"There's no way that was a 3-1 game," said TFC head coach Paul Mariner. "I thought we were a little tentative in the first half and in the second half we played much better… We matched them for 89 minutes."

Whitecaps’ midfielder Dane Richards will leave MLS at the end of the season and join Canadian David Edgar and his Burnley teammates in the January transfer window.

So far this season, the Whitecaps have played five matches against these four teams. And the Caps have two draws and three losses to show for those efforts.

Goals from Franck Songo'o and Darlington Nagbe gave the Portland Timbers a 2-1 victory Saturday night over their Cascadia rivals at JELD-WEN Field in front of 20,438 fans.

Despite running the balance of play and looking like they were on their way to locking up a relatively easy three points, the Dynamo and their fans looked stunned the Reds escaped with a 1-1 draw at Houston's BBVA Compass Stadium on Saturday night.

Local product, Patrice Bernier, had a red-letter day on the pitch, earning Player of the Game notice for his efforts, which included a brace and an assist for a scoring line that he probably hasn’t put up since his days in junior hockey.

But, for 60 minutes of Wednesday’s 2-1 loss in Columbus, TFC looked like a team that was going through the motions, even though coach Paul Mariner handed keeper Freddy Hall his MLS debut and centre back Dicoy Williams his first MLS start of the season.

Suspensions will force both Montreal Impact coach Jesse Marsch and Whitecaps’ boss Martin Rennie to make some adjustments in the coming weeks.

“This is another positive step for our football club, signing another promising young defender for the long term,” said Head Coach and Director of Soccer Operations Paul Mariner in a release issued by the club.

“A lot of it depends on the stadium because we’re building a stadium in San Jose,” San Jose Eartquakes President Dave Kaval explained. “The stadium here (in Montreal) has been renovated recently so I wanted to sit down with Joey Saputo and with all the team here and discuss with them what they built. There are lessons here for us and our design as we move forward with our construction and so that’s the key reason.”