Wednesday night in St. Louis, the matchup between the top two teams in the West ended in a 0-0 draw. The Whitecaps once again showed encouraging signs of returning to form, but were unable to come away with all three points.
Vancouver made just one change to their weekend lineup in LA, with Mathías Laborda replacing the suspended Tristan Blackmon.
The match started very strongly for Vancouver, with the Whitecaps putting City under heavy pressure in the opening fifteen minutes. Ryan Gauld, Brian White, and the aforementioned Laborda all missed decent chances to give Vancouver an early lead, with Laborda’s effort hitting the woodwork.
Both Diaby and Ocampo offered a good threat in the wide channels, while Andrés Cubas and Olliver Larraz won a lot of battles in midfield. This was a big contrast to Vancouver’s home match against St. Louis, where it felt like the Whitecaps were overrun in the middle of the park.
The latter stages of the first half were rather listless, as Conrad Wallem went down injured and bleeding after a tough but fair 50/50 challenge with Tate Johnson. Rather inexplicably, Wallem carried on for several minutes after the initial incident, despite still appearing visibly woozy on the broadcast and requiring significant medical attention. The repeated stoppages took the sting out of the match, with both teams heading into halftime without much further action.
St. Louis seemed to wake up at halftime and came out much stronger in the second stanza, with the match feeling more balanced between the two sides. Despite this, it was Vancouver who had the first big chance of the second half. Diaby and Gauld combined for some great buildup in the 56th minute, with the Scotsman finding Brian White in space in the centre of the box. However, White never quite got his feet right and shinned the ball wide of the target. If there was a moment when Vancouver was really going to grab this one, it felt like that was probably it.
White’s striking contemporary Rafael Navarro proceeded to scuff a couple of chances of his own as the second half progressed, and neither team could find a breakthrough. While St. Louis did test Vancouver’s Takaoka on a number of occasions, few of these felt seriously threatening, as Mathías Laborda and Ralph Priso did a pretty good job of keeping the game in front of them. It’s worth noting that with Priso back in the mix, the Whitecaps have now conceded just one goal over the last 180+ minutes, with almost half of that time spent down to 10 men against two of the better teams in the West.
Simon Becher replaced Navarro in the 70th minute and had City’s best look of the night just three minutes later. He managed to track down a direct ball over the top and found himself one-on-one with Takaoka in the scramble. The angle was sharp and Becher’s strike was not clean, but it was the most exposed Vancouver had looked all night, and Becher will likely wish he could have got more on the shot.
From there, there were a number of set-piece opportunities and shots from distance, but little of note as both teams seemed cautious about risking too much in the late stages.
Things only got tense in the dying moments, as Diaby went down under a challenge that went uncalled and St. Louis broke the other way. Vancouver had to scramble to recover, and it was ultimately captain Gauld who put himself between the ball and Tomas Totland, sending it out of play to bring the match to a close with the score level.
While there’s another world where Vancouver has taken six points from these last two matches and is in commanding control of the West, I do think these past two performances are worth commending. Jesper Sørensen spoke after the match about how his team had gotten away from their style of play in recent weeks, pointing to matches against DC United and Chicago Fire, and said he’d been much more content with what he’d seen over the past week. I tend to agree.
Obviously, there’s a job to be done now in validating this recent upturn with wins and establishing a firm grip on playoff seeding to give Vancouver the best path possible. For now, though, it’s good to see this team looking like themselves again.