Match Report - Sounders vs Caps

All good things must come to an end. Losing a derby match, and the Cascadia Cup is never fun. Witnessing those two events happen twice in three years, both times by score of 3-0 is even worse, especially when you travel for it.

We all knew that Robinson was going to rotate his squad, and it’s worked brilliantly in the past, but whatever the case is the 5 changes he made for the match in Seattle seemed to be the wrong ones.

In a game thoroughly dominated by Seattle, the Caps looked overmatched and frankly, sort of disinterested. Rodriguez opened the scoring in the 17th with his first MLS goal on a shot that beat Ousted just inside the post. Seven minutes later, Reyna would go into referee Sibiga’s book for simulation, even though there appeared to be a clip of the heels. From the away supporters section, it looked like a major dive. Minutes later, and fresh off a suspension for caution accumulation, Waston joined Reyna in the book. In the 35th, Alonso would join the 2 Caps in the book. 8 minutes before half, Frei produced a save that was much like his save in the MLS Cup last season, this time off Montero. The half would end with the Sounders leading 1-0.

The 2nd half would be more of the same. In the 62, Lodeiro would smash in Seattle’s 2nd off a nice passing play between Rodriguez and Jones. This effectively buried the Caps hope of winning the game and retaining the Cascadia Cup. Robinson’s first 2 subs would come 5 minutes after the goal with Techera and Davies replacing Ibini and Reyna respectively. To me, this was 20 minutes too late. Minutes later, Seattle buried this one with Dempsey’s first against the Whitecaps. In the 75th, Robinson put in seldom used Mauro Rosales and removed Bolanos, who was making his first start in a while. At this point, it seemed as though he was trying to appease the home fans by having 2 former Sounders on the pitch. In stoppage time, more names hit the book as Sheanon Williams and Tony Tchani joined him. In what was initially called a yellow, referee Sibiga was notified by the VAR that he needed to review it. After review, and not that it really affected the outcome, but the yellow was changed to red, meaning Tchani misses Saturday’s massive matchup at Sporting Kansas City.

If I had to pick a few bright spots: the Canadian anthem (sung by the Caps own Marie Hui) and the weather (it didn’t rain).

Overall, this summary flatters, if that’s even remotely possible, the Caps. As is customary when a number of away fans travel, the team comes over and thanks them via applause after the match. There was a small applause in return and some chose to do nothing as a show their displeasure.

Instead of distancing themselves from Seattle, it’s back down to a single point between the top 4 (Vancouver, Portland, SKC and Seattle). SKC now has 1 game in hand on Vancouver, that being Oct 11 vs Houston, while the Caps still have a game in hand on both Seattle and Portland. As for the Cascadia Cup, it either goes to Seattle or Portland.