By Bruce Nolte
The Vancouver Whitecaps ran it’s undefeated streak to three games with a scoreless battle at BC Place Stadium before a sellout crowd of 27,038 in a key battle in the Western Conference.
Vancouver started strong against the Galaxy with a steady workmanlike effort testing the Galaxy defense early and often but were unable to crack the back four or goalkeeper Brian Rowe, who had to make some key stops early off Octavio Rivero and Pedro Morales. Then the Galaxy started to get their game under control with a solid 5-10 minutes of possession football, testing Caps keeper David Ousted but the back four were solid as they were all game in preventing any scoring chances.
In the 18th minute Matias Laba was shown a straight red for a foul on Mike McGee, going in with an awkward tackle that caught McGee in the ankle, putting the Caps down to 10 men for the remainder of the match against the Galaxy. Soon after that, Pedro Morales went down with an upper body injury due to a collision with a Galaxy player, and had to be replaced by Andrew Jacobson. Forced to make a formation change, Vancouver struggled stopping LA from closing down the last half of the field. LA weren’t much better on offense as they could only get into the penalty area but rarely threatened the Whitecaps defense.
In the 43rd minute, Kekuta Manneh left the game with an ankle injury and was subbed by Christian Bolanos, who forced Rowe into finger save on a dangerous shot just before halftime.
In the second half with the Galaxy holding the ball five minutes in David Ousted made a brilliant save of Sebastian Lletget while on his head to keep the game scoreless.
Vancouver at times tried to push the ball forward but had to take their chances when they could in the reformation of the squad being down a player to LA.
They managed some scoring chances but they were limited in what they could do against the Galaxy getting some late chances against Rowe. Nicholas Mezquida, with time running down tested the visiting defense with a blast from the top of the box as Rowe got a finger on it to send it wide.
Vancouver and the Galaxy remained tied in the standings with seven points each as the Caps moved to 2-2-1, while the Galaxy record fell to 2-1-1. David Ousted ran his scoreless streak at home to 180 minutes.
Vancouver now goes on the road for a pair of games April 9th in Dallas and the 16th at Real Salt Lake before heading back home to face FC Dallas in a return match at BC Place stadium.
