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Unfulfilling draw for 'Caps

The Vancouver Whitecaps' season could be boiled down to Saturday's performance.

In a game they desperately needed to win to keep their flickering playoff hopes alive, the Whitecaps came out listless in the first half, looking like a team that had never kicked a ball together.

They were then shaken from their slumber while trailing 1-0 at the break and responded with three goals, two after going down to 10 men, in what turned into an exciting yet unfulfilling 3-3 draw with the Colorado Rapids.

"I can't explain it. I wish I could. It's not good enough, simple as that," said Vancouver goalkeeper David Ousted. "I thought what we showed in the first 45 minutes is a disgrace.

"I feel sick to my stomach that we performed in front of our home crowd that way."

Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson has seen similar nightmarish sequences throughout 2016, with players switching off at key times. It happened twice on Saturday, leading directly to Colorado's first two goals.

"That just sums our season totally up. First half, not good enough, not acceptable. I let the players know that," said the Welshman. "I thought we were well off the pace and they deserved to be ahead.

"We altered one or two things in the second half and the positives I'll take out of it is that they showed tremendous fight, spirit, heart. But they made two mistakes again, which cost us."

Erik Hurtado scored his second goal of the season in the third minute of stoppage time to salvage a point for the Whitecaps, while Kendall Waston — who was later shown a red card — and Pedro Morales had the other goals for Vancouver (9-14-8).

Shkelzen Gashi replied with two for Colorado (12-5-12) after Dominique Badji gave the Rapids an early lead.

The Whitecaps are just 1-6-4 over their last 11 games in Major League Soccer and likely needed to run the table over their four remaining league games to have any shot at the playoffs. While not yet mathematically eliminated, the situation is bleak after starting the day six points back of the final post-season berth in the Western Conference.

"I found out a lot about my players today," said Robinson. "A lot of good things ... and a lot of no so good things."

The Rapids, meanwhile, are a pedestrian 1-2-4 in their last seven as they continue to fight for tops in the overall standings.

"We had this game under control," said Colorado head coach Pablo Mastroeni. "One of the things we take most pride in, which is defence, let us down."



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