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They booed Max Crepeau every time he touched the ball. They booed the officials for every questionable call. They booed lustily every time an Los Angeles FC player fell heavily to the B.C. Place turf, pantomiming some phantom injury — a display of theatrics that was both frequent and frustrating.
The black-clad visitors will move on in the MLS playoffs to face the winner of Seattle vs. Dallas, which will be decided next Friday.
L.A earned a 22nd-minute penalty when referee Tim Ford ruled that Caps centreback Tristan Blackmon had tripped Mario González in the box, pointing immediately to the spot. The jazzed-up stadium erupted in disbelief, but there was no call for Ford to check his decision on a sideline monitor, as the VAR check showed no error in judgment.
Denis Bouanga powered it home past a helpless Yohei Takaoka, and it stood up as the winner.
The loudest boos of the night came in the final moments of injury time, when Ford knocked over Alessandro Schöpf just as he was trying to hit a shot after an extended bout of Whitecaps pressure. L.A. turned it the other way, and scored into an empty net, and the crowd went bananas, with invectives of every description being thrown at him.
Incandescent with rage, Whitecaps coach Vanni Sartini practically went into orbit, getting ejected from the game with a red card.
He wasn’t there to see Ford called to the monitor for a VAR check, and the goal chalked off for offside — as Takaoka was still upfield, it meant Carlos Vela’s pass put Bounga in an offside position.
“Maybe he felt excited because he was in Canada and he wanted to do (something Canadian). … I think Tim is a good guy but … the referee was a disaster. We have to be completely honest; the referee was a disaster. … At the end, we didn’t have a fair chance, to be honest. Because today, unfortunately, the referee had a bad game.”
Sartini went on to describe the plays he had issues with, including the non-penalty on Richie Laryea in the second half. If that wasn’t called, the González call shouldn’t have either, he said.
The game was whistled moments after Bounga’s goal was waved off, and B.C. Place security was needed to keep the Whitecaps players — notably Sam Adekugbe — from the officials as they were led off the field. Bottles, streamers and profanity followed them off as they were quickly ushered down the tunnel and out.
They were probably passed by Sartini, who came back through the tunnel after the final whistle to cheers and applause as he saluted the crowd and gathered his team together.
Sartini knows there will be blowback for his comments about the officiating, and made the request to the journalists at the presser not to ask the players about the refereeing, so he could take all the fines. And he knows it will probably go beyond a financial hit.
There were a combined 32 fouls in the Decision Day meeting at B.C. Place between these two teams, and the physical play carried over on Sunday. Takaoka took a foot to the face from Gonzalez in the 40th minute, but it only earned the L.A. player a yellow card.
The visitors were lucky not to be down to 10 men, as Gonzalez had also gotten away with another bookable offence earlier in the half.
LAFC showed off their battle-hardened experience with the display, as the cheap fouls broke up the Whitecaps’ offence and kept them from building any momentum.
The Whitecaps had 13 shots to L.A.’s eight, but Crepeau was the man of the match, making several key saves against his old team, including a late White header in the 85th minute and a Gauld volley in the 98th.
