Portland Timbers 2-2 Los Angeles FC: A Meditation on Cherry-Flavored Cough Syrup

This image was called "cuddling a cow," also, yes!

Thus endeth another case study in what might have been. The game turned on a justified red card to Portland Timbers goalkeeper, Maxime Crepeau (it sure looked like Claudio Bravo kept Los Angeles FC’s Denis Bouanga onside; more on him later), and all it took from there was Mateusz Bogusz’s 51st (damn good) minute free-kick to lead to Solomon splitting the baby at one point a piece. Not much happened between there and the final whistle, if with one exception.

The Timbers got lucky to escape with the 2-2 draw because Nathan Ordaz committed no crime ahead of what looked like a last-gasp winner for LAFC. I’m a good partisan and, as such, I don’t blow air into the cow’s nose when it doesn’t shit in my living room, or however that saying goes. To put that another way, Portland may have got lucky on that one call, but they made their luck otherwise and that feels like an improvement over several of the games I’ve seen so far this season. Also, who invited the fucking cow?

If I had to name the most maddening element of the Timbers 2024 season, it follows from the fact that every result comes loaded with too many caveats to make sense of where things stand with them. Today, it was the red card, but it has been playing from a hole measured by one to three goals in earlier outings. This game provided the usual divide of positives and negatives – and I’ll get to some of them (jetlagged AF, honestly) – but my biggest personal positive comes from the Timbers going up, first, 1-0, then 2-1 on two…respectable goals from open play. I’m shading both of those, and for reasons I’ll get into, but, all in all, today’s draw might have been the Timbers most complete game of 2024.

If you’re with me, let’s run over this hill screaming! Aaaauugggghhhhh!!

Complicated experience....

Anyone who’s ever tasted cherry-flavored cough syrup should appreciate the idea that the good often comes with a horrible taste and that’s where even the positives from this game taste a little off. Both of Portland’s goals only looked elegant by way of the complementary oafishness of LAFC’s defending of both. To be clear, I loved both assists – the first by Evander (who may have scored it, regardless of the official line), the second by Juan David Mosquera – because they were absolute back-breakers. And yet, both relied on, frankly, Juan David Mosquera levels of ball-watching to come off. (That’s a call-back to anyone who recalls that one time, at band camp, when Bouanga slipped past a JDM deep in R.E.M. at the far post shortly after LAFC’s first equalizer.) All hail Evander’s thundering finish, etc., but he still slipped behind two LAFC defenders wholly consumed in stopping Mosquera from firing on goal when one of them could have paid some mind to Evander slipping behind enemy lines.

For me, the balance of Portland’s positives came on the other side of the ball – i.e., in defense. For all the mistakes they made, the combination of things that led to Crepeau’s red (in here somewhere, probably and somewhat shamefully) and the lacerated seam that opened for Bogusz’s first goal stand out for a reason: they were relatively rare. Better, even after Crepeau’s red, the Timbers dropped into a (very) low block that worked (surprisingly) well. And it’s here where I want anyone disgruntled by, yes, another uninspired result to take a breath and ask themselves to think about the last time the Timbers successfully defended in a low block – particularly against a good(?) attacking team like LAFC.

For anyone who walked away from this result feeling frustrated, I see you. The Timbers haven’t won in over a month and getting there has taken an impressive combination of the stupid (mostly the loss the Philadelphia Union) and self-destructive (Crepeau’s Red…which sounds like a great wine), no matter how reasonable. Personally, I’m going to hold onto the semi-desperate argument that, again, this might have been the Timbers most complete game of 2024, because the season opener against the Colorado Rapids only counts in the standings (which also means it totally counts).

That’s all I have for the general stuff, so I’m going to wrap up with the a larger than usual pile of talking points. In no particular order…

1) Welcome Back, Claudio Bravo, You Magnificent Bastard

I mean this in every sense of the “magnificent bastard.” The man hasn’t changed as a player – he’s the same high-risk, high-reward, always-lunging prospect he always was – but the team really did look more balanced with him in the starting XI. And he leaned heavily toward high-reward today.

2) “The DP” Played Like One

I felt the way Evander slapped his chest after scoring his goal in my own chest today. Max Bretos (to whom I’ve got a raging nostalgia connection) had this great line about how he plays with a poker face, so seeing his desire to win slip out behind what can feel like a mask helped sell me on him (again).

3) The “Other DP” Needs Some Goddamn Help
I see greatness in Jonathan Rodriguez, but he felt like an artist starving in a chilly tenement for too much of today. In keeping with a general theme, he received the ball with nowhere to go but forward too often, and didn’t have anyone to play to when he got there – yes, even before Crepeau’s Red (love the nose on that one; is that chocolate, cherry, oak, and rabbit ass?). And, while I’m on the subject…

3a) About the General Theme
A work in progress says it all, but defenses have less trouble than they should when it comes to separating Portland’s attacking players from one another. The attack isn’t connecting, neither generally nor often, and I think some of that follows from an ongoing learning process about how to keep in reasonable touch with one another as the play moves forward. Here’s to hoping Phill et al get to cooking to that the team can do the same. As it is now, I see a lot of players getting stranded in blind alleys.

4) A Somewhat Major Quibble About the Defense
“allowing a lot in Zone 14; do I care, esp. if it works?”
I lifted that from my notes and it gets to a whole galaxy of things about the Timbers and the strategic/tactical side of the game. Portland either made the conscious choice to let LAFC pass the ball or collectively failed to pressure the passer through most of the game today. When they were off the ball, the midfield tended to collapse into the defense, probably in an attempt to clog the channels (which they vividly failed to do on Bogusz’s first goal) and the sum of that caused all kinds of angst…but isn’t that secondary to the largest question of all: did it work? And, no less importantly, will it work?

Leaving the notes for this one on a mystery feels apt, particularly in light of where the Timbers find themselves so far in 2024. They finished today’s game in 8th place, but I’ll be stunned if they end there by Sunday. Another inconclusive result feels…not good, but still appropriate. But, again, if this really does count as their most complete performance of this young 2024, that feels like the one thing I think Timbers fans should hold in their heads over the next two games. With the next two games away at Columbus Crew SC and LAFC, there is a very good chance that the Portland has two losses coming. And, under general circumstances, that’s okay. For now, I’m more focused on the positives I saw today and what comes after.

Regular service should resume next weekend, if with some asterisks. I’ve had some hiccups over the past week that could change that and for better reasons than I’m going to go into here. Till the next one, whenever it comes…