PORTLAND – The Vancouver Whitecaps’ three-match winning streak came to a sudden halt in Portland on Sunday afternoon, with the ‘Caps self-destructing defensively in an entertaining Cascadia derby.
The Whitecaps found themselves on the wrong end of a 4-2 scoreline at Providence Park, with all four goals against coming at the hands of individual defensive mistakes.
Vancouver had fought back from a two-goal deficit at the half and were pushing to tie things up before referee Ted Unkel angered the Whitecaps with the awarding of a contentious penalty and free kick that resulted in Portland’s final two goals.
“We gave them two,” said Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson postgame press conference. “Credit to them in the first half. They were better, a lot better than us, but we made two mistakes and when you make bad mistakes like that and you give a good team like that a 2-0 lead, it’s going to be difficult.
"We responded in the second half. Great character shown in the second half. I thought we were the better team in the second half and then there were other gifts.”
Vancouver’s center back pairing of Kendall Waston and Pa Modou Kah were responsible for three of the goals, with Kah committing the first of his two penalty-kick infractions in the fourth minute and Waston slipping on a play that ended with Jack McInerney scoring in the 29th minute.
“The first two goals, they’re not like us,” said Robinson. “We don’t give a good team an early lead. We did. It’s a penalty the first one, without a doubt. He mistimed it. The second one? Come on. Do me a favor.”
To make Vancouver’s afternoon worse, Waston was sent off after the game for a slding tackle on Dairon Asprilla at the final whistle. The challenge angered the Portland players, but Vancouver were also left fuming.
“I’m not going to be so stupid to run 20 yards after the whistle,” an infuriated Waston said after the game. “I ran and I tackled the ball. I didn’t tackle the guy. That’s why I was arguing after with the ref. I didn’t hear the whistle, so that was it.”
The game just adds to Vancouver’s defensive woes to start the season.
Last year, the Whitecaps conceded the fewest amount of goals in all of MLS, but it’s been a completely different story this year. Vancouver have the joint-highest goals against total in the league with 24 through 14 games, an amount that is already two-thirds of last season's final total of 36.
It’s something they need to remedy quickly, but knowing how to do that isn’t so simple.
“The fact is if we had the answer, we’d be gutting it out right now,” goalkeeper David Ousted told reporters after the match. “We’ve got to look at it from both a personal point of view of obviously being better individually, but also, from a team point of view, of helping each other out.
“There’s going to be mistakes in any game we play, but helping the guys around the man who makes a mistake to clean it up for him. We were good at that last year, but then we haven’t been this year.”
