Safe to say that if I were an LA Galaxy fan right now I would be furious.
The Galaxy had the beating of a Whitecaps team who looked a step away from the pace of the game for most of the evening.
Whether this lack of intensity was down to this game just being the Leagues Cup, the loss of Martins before the game and Veselinovic during it, the heat or just failing to learn the lesson that allowing Riqui Puig space is a mistake is hard to say (probably a little bit of columns A, B, C and D) but, in the end, the home team failed to capitalize and did that thing that every supporter knows is the wrong thing to do when you are not a very good defensive team.
They sat back and allowed the Whitecaps to get bodies into the box.
Say what you like about this Vancouver team (but not here, this is where I say what I like) they almost always find a way to score goals and Ryan Gauld, who had been a mixture of anonymous and frustrated for most of the game, found a good delivery to force an own goal and very good flick on to set up Brian White.
And somehow the Whitecaps Leagues Cup journey marches on.
It’s hard to know whether to view this as a good thing or not but if it allows Sartini the chance to try a few things such as Boehmer in goal (who did well) and Ngando as a starter (who also showed flashes of quality) then that’s no bad thing.
This is very much a “take it as it comes” competition for Vancouver.
And no harm ever comes from winning “must win” games though, no matter how tepid that “must” really is.
Time for the Soccer Shorts player ratings!
Boehmer-6, Raposo-4, Laborda-5, Veselinovic-4.5, Blackmon-4.5, Cubas-6.5*, Schopf-3, Ngando-5, Gauld-5.5, Cordova-4, White-5 (Yao-4.5, Vite-4.5)
Soccer Shorts (The Director's Cut) 