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Stefan Tonev
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Vancouver Whitecaps demolish Real España 5-0
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The Whitecaps run riot with emphatic CCL display

Vancouver Whitecaps take a comanding 5-0 aggreagate lead against Honduran Real España in their last 16 first leg tie of the Concacaf Champions league with a stellar performance, which all but seals their place in the quarterfinals.

Four different players found their name on the goalsheet for the Whitecaps, with addition to a 64th minute own-goal by Devron Garcia.

Tristan Blackman opened the scoring in the 21st minute, with Ryan Raposo, who was also chosen Man of the Match, doubling the lead in the 59th minute.

Midfielder Pedro Vite and forward Brian White added two more goals in the 70th and 77th minute, respectively, compounding a miserable night for the visiting team.

This is Vancouver’s first five-goal performance since manager Sartini took charge, an accomplishment which the Italian manager hoped to skyrocket the team’s confidence and give them boost for the upcoming matches both in the league and CCL.

“In the year-and-a-half tenure that I’ve had, we’ve never scored five goals, this is the first time,” Sartini said.

“The fact that a lot of players who arrived [in the offseason] had chances, it means that we are there. We saw even against Salt Lake here, a lot of players had great chances. … So, that’s the kind of hopefully the idea: we arrived and created in that position because of the way of playing, it’s not about relying on one player to make the magic.”

Sartini refused to write Real España’s chances off as he was insistant that his team have to approach the 2nd leg just like any other game.

“We need to plan a half at a time,” Sartini said.

“The first half will be let’s try to win in San Pedro Sula. And then we can talk about game management in the second half down there if things hopefully are going in the right direction. But for sure we won’t make the mistake of underestimating their team because soccer is a crazy game. So, we’ll go there with the best lineup possible. … We’ll bring all the team and now the objective is now to reach the quarterfinals.

“Qualification is not reached but, of course, it’s much better to go there with a five goals advantage and I would say enormously in charge of our destiny.”

The second leg is being played next week on 15 March.