It's alive! It's alive!
The Vancouver Frankencaps are alive!
I'd like to think I'm a realist, not a pessimist (ok maybe I'm a pessimist) but definitely not a optimist, thats for certain. So 4 poor results against the Portland Timbers, I wasn't too confident that we were going to hammer them the way we did on Thursday. I was hoping for 3-1 which still would have been a 2 goal advantage going back to Portland, but I should have had more faith in Jay Nolly. As you can see by the poll on the right side of my page, I voted for him as the player who'd have the biggest impact on the match. It's also a testament to how many people actually read my blog (Thanks Mom!). In all reality, had it not been for Nolly's great game, it could have easily been 3-2 Portland going back to Oregon. He made 3 huge saves, one of which was a volley over his bar off the head of his own defender (Willis Forko).
Overall, everyone on the Whitecap's had a pretty good game. That being said a couple players had exceptional games. Old Man Martin Nash had his best game of the Season. Playing in a more offensive position tucked in behind the striker he seemed to be on a totally different level then he's been on all year. After the boys in White and Blue capitalized in the first minute, and they gathered in the north west end to celebrate Gershon Koffie's goal it was Nash who came in to the group yelling "Alright boys lets stay focused lets keep our heads in it!" They sure did. Less then 12 minutes later the Whitecaps we're knocking on Portland's door and Blake Wagner drew a penalty off a Phil Davies free kick, that lead to a face off between Nash and Steve Cronin. Nash Hammered it low and though Cronin got a hand on the ball it wasn't enough.
Beyond that Cody Arnoux nearly drew a penatly a few minutes later, while Terry Dunfield hammered a strike off the post late in the first half. Phil Davies almost capped off a sensational game with a goal (really it was a gimmie) but popped it off the post. Koffie even tried a cheeky chip on Cronin from just over half that barely missed the goal to the left. So going back to my previous statement about how it could have been 3-2 Portland, it just as easily could have been 6-3 Vancouver but that's not reality. The reality is we won 2-0 in what was certainly the most exciting match we've seen at Swangard this season.
On a side note.
Overall Great Guy, Wes Knight, has dislocated his shoulder. Really you gotta feel for the guy. He has had to deal with a couple tough injuries over the last couple years and has really been a key cog in the Whitecap's machine (robot?). It sounds like he won't be playing on Sunday in Portland, so we hope he has a speedy recovery.
Kickoff is at 6pm pst.
Side note number 2: Portland have begun a massive construction project (ok not really massive by comparison to BC Place but still pretty big, slightly bigger then what we saw at BMO in the last off season) so they will be playing this game in the much smaller more intimate Merlo Field, which is home to the University of Portland. One great thing about this move for the caps is that the crowd will be much smaller (5 000 capacity as opposed to PGE Park's potential 19 000 +), and that they won't be playing on the absolute worst astro turf in all of sports.
With this location it sounds like it will be next to impossible to get a ticket as an away fan.
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