Photos by John May
Captions by Graham Tooke, @chelskitooke
Vancouver made a couple of changes from the 2-0 win over LA Galax at the weekend. Diego Rodriguez returned from suspension to replace Pa-Modou Kah, while Darren Mattocks made his first start on the left wing.
Columbus also made a raft of changes possibly thinking ahead to their clash with New England Revolution on Saturday. The suspended Federico Higuain’s shoes were filled by homegrown midfielder Ben Speas. Hector Jimenez and Tyson Wahl stepped into defense with Justin Meram and Will Trapp returning to the midfield having been excluded in the loss to New York Red Bulls.
17’ Kendall Waston conceded an early yellow card after substitute Pa-Modou Kah gifted possession to Columbus with his first touch. Diego Rodriguez pulled up with a tight quad early on and had to be replaced.
24’ Kei Kamara opened the scoring benefiting from Ethan Finlay’s blocked effort.
31’ A quick throw in by Darren Mattocks caught the Columbus backline sleeping. Octavio Rivero pegged his 5th goal of the season by rolling Michael Parkhurst and tucking his shot in at the near post.
45’ Chris Klute wrapped up the first half with a sweetly struck volley that luckily for Ousted fell right into the arms of the Dane.
50’ The Whitecaps came out for the second half extremely flat and were duly punished by Kei Kamara again. The Sierra Leone international scored his second after David Ousted misplaced his goal kick. Justin Meram took it to the line and crossed low for Kamara to wrong foot the keeper.
57’ Nicolas Mezquida had been a rare bright spark at the start of the second half after an indifferent first, but made way for Kekuta Manneh to come on and turn the game back in the ‘Caps favour. His first contribution was to drive down the right and cut the ball back for Morales to test Steve Clark.
64’ Darren Mattocks had been rewarded with a start and proved his boss’ decision right by slipping an equalizer under Clark from close range. Kekuta Manneh had ghosted in behind Jimenez and picked out the Jamaican superbly.
65’ Not even a minute later Mattocks thought he had found the winner, instead he watched his cracking effort ring off the upper 90.
67’ Chances kept coming the Jamaicans’ way and this time his poor chest control allowed Clark to mop up the danger. And moments later he was again thwarted by a smart toe save by the keeper.
Steve Clark had to deal with an alarming amount of Vancouver chances as his team continued to fold back into their own third for the remainder of the match. However, the home side couldn’t find the net a third time despite their 22 attempts.
