Wednesday night in Montreal, the Vancouver Whitecaps were eliminated from the Canadian Championship for the first time in five years, losing the second leg 2-1 and the tie 3-2 on aggregate.

It was always going to take something exceptional to steal Vancouver’s crown, and in the end, it was a combination of extremely dubious officiating decisions, including the intervention of the controversial FVS system, and the Whitecaps’ recurring issues since the World Cup break that led to their exit.

I guess we will start with the controversial moments. Vancouver, perhaps feeling like they had gone to school on the FVS system, decided to challenge a scant penalty shout in the 15th minute. I don’t think there was much contact, and the ball was already out of the area, but I can understand Vancouver’s sideline thinking it was a reckless slide and a foul. It seemed like a rather harmless moment at the time, and I doubt too many Whitecaps supporters felt aggrieved about it.

However, when Montreal challenged a run-of-the-mill 50/50 aerial challenge in the 25th minute, those feelings likely changed. Especially given the similar something-out-of-nothing nature of the two incidents. If anything, it looked like former Whitecap Daniel Ríos crashed into Sam Adekugbe on the play, but the longer the official spent at the monitor, the more it felt like the outcome was going to be bad for Vancouver.

For me, this is the problem with FVS. The official gets sent to the monitor to hunt for a foul, and in a sense, that feels like the opposite of what I believe should be the spirit of video review: a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency option for clear errors. Regardless, the official rather shockingly decided it was a penalty, and Prince Owusu converted. 1-0 Montreal on the night.

The Whitecaps made it to within five minutes of halftime without further peril, but a late challenge from goalscorer Owusu left Tristan Blackmon hobbled. Looking at the replay through the OneSoccer broadcast, it was probably a red-card challenge. Owusu was late, left his studs exposed, and endangered his opponent. Yet, because the Whitecaps had already used their first challenge on the earlier moment, they were hesitant to use their second so early. If this was VAR, I think there is little doubt the incident would have at least been looked at on its own.

To make matters worse, as Blackmon tried his best to hobble his way to halftime, Vancouver was left exposed at the back. A lack of composure from both Mathías Laborda and Isaac Boehmer left the very busy Owusu with a wide-open net on the break, and the tie was cracked open at 2-0 on the night, 3-1 on aggregate. A nightmare half for Vancouver reached its conclusion.

The second half was far less eventful for both teams and the officiating crew, as Montreal knew their mission was simply to see things out. However, the same old theme returned for Vancouver, who looked rather listless and ineffective trying to break down a low block, while struggling to even get shots on target. They did get a late consolation goal, shoutout to Jeevan Badwal for the great run, and Sabbi for the solid finish, but it was too little, too late at Stade Saputo.

I’ve been the guy urging caution not to overreact to a couple of unlucky performances since the World Cup break, but I think it’s fair now to say we’ve reached critical mass in terms of some worrying underlying issues with this team. The final-third play has been frustrating, as the lack of box-crashing threat, combined with high-volume, low-final-product wingers, has left this team looking out of ideas far too often.

Equally, the combination of Laborda and Blackmon has simply not worked, leading to baffling moments of headloss amidst otherwise solid play. Both are swashbuckling defenders who take a lot of risk, and while I really like both of them, I don’t think they should play together at centre-back. It was great to see Priso make a cameo, given this.

Finally, as we’ve talked about a lot, this team doesn’t have the same ability to play well through rotation, and these busy weeks have really exposed that of late. A lot will be asked of the newcomers down the closing stretch to pick up the pieces.

Amidst a sea of negativity, I do want to take a moment and reflect on Vancouver’s four-peat in the domestic cup. The Voyageurs Cup is a special trophy, and in my lifetime, there was a lot more pain and sorrow than there was elation in Vancouver. The way the Whitecaps were able to flip that narrative and become the undisputed best team in the country year-in, year-out is worth celebrating. Even as they are bounced from the competition, that is clearly still true.

Credit to Vanni Sartini for starting that journey, and to Sørensen for building on it. Time to start a new streak next year.