Gauld hit the bar and it cost them
Christian Ramirez scored twice at BC Place and Austin FC beat Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 earlier today. The visitors are 17 points worse off in the Western Conference table. They won anyway, and the penalty Ryan Gauld put against the crossbar on 40 minutes is the moment Vancouver will keep returning to.
Ramirez had already put Austin ahead by then. Facundo Torres broke on the counter in the 28th minute, squared it, and Ramirez finished right-footed into the bottom right corner from the middle of the box. Vancouver had the ball for most of the half and got caught going the other way.
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Level for eleven minutes
Gauld made up for the penalty four minutes into the second half. His through ball split the Austin defence and Brian White drove it into the bottom right corner. BC Place got loud. It lasted eleven minutes.
Joseph Rosales found Ramirez on the right side of the box on the hour and the finish went into the top right corner from an angle that did not obviously allow for it. Two goals from two chances that started in wide areas, both against a defence that had been camped in the opposition half.
Austin then had to survive. Guilherme Biro picked up a second yellow card on 90 minutes and they finished with ten men, defending a one-goal lead at the ground of the team leading their conference.
Neither table position changes much
Vancouver stay on 46 points from 24 matches, still top of the Western Conference, with 14 wins, four draws and six defeats. A home loss at this stage is an irritation rather than a crisis, though the way they lost it, twice caught on the break by a side sitting deep, is a template every visiting coach will have watched.
Austin move to 29 from 25 games. Seven wins, eight draws, ten defeats. Their season has been a run of narrow results that went the wrong way, and Sunday was the version that finally went the right one.
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