The Vancouver Whitecaps face a challenging turnaround when they travel to face Minnesota United on Sunday afternoon in a match between early Western Conference contenders.
The Whitecaps (6-1-2, 20 points) enter the weekend still on top of the conference despite settling for a 0-0 draw in their last league match at St. Louis City last Saturday.
But they will have to recover quickly from Thursday night’s 2-0 home win in Leg 1 of the CONCACAF Champions Cup semifinals against Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.
With a less-than-72-hour gap between games, plus a return fixture at Miami looming Wednesday, manager Jesper Sorensen is expected to use the full extent of his roster. That includes key contributors like Thursday’s goal-scorers: Brian White and Sebastian Berhalter.
That could leave the Whitecaps leaning on their defenders, who have conceded only six times.
“I think it’s fair to say that a lot of people who have seen us play have been happy with the attack, but we’ve been a good defensive team,” Sorensen said after Thursday’s victory. “We also showed that even when the way we would like to play doesn’t really work … we can still rely on our structure and rely on our defensive side.”
Third-place Minnesota (4-1-4, 16 points) has settled for back-to-back scoreless draws at Toronto and home to FC Dallas in its last two games.
That barren patch has kept strikers Tani Oluwaseyi and Kelvin Yeboah on five and four goals, respectively, for the season. And, perhaps, it has exposed a bit of a weakness in manager Eric Ramsay’s group against opponents who force the Loons to try and keep possession.
The fact Minnesota feels frustrated despite extending its league unbeaten run to eight matches is also a sign of progress, the league’s youngest manager insists.
“We showed no lack of desperation to win the game,” Ramsay said after the draw against Dallas. “I think all the numbers would suggest that we put absolutely everything into the final stages of that game, and I think there was only one team that was showing the real willingness to push and the real willingness to win. And I think that’s a marker of where we’ve come.”
–Field Level Media
