Vancouver Whitecaps reached the halfway stage of their season this evening with a hard fought 1-0 win over Colorado Rapids.
There is a lot of hyperbole in football reporting, but in terms of the Caps' playoff aspirations, this victory was simply huge.
It wasn't a pretty game, but the Caps did what they needed to do in the heat and humidity, shutting down the home side and taking the one real chance they got, to ride off into the sunset with the three points.
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With injuries and a suspension to Jun Marques Davidson, Martin Rennie rang the changes and went with a 4-2-3-1 line up that was experimented with in training to good effect.
There were three changes to the team that lost in LA, with Jordan Harvey coming in at left back, to allow Alain Rochat to fill the defensive midfielder hole left by Davidson's absence. Eric Hassli came in to play up top, with Sebastien Le Toux starting on the bench for the first MLS game this season.
The big news was the debut of Barry Robson as a Whitecap, with the Scottish international coming straight into the starting eleven to bolster the midfield.
With dramatic debuts marking his career, Caps fans were wondering would they see the scoring Scot or red card attracting one.
It took just four minutes for him to have his first shot in MLS, send a dipping long range effort over.
Colorado went up the field and had their own first attempt of the match, Jamie Castrillon heading a Luis Zapata cross past the right hand post.
The Rapids came close again in the 14th minute after Martin Rivero easily dispossessed Robson just inside the Caps half, setting up Conor Casey to drive a low shot inches past that same post.
There wasn't a lot happening, with Vancouver really struggling to string passes together in the Colorado half.
As the half hour mark approached, Cannon spilled another low Casey shot for a corner, but the home side couldn't capitalise on the set piece.
Any attacking danger was coming from Colorado, and Zapata sent in a dangerous cross into the box from the left, which Harvey did well to cut out for a corner.
Hunter Freeman forced Cannon into a low save in the 36th minute, as the Rapids tried to turn their pressure into goals.
Three minutes later and the ball nearly broke to Casey in the six yard box after a scramble, but Harvey did well to clear the danger.
From out of nowhere, Vancouver took the lead in the 43rd minute.
Harvey sent in a hopeful long ball from the left and Drew Moor sclaffed an attempted clearance on the edge of the box, straight into the path of Darren Mattocks, who buried it past Matt Pickens from ten yards.
It's the mark of a truly dangerous striker when you can be shut out of a game for the half, then given one chance and you bury it.
After being frustrated and sent off in the meeting between the sides last month, of which Moor played no small part, this was redemption on a grand scale for Mattocks.
Colorado had one last chance to head into the break level, but Cannon did well to get down and keep out a Casey header in the last seconds of stoppage time.
Neither team made any changes at the half, and Colorado tried to come out and take the game to the visitors.
Brian Mullan should have done better five minutes in, shooting weakly at Cannon from the edge of the box.
As the pace wilted, along with the players, both teams made substitutions, and it was Jamie Smith of the Rapids that nearly made the difference in the 67th minute, when his shot from outside the box was deflected by Martin Bonjour for a corner.
Edu wasn't long on as a sub, but nearly made an immediate impact for Colorado, just failing to get his head on a neat Rivero free kick in the 74th minute.
With Camilo now on for the Caps, Vancouver's pace picked up a little as the minutes ticked down.
With eleven minutes remaining, another of Camilo's trademark curling free kicks, was nearly met by Koffie, for what would have been the killer second goal.
Cannon came up huge again with seven minutes remaining, stopping a Tony Cascio shot at his near post, as the home side pushed to at least get something from the game.
Jeff Larentowicz had a free header from a Smith corner in the 87th minute, but directed it wide left.
Casey realised it wasn't to be his night when the ball came to him at the back post in the 89th minute, but the speed and surprise of the chance hampered his chance of trying to direct it on target.
With the game in stoppage time, Larentowicz again found himself unmarked in the box and tried an ambitious bicycle kick which went wide left.
Mattocks picked up a late booking for putting the ball into the net on an offside, but the Rapids could find no way back and the final whistle gave Vancouver their third away win of the season, and in terms of the playoff situation, it was a massive three points.
Two games of the five game road trip down and with three winnable games to come, Vancouver could head home in the middle of the month looking very healthy indeed and right in the thick of it all.
Not to mention having more points already than the whole of last season.
Let the second half begin.
FINAL SCORE: Colorado Rapids 0 - 1 Vancouver Whitecaps
ATT: 18,757
COLORADO: Matt Pickens; Hunter Freeman (Edu 72), Marvell Wynne, Drew Moor, Luis Zapata; Jeff Larentowicz, Jaime Castrillon (Jamie Smith 63), Martin Rivero, Brian Mullan; Omar Cummings (Tony Cascio 61), Conor Casey [subs Not Used: Steward Ceus, Tyrone Marshall, Joseph Nane, Wells Thompson]
VANCOUVER: Joe Cannon; Young-Pyo Lee, Martin Bonjour, Jay DeMerit, Jordan Harvey; Alain Rochat, Gershon Koffie; Barry Robson (Sebastien Le Toux 56), Darren Mattocks, Davide Chiumiento (Michael Nanchoff 85); Eric Hassli(Camilo Sanvezzo 72) [subs Not Used: Brad Knighton, Greg Klazura, Carlyle Mitchell, Russell Teibert]
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