In the first Cascadia Cup encounter of the 2023 Major League Soccer campaign, the Vancouver Whitecaps will wrap up their homestand on Saturday by welcoming the Portland Timbers to BC Place Stadium.
Last weekend, Vancouver earned their first victory of the domestic campaign, clobbering CF Montreal 5-0, moving them a point above the Timbers, who scored late to draw Dallas 1-1.
Match preview
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For weeks, Vanni Sartini had been calling on his players to show more decisiveness in the attacking third, and at long last, they delivered a week ago.
An early red card to Montreal's Rudy Camacho gave the Caps the opening they needed, and with a man advantage, Vancouver took control of the game, firing nine efforts on target while conceding none.
Sartini injected more youth into the roster last weekend, as four players in his starting 11 were under 25, a move which paid off handsomely.
Their pace and quality was far too much for their short-handed Canadian rivals to handle in what was easily the best performance of the MLS campaign for Vancouver so far this year.
As we have mentioned numerous times, the Whitecaps look more confident at home than on the road, but they have had difficulty versus the Timbers, dropping three of their last four games against them at BC Place.
They had a lot of trouble on Wednesday as their CONCACAF Champions League (CCL) hopes were all but dashed when they lost their opening quarter-final leg at home to Los Angeles FC 3-0.
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The regular season began well for Portland, who scored six minutes into their opener, beating Sporting Kansas City 1-0, but since then, we have seen one disappointment after another.
In Dallas, to begin the month of April, Giovanni Savarese saw his team struggle to create many opportunities, but still, his veteran group persevered, staying within reach of the Toros throughout the match and finding a breakthrough in injury time for their first road point of the season.
So far in 2023, the Timbers are struggling to keep opposing attacks at bay, tied for the third-most goals conceded in MLS (11), nine of which have occurred away from home.
Since losing the MLS Cup final in a penalty shootout in 2021, Portland have not been nearly as consistent as we are used to seeing, with the core of this team still intact but struggling to keep up with their opponents.
If we were to summarize the Timbers campaign thus far, the words too little too late come to mind, with Portland scoring four of their six goals beyond the hour mark.
Last season may have been below their ordinarily high standards, but they did walk away with some personal pride, claiming the Cascadia Cup for the first time since 2017, going unbeaten against their Pacific Northwest rivals, the Seattle Sounders and Vancouver.
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Team News
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Alessandro Schopf missed the Whitecaps match with Montreal because of a left hamstring strain, Sergio Cordova continues to be sidelined due to a pulled right hamstring, while Ryan Gauld sat out of their last MLS encounter with an injured left hamstring but was on the field against LAFC in midweek.
Simon Becher scored twice and collected an assist against Montreal as he was named the Player of the Matchday in MLS, having now scored four goals in just 87 minutes of domestic action, the fastest person to reach that feat in league history, eclipsing the previous record of 89 minutes set by Cucho Hernandez of the Columbus Crew.
Brian White notched his first of the Major League Soccer campaign last weekend, as did Ali Ahmed, with the other goal coming from Julian Gressel, while Yohei Takaoka picked his first clean sheet of the domestic season.
David Ayala and Evander are questionable for the Timbers with right knee and hip issues respectively, while David Bingham is out because of a left hamstring strain.
Marvin Loria, Cristhian Paredes and Yimmi Chara are all dealing with right hamstring problems, while Sebastian Blanco and Felipe Mora have left knee injuries.
Franck Boli made a positive early impact, replacing Santiago Moreno for the final few minutes in Dallas, notching his first for his new team in his first appearance.
Dairon Asprilla, Jaroslaw Niezgoda and Yimmi Chara all found the back of the net in their previous visit to BC Place, which they won by a 3-2 score.
Vancouver Whitecaps possible starting lineup:
Takaoka; Brown, Veselinovic, Blackmon, Martins; Gressel, Cubas, Ahmed; Gauld; White, Becher
Portland Timbers possible starting lineup:
Ivacic; Mabiala, Zuparic, McGraw, Bravo; Moreno, D. Chara, Williamson; Niezgoda, Boli, Asprilla
We say: Vancouver Whitecaps 3-1 Portland Timbers
Sartini may have found the missing ingredients to this team's attacking deficiencies last weekend, and that artificial turf seems ideally suited to youngsters like Ahmed and Becher, who should be well-rested and we believe will cause plenty of headaches to an ageing Timbers side, who have been out of sorts defensively all season.
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Top tip
Joel Lefevre
