For a second straight match in the TELUS Canadian Championship quarterfinals, Vancouver FC lost 2-1, and will feel they missed a significant opportunity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
At Stade Saputo on Sunday night, they failed to truly capitalize on carrying a man advantage after Efrain Morales’ sending off in the 43rd minute. Instead, Vancouver FC, who reached last year’s finals, bow out in the quarter-finals of this year’s competition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vancouver FC started the match with the exact same eleven that put in a strong performance during the home leg. The hosts, however, who were less pleased with their effort, made six changes to their starting eleven — including Prince Owusu, who scored the match-winning penalty mid-week up top.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Less than five minutes into the match, Hennadii Synchuk forced a pair of good stops from Callum Irving as the hosts wasted no time taking control of the match. On the opposite wing, Noah Streit also had a pair of dangerous strikes that went narrowly wide of the target in the early stages.\u00a0<\/p>\n
CF Montr\u00e9al, however, lacked a clinical edge in and around the box, allowing the Eagles to survive the early barrage and reply with a few half chances of their own. Nicol\u00e1s Mezquida brilliantly directed traffic around the pitch for the visitors, taking up good positions and allowing Vancouver to play through the Montr\u00e9al block.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Thierno Bah was able to get behind the line down the left on a few occasions and sent a strike just wide of the target in the 34th minute.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just three minutes before the half, the series changed again in a big way, when CF Montr\u00e9al’s Morales was shown a second yellow card and sent off.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Montr\u00e9al nearly landed a huge blow before half-time when Synchuk got in behind again and sent a strike just wide of target. The host dominated the opportunities in the first half, with 13 shot attempts to 2. But they reached the half even on goals and down a man.<\/p>\n
Less than a minute into the half, Mezquida nearly chipped Sebastian Breza in the Montr\u00e9al goal, but the goalkeeper got a finger tip to it before collecting the ball before it could cross the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vancouver FC kept the pressure on, and in the 52nd minute, thought they had taken the lead. Matteo Campagna poked a loose ball off a corner kick past Breza, but it was judged to have caught his hand before crossing the line.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Moments later, CF Montr\u00e9al went the other way and delivered heartbreak when Brendan Craig sent a free kick curling past Irving and into the net to make it 1-0 in the match, and 3-1 on aggregate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both sides made several substitutions looking to change the game, with Vancouver bringing on Marcello Polisi, Lys Mousset and Isak Ssewankambo.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What looked like a dream start to the second half for Vancouver FC, however, continued to transform into a nightmare. In the 68th minute, CF Montr\u00e9al had a second as a simple ball over the top from Luca Petrasso, found Daniel R\u00edos who chipped Irving who was caught in no man’s land out of his net.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mezquida came close again in the 76th minute after a great pass from Mousset, but this time he sent his sliding effort just wide of the target. Mezquida then nearly returned the favour a minute later, but this time Mousset couldn’t put it on frame from a free header.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Vancouver did finally make an opportunity count in the 79th minute, on a brilliant strike from Morey Doner, who volleyed it past Breza to cut the score in the match to 2-1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But that was all they could muster on an evening where they will feel they came incredibly close to what would have been a historic result, but let themselves down in the match’s decisive moments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
CF Montr\u00e9al now advance to the semifinals, where they will face either the four-time defending champion Vancouver Whitecaps, or CPL side Cavalry FC, who play their second leg on Monday at ATCO Field. The Whitecaps currently lead that tie 4-1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a second straight match in the TELUS Canadian Championship quarterfinals, Vancouver FC lost 2-1, and will feel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":798794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194298],"tags":[49,48,55],"class_list":["post-798793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/798794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}