SEATTLE - One down, seven to go. That's the Vancouver Whitecaps match tally for the remainder of August, if you're keeping count.
In the busiest month of Vancouver's MLS era 'Caps coach Carl Robinson certainly is, and he'll be hoping that it can continue in the same vein as tonight's strong showing in Seattle where his Whitecaps side dismantled the Sounders 3-0 with a composed and clinical performance from start to finish.
"It was a really strong performance from the guys tonight," a jubilant Robinson said after the match. "They put a huge amount of work in, which you need to do when you play Seattle away, and we got our rewards.
"More than the result the performance was absolutely fantastic. Every single one of my players today carried out the instructions that I asked them to do because we needed to be organised and disciplined. They did it off to a tee."
Those instructions were to attack Seattle from the start and put the struggling home side on the back foot early. It worked to perfection.
The Whitecaps have often started games a little slow this season, saving the majority of their goals for the final 15 minutes of each half. But they came out of the gates early in both halves in Seattle, scoring the opener six minutes in and doubling their lead just four minutes into the second half.
"[It was down to] a little bit of the personnel that I have," Robinson said of his attacking gameplan. "We were very young in the front six players. We just thought the enthusiasm of the young players, and the energy that they could bring to the table, we could go out there and surprise them a little bit.
"That's exactly what happened and we probably played some of our best football that we have done this season in that first half."
That was a view echoed by the Whitecaps two-goal hero Pa-Modou Kah.
Kah grabbed his first goals for Vancouver with two world class finishes that any striker would be proud of. But the veteran defender preferred to talk down his own performance and talk up that of the whole team.
"The way we played today was really a true professional football game," Kah felt. "From the first minute to the 90th minute, we performed fantastically. It's just amazing because we have a special group here. We can go a long way, but every day we have to come in to work and work hard. We really did that today. We can always improve and we're going to keep on improving."
The win moves the Whitecaps back into first place in the Western Conference, giving them a big seven point lead over their Cascadian rivals in the process.
Goalkeeper David Ousted, who kept his eighth clean sheet of the season in the victory, sees the 'Caps overall team performance as a statement of intent to the rest of the league that Vancouver are real contenders for Supporters' Shield honors.
"The performance is a huge milestone for us," Ousted told reporters postgame. "I haven't seen us play this well in a very, very long time. That's almost more important than the result for me. Seeing us win, with a performance like that, is massive."
