Article content continued

SLOW START

Some poor luck and worse tackling put the Whitecaps in a 2-0 hole before all the fans had gotten back from the beer queue.

Seven minutes in, San Jose’s Nick Lima chopped a ball in from the edge of the box, but centre-back Aaron Maund only had time for a reaction headed clearance that unfortunately dropped right onto the chest of the unmarked Hyka. The Quakes midfielder had time to take a control touch before beating Stefan Marinovic with a powerful volley from 18 yards out.

Eight minutes after that, fullback Marcel De Jong clattered clumsily into San Jose striker Danny Hoesen near the edge of the box, and the VAR alerted referee Baldomero Toledo to the fact that the foul had potentially occurred inside the box. He agreed, and Eriksson put the ensuing penalty just past the fingertips of a diving Marinovic, undeterred by Techera’s pre-kick scuffing of the penalty spot.

It gave the league’s fourth-worst scoring team a 2-0 lead for just the first time since their home-opening victory.

“Obviously, at halftime it was probably a perfect game plan for him,” Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson said of his Quakes counterpart, Mikael Stahre.

“Obviously I’m sure (Stahre) will be disappointed in there, but they played really well in the first 25 minutes. They deservedly were two goals ahead, but it was probably an entertaining game for a neutral if there were any neutrals out there.”

THE (YELLOW) TIDE TURNS

It looked like the Caps, trailing by two goals, were going to self-destruct, as frustration led to a flood of yellow cards to Reyna, Felipe and De Jong in a two-minute span. Robinson pulled the trigger on a double substitution, pulling De Jong and Felipe off for Aly Ghazal and Nicolas Mezquida, and switched to a 3-5-2 formation.