The Vancouver Whitecaps have faced adversity early this season. On Saturday night, there was a lot more.
Despite injuries and a gruelling schedule, Vancouver entered this game 4-0-0 and was on top of the MLS standings. But the adversity and tough tests continued as Brian White, (USA) Ali Ahmed, (Canada) Pedro Vite, (Ecuador) and Andres Cubas (Paraguay) were all away on international duty. Again, why does MLS still play during international windows? Tristan Blackmon was also away for personal reasons.
So the Whitecaps welcomed the Chicago Fire to BC Place with a depleted squad. New signing Emmanuel Sabbi was on the bench, and 18-year-old Liam Mackenzie, signed on a short-term agreement with WFC2 got the surprise start.
Sebastian Berhalter was also facing his father Gregg, who is Chicago’s head coach and director of football.
For the Whitecaps, it was a back-to-earth moment. But they can only go up from here.
First half: Poor start, but they recovered slowly
Like the Canadian men’s national team on Thursday, the Whitecaps gave up a very early game.
Philip Zinckernagel found Hugo Cuypers on the transition with a solid pass. Cuypers managed to outpace Bjorn Inge Utvik and tap the ball into the net. Yohei Takaoka also looked hesitant to come out and grab the ball too. For the first time in MLS play this season, Vancouver trailed. Boy, that escalated quickly.
The Whitecaps struggled to generate anything and control the game in the first 10 minutes. Takaoka also had to come to the rescue after the defenders turned into statues and he had to deny Zinckernagel.
Vancouver was playing with Fire but they responded by scalding them with a goal of their own. Jayden Nelson added another assist by leaving the ball for Daniel Rios to get his first goal as a Whitecap. It was quite the finish too.
The Whitecaps were still sloppy, however. Some passes, especially the long ones across the pitch were quite poor. Vancouver did a good job of recovering from their poor start but they needed to be cleaner in many areas.
Second half: Some chances but sloppiness continued
The Whitecaps did start controlling the game in the early stages of the second half. However, the Fire’s high defensive line plus some more giveaways killed the build-up.
The Fire started gaining control of their own too and began to sizzle. Then, they burnt the Whitecaps with a goal from Zinckernagel. The defending was very suspect and Ralph Priso really should’ve done better with the loose ball. The Whitecaps played with fire here and got scorched.
Zinckernagel nearly put the game to bed after Vancouver was slow to track back after a corner kick. But Mathias Laborda made a superhero-like appearance and made a great tackle just outside the box. It was like Steve Rogers showed up from the shadows, in a way.
The Whitecaps did manage to turn up their game. Sabbi came off the bench and looked very dangerous. The former Le Havre man had some good looks including one that was saved by Chris Brady that definitely should’ve been a corner.
But again, Vancouver’s poor passing and lack of sharpness and composure let them down. They were once again losing the ball very easily and letting the Fire go on the counterattack.
Simply put, the Whitecaps were not on their game. It also didn’t help that the Fire were so compact in their own 18-yard box and made life difficult for the home team.
Chicago eventually sealed it on the counterattack. Rominigue Kouamé on his MLS debut managed to get by Ranko Veselinovic and Belal Halbouni and the Whitecaps had their first loss of their MLS season. The Whitecaps were officially torched.
Given the circumstances, it is understandable but the way the Whitecaps loss hurts. But let’s face it, it is impossible to go undefeated in MLS and it rarely happens in sports. Unfortunately, the depth didn’t step up like they did in previous games. But Vancouver is still top of the Western Conference despite the loss, so there’s that.
Stat of the match
Zinckernagel was everywhere for the Fire. He got his first goal and first assist for the club, But the Danish winger also won the most duels (Nine) out of anyone in the match according to Fotmob.
What was said
Whitecaps head coach Jesper Sørensen was disappointed with the loss but made it clear that he and the team won’t let it get to them and are ready to move forward.
“It’s a bad feeling, always, to go from a game with a loss,” he said. “I would not be overreacting to games, normally. We got a loss. We’ve been so fortunate, we haven’t had that feeling in a long time and we know that we have to, we have to work every day to get better. We had a perfect record before today but we’re not a perfect team. I said it before, I’ll say it again: we have a lot of things to work on. We could also see that today, so I will not throw everything up in the air. We will just have to continue trying to build the team.”
The head coach believed his team didn’t play their usual game plan.
“I think we never really got in charge of the game,” said Sørensen “I’m not talking about what the score was. We didn’t get the flow into our game that we usually have, I think that we were not able to play with the same composure as we’ve done at the beginning of the season here, but that’s sometimes how it works.”
Liam Mackenzie talked about starting his first MLS game. He was told he was getting the start a couple of days before the game.
“A lot of nerves at first, for sure,” said the 18-year-old midfielder. “But it was a great moment. It was a great feeling, stepping on the field, and getting my first start. Obviously, I would have liked to get the win, for the team. It was great having my family there, lots of friends and family came over here.” (From Vancouver Island. Mackenzie is from Comox.)
Despite the loss, Mackenzie enjoyed his first start and believes he learned a lot.
“Just take this experience, learn from it, watch [the match] back,” he said. “See how I did, see what I can improve on, like I always do. Then just use it as momentum to keep furthering my career and hopefully, I can add more moments like this, more MLS games.”
Tweet of the night
Ok, this is pretty funny. The “Are you winning son” meme never dies and it always gets more creative.
Wrap-up
The Whitecaps will have a week to learn from the loss to the Fire. They fly to the home of the man Kendrick Lamar hates the most for a match with Toronto FC. The Twitter timeline should be fun for that one.
Note the start time as kickoff is at 11:30 am Pacific.
