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Caps stun Timbers 4-1

A miserable year for the Vancouver Whitecaps finished with a silver lining.

Giles Barnes scored twice in the first half Sunday as Vancouver defeated the Portland Timbers 4-1 on the final day of the regular season to deny the defending MLS Cup champions a spot in this year's playoffs.

The Whitecaps were eliminated from post-season contention at the beginning of October, and were knocked out of the Western Conference semifinals by the Timbers on the same B.C. Place Stadium pitch 12 months ago. They got a measure of revenge against their rivals thanks to a display of skill, passion and desire that failed to materialize for most of 2016.

"This performance absolutely drives me mad," said Whitecaps head coach Carl Robinson. "I know we have the players to do it, but we haven't done it on a consistent basis. Why? I don't know. I'm going to get to bottom of it because I don't want to be sitting here next year saying the same things to you like a broken record.

"We finished on a high today, but I'm not fooled."

Pedro Morales and Nicolas Mezquida had the other goals for Vancouver (10-15-9), which won for just the second time in Major League Soccer since July.

"I kind of knew we had that in us, but obviously it's too late," said Whitecaps goalkeeper David Ousted. "I'm delighted to give the fans a last victory and show we are better than we performed.

"It hurt a lot last year getting knocked out, especially at home. This was a little pay back."

With all 20 MLS teams in action Sunday, Portland (12-14-8) needed a victory to book a spot in the playoffs, or a lot of help with a tie or a loss.

But in the end, the Timbers, who got a late consolation penalty from Diego Valeri, will only have themselves to blame after finishing the campaign without a road win (0-11-6). Portland was one of four teams vying for the final three post-season spots in the West at the start of the day, and were without defender Liam Ridgewell and midfielder Diego Chara because of yellow card accumulation against Vancouver.

"We had some guys that had really poor performances," said head coach Caleb Porter, whose team was also bounced from the CONCACAF Champions League mid-week. "You can't win when you get that. We got that across the board.

"It just felt like we bled goals."



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