Tuesday night in Chicago, the Vancouver Whitecaps fell 3-1 to the Chicago Fire at Soldier Field. While Jesper Sørensen’s team still tops the Western Conference by three points, they have not looked like that team for quite some time. With seven matches left in the MLS regular season, there is a growing sense of urgency for this team to get back on form in time for the MLS Cup Playoffs.

Existential dread aside, we can take a look at the match itself. With some international absences still remaining, Aleksa Cvetković featured in the midfield, while Rui Modesto started at right back. Otherwise, this was a relatively full-strength XI for Sørensen, though notably, neither Thomas Müller for Vancouver nor Robert Lewandowski for Chicago were in the XI at kick-off.

Vancouver was energetic, albeit a bit sloppy, out of the gates, and Ryan Gauld did have a decent near-post chance inside two minutes that could have had the visiting team starting in style. However, in the 9th minute, the Fire played cleanly out of the back all the way up the field to Jonathan Bamba, who strode across the top of the six-yard box unpressured and thumped a long-distance effort past Yohei Takaoka, putting the home side up 1-0.

What was striking about this goal was how easily the Fire played through Vancouver’s press, and how little back pressure the Whitecaps offered to Bamba as he strode along the edge of the area. To cap things off, Takaoka should have been much quicker to anticipate where Bamba’s shot was headed.

Rather than eliciting a strong response, this seemed to wobble Vancouver, as the Fire spent the next 30 minutes passing their way around the Whitecaps and putting them under heavy pressure. This was highlighted by a 25th-minute play where goalscorer Bamba played a cutback across the box, which was blocked by a sliding Mathias Laborda and deemed to be a handball. Thankfully for the Whitecaps, Philip Zinckernagel hit the post on his penalty attempt.

While this did give the Whitecaps a boost and they played much better to close out the half, it was not the turning point the Whitecaps would have been hoping for.

The Whitecaps brought on Müller to start the second half and changed up their midfield mix, dropping Gauld into a deeper position. This didn’t change things as much as Sørensen would have hoped, as the Whitecaps found themselves down two goals within five minutes of the halftime restart. More clever passing from the Fire and a lack of communication along the backline let Zinckernagel in alone on goal, and this time the Danish attacker made no mistake, 2-0.

Once again, Vancouver’s struggle to get their marking and high press sorted out led to a rather easy goal, a theme in recent weeks. Equally, as with the first goal, the lack of tracking by Vancouver’s midfield was notable.

From there, Vancouver did settle in and had their best spell of the match on the ball, as Müller and Gauld started to find some flow and Chicago was a little more content to sit back and absorb pressure. This culminated in the 73rd minute, as after winning a corner, the Whitecaps scored from the set piece through the head of Mathias Laborda. It was great service from Ryan Gauld, and Laborda placed a powerful header at the near post that Josh Cohen couldn’t keep from crossing the line. With the score now 2-1, perhaps there was life from the Whitecaps after all?

Unfortunately, the Fire took this goal as a wake-up call and absolutely dominated the last 10+ minutes of the match. It is not often over the last two years that the Whitecaps look to be the clear second-best side on the pitch, but this match was one of those.

Lewandowski had his impact, as he made a clever turn and run from the edge of the area which left Maren Haile-Selassie with the easiest of tap-ins to salt the match away. Once again, the Whitecaps had their marking all wrong across the backline, with Rui Modesto looking completely lost, keeping the play onside and then also failing to mark Haile-Selassie at the far post.

Overall, this was a very frustrating match for the Whitecaps, but not in the way we have become accustomed to under Sørensen. Typically, it’s because the Whitecaps are wasteful with their chances, or make a couple of individual mistakes that otherwise ruin a solid performance. This felt like the opposite of that.

The Whitecaps were thoroughly dominated, and though there were some brief bright moments, they looked very far away from pulling off a result on the night. That’s concerning, as though it is still the international break and a few players are away, that’s not enough to explain the way the Whitecaps looked in Chicago.