by Steve Clare

Sounders chose to bid farewell to their nemesis the BC Place turf with their first victory on the surface, and one of their smoothest performances of the season. That may even be an understatement because the all round show is perhaps one of their most technically solid overall showings in the MLS era.

To come to that conclusion, I removed all the matches where the Sounders triumphed comfortably but the opponent was poor. This would include most of the one side home wins over Chicago and Toronto until 2014. Then you subtract those where the opponents wasn’t really trying which removes most of the regular season home wins over the Galaxy.

Even when you include just those games when a good opponent played well, this match is up there.

No Oba? No bother! – Barrett breaks records in Sounders FC player ratings at Vancouver

You are left with that glorious win in Columbus where Blaise Nkufo scored a hat trick. The 2009 US Open Cup win in DC. Probably the franchise opener with New York Red Bulls in 2009, and maybe the play-off win in Salt Lake in 2013. And now this.

The opponent was not poor. In fact, Vancouver played very well. They had all their best players. They are a team on form. But everything the Whitecaps threw at Sounders, was swallowed up, smothered, suffocated, snuffed out, redirected or taken down a footballing cul-de-sac.

There is a list of Sounders superlatives that arise out of this match. Dylan Remick may still be young but he had by some distance the best match of his professional career. Chad Barrett had his best match as a Sounder. Brad Evans had his best match as a centre half. You could even argue that this was Evan’s best match for Seattle in any position.

He blocked, tackled, and organised his way through the match and you would be forgiven for thinking there were two of him at some junctures, so omnipresent was he. How long ago does that San Jose match seem now?

What to say about Chad Barrett?

When you’re behind Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey for selection, it might be easy to conclude that your input will be in either Open Cup games or during FIFA sanctioned international weeks. With that in mind, your sharpness might go even if the attitude and work rate during training stay at the highest level.

Instead, Barrett exhibited a level of clinical finishing no-one really had a right to expect.

Not only that, he tackled back when Vancouver had the ball, often winning it. On one memorable occasion, he regained possession on the left wing at the halfway line. This had the additional bonus of taking some pressure off Osvaldo Alonso and the next line of defence. Who knows whether any of the attacks Barrett ended would have led to a goal, or to Alonso committing a cardable foul. That’s the great mystery about forwards who defend. You never see what they might have prevented.

Suffice to say that Martins and Dempsey had scored 13 of Seattle’s 15 goals this year until Barrett struck, it’s time to move onto Brad Evans. Evans was more than outstanding in Vancouver. Recalling that it’s a mere ten games since the San Jose disaster and the some of the wise were already doubting the centre half experiment.

Vancouver 0 : 2 Sounders FC gallery

Evans threw, flung and charged at the ball any time it threatened to dare enter Stefan Frei’s gravitational orbit. On one occasion, he showed veteran experience by merely inserting his body between the speedy Kekuta Manneh and the ball, leaving the Gambian with no option but to dramatically fling himself to the ground. Evans looked like he’d been doing the ‘centre half thing’ all his life.

While it is obviously unfair to expect him, or Barrett, to play to that level every week,  the same cannot be said of Dylan Remick whose improvement curve is beginning to look positively ‘Yedlinesque’. He is more of a natural defender than Yedlin but he is doing the job Sigi Schmid needs at left back and preventing the premature greying effect on fans who worry about relying entirely on Leo Gonzalez for  a seventh consecutive season.

Some praise is also due to coach Sigi Schmid who got his tactics magisterially wrong in Columbus and admitted it. In Vancouver he outwitted Carl Robinson, and by compressing his two defensive walls of four, removed Manneh and later Mattocks’ pace as a threat. They simply had nowhere to run into. If they beat the wide midfielder, the would encounter the full back doubling up. If they beat him two, the goal line was upon them. Frei was well on form to handle any crosses that came his way.

The win retains Schmid’s 100% record in this year’s Cascadia Cup. Vancouver are really Sounders’ only serious rival for it. Portland trail by five points and are looking worse after every match in which they have looked better, briefly raising their supporters’ hopes. The concession of a foul throw because Alvas Powell lifted his foot summed up their performance in Houston.

Dismal Timbers fall 3-1 to Houston in second of 3 game road stretch

For Vancouver, Saturday was not really a bad day except for the likely ramifications on the Cascadia Cup. Robinson faced a tactical plan that emasculated the strengths of his playing staff but surely he knew this was bound to eventually happen. There will doubtless be some time spent at the drawing board to work out a Plan B they can fall back on in mid game.

The substitutions only made sense in terms of fresh legs and player fatigue and didn’t  seem to add any new tactical dimension. Caps fans will hope that Robinson is more adept at coming up with a fresh tactical approach than Caleb Porter has been in Portland.

Tactics: Timbers, Whitecaps Struggle to Recover From an Deficit