 |
| Went a little abstract. Feels right. Cool drawing... |
Dear God, where do I start this one? (Also, I mean not in
the “Lord protect me” spirit, but the “holy whirling dervishes whirling in my
head” spirit…tricky metaphor…)
I’ll begin by stating that I like everything about Samuel
Armenteros, except what he did with his beard. It's his life, and all that, but also
please reconsider.
In another vein, I saw a handful of tweets from last night
to earlier this afternoon celebrating how the Portland Timbers played last night in their 2-1 win over the visiting San Jose Earthquakes. It’s a hard
point to argue against, so I’ll do that later. For now, though, I’m on board The
Enthusiasm Express. The last time a win felt possible before every single game,
the Timbers won MLS Cup. And that’s the thing: a couple soft spots aside -
again, Alvas Powell, but never catastrophically, and there’s still solving the
problem of who either complements the team’s core players*, or replaces them
when they go down - every player on the field moves and passes as if they know
what’s next, and where his teammates should be for support. That applies to
both defense and offense, and that is fucking magical, like, a fairy riding a
unicorn level magical. The results have followed from too, and I say that as
someone who replies to the words “eleven game unbeaten streak” with a tight
smile. To put that another way, I’m on board The Enthusiasm Express, but I keep
glimpsing troubling things out of the corner of my eye.
Before getting to the meat of this thing, I want to make a
point and sort of save it for later. Think how you use a stringer to keep the
fish you catch alive. That point: Armenteros should never have scored that
second goal, just by the number of San Jose players around him. Moving on...
(* Diegos Valeri and Chara, Sebastian Blanco, Jeff Attinella, Larrys Mabiala and Zarek Valentin; I waited till after mentioning Armenteros because I think he belongs in the core at this point. A case can be made for other players, and that explains a lot of Portland's success to this point.)
It’s been a funny season, overall. For instance, think back
to the team’s first win of 2018. It came against Minnesota United - and, get
this, in fucking Portland - but the team still only won 3-2. The holy shit, what? win over New York City FC (also at home) came next and, again, the
Timbers haven’t lost since then. They’ve looked better or worse winning or drawing. I
just reviewed my posts for this season and the first time I brought up some
form of the ideas in the paragraph immediately above - i.e., the players
knowing what they’re doing and where they are - was the road win over this same
San Jose team. That theme has dominated my coverage since, if with notable
exceptions - e.g., draws at home versus the Los Angeles Galaxy and Sporting Kansas City - but the team looked like the version of themselves any sane man
can’t help but believe in. And they continued that against San Jose last night.
Until the end of the game, that is, and, to level with the reader, what the
fuck was that mess at the end?
This is where I land on my actual thesis for this game,
which is that this was the quintessential San Jose Earthquakes Result, as in it
matched the profile I’d built for them by just tracking results in a way that
really makes me think I should give numerology another look. Or a first look.
Here’s the point: for as long as the 2018 season has been a thing, San Jose has
a pattern of playing teams close, venue and opposition notwithstanding, but
failing to get the result. It’s possible, in fact, that they are the best
terrible team in MLS, because, goddamn, are the last-team-in-the-Western-Conference
terrible. And yet they played a rock-solid, orange(?)-hot Portland
Timbers team close enough last night to make the last 10 minutes sweaty and anxious. All
that exists in a space that either doesn’t compute, makes perfect sense, or,
with those semi-recent draws against SKC and LA, it computes in a way that
augurs tougher times ahead.
Portland played circles around the ‘Quakes for vast
stretches of this game; San Jose helped the effort by playing soccer as if the
object was to find a spot on the field and spend 90 minutes turning circles
within it - their version of buying war bonds, I guess. If you watch the highlights, you’ll see Armenteros put a half dozen chances on goal (one set up
nice as you like, I should mention, by something special from Powell), and the outlines of a field
tilted with some weight toward San Jose’s goal. What you won’t see is that San
Jose must have made half of their chances - that’s on top of the goal Florian
Jungwirth snuck under a visibly frustrated Jeff Attinella - in the game’s final
minutes (then again, that overlooks Quincy Amarikwa’s bracing shot, which
Attinella did save). And that’s when this game got weird.
For the life of me, I can’t figure out Portland’s tactics
over the last 10 minutes. Based on what I saw, they played for a
third goal, and against every piece of logic that wasn’t directed toward
putting distance between them and San Jose’s surge. This only got under my skin
around the 85th minute, a time when it made sense for Portland to keep their
feet on the ball and make ‘Quakes players chase the game. I’m not talking about
burying it in the corner for 3-5 seconds till the opposition hacks you down, or
gets the ball out of bounds, but to try to pass the ball around for 20-30
seconds. It’s not like Portland had been passing badly till then (see, 85% over a healthy number of passes), and they had plenty of real estate behind them. San Jose
seemed just as surprised by the tactic as I was (that’s “seemed”), but they’d
stuff each attack and turn and send the ball the other way against a Portland
defense that looked a little dizzy out there. Now, let’s talk about Armenteros’ second goal.
Count me impressed by it, and deeply: the way he got ahead
of a defender, who looked like he had a good angle, while keeping ahead of
another one biting at his heels; the way he stalled his run to cause the
defender beside him to over-commit, then shot into the gap, stupid-crazy close
to Andrew “I Can Let in Anything” Tarbell’s (and yet he had to solid saves) foot/hand
complex. It was an impossible goal in every sense of the word, something he
wouldn’t score given the same scenario 99 times out of 100. Hell, his bicycle shot looked more natural, but that’s the one Armenteros scored.
That was also the margin of victory in the end. I’m saying
(at least) two things here: 1) good as Armenteros is, he won’t get goals like that
on the regular, and 2) neither Armenteros nor the Timbers will get as many
chances as they got against San Jose. That is how San Jose has played, based on
my theory of numerology at least, and that’s why their season looks the way it
does - bad, also not improving.
There’s a lot to love about this win, from the loose-goosey
joy with which the Timbers are playing right now to what I’m perfectly happy to
call The Samuel Armenteros Show (“How many goals will he score, folks! And from
what strrannggge, exotic places? And will he bring his Beard of Magic?”). I
guess I’m just disturbed to see the Timbers come that close to coughing up two points
at home against a team they more or less played off the park for around 70
minutes. As well as that fits San Jose’s profile, I didn’t like seeing Portland
drop into it smoothly as if the Gods had prepared a mold. Who knows? In those final minutes, maybe Portland looked
back on the game and considered how it’s gone (e.g., 90% their way) and, with
their unbeaten streak in the back of their collective minds, decided they’d do
something stylish to kill off the game. I dunno, I’m probably being paranoid.
And I know the Timbers just signed yet another Argentine, a guy reportedly able
to slot into four, five positions in the midfield. Even with the process of on-boarding
that guy to work around, that would put this team on the right side of stacked…
…look, I’m on board. I’m just the type who keeps his eye on
the perimeter. Still, good game, necessary win, and, holy shit, did Armenteros
have a game. That feels like the right place to end it. Till next game.
No comments:
Post a Comment