VANCOUVER — The reviews of Eric Hassli’s spectacular goal from Wednesday night against Toronto FC continue to pour in.

“It’s just what the big guy does,” says Vancouver Whitecaps captain and defender Jay DeMerit.

“An amazing goal for sure,” adds midfielder Davide Chiumiento.

“Sensational … maybe the goal of [season],” raves defender Young-Pyo Lee.

Hassli’s goal was still all the chatter Thursday as the Whitecaps hit the pitch at BC Place Stadium for training. The only phrase missing was “two thumbs up.”

Less than 24 hours before, Hassli threw Vancouver soccer fans inside BC Place, those watching on TV and keeping up to date on Twitter into a frenzy, when he tied the first leg of the Amway Canadian Championship final against Toronto FC at 1-1 in second half stoppage time.

Hassli volleyed home a beautiful cross from Alain Rochat from about 15 yards out. The striker then waved his finger, turned around and pointed with both hands to the name of the back of his jersey. Toronto goalkeeper Milos Kocic never had a chance.

“It wasn’t bad,” said a modest Hassli.

“Alain gave me a great ball. It’s more easier when you have a great ball … you have to be lucky, too.”

The goal, Hassli’s fourth in his last five games, was the subject of a vancouversun.com poll question Thursday — click here to vote — and the replay gathered 204,682 views on the Whitecaps’ official YouTube channel, WhitecapsHD, as of 3 p.m. Pacific time on Thursday.

Oh, and it’s also drawn comparisons to his magical tally on June 11 of last season against the Seattle Sounders, when Hassli neatly picked up a loose ball, turned, fired and scored on a long, curving strike from the far right corner of the 18-yard box.

“It was alright,” said midfielder John Thorrington, in jest of course.

“We see it all the time in training and we’ve seen it in games and that’s a special, special gift that he’s got that not many do. It’s fantastic that it got us the draw last night and put us in decent position for next week to go and win.

“Hope there are more of those to come this year.”

No pressure.

Thanks to Hassli’s goal, the Whitecaps can now clinch the Amway Canadian Championship and a spot in the CONCACAF Champions League on Wednesday (5 p.m. Pacific) at BMO Field in Toronto, with either a win or a draw in which they score more than one goal, due to the away-goal tiebreaker.

For the more immediate future, there is an important MLS regular season game against the Seattle Sounders FC, arguably Vancouver’s biggest rival.

The two clubs will face each other Saturday (2 p.m. Pacific, on TSN, Team 1410) at BC Place in the opening game of the Cascadia Cup.

The Sounders have won four of their last five matches, and sit in third place in the MLS Western Conference standings with a record of 7-2-1 and 22 points, five ahead of the fourth-place Whitecaps.

“It’s obviously a challenge playing a lot of games, but it’s also fun playing a lot of games, especially the games you get excited about,” said Whitecaps head coach Martin Rennie.

“They’re not too far ahead of us right now. It’s a game where both teams are doing quite well and both teams are quite close. Obviously we know Seattle has been around for a long time and they’ve been, in a lot of people’s eyes, a model franchise … so it’s certainly a good test for us.”

Fans coming to the game early will be treated to some additional soccer. The UEFA Champions League final between powerhouse clubs Bayern Munich and Chelsea FC will be shown on the big screen at BC Place.

The stadium will open its doors at 11:15 a.m. PDT. The championship match begins at 11:45 a.m. PDT.

ctucker@vancouversun.com

On Twitter: Twitter.com/CamTuckerSun

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