VANCOUVER — Toronto FC will take an away-goal advantage back home after a 2-2 draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps in the first leg of the Canadian Championship.
A pedestrian start Wednesday night quickly turned into an attractive game for the announced 16,833 spectators at BC Place. The game featured two goals on either side and a controversial red card against the Whitecaps.
Toronto, without superstar Sebastian Giovinco, was expected to sit deep. But instead, it was the Whitecaps sitting deep and allowing Toronto to control much of the attacking third.
With Toronto pressing, the Whitecaps tried to hit the Reds on the transition game. That strategy almost paid off in the 17th minute when striker Kei Kamara won the ball and quickly moved forward, laying it off to Cristian Techera at the edge of the box. But Techera’s shot hit the top of the bar.
Six minutes later, in the 23rd minute, Vancouver was awarded a penalty after Jonathan Osorio handled the ball in the box following a Whitecaps corner kick. Kamara stepped up and easily converted the penalty.
Toronto, however, was shocked only for a moment. Almost straight off the ensuing kickoff, Toronto had the equalizer. Marcelo Delgado received the ball on the right from Nick Hagglund and then crossed the ball to the center, where Osorio had little trouble converting a close-range volley.
It was a match almost like getting ketchup out of a bottle in the first half: long periods of both teams pushing at the bottom interrupted by a blop of two quick goals.
After the scores, both teams were once again stuck in midfield for the rest of the second half. Perhaps it was the intense summer heat inside BC Place, but both sides seemed sluggish and almost unwilling to force the issue in the first 45 minutes.
Instead, the referee was in the limelight just before halftime.
Felipe lost the ball right by the halfway line and while trying to recover it clipped Delgado. To the surprise of everyone at BC Place, referee David Gantar issued a red card in what seemed like a harsh decision upon reviewing the replays.
“You got to get the refereeing right in those big games,” Vancouver head coach Carl Robinson said after the game. “It spoiled the game. I am fuming. It was a good game, but it was spoiled. It is OK, I hear, but it isn’t OK. We get some terrible bad luck and bad call. We don’t get any calls go our way.”
One man down in the second half, Vancouver converted its 4-4-2 tactic to a 4-3-2 and tried to hit Toronto by quickly transitioning through midfield when winning the ball in their third.
“We put on a fantastic performance in the second half with a man down,” Robinson said after the game.
Osorio said after the match that the Whitecaps “sat deep and were hard to break down after the red card.”
With Toronto committing numbers forward, it was a tactic that almost worked in Vancouver’s favour.
Reyna created Vancouver’s next chance in the 78th minute escaping his defender he was brought down outside the box and then forced a fantastic save from Irwin in the ensuing free kick.
The Whitecaps identified that they could hit Toronto using the speed of the likes of Reyna, Davies and Erik Hurtado, who was brought in the second half. They created multiple chances before the advantage of speed, despite being a man down, finally paid off in the 85th minute when Hurtado produced what nearly was a game-winner for the Whitecaps.
Midfielder Russell Teibert played a perfect pass to Hurtado, who just beat the offside trap and then used his blistering speed to escape Toronto’s defense before slotting the ball past Irwin to make it 2-1.
“Any mistake can make the difference in a series,” Toronto head coach Greg Vanney said after the game.
And one did.
Hurtado’s goal should have been the winner, but with just one minute left in the match and the backline under pressure, Whitecaps’ defender Doneil Henry pushed a diving header into the net for an own goal that handed Toronto the advantage entering the second leg.
Lineups
Vancouver Whitecaps (4-4-2)
Marinović – de Jong, Henry, Waston, Nerwinski – Davies (Shea, 87′), Teibert, Felipe (red card, 45′), Techera (Ghazal, 46′) – Reyna, Kamara (Hurtado, 67′)
Toronto FC (3-5-2)
Irwin – Hagglund, Zavaleta, Mavinga (Morrow, 46′) – Morgan (Hernandez, 71′), Osorio, Bradley, Delgado, Auro (Telfer, 64′) – Altidore, Ricketts