Portland Timbers 3-0 New York City FC: Pathetic Cobra, Cunning Mongoose

Bluff.

I started with seeing the things I expected to see - e.g., New York City FC’s Maxi Moralez finding seams between the lines to dart in and of like a hummingbird (pound for pound, just sayin’) - about 15 minutes into the game. The predicted spells of possession started to show about 25-30 minutes into the game, when NYCFC established a perimeter around the rough area of Portland’s defensive third (and with a pinch-in from both sidelines), and just…held that line and probed for weaknesses for as long as minute, maybe even three minutes at a time. The inexorable mechanics of a boa constrictor at work, and only a matter of time away.

To introduce a second unnecessary snake metaphor to the equation, a cobra is scary as hell until a mongoose shows up. I came into this game with a headful of dread (see twitter), and that had everything to do with NYCFC reputation, unbeaten, high-scoring, relentless; I’d seen them at least twice this season and never walked away without believing in their permanent upward mobility. To drag the cobra back into this, think when it hoists its head up, hood flared, poised to strike; that’s what each of those 1-3 minutes spans felt like (or, to introduce another metaphor, think a hammer hovering over a nail). When NYCFC settled into a rhythm after Portland scored their first from a Sebastian Blanco header, and camped out where I thought they would (just inside Portland’s half), I had flashbacks of both of New York’s comebacks against Atlanta United FC just the week before. More to the point, if you compare the league-wide hype-factor between Atlanta and Portland, a mighty river flowed from one, while a fitful trickle flowed from the other.

That’s respectively, in case you can’t tell. Seriously, I would have asked for tall odds for a bet on a Timbers win tonight - say 6:1. Saying they’d win by three would have shot the odds through the roof - say, 25-1, maybe even higher. And I think you’d get a taker or two on that 25-1 for a 3-0 win, the final score for this beautiful puppy. Just think what you could be doing now with all that cash, Doubting Thomas…cocaine and Vegas, man. Or just an eighth and Spirit Mountain. By Uber.

That said, I just checked the highlights and I’m struck by the full meaning of Blanco’s goal - e.g., the mongoose of the…second order metaphor. Even the title to the link is titled, “Sebastian Blanco loops an unlikely header into the net,” and that captures it nicely. Blanco  had to get a better line on the ball than 5’ 9” Anton Tinnerholm to score Portland’s first goal, and it didn’t necessarily feel like Sly Stallone leaning just a little bit more on during one of the qualies for Over the Top. As noted above, New York kept doing what they do, keeping the ball in front of them, finding Moralez ping-ponging between the back four and whatever midfield configuration then opposing team puts in front of that. It felt like they’d pin Portland in and, when the time was right, ripe, and most devastating, they’d strike. Not sure where I am for metaphors by now, but this feels more like a feline alpha predator at this point, that’s just to note where my head is right now. Moving on…

It took Portland’s third goal - Larrys Mabiala’s wide as all outdoors open header (good shove kid, btw) - for me to understand this game for how it actually unfolded. That’s the precise point where I understood this game to be over, in Portland’s favor, and in everything but the official allotted time. Portland won this game something very much like wire-to-wire, and in a way that was hard to notice in real time. Because I expected New York to get their chances, I kept waiting for the barrage to come in, but I don’t recall a single moment where Portland looked pulled apart, or even uncomfortable. After, literally, weeks of dodgy defending Portland turns in a clean sheet against one of Major League Soccer’s best attacks? Not even home field advantage explains that. All the same, rather than fret overly about what does, why not hope it continues till the end of the season?

If there’s a dirty little secret to this blog, it’s the reality that I don’t watch games live all that often. What stood out (picking up the box score stuff here), even in the game, was how much New York kept hold of the ball - and these numbers are crazy, 74.6% to 25.4% possession and 761 passes versus 250, and with a 91% passing accuracy for New York - but that's the story of the game: New York could pass for days along their back line, even find Moralez and Alexander Ring in the seams (Ring, though, plays deeper than I thought; don't know if he's always that deep); they could even find David (“Frickin’”) Villa inside Portland's 18, but there was never anywhere to go. Again, that’s one of the better attacking teams in MLS, and there was never anywhere to go. I’ve seen NYCFC hit second-choice attackers to score goals throughout the season, but 80% (not a real percentage) of New York’s attacks died at the edge of Portland’s defensive third and, holy shit, does that feel good. Great, even.

So….what happened? No fucking idea. I did, however, see a tweet, from someone who shall go unnamed, and still respected, who said something like:

“Ridgewell returns

First clean sheet

Coincidence?”

Well, yes, because Liam Ridgewell was Exhibit A for how Portland lost to the New York Red Bulls early this season. That was why he got benched. That’s not to shit on Ridgewell, so much as to say it takes more than Ridgewell to make a win like this happen (it might take a village). In other words, how to make this more than just a great day at the office? How do the Timbers defend like this week in and out? I can’t say. For one, raise your hand if you viewed Bill Tuiloma as the solution (as opposed to “a” solution) during Ridgewell’s Trip to the Wilderness. Today didn’t show Tuiloma didn’t work any more than it showed Ridgewell worked - although, to the latter’s credit, I saw him being very, very vocal on the organizational side of the defense, and maybe that’s what the team needs, and Ridgewell needed a wake-up call to remind he needs to bring the organizational thing, because playing slow and (generally) reactive isn’t a strong recommendation.

The other question is, did Portland really play a 4-4-1-1, and, if so, was that the solution (that's as opposed to the (alleged) 4-3-2-1, aka the Christmas tree, aka, is that even real)? As much as a I shit on formations, I hate to cough up even a “maybe” on this, and I’m not sure it wasn’t the same thing, but Portland needs to land on a defensive shape before too much more of the season passes. I’m not even sure this is what they’re doing; I only know tonight worked, and something close to gangbusters….

Again, guys, Portland shut-out a very good, attacking team to tonight; this is a 2.0 goals per game team, and they even topped Portland on shots, but your own eyes know the evidence of what happened today. The (rightly) lowly Portland Timbers dropped a three-spot on the undefeated, ever-classy New York City FC. And this might be the upset of the week, so congrats, Portland, you’re famous!

I don’t want to take a ton from this, in the end, but I want to emphasize a few things. This was New York’s A-Team, David Villa, Alexander Ring (who, again, played super deep), Rodney Wallace (who looked good, and welcome back!), plus the wave of subs like Jesus Medina and Tommy MacNamara….and those last two actually land the point: they didn’t feel like they changed the game because it was already over. Even if they had, the game would have ended 3-1 instead of 3-0, so who gives a fuck?

Exactly.

See you next week. Or in a few minutes. Or two hours. [UPDATE: The author passed out during his reporting on Major League Soccer. Damn the afternoon games....]