The fourth match of the 2011 World Football Challenge took place in Vancouver on Monday night, and though the Vancouver Whitecaps gave their fans hope of a win, it was Manchester City that wound up victorious.
Manchester City defeated the Whitecaps 2-1 on goals from John Guidetti and Shaun Wright-Phillips in the second half. Camilo knocked in the opener for Vancouver, which played in front of a home crowd of 24,074 on Bell PItch at Empire Field.
Whitecaps coach Tom Soehn fielded a strong starting eleven against Manchester City, one that included the recently-acquired Mustapha Jarju, the club's second Designated Player signing.
Here are the match highlights:
What do you think of Vancouver's 2-1 loss to Manchester City? Who impressed you? Does the crowd turnout impress you?
Share your thoughts below.
You haven’t been told this enough in your life, “You are stupid. Stop talking.”
Football must be played on grass. Shame on Vancouver, Portland and Seattle! Every time the beautiful game is played on artificial pitch, a little kitten dies! Shame shame shame!
Between that and the Jabulani abomination which Adidas is still forcing on the league, MLS is unwatchable!
Even Morfaw has more attacking talent than the awful Birtchall
I was lucky enough to go to the game yesterday. The pitch was a bit of a mess, but Vancouver did look strong in the first 45 when they played what is pretty close to their starting 11. Davide Chiumiento would have added some extra imagination and offensive, and Jay DeMerit would have tighted up the backline some. Some great movement both on and off the ball, although to be fair, Man City with the exception of Weiss looked like they were letting them play a bit.
The second half was very different. Vancouver had what amounted to their subs and reserves on and it showed. Alexandre Morfaw was shocking. When he wasn’t in the process of making a poor passes, poor choices, poor player. Having a central midfielder who gives the ball away during most sequences when he was involved did not inspire confidence that he’s got any future as a real player.
People have pointed out that the Caps record doesn’t reflect their quality and to some respect that is true. They play a nice visual brand of football that with the a bit more luck should have gotten them a few more victories. They’ve been unlucky with injuries. Between Jay Demerit and John Thorrington, we have over 500k worth of salary cap eaten up on players who have played the equivalent minutes of under 8 games between the two of them, all of those minutes from Demerit (and honestly most of those minutes have been played hurt and it shows).
Shutting Demerit down for the season might be the best option going forward for the team. Hassli has had some card issues, some his fault, some just adjusting to the shocking lack of quality refereeing that everyone in this league has to deal with.
I hope he is.
your joking right?
Regardless, VAN remained competetive the entire match. LA was doomed with the likes of Jordan, Saunders, Berhalter, Birchall etc. I think Vancover has more depth than LA. Arena is a joke.
they are an expansion team in a competitive league…If they make a another acquisition, they can get into the playoff mix and shock some people
I think it’s because certain other MLS teams play a bruising, dumb style that gets results but isn’t pretty. Few teams, other than NY and Toronto and Vancouver, want to play a pleasing style because it’s risky.
Aside from when I saw them in Houston, Vancouver has impressed me on the highlight reels and also during the 30 minutes or so that I saw of last night’s game.
I think bad luck and stupid mistakes have partly caused their horrible record.
The field conditions were terrible. Manchester City didn’t seem too interested in the game during the first half, probably because of the field conditions. Manchester City is not as good as Real Madrid.
Why does MLS continue to play these friendlies on grass over turf fields? I have never seen it work successfully. There’s gotta be a better solution. If they want to play in big stadiums, there has to be some grass stadiums that can be used.
I have watched much of Vancouver, but they looked pretty good last night. They use the whole field. They have plenty of movement. From that you have to wonder why they are the bottom of the league.