by Graham Tooke, @chelskitooke
San Jose Recap
The Vancouver Whitecaps got back to winning ways with an emphatic victory over an out-of-sorts San Jose Earthquakes. The Quakes have dished out plenty of headaches when playing away from home this season, but Vancouver flew out of the gates scoring in the 5th minute.
Mauro Rosales latched onto a weak clearance snapping the ball past David Bingham. The keeper should really have got down to the effort but may have had his vision blocked.
The central defensive partnership of Kah and Waston were reunited after injuries and international duty respectively in the past few weeks, and San Jose just couldn’t find any gaps between the pair. Even down the ‘Caps left Cordell Cato failed to get the better of Christian Dean who looks invigorated from his first appearance of the season last week in Portland.
Around the half hour mark Kendall Waston scored a supremely rare goal from a corner kick brushing off his man and gifting Rosales an assist.
Soon into the second half the Whitecaps had their third as they rolled towards victory. Octavio Rivero had been a handful throughout with his strong hold up play and endeavor to chase down lost causes. This time he connected with Mezquida before being brought down in the box. He finished off the penalty for his 8th of the season.
The Quakes did get a late consolation when new boy Quincy Amarikwa struck late to snuff out David Ousted’s hopes of an 8th shutout.
With the three points the Whitecaps took hold of second in the West thanks to defeats for those around them. A nice end to July with an excruciating August to come where they’ll be fighting on three different fronts, in the CONCACAF Champions league, Voyageurs Cup final, along with MLS.
Sounders Matchup
The Sounders are next up for the Whitecaps, not once but twice. First they’ll try to repeat the infamous night at the Clink when Manneh stunned the crowd with a blinding hat trick, followed swiftly by a return to BC Place for the opening match of the 2015 CONCACAF Champions League.
Seattle are battling through quite the purple patch at the moment managing only one win from their last seven, and the only light at the end of the tunnel being Clint Dempsey’s return from the Gold Cup.
The US International returns after watching his side miss out on third place at this summer’s Gold Cup to Panama in a penalty shootout in Philadelphia. He also made a quick detour to the MLS All-star match in Colorado where the MLS side beat English Premier League side Tottenham Hotspur 2-1.
Another to make an appearance was Vancouver’s Great Dane, David Ousted. His second half clean sheet helped the MLSers claim the win thanks to a pair of quick fire strikes in the first half from Kaka and David Villa. The Danish shot stopper has been immense behind the centre back pairing of Waston and Kah and they will offer a hefty challenge for Seattle to overturn their recent misfortune.
A familiar face at CenturyLink Field, Mauro Rosales, doesn’t look likely to suit up in white Saturday as its been confirmed the former Sounders favourite has suffered a knock, enough to keep him out at least until next weekend’s visit of Real Salt Lake. But ‘Caps fans needn’t worry as their talisman, Pedro Morales, could be about to make his first start in almost two months. The Chilean DP got it easy last week as Carl Robinson gave him a short 22 minute cameo with his side already 3-0 up. He looked sharp and is coming back at a perfect time with Rosales out.
It’s tough to say exactly who will play Saturday with the quick turnaround to Wednesday’s Champions League clash meaning Robinson will have to weigh up his options on who to start in which match. One thing that is certain is we’ll see the beginning of August’s heavy rotation with so many matches coming at us, we’ll get an idea of which competition the ‘Caps hierarchy value most and to what extent the squads depth goes.
7 PM, TSN1 and TSN1410
Probable Lineups
Seattle Sounders: Frei; Mears, Marshall, Scott, Remick; Neagle, Pineda, Alonso, Friberg; Barrett, Dempsey
Vancouver Whitecaps: Ousted; Beitashour, Waston, Kah, Harvey; Laba, Koffie; Techera, Morales, Manneh; Rivero
