine room or enough closing quickness to stifle passes, so that’s why he’s not in any CMNT conversation. Badwell is a Surrey kid who is not ready for prime time but he helps the club’s brand in locally.
Sorensen got the tactics wrong last night. You can’t press with Rios and Sabbi up front. They don’t have the skillset.
And Vite needs to be in a position where he’s more involved in the game than when he plays as a wide forward.
Brutal stretch coming up but if they’re still in the top four at the end of July they can hopefully push on toward the end of the season.
I know Ocampo had a nice crack for the first goal but his defensive play at RB has been a horror show of late. Sorenson should give Laborda (who also scored a nice goal) more starts there to help with the defensive play then rotate in Ocampo.
I was at last night’s game. The 1st half wasn’t good for the caps. This was laid bare by the 1st half statistics, where the caps lost out on all counts. And the one metric that doesn’t exist is team speed and the caps lost out on that one as well. Our two fastest players, Saliba and Ocampo, didn’t cause San Diego too many problems. Our lack of passing accuracy in trying to release these players comes into play as well. With so many players away i kind of expected this to happen. MLS needs to figure out how to maintain the integrity of their regular season. IMO
Saliba?
It’s beyond expectations for the backline defenders to simultaneously cover the midfield and their own line without the ball making it through both, and it’s unsurprising that those watching the game heave the bulk of the blame for this loss, or any other loss for that matter, on the backline. If the ball is played on the ground and makes it through the midfield, someone isn’t doing their job. If a team can’t score, it can’t win games regardless how good or bad defenders are defending.
It took the entire team to lose this game.
Even when the team has all the normal starters available, there is a huge hole in the front. The people who fill the roster historically focus less on players who can actually score goals in difficult situations than they do on so called depth. Depth is a misnomer when speaking about this team since depth *should* indicate that a team has one or more players with near equal abilities for each position.
Nothing can be done about the absence of players on international duty this season, but team owners, management and the players, themselves, can initiate a campaign to change the rules for future seasons. I promise you the players who care about their personal careers don’t like it any more than the fans do.
Right now there is too much dependence on young inexperienced players who have little or no first team minutes. That’s not their fault. It’s not even the coaches fault. It’s a system failure of the league.
To be clear, the players who were voted in as all-stars earned those votes. Don’t discredit them or their hard work because of one, or even two, losses.
For once i totally agree with Anon in his post! ……..”Nothing can be done about the absence of players on international duty this season, but team owners, management and the players, themselves, can initiate a campaign to change the rules for future seasons. I promise you the players who care about their personal careers don’t like it any more than the fans do.”………..A farce and a total insult to fans especially season ticket holders!
Milan Iloski (born July 29, 1999) is an American professional soccer player who plays as a forward or winger for Major League Soccer club San Diego FC, on loan from Danish Superliga club Nordsjælland.
https://www.sandiegofc.com/
This team is pretty ordinary without Gauld, White,Ahmed,Adegubi….not surprising as most teams aren’t good without key star players. They couldn’t move forward or penetrate at all til the end when it didnt really matter…after having a team that was fun to watch, last night just took me back to the doldrums that we’ve had here for the last few years. Unfortunately, the descent starts now!
Love the optimism of casual fans /s
Totally. That was doldrums ?! Both teams kept going for it til the end. I’m fine losing a game like that. Looking forward to Berhalter returning though!