Cup competition once again lived up to the billing at Spruce Meadows on Tuesday evening.
Vancouver Whitecaps FC attacker Levonte Johnson scored twice, including a sublime first half added time tally, with Cavalry FC grabbing a late goal through Malcolm Shaw as the visitors struck a 2-1 result in the first leg of the Canadian Championship quarter-final on May 7 at Spruce Meadows’ ATCO Field.
“Coming in we knew it was going to be a tough match,” said Johnson on the OneSoccer broadcast. “We’ve played a lot of games here and this was our first (regulation) win on this field so coming in the weather, the pitch, the rain, we knew it was going to be tough.
“The guys were up for it and ultimately we got the win.”
A cagey first 45 minutes saw little in the way of attacking thrust, not a common site from the Cavalry contingent at home.
“I think we were going into the game with what I felt like a little bit of anxiety, the way we played was not like us,” said Cavalry FC centre back Daan Klomp. “We were playing too much back-foot and not provoking enough and we played way too much into their pressing traps.
“In the second half, we started to play like ourselves again, a lot more courage, a lot more playing forward, running forward.”
Johnson broke the goalless deadlock in first half added time, as the Whitecaps hit a quick free kick the Cavalry cleared right into Johnson’s path for a powerful left footed strike that went off the far post and in.
“As soon it left my foot, I had a good feeling about it and started running to corner flag,” said Johnson. “It was just a good long ball from our centre back, their centre back headed it down and I was first on the bounce and tried my best to get clean contact with it.”
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Johnson, making his first start with the Whitecaps, hit for the double in the second half with the visitors direct play leading to a clean break and cool finish in the 79th minute.
“The goals we gave away, especially the first one when it’s 10 seconds before halftime, it makes it look a lot worse,” Klomp said. “We know what we have to do to prevent those goals and we have to play over their defence and make them face their own goal and that was our mistake.”
In stoppage time, the Cavalry cut the deficit in the two-leg affair in half with a pair of substitutes connecting on the break.
Midfielder Lucas Dias feathered a perfectly weighted through ball on the path of Shaw for a subtle touch from an acute angle to evade Whitecaps goalkeeper Isaac Boehmer.
“I think we take a lot of positives from the second half,” Klomp added. “Lucas Dias with his brilliant pass to Malcolm, and happy for him to score his first goal, we had a lot more chances in the second half, (Lleyton) Brooks with the header and we take a lot of confidence out of that.”
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The second leg of the quarter-final is May 21 at BC Place in Vancouver.
For more information, go to cavsfc.com.
