As expected the Vancouver Whitecaps cruised to a 6-2 victory over the Houston Dynamo at BC Place on Wednesday evening.
Well, maybe now as expected, and certainly not at the end of a first half which ended 2-2 but could just as easily been 6-2 in favour of the visitors so readily and easily did they cut through the Whitecaps backline.
Vanni Sartini did the sensible thing at half time by switching to a back three, but tactical machinations be damned, because his team scored directly from the kick off with a routine copied directly from the training ground.
And when Julian Gressel scored the fourth that felt like the final nail in the coffin of a Houston team who must have wondered how the game had slipped away from them so quickly.
There was also the added bonuses (bonii?) of welcome goals for Gauld and Berhalter and so the bitter memory of the defeat to St Louis was well and truly erased.
Sartini will need to think about what went so wrong in the first half but, to his credit, his team almost always play on the front foot and he has installed an impressive work ethic that has now spread throughout the squad and must make them an annoying beast to face.
Three more games in this home stand to solidify a place in the top half of the table and to retain the Canadian Championship.
Now if they can just sort out their road form.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Takaoka-6, Brown-3, Martins-6, Laborda-5, Blackmon-5.5, Cubas-6.5, Schopf-5, Gressel-6.5*, Vite-5.5, Gauld-6, White-5.5 (Veselinovoic-6)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 