Three things from Sunday's win over Portland

PORTLAND, OREGON – Vancouver Whitecaps FC opened the Simple Invitational with 1-0 win over the host Portland Timbers on Sunday night at Providence Park.

Here are three things that stood out to me.

FRIENDLY? YEAH, RIGHT

So, that was wild.

We knew there’d be some intensity to Sunday’s Cascadia derby – there always is when these two teams meet. But I don’t think anyone saw that coming.

Forty-three fouls, eight cautions, and two ejections? In a preseason game? In February?

Both teams probably had the ice packs out after that one.  

“We don’t take any game lightly,” Kekuta Manneh told reporters after the match. “Preparation started day one. It’s just like any league game for us, like we’re fighting for the playoffs. There’s no friendly game for us.”

No kidding.

Funny that Manneh mentioned it was like the ‘Caps were fighting for a playoff spot, because I had the same thought watching the second half on Sunday.

It definitely felt like one of Vancouver’s last five matches last year, where they essentially willed themselves into the postseason.  

“Every match is going to be like this away from home,” said Whitecaps FC head coach Carl Robinson. “We need to be prepared to fight and dig and scrap and run but play our football at the right times. And I think we did that.”

PERFECT SCRIPT

You couldn’t have written a better script.

Playing in his first match against his old team, Pa-Modou Kah scored his first goal in a Whitecaps FC uniform to lead the Blue and White to victory.  

“Sometimes I watch games on TV and I tell me wife, how is it always when you go back to your ex club that you score?” Kah said after the match. “It’s just in the script I guess. Seconds before, Kendall had the chance to score. But it was a tremendous delivery from Mauro [Rosales]. When you have a guy like Mauro, his quality, and his crosses, it’s a dream for any soccer player.”

You’ll notice that Kah didn’t have much of a celebration after his goal. But he said that’s not because he was playing against his old team.

“If I score a goal, I will celebrate,” he said. “But since it’s a preseason game, there’s no need for celebration. If it was a regular season game, yes I would celebrate – with all due respect to Portland. I feel like when you play a game and you score a goal, you should celebrate.”

The pairing of Kah and Kendall Waston is going to be quite the threat in the attacking box this season, but as illustrated on Sunday, they’re also going to get themselves in the book due to their physicality at the back. In fact, all four of the game’s starting centre backs picked up at least one caution.

“They will get booked this year. There’s no doubt about it,” Robinson said. “We’ve got good attacking players in this league and good attackers manage to deceive defenders sometimes so it’s important I carry five centre backs and I’ve certainly got five good ones.”

KEKUTA’S COMING

Manneh didn’t make the headlines on Sunday night, but he still drew praise from Robinson after the match. The 20-year-old was one of Vancouver’s most dangerous offensive players from start to finish.

On another night, he could have had two or three goals.

“There will be performances this year where he doesn’t play as well as he did tonight and he’ll score two goals,” Robinson told reporters. “Then I’m sure everyone will say he’s this and he’s that. But when he plays like that, that’s all I want him to do. Because if he plays like that, he will score goals.”

Maybe it was his pre-game pump up song/dance?

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