The Cascadia curse continues for the Vancouver Whitecaps, as a brace Saturday night from Camilo Sanvezzo wasn’t enough in a 3-2 defeat to the Seattle Sounders at CenturyLink Field.
The Brazilian responded instantly to a ninth minute opener from Andy Rose, benefitting from a nice bit of play from Russell Teibert and Lee Young-Pyo to knock home.
Camilo doubled his tally to fire the Whitecaps into the ascendancy just 26 minutes in, nodding home a cross from Teibert, who was once again a catalyst for the Vancovuer offense.
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The Whitecaps held strong for over half an hour, but following the match a number of players pointed to the forced withdrawal of center back Andy O’Brien as the turning point in the match, as the former Irish international came off due to a hamstring injury on 62 minutes. From there, it was all Sounders.
"It is disappointing,” goalkeeper Brad Knighton said of the result. “We were in total control of the game looking to get our first win against a Cascadia team, but then Andy unfortunately goes down with a hamstring issue. That kind of took the wind out of our sails a bit and the game seemed to turn very quickly. It was just a bit unfortunate."
But it wasn't just the injury. Knighton also was unhappy with the surface, which consisted of a temporary grass field overtop CenturyLink’s artificial turf.
"Not to make excuses, but the field was ridiculously terrible,” Knighton said. “It's heavy, it's bumpy, the turfs coming up, and it's just a weird surface to play on. Anytime you put grass on top of turf you are going to get something like that.
“They have to play in these conditions as well, but it was just one of those weird games where they scored early, but we came back and gained total control. Then Andy goes down with an injury and the game changes from there."
Vancouver’s star on the night was disappointed with the result but matter of fact about what is required going forward.
"It was very disappointing to not get the point here,” Camilo said. “But the match is over and we just have to watch the game again and prepare for our next match."
