Playoff-bound Whitecaps potentially punted from B.C. Place

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The Vancouver Whitecaps might have played their last game at B.C. Place this season.

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The Major League Soccer team is faced with a potential scheduling conflict they’ve been unable to solve despite long and protracted efforts that could punt them from their home stadium in a potential play-in game.

The Caps are eighth in the Western Conference heading into Decision Day, and on track to host a play-in game against the Portland Timbers. But the available dates for that game land squarely when the World Supercross Championship will be getting prepared to host the Canadian Grand Prix at the Dome. Supercross is high-speed motorcycle racing on a dirt track with jumps, requiring days of preparation.

There are no other venues in the Vancouver market available for the Caps to play in on those days, meaning regardless if they finish eighth or ninth, they’d play in Portland.

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“We worked closely with B.C. Place and MLS to explore all potential options,” Caps CEO Axel Schuster said in a news release.

“We are not a club that makes excuses and our focus is to win on Decision Day. Our goal is to improve every season, and our ambitions have not changed. We are focused on advancing to Round One of the MLS Cup Playoffs where we will have the opportunity to play at B.C. Place.”

To play again at B.C. Place, the Caps will either have to finish in seventh place, and thus skip the play in game, or beat Portland to advance to Round 1 of the playoffs.

Round 1 playoff series are a best-of-three series with the higher seed getting the home field advantage.

The Whitecaps visit Real Salt lake on Decision Day — the final game of the MLS regular season when all conference games kickoff at the same time.

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Vancouver is in eighth place, two points behind Minnesota. They have to win on Saturday and hope the Loons lose or tie to leapfrog them.

They can still leapfrog the Loons if Minnesota draws, and Vancouver (+4) finishes with better goal differential (Min: +6).

The first tiebreaker is wins, and they’d be tied 14-14.

If they’re tied on goal differential, the next tiebreakers are goals (54-51 MUFC) and disciplinary points.

The latter scenario comes into play if Vancouver wins 3-1 and Minnesota ties 0-0; the Loons have 72 yellows and four reds, the Whitecaps 62/3.

Vancouver didn’t expect to be in this position a month ago, when they were two points out of fourth place and riding a four-game unbeaten streak across all competitions, having not conceded a single goal in that span. They’d just eliminated the San Jose Earthquakes from the playoffs with a 2-0 win, a game that saw their star Scottish Designated Player (Ryan Gauld) set up their new star Scottish DP (Stuart Armstrong) for his first goal with Vancouver.

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But since that Sept. 14 victory, the Caps have spiralled down the standings. They haven’t won in six games, losing four and drawing twice, scoring just five goals while giving up 12.

“We need to be treat this game like it’s already a playoff game,” head coach Vanni Sartini said of Saturday’s date with RSL in Sandy, Utah.

“Even in case we have to play the play-in game, it’s much better to arrive (in the playoffs) with a win, a good result, or a good performance, then with a bad performance.”

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