But the Montreal-Vancouver matchup is more than a rekindling of an old, bitter rivalry. It’s fascinating test for the staggering Impact, which moves to MLS next season. So, far, this NASL campaign, the Impact hasn’t won in three matches. The club has scored only once. No member of its current roster is signed to a deal that would take him into MLS in 2012.

Ferreira was hurt on what looked to be a rather innocuous play; as he charged to get to a ball deep in Whitecaps territory, defender Jonathan Leathers slid and got all ball with the challenge. No foul was called. Ferreira went over and was down for several minutes, clutching his ankle in pain. He was sent to hospital for tests to his ankle.

There is a very real trend that has become evident in Whitecaps match after Whitecaps match. Win, lose or draw, the Whitecaps will allow their opponents to have more of the ball and, in the case of Saturday’s 0-0 draw at home to Chivas USA, a lot more of the ball.

The Whitecaps and their fans can have no complaint about the result — a 3-1 loss to the Houston Dynamo. Indeed, you could argue that things could have been a heck of a lot worse. A four- or five-goal margin would have reflected the run of play.

Program the PVR. Make sure your Internet connection is fast enough to allow for multiple streams. This weekend marks a landmark in Canadian soccer. Four professional clubs are in action; FC Edmonton and the Montreal Impact kick off their NASL campaigns Saturday with road games in Florida. And MLS? Toronto FC visits the San Jose Earthquakes Saturday night. And the Vancouver Whitecaps head to Texas to take on the Houston Dynamo on Sunday. Of the weekend’s action, only Montreal and FC Edmonton overlap.

And, while the Whitecaps came back in stoppage time to draw Sporting Kansas City 3-3 on Saturday, they surrendered a 93rd-minute last-gasp goal to New England’s Ilija Stolica and had to settle for a 1-1 draw with the Revolution in front of 19,396 fans. But the talking point won’t be the Stolica equalizer. It will be the bizarre sequence that followed Eric Hassli’s penalty-kick goal in the 56th.

Still, we have to compare how the Whitecaps progress against TFC’s expansion season. It is as close to apples to apples as we have. So, in 2007, after three games, TFC hadn’t won, hadn’t scored, and had given up nine goals.

Before the kickoff of the season, MLS headquarters instructed its officials to crack down on fouls in the box and to make absolutely certain that a player was in an offside position before raising the flag. More penalties, more cards, less offside calls — the recipe to boost scoring. We are clearly seeing the effect of the mandate. Fans will likely have to get used to seeing the flag stay down more often than not.

The Vancouver Whitecaps gave it their best shot to maintain their perfect season here yesterday against the Philadelphia Union and their boisterous Sons of Ben fan club —which cheers its heroes and jeers the opposition nonstop the entire game. They really did. But in the end the Caps simply couldn’t overcome a red card to striker Eric Hassli — his second yellow-card infraction of the day — forcing them to play a man down the final 35 minutes. The Union applied consistent pressure from there, finally converting an opportunity goal from Carlos Ruiz in the 79th minute to squeeze out a 1-0 win that might’ve been a different story otherwise.

Omar Bravo won the hearts and minds of soccer reporters across the continent, capturing the first Player of the Week award of the MLS season. Bravo, Sporting Kansas City’s Mexican Designated Player, scored twice as his new club travelled to Los Angeles and edged Chivas USA 3-2. As Bravo once starred for Chivas Guadalajara, the irony was too good to pass up.