Thursday night at BC Place, the Vancouver Whitecaps will host the Seattle Sounders in the first leg of their CONCACAF Round of 16 matchup. These were two of the better teams in MLS last season, as the Sounders won the Leagues Cup, while the Whitecaps made both the Champions Cup Final and the MLS Cup Final.
Seattle has started the season well, with two shutout wins over Colorado and St. Louis, sandwiching a rather odd 2-1 loss to Real Salt Lake. Overall, though, the Sounders are expected to be one of the stronger teams in the West yet again, as scoring leaders Albert Rusnák and Daniel Musovski are back for another season, and most of the roster remains unchanged. Equally, Brian Schmetzer, who has been with the club in a coaching capacity since 2002, provides a steady force on the touchline and always makes things tricky for his opponents.
Seattle won this competition, then called the Champions Cup, back in 2022 and was eliminated last season by eventual winner Cruz Azul in the Round of 16.
Last season, the Whitecaps had a memorable 3-0 win over the Sounders at BC Place in June and followed that up with an entertaining 2-2 draw down the I-5 in September. Vancouver finished 2nd in the West with 63 points, while Seattle was 5th with 55 points.
Looking at Vancouver’s lineup for this match, one of the bigger talking points will be the suspension of Andrés Cubas, who picked up two yellow cards in the previous round against their Costa Rican opponents. This leaves a rather large gap in the midfield for Jesper Sørensen to manage. While Oliver Larraz is the most natural positional fit, I do wonder if Sørensen will get more creative.
Jeevan Badwal has played very well this season and can certainly fill the role in a double pivot if properly supported. Equally, both Mathias Laborda and Ralph Priso have enough versatility that Priso could move forward into the midfield and Laborda could shift centrally in defense if Vancouver wanted to be their most stout against Seattle’s attacking threat.
Either way, the match against Minnesota on Sunday will also have to be managed, as it’s a short turnaround for the Blue and White before their next MLS fixture. Similarly for Seattle, they have to face a red-hot San Jose side this weekend, and the visitors are already facing some key injuries going into these two matches with Jordan Morris, Kee-Hee Kim, Pedro De la Vega, Paul Rothrock, and Hassani Dotson unlikely to feature.
We have seen Vancouver grow into this season match by match, with attacking play improving over the course of each outing. The absence of Cubas will hurt a bit, but on their home pitch, the Whitecaps should fancy themselves to come away with a win. From there, the tie will continue next Wednesday in Spokane. With the oddity of a secondary venue, the Whitecaps should sense an opportunity to limit Seattle’s home advantage and progress to the next round without having to face the very challenging Lumen Field.
Based on current form, I think the Whitecaps will come out with a 2-1 win in this match, though the cherry on top would be holding the Sounders off the scoreboard and carrying the potential away-goals advantage into Spokane.