Last October, Sounders FC hosted rival Vancouver Whitecaps FC in a match that ultimately decided the 2014 Cascadia Cup. The Rave Green were atop the Supporters’ Shield standings and had already been crowned Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup champions, and they hadn’t lost at home in nearly three months.
But Vancouver’s Kekuta Manneh scored just before halftime and the ‘Caps held on for a 1-0 win at CenturyLink Field, giving Vancouver their second straight Cascadia Cup. The visitors danced on the field after the game, took turns hoisting the trophy and then celebrated with the traveling fans.
Fast forward 11 months, and it’s winner-take-all time again in Cascadia. The Sounders need a win or a draw at BC Place on Saturday (4 pm PT; JOEtv, This TV), and they’ll claim their first Cascadia Cup since 2011.
The Whitecaps, meanwhile, can make it three straight titles with a win on home soil.
“It’s a six-point game,” Seattle captain Brad Evans said this week. “For us, we can leap up in the standings and separate ourselves from the pack. But there’s also Cascadia Cup, so there’s multiple things on the line in this game. Our guys know that. We got a decent result when we drew there in Champions League, so we’ll look at what we did well then.”
The Sounders earned a 1-1 draw in Vancouver last month during CONCACAF Champions League play and picked up a 2-0 win at BC Place in May, one of the team’s most impressive results of the season.
Still, a similar result on Saturday won’t be an easy task. The Whitecaps lead the pack in the chase for the Supporters’ Shield and they’ve won of their last seven league games. They’re also 8-1-4 at home this season, with the only loss coming against Seattle in May.
“They’re a very good team,” Evans said. “With where they’re at in the standings, they’ve put together some good runs this year. Especially at home, they’ve been very dangerous. So it’s a team that we’re definitely well-aware of, but at the same time, we’ve got to make a push.”
The Sounders actually had a chance to clinch the trophy in August, but a 3-0 win for Vancouver at CenturyLink Field extended the competition until the last round of action.
“They play with a lot of energy, and we handled it very well the two times we’ve played in Vancouver,” head coach Sigi Schmid said this week. “The one time we played down here, we didn’t handle it so well, but those were also set-piece goals that cost us in that game. So we’ve just got to make sure we handle their speed like we have in the past.
“We just have to make sure we negate [their speed] and do what we do well, which is possessing the ball and feeding our guys up top that can finish.”
