- FORT LAUDERDALE —
Brian White and Pedro Vite scored two minutes apart and the Vancouver Whitecaps
stunned Inter Miami 3-1 in the second leg of their CONCACAF Champions Cup
semifinal on Wednesday night, spoiling Lionel Messi’s squad’s hopes of making
the tournament’s final.
- Sebastian Berhalter also scored for Vancouver, which
advanced with a 5-1 aggregate to face either Cruz Azul or Tigres UNAL in the
Champions Cup final on June 1.
- Miami entered Wednesday’s match trailing 0-2 in aggregate
after being shut out in the first leg last Thursday. That meant they needed to
win by at least three goals in regulation on Wednesday to advance.
- Messi helped set up Jordi Alba’s goal nine minutes into the
game, but the reigning MLS MVP was held without a goal for the fourth straight
match.
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- “They have a great team,” Whitecaps coach Jesper Sorensen
said of Inter Miami, “and it’s not always easy for them because they have these
players who come in with all the pressure on them.”
- In the tournament’s history, four MLS clubs, including Inter
Miami last week, have lost the first leg of a semifinal by a 2-0 on the road.
No team has come back to advance to the final.
- Miami’s hopes were dashed quickly in the second half
Wednesday, when Vancouver — which leads MLS with 23 points — erased a one-goal
deficit minutes into the frame.
- Berhalter found White for the equalizer in the 51st minute
and Vite sent a deflection past Oscar Ustari in the 53rd. Berhalter, who had an
assist on the first two goals, put the game away with a shot from the center of
the box into the bottom left corner in the 71st.
- “We did ourselves a very good favor last week,” Sorensen
said, “because we didn’t need to rush things (tonight), and we didn’t need to
go panicking because we were up 2-0 (in aggregate).”
