Saturday night in Houston, the Vancouver Whitecaps dropped their second match of the MLS season to the Houston Dynamo by a score of 1-0, following a stoppage-time winner from Guilherme Augusto.

As we entered extra-time, I was thinking about how the narrative for this match, and this column, would write itself: The Whitecaps grind out an ugly 0-0 draw in Houston at the end of a long week, as is time-honoured tradition.

This match had all of those hallmarks I’ve become well acquainted with over the years, warm temperatures, lengthy delays, sporadic and reasonably low-quality football, and for the cherry on top, a rather dubious red card decision.

Sure, the Whitecaps gave up a point late, but I don’t think what happened at the end really changes the big-picture takeaways that much. Over the course of a long season, you run into these matches every once in a while, especially on the road, and I don’t think it’s worth overanalyzing. Sometimes you just have to clear the slate and move on to the next match.

Now, as for how the match played out. The Whitecaps started brightly and were in control through the first 25 minutes, highlighted by Edier Ocampo glancing the outside of the post inside the first 30 seconds. That early control was interrupted by a prolonged stoppage after a scary moment involving Houston midfielder Diadie Samassékou, who had to be removed in an ambulance.

When play resumed, the rest of the first half settled into a fairly even back-and-forth, though Houston began to show an ability to catch Vancouver with players committed forward, leading to a handful of transition chances for the Dynamo’s talented attackers.

This theme of dangerous Houston transitions continued in the second half, much to Jesper Sørensen’s chagrin, as was made clear in his post-match comments, where he noted that limiting those moments had been a point of emphasis at halftime. Though Vancouver offered Houston a number of opportunities on the break, the Dynamo looked disorganized when they arrived in the final third, consistently wasting those chances and producing very little in terms of final product.

It was during one of those direct moments that Yohei Takaoka charged beyond the edge of his 18-yard box and slid in on Mateusz Bogusz, clattering him to the turf and drawing a rather confident and immediate red card from Ismail Elfath. Now, while I don’t debate the foul, and certainly think it’s a clear yellow card, I do question the premise that this was the denial of an obvious goal-scoring opportunity, and therefore a red.

Bogusz is outside the area running down the left flank, the path of the ball is carrying him further away from goal and into a tighter angle, and Edier Ocampo is also charging back to cover if Takaoka misses his challenge. None of those factors, to me, indicate a clear goal-scoring opportunity. I can understand the temptation to show red in real time on a challenge like that, but surely this is where VAR is supposed to provide value. Having had the opportunity to review the footage, the decision feels fairly straightforward to me.

Nonetheless, the Whitecaps played on from the 64th minute down a man, with Isaac Boehmer between the sticks. From there, it became fairly predictable one-way traffic as Houston pushed for a winner, while Vancouver punted the ball into space and played for a road point.

That approach was working reasonably well until deep into stoppage time, when Guilherme slipped past AZ Jackson in a 1v1 situation before firing a low shot that deflected off Brian White and past a handcuffed Boehmer to deliver Houston all three points.

As I mentioned earlier, this was a tough way for the Whitecaps to end the week, but it’s hardly reason for dismay. This team has still enjoyed a tremendous start and continues to show a lot of very positive signs, albeit with some areas where improvement is still needed.

One thing that was certainly notable was that Kenji Cabrera failed to make much of an impression after getting the opportunity to start, and he will continue to struggle for minutes unless he shows more initiative. He might be the rare young attacker who shows too much patience on the ball, rather than not enough. It was also a tough outing for AZ Jackson and Isaac Boehmer off the bench, as neither looked fully up to the task and both shouldered some blame for the late goal against.

On the positive side, I did think there were some nice interplay moments between Jeevan Badwal and Thomas Müller, but the team needed someone with pace on the wing to really unlock that combination play. As a parting thought, if Berhalter had been able to smash home the ball that fell to him at the top of the box near the end of the first half, we could easily be talking about a comfortable 3-1 win right now, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

With one more match before the World Cup break, the Whitecaps will travel home and rest up for a Western Conference Final rematch in San Diego next weekend. One they will have to face without Andrés Cubas, and perhaps Yohei Takaoka as well depending on any suspension appeal, so that could get interesting.