Saturday, September 1, 2018

New England Revolution 1-1 Portland Timbers: Larry, You Magnificent Bastard


Yes, sometimes players need their rest. Even "sexy" rest.

The original title for this post read something like, “I Got What I Wished for and Everything Went Horribly,” but, with one magnificent, uncontroversially controversial shot (that shot is over the line; don’t play), team scapegoat/proximate measure for the Portland Timbers’ ceiling, aka, Lawrence Olum, scored the equalizing goal that his team always seemed destined to score. The Portland Timbers utterly frustrated the New England Revolution tonight, knotting them up 1-1 at the middle-of-nowhere they call Gillette Stadium (build a goddamn stadium, Bob; you’re rich and New England fans deserve better), and they did it with a team deep enough into the Bs to register as a B-, maybe even a C+. [ed. a bit of hyperbole, there.]

On a personal level, tonight was huge: the Portland Timbers finally rested some key players - something I’ve been shouting into this tiny megaphone since The Dog Days of 2018 (shit…”Tiny Megaphone,” gotta claim that name before someone else does) - most notably Diegos Valeri and Chara, and, in a welcome twist, they also sat Samuel Armenteros, aka, the only forward who is presently within a freakin’ mile of Portland’s starting line-up (more on that later). I got what I wished for tonight and, won’t lie, tonight also made a pretty good case for why I should not want this. This was a fan’s game, something that any sane neutral would turn off for C-Span, or the radar pattern they showed on the Weather Channel way back when (my dad watched that stuff for hours…probably should have worried about that a little more). I also think that suited the Timbers just fine.

Through the first half, Portland was disconnected enough to make me wonder whether they’d ever practiced this particular starting eleven. Things didn’t improve enormously in the second half, though they did improve. Maybe. Here’s the thing: on the one hand, I have loose memories of seeing Timbers players in New England’s half more often in the second; on the other, I can’t remember a single stand-out moment for any one Portland player. Instead, I see Alvas Powell making a miraculous run into the Revolution’s half, only to pass to some phantom into the right-side spaced he opened by cutting inside, and Lucas Melano making a similar run up the gut, only to shrug and shoot with a head full of doubt somewhere around the 80th minute.

The more remarkable thing is that I can’t recall many similar stirring moments for the New England Revolution, a team leaning fatally hard into the ropes right now. Cristhian Penilla dribbled through some puzzles early for the Revs. They almost broke the Timbers defense right away (seriously, both Jeff Attinella and Larrys Mabiala stayed down longer than even jaded Timbers fans should like), and Scott Caldwell finished off Kelyn Rowe’s strong shot to score the Revs’ one goal (against Steve Clark), but, overall, the Timbers defended well and attacked adequately…and that was enough against a New England team that, arguably, should start thinking real fucking hard about tomorrow, if only because today is unrelenting misery.

Before wrapping up Portland’s night, I want to pause quickly to sympathize with…just everything about New England. I floated a theory - can’t remember when either - that there’s no bigger “fuck you” in sports than thinking you can start, like, a bunch of dudes besides your starters. And Portland absolutely started the most defensive line-up I’ve seen from them in a while, one, but for the grace of Sebastian Blanco, starved of attacking talent. I just checked the box score and, even if I didn’t think Portland’s passing accuracy didn’t suck that bad, the actual number wasn’t far off. There’s no way this talk about this without coming off as enormously disrespectful to every player, but Andres Flores, Cristhian Paredes and Dairon Asprilla - especially Asprilla - spelled “playing for one point, and no more” in fucking neon. I mean, I’d give my third nipple to see every one of those players get their groove, back or otherwise, but I feel like Flores is the only one I truly understand as a player. The other two, meanwhile…I mean, I’ve watched them, but I still don’t feel like I see the upside yet. Sure, they got in the way with the best of ‘em, but…y’know, at some point a team has to go forward and score goals. Also, and related, this isn’t the first time I completely forgot Asprilla was even on the field.

I’m going to end this post on the balance between two approaches to the same idea, one half full, the other half empty. In no particular order:

Half Empty: Tonight, the Portland Timbers demonstrated the puddle-shallowness of its own depth, especially on the attacking side. When any players but the permanent attacking trio of Armenteros, Blanco and Valeri take the field, this team can barely connect enough passes to play into the opposition’s defensive third, never mind score from anywhere. Sure, they can get lucky (again, Olum scored the equalizer), but that will carry this team as far as one step into the playoffs and no further. All in all, the players who took the field - and this applies to Paredes and Asprilla, especially - they did as close to nothing tonight as I did by watching from a bar in Hillsboro (Fucking), Oregon (and come visit, ya hear). Even a semi-regular starter like Guzman suffered, in that he regressed to the players around him. “Anemic” is the polite word for the Timbers’ attack tonight; “pointless” feels closer to the mark, and with all its connotations.

Half Full Thought (which I’m favoring tonight): who gives a shit? Maybe the Timbers can stuff a team with a B-/C+ line-up on the road and/or when it makes sense just to grind out a one-point result when they have to, and then give it to the opposition - and, more to the point, the same opposition - with both barrels when it makes sense, or, crucially, on the away leg of a home/home series. Also, if I could wink any harder with where I’m going with this, that’s a signal strong enough to solve world hunger…(I’m talking about the playoffs. Just think about it.)

More directly, the Timbers leaned all the way into defending when they fielded this line-up tonight, and it worked. Sure, against one of the league’s (at best) middling attacking and/or structural teams, but it worked and, no less crucially, key players got some much, much, much needed time off to get ready to play games ahead that look more must-win every time the Timbers lose outright. Which, again, they didn’t do tonight, and against a team that’s struggling with all the effectiveness as a panicking senior citizen in quicksand.

If I have a frustration with tonight's game, it follows from a persistent refusal to give the bench a chance - the attacking players in particular. In practical terms, if you're tied at 1-1 and have Jeremy Ebobisse (never mind Armenteros) on the bench, why don't you go for the win - and against a fragile team? This is the mystery of the Guzman for Bill Tuiloma substitution in a nutshell: bluntly, wasn't this game there for the taking? If so, why didn't the Timbers take it?

As anyone who follows my twitter feed knows, I didn’t care much about this game - especially after Portland rolled up Toronto FC 2-0 at home midweek. I also believe that Portland has an optimal team that can beat a lot of teams in MLS, if under laboratory levels of care. No matter how high I put the odds against the Timbers carrying that to, say, MLS Cup, this team has a good starting core, and that can take them places. The active question is what else it has. Tonight answered with a resounding, “not enough,” at least not without focusing with something other than an opportunist’s eye at success. Even with all its starters present, healthy and suited up just so, I can’t see this current Portland Timbers team surviving all the way to MLS Cup - and that’s no matter how much I would enjoy the ride. (Going the other way, I wouldn’t…enjoy it, I mean, not unless the whole thing met this set of criteria that even I, the author of this fucking plot, pretty much fail to understand…I’m married, and to a lovely woman; think of that for, like, an hour and fist-bump her in your head for putting up with that little of pointless discontent.)

There’s been a subtle change in narrative, at least for me, within the time the Timbers’ 15-game unbeaten streak died and the happy end of the four-game losing streak that followed it. If you’ll excuse the word, a kind of Realpolitik has slipped into the Timbers’ daily reality, a sense that fans have to deal with the team that they have as opposed to the team they want. Sure, it’s possible that some “Secret Weapon X,” whether between personnel or formation, could unleash one of those dragons we all thought dead (because that denture-lisp was the last gasp), but, on evidence of tonight’s game, that feels really, really unlikely.



To lean as hard into the positives as I can - and, for the record, I believe in this - the best thing the Portland Timbers can do this season in order to ensure success, and this is 1,000% arguably, is to try to cheat to results in games where they can, while going for wins in the games where they should get them. This goes completely against the fan-mind, but I think it’s where this team is right now.


And, for those wondering due to the use of one word above, Henry Kissinger is a massive dickhead.

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