The Vancouver Whitecaps beat the Portland Timbers, 5-0, in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference wild-card game to seal a spot in the postseason.
Vancouver entered the game as the significant underdog; it arrived at Portland’s Providence Park with zero wins from its past seven games.
“Everybody needs to be ready to step up and play the best game of the season, basically,” said Vancouver coach Vanni Sartini before the game. “I think it’s all on us.”
Sartini’s men took that advice to heart. The Whitecaps outwitted and outplayed Portland from the opening whistle, marking the Timbers’ dangerous attacking trio of Evander, Jonathan Rodriguez and Felipe Mora out of the game entirely. Portland scored 65 goals over the course of the regular season — more than all but one team in the West — but it was unable to come close to the net in this do-or-die clash with Vancouver.
It was Ryan Gauld, Vancouver’s underrated No. 10, who proved to be the game’s goalscoring machine. He found the back of the net in the 20th minute thanks to a defensive scramble in front of Portland’s goal; he doubled his tally 10 minutes later with an audacious chip from just outside the box.
By the time he was subbed off in the second half, he’d scored three goals and set up another.
Many comparisons were made between Vancouver’s Gauld and Portland’s Evander before the match; both racked up similar statistics in the 2024-25 regular season.
“I think there’s a high chance that one of those two guys will be the decisive man in the game,” Sartini said, and he was right.
While Evander edged Gauld on regular-season statistics — he entered the game with 34 goal contributions to Gauld’s 25 — Gauld blew him out of the water in this match. At halftime, Gauld had two goals to his name, beating his expected goal contribution of 1.03. And Evander? He had zero goals to his expected goal contribution of 0.02.
Vancouver will move on to face LAFC, the top seed in the Western Conference, in a best-of-three first round playoff series. Its first game will take place at LAFC’s BMO Field on Saturday.
Once again, Vancouver is the long shot … but with this 5-0 drubbing in its rearview mirror, the team will back itself to beat the odds once more.
