It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t pretty, but the Vancouver Whitecaps are headed to the Western Conference final for the first time in their history. Despite falling to only nine men on the field by the end of extra time, the Whitecaps survived their way into a penalty shootout win over LAFC on Saturday. They will face the winner of Monday’s San Diego FC and Minnesota United match in the conference final next weekend.
Mathias Laborda delivered the match-winning penalty shot, in front of 53,957 exhilarated but emotionally exhausted fans at BC Place.
Before that, the match seemed to be trending completely in LAFC’s direction. The Whitecaps came out of halftime up 2-0, but Son Heung-min delivered what seemed like was going to be his signature MLS moment.
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The former Tottenham Hotspur star cut the deficit to a goal in the 60th minute, then delivered this beauty of a free kick in stoppage time to stun Vancouver.
Minutes earlier, the Whitecaps had lost MLS Defender of the Year Tristan Blackmon to a second yellow card, leaving them down to 10 men and even more soccer to play. The prospect of extra time was not in their favor, especially when Belal Halbouni went down with an injury that required a stretcher in the 112th minute.
Vancouver had no remaining subs, so the injury left them down to nine men. There were eight shots registered for the remaining 12 minutes of extra time and they were all from LAFC.
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Two of them were in the final minutes, when Denis Bouanga managed to hit a bar twice in five seconds. Those are shots LAFC and its fans will be thinking about quite a bit this offseason.
For all his heroics equalizing the match, Son failed to convert LAFC’s first penalty kick. Mark Delgaldo also whiffed on his PK before Laborda’s shot gave Vancouver the win.
It’s been an incredible season for Vancouver so far, having added German legend Thomas Müller to what was already a deep and diverse scoring attack at midseason. The match had all the mechanics of a disaster, but it wound up being a breakthrough instead.
