Report:
Colorado Rapids grabbed their second win of the season over Vancouver Whitecaps in Commerce City on Saturday night, as the Caps continued to struggle to find their form after the World Cup break.
A 20th minute opener from Dillon Powers and a 36th minute penalty from Vicente Sanchez saw the Rapids on easy street and they were able to coast through the second half in a match they controlled from start to finish and ran out worthy winners.
The loss brought to an end the Whitecaps' eight game unbeaten run in MLS, but for Carl Robinson, the main concerns will be trying to find out what happened to the free flowing Whitecaps from before the break and finding the right mix in defence.
Carl Robinson rang the changes as expected, with a couple of surprises thrown in. Andy O'Brien was rested, allowing Johnny Leveron and Carlyle Mitchell to partner in the middle of the defence, with Russell Teibert coming in for Gershon Koffie just in front of them.
Uruguayan pair Sebastian Fernandez and Nicolas Mezquida came in on either side of the midfield, with Vancouver hoping the interplay they showed preseason would be recreated in Colorado. That certainly wasn't the case.
It was another fairly quiet start to the match, with Teibert whizzing an 8th minute shot wide left being the only real moment of note for either side.
Colorado nearly took the lead from nowhere in the 17th minute when Mitchell's poor control in the box fell to Dillon Powers and he crashed the ball off the bar.
It was the third time in two games that the crossbar had come to Vancouver's rescue but it was only to provide a temporary respite as the Rapids took the lead two minutes later.
And it was Powers again, who collected a Marvell Wynne pass in the box, easily turned Teibert and sent a low shot through the legs of Mitchell and past David Ousted into the bottom left corner.
The Rapids had a few more half chances, as the Whitecaps defence looked all at sea, and it was no surprise that they doubled their lead in the 36th minute.
Deshorn Brown easily turned Mitchell, but seemed to be chasing down a nothing ball when Nigel Reo-Coker sent him crashing in the box. It was a clear penalty and Vicente Sanchez made no mistake from the spot.
The Caps were lucky to get in at the half just two down and Robinson wasn't shy at letting his team know he wasn't happy, making a double substitution for the second half and bringing on Gershon Koffie and Darren Mattocks for the two Uruguayans.
It was a half of very little in the early running, with Colorado quite content with the two goal lead they had.
Vancouver's substitutions had made them slightly more lively but it took until the 62nd minute for anyone to come close to pulling a goal back, when Pedro Morales fired a shot wide from 20 yards out.
Johnny Leveron finally got Vancouver first shot on target in the 82nd minute, when his deflected shot was turned around for a corner, but that was about it as far at the Whitecaps showing any sense of getting a way back in.
It was the second terrible performance from the Whitecaps in the space of four days and questions will now, rightly, be asked if their bubble has burst?
Three big points were lost today again playoff rivals and with a big Cascadian derby coming up next week at home to Seattle, they need to find some kind of form inflation pronto.
FINAL SCORE: Colorado Rapids 2 - 0 Vancouver Whitecaps
ATT: 14,798
COLORADO: Clint Irwin; Chris Klute, Drew Moor, Marvell Wynne, Shane O'Neill; Vicente Sanchez (Marlon Hairston 69), Nick LaBrocca, Dillon Powers, Jared Watts, Kamani Hill (Edson Buddle 81); Deshorn Brown [subs Not Used: John Berner, Thomas Piermayr, Marc Burch, John Neeskens, Gabriel Torres]
VANCOUVER: David Ousted; Nigel Reo-Coker, Carlyle Mitchell, Johnny Leveron, Jordan Harvey; Matias Laba (Mehdi Ballouchy 70), Russell Teibert, Sebastian Fernandez (Gershon Koffie 46), Pedro Morales, Nicolas Mezquida (Darren Mattocks 46); Erik Hurtado [subs Not Used: Paolo Tornaghi; Steven Beitashour, Christian Dean, Kekuta Manneh]
Reaction:
VANCOUVER WHITECAPS
Carl Robinson
On whether the Wednesday game against Montreal affected play today:
"Maybe, but I think they played Tuesday as well so I’m not going to use that as an excuse. Obviously we know it’s altitude and the pitch was slow but I think they deserved on the day so I’m not going to use that excuse."
On what went wrong in the first half:
"Lots. I think we sat up to try to keep possession of the ball a little bit better. That happened in certain stages but we took away our threat and then we give away two bad goals. At the end of the day if you look at both goals, the lead up to them has not been great with not right positioning. We switch off and then allow [Powers] to turn in the box and shoot through two legs. And the second goal was a penalty which I’m not complaining about. It’s a blatant penalty, but a miscommunication between Nigel [Reo-Coker] and David [Ousted]. "
On what he sees from the team in the last two games (a loss and a scoreless tie):
"I think we could play better. We know that. Obviously everyone will look at the result and I said to you all along that we’re going to win games we don’t deserve to win and we’re going to lose games where we probably don’t deserve to as well. Today, I don’t think we deserved to win the game. We probably got what we deserved, and we’ll go back to work. "
Nigel Reo-Coker
On losing their first match in nine games:
"If you look at the whole season so far we’ve lost three games out of 15. That’s not bad. We’re disappointed. Every team around the world has spells like this. Even the top teams. Manchester United, Liverpool, you name it. They go through a spell in the season where they might lose one or two games and we’re just going through it now. There’s so much believe and confidence in this team right now that we’ll definitely bounce back. That’s going to be the real sign and the test of how good of a team we are and I do believe that we will bounce back."
On whether they were outperformed by Colorado:
"I don’t really think that we were truly outperformed. We gave away two poor goals and they didn’t really create too many chances. I don’t think they dominated possession in our half at all. We had good possession. I think the one thing that we can be disappointed about today is that we gave the ball away too easily in certain areas. We should have worked harder to keep it better in certain areas. But like I said, you’re going to get games like that in the season. For us this is the first real bad patch of bad ones. At least three games so far, 15 games into the season, is still a great place to be."
On what happened that caused the penalty kick:
"I just think it was a miscommunication between myself and David [Ousted]. I saw David coming out and then we kind of hesitated amongst each other and no one really took command of the full situation."
COLORADO RAPIDS
Pablo Mastroeni, Colorado Rapids Head Coach
On the effectiveness of the performance in the second half:
"Today they found a way to shut that team out in the second half. You can’t teach that. You don’t work on that – you can talk tactics and techniques all you want, but on a given day, with emotions running high, [Vancouver] wanting to score a goal and wanting to get back in the game, the resiliency of the group and their ability to stick together, and work through those tough times, was tremendous today."
On the players working hard throughout the match:
"I don’t know any other way. Those players, every game we’ve played this year, have come off the field exhausted. And that’s why we’ve been managing them through the week as best we can, to try to recover. We know the type of effort they’ve put forth, not only physically, but it’s draining to have to communicate, it’s draining to have to think and conceptualize ideas that are foreign to them. I think today, coming off an MLS break and a couple weeks of not playing MLS competition, to be able to respond like they did was a step in the right direction for the group."
Dillon Powers, Colorado Rapids midfielder
On the game overall:
"I think it was a very important win coming off the break. We wanted to start off on the right foot getting three points especially at home against a conference team. That was big. Going into the game we wanted to have a strong defensive performance. A team defensive performance. I think getting the two goals helped us really focus on the defensive side, and I think we were successful today."
Shane O’Neill, Colorado Rapids defender
On the defensive performance:
"We went in with a game plan for Vancouver. We knew they had some good speed up top, with Hurtado and Mattocks, and I think we executed perfectly tonight. The first half we were really smart, kept the ball really well, but in the second half it was more of a grind, just trying to battle it out. We did that. The communication on the backline was huge tonight, it was a lot better, and I think going forward that has to be the standard. If that’s the case, I think we might go on a good run here."
On how to repeat this performance:
"Just communication along the back line, asking the same from each other as we did tonight. In the last 15 minutes, we were all just fighting for each other. I think if we do that, first half it’s all about controlling the game, setting the tempo, possessing. Second half you just have to grind it out. As playoffs approach, these games get tight and the defence has to step up."