Well, that was a nice surprise.
When Vanni Sartini announced a starting eleven featuring six attacking players it felt like another case of the coach not trusting his own process and throwing dice at the table jus to see where they land.
But, as it turned out, he got it exactly right and the Whitecaps (somewhat bizarrely) dominated LAFC in the first half and were unlucky to only be leading by one goal at the break, so good was their overall play.
Although the sight of the bench collectively celebrating a one good period of passing play did seem a tad bizarre.
In the second half the home team pushed harder but Vancouver hung on, and not in a “we don’t think we can survive this” kind of a way, but in a “we know what we’re doing and believe we can see this out kind of way”.
There were good performances all over the pitch but Ryan Gauld was exceptional in both his attacking threat and his defensive work rate and Andres Cubas essentially did the work of two men (maybe three) as he harried the LAFC players like a hyperactive terrier destroying every game of tennis in the park by stealing ball after ball.
Hat tip too to Sergio Cordova. Inevitably he missed a sitter when clean through on goal, but he was instrumental in the third goal and caused enough troubles for the LAFC defence to justify his existence. If he can hit a rich seam of goalscoring form (or even a poor seam) in the second half of the season that would go a long way to making his move not seem quite as ridiculous as it still currently looks.
I have a theory that the best thing that could have happened for Vancouver was having the Colorado game called off in mid-week.
It gave them a rest, means one less game without international absentees and may well have compounded what is already a good sense of team spirit.
They really needed this road win and, contrary to the recent past, they got it.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Takaoka-5.5, Laborda-6, Veselinovic, 5.5, Martins-6, Raposo-4, Gauld-7, Cubas-7.5*, Vite-6, Schopf-5, White-5.5, Cordova-5.5
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 