<b>Report: (Reaction to come later)</b>
Vancouver Whitecaps' Latin flair saw the Carl Robinson regime get off to a perfect start at BC Place last week. The question now was could they take that form on the road.
On the evidence of this game, it's not there yet as the Caps struggled to grind out a 1-1 draw against a ten man Chivas side who took the lead through a deflected Erick Torres goal in the first half before substitute Kekuta Manneh struck with nine minutes remaining to salvage a point for the visitors.
Robinson promised the same attacking style in the build up to the game but it was in short supply as Vancouver looked devoid of ideas at times on how to get past a Chivas side that played the last 77 minutes with ten men after Augustin Pelletieri's harsh sending off.
In the end, both teams will be somewhat happy with what they've come away with after how the game played out, but Vancouver cannot be happy with the type of performance they put in.
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The Whitecaps made one change from last week's starting line-up with attacking midfielder Pedro Morales coming in for his first start as expected, after his fantastic 25 minute debut as a sub last Saturday. Robinson's headache of who to drop was made easier by a hamstring injury to Russell Teibert and the Canadian international wasn't even able to make the bench, allowing Bryce Alderson the chance to come in to the gameday squad for the first time in a long time.
It was a slow start by both teams in the Carson heat but the game burst into life in the 13th minute thanks to a horrible decision by replacement referee who showed a straight red card to Chivas midfielder Augustin Pelletieri for a strong challenge on Pedro Morales. It was never a sending off.
Since the lockout of the officials, people have been waiting for one of the replacements to make a crucial game defining mistake. After a few good performances and some iffy decisions here and there, we may have got that moment today, although it took Vancouver a long time to capitalise on it and Chivas played well whilst being a man down.
The game continued to be chippy, with bodies hitting the ground all over the pitch. Sebastian Fernandez was one of them, going down in the box in the 19th minute after collecting a great ball from Morales and cutting into the penalty area, but there was no contact on the Uruguayan and the ref waved away penalty appeals.
Both teams enjoyed some possession and had nice built up work, without any shots troubling either keeper.
Chivas regrouped well after going down to the ten men and played some of the better football as the half plodded along.
The home side forced David Ousted to make a near post safe from Leandro Barrera in the 35th minute after the Argentine wrong footed Steven Beitashour and got off a fierce shot from a tight angle.
Chivas were looking the better team and it wasn't a great surprise when they took the lead in the final minute of the half, albeit through a fortunate deflection after a horrible giveaway from Nigel Reo-Coker.
Mauro Rosales easily intercepted a sloppy pass from the Englishman just inside his own half and powered forward before playing the ball left to Erick Torres. The Chivas striker cut inside, took a couple of touches and let fly, with his shot deflecting off the ass of Jay DeMerit and past Ousted into the Caps goal.
After a trying first half for them, they deserved to be heading in to the half with the lead.
Robinson let his team know that if there was no change then the subs would come and Vancouver started the second half camped in the Chivas half but doing nothing with the possession.
They were nearly caught out in the 52nd minute after some terrible play at the halfway line from DeMerit, who was looking for the foul that didn't come, allowed Torres to break forward and play the ball to Barrera, who forced a save out of Ousted for a corner.
The Caps had a break of their own in reply but Kenny Miller found himself with little support and the play broke down with a misshit Fernandez shot.
Vancouver's first change came on the hour mark when Kekuta Manneh came on for a poor and ineffective Nigel Reo-Coker.
The Caps showed a little more impetus and Morales pulled a shot wide moments later before the visitor's had their best chance of the match so far in the 66th minute when Morales sent a beautiful ball over the top and Darren Mattocks did well to get on the end of it and poke it past Dan Kennedy but it didn't have enough pace to take it over the line and Chivas cleared the danger.
Manneh showed some great skill to skip past Eric Avila and fire in a long range shot which Kennedy parried with 20 minutes remaining.
Chivas were still a danger themselves and Rosales fired over in the 72nd minute before Manneh, who was already looking the liveliest Whitecap, did the same minutes later.
And the young Gambian got his reward when Mattocks intercepted and cut the ball back to Manneh, who buried it past Kennedy from just inside the box with nine minutes remaining.
Chivas would have been now happy with the draw as Vancouver tried to press home their man advantage, but they still had forays forward and Torres got on the end of a free kick but Ousted easily collected.
Manneh still had time to cause problems to the Chivas defence but he was starting to look like a one man wrecking crew, with little support from the other Whitecaps out there.
The game came to a close and it was an overall disappointing affair but one which might be good in some ways for Vancouver as it will temper those expectations after last week's heroics.
It certainly showed that despite the good players that Carl Robinson has put together in his side, there is still a long way to go and skill and flair count for little when so many of them have an off day at once and can't get anything going.
Undefeated Vancouver now head east next weekend to take on the winless New England on Saturday. Despite the Revolution's poor start to the season, they will need to play a lot better and have more creativity if they are to get anything from that one.
FINAL SCORE: Chivas USA 1 - 1 Vancouver Whitecaps
ATT: 6684
CHIVAS: Dan Kennedy; Eric Avila, Bobby Burling, Carlos Bocanegra, Tony Lochhead; Mauro Rosales, Agustin Pelletieri, Oswaldo Minda, Leandro Barrera (Matthew Fondy 71); Erick Torres (Kristopher Tyrpak 87), Thomas McNamara (Daniel Fragoso 80) [subs Not Used: Trevor Spangenberg, Eriq Zavaleta, Luke Moore, Adolfo Bautista]
VANCOUVER: David Ousted; Steven Beitashour, Jay DeMerit, Andy O'Brien (Christian Dean 77), Jordan Harvey; Matias Laba, Nigel Reo-Coker (Kekuta Manneh 60), Sebastian Fernandez (Erik Hurtado 74), Pedro Morales, Kenny Miller; Darren Mattocks [subs Not Used: Paolo Tornaghi, Bryce Alderson, Gershon Koffie, Nicolas Mezquida]
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