The Portland Timbers, the Playoff Race & Some Soft Motherfucking Schedules

A thing to be avoided. Focus.

A post about FC Cincinnati’s end-run went up yesterday and, while this post will follow the same basic format (see below), the Portland Timbers are playing for different stakes. That doesn’t make the stakes lower, mind you, and goddammit, because the failing to win the Supporters' Shield isn’t so existentially different from, say, getting the results that punch a team’s to hosting playoff games instead of the sporting equivalent of crashing on some other team’s couch. It's just yes/no to a different question.

I’ll get to the question of the Timbers’ chances of hosting down below, but, to flesh out the notes on the format: while I provide a lot of details on each team – e.g., their record over the past 10 games and their remaining schedule, mainly – I’m neither equipped to nor interested in strapping in for much analysis; related, while I acknowledge trades that have happened since the beginning of August, only a handful of the names rang a bell, so I don’t have much to offer beyond their name and (loose) position on the field. The notes I have will focus on past results, players that seem worth noting, and some informed speculation on the games they have left – and they won’t be lengthy or linky (i.e., don’t expect a lot of links).

And, after that historically short preamble (who knew it just took getting older), let’s kick off this post with the sixth-in-the-West…

6th) Portland Timbers
10-9-7, 26 games played; 37 pts., 35 gf, 37 ga (-2); home 6-3-5, away 4-6-2
Last 10 Results: WDLWLLDWLL (3-5-2)
Strength/Location of Schedule
v STL (2-1 W); v SJ (1-1 D); @ TFC (0-3 L); v NE (2-1 W); @ STL (1-2 L); v RSL (0-1 L); v MIN (1-1 D); @ LAFC (1-0 W); @ FCD (0-2 L); v CIN (2-3 L)
Remaining Schedule: @ SD; @ MIN; v RBNY; @ HOU; @ VAN; v FCD; @ SEA; v SD
Additions: Kristoffer Velde (F); Felipe Carballo (M); Matias Rojas (M)
Losses: Santiago Moreno (M)

To wrap up the new players quickly as you like, I’m excited about Velde (please resolve all of our attacking incoherence, thank you), but withholding judgment on Carballo and Rojas. As noted in the post on Cincy’s slim win over the Timbers, my primary hope is that the new guys settle in quickly and that Portland’s style of play follows suit.

Facing Up to the Stretch Run for FC Cincinnati: I've Seen Worse

De nada.

The concept is simple, maybe even pointless. [Ed. – Don’t listen to him.] The post below has the simple, direct purpose of looking backwards and forward for every Major League Soccer team that “poses a threat” to FC Cincinnati’s chances in the very much alive Supporters’ Shield race. As noted/argued in my previous post on Cincy’s win over the (full disclosure, and) my Portland Timbers, Cincy has succeeded in picking up points whilst surviving injury – and to the tune of second/tied on points for Shield-Quest with San Diego (probably?) FC.

Not every team below necessarily belongs in the Shield conversation, but I opted to take a wide view for this post. While I provide a lot of details on each team – e.g., their record over the past 10 games and their remaining schedule, mainly – I’m neither equipped to nor interested in strapping in for much analysis; related, while I acknowledge trades that have happened since the beginning of August, only a handful of the names rang a bell, so I don’t have much to offer beyond their name and the letter that connotes their position on the field. The notes I have will focus on past results, players that seem worth noting, and some informed speculation on the games they have left – and they won’t be lengthy or linky.

As a quick, hopeful editorial note: I intend (emphasis on intend) to spend the rest of the season focusing on the teams either closest to FC Cincinnati, or the one that did something on the past weekend that feels worth flagging. Caveat lector: that’s more concept-in-progress than work-in-progress.

Think that’s everything. Let’s start by framing…

1st) FC Cincinnati
16-7-4, 27 games played; 52 pts., 42 gf, 34 ga (+8); home 7-3-2, away 9-4-2
Last 10 Results: WWWWLWWDLW (7-2-1)
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ NE (1-0 W); @ MTL (3-1 W); @ ORL (2-1 W); v CHI (2-1 W); v CLB (2-4 L); v MIA (3-0 W); @ RSL (1-0 W); @ MIA (0-0 D); v CLT (0-1 L); @ POR (3-2 W)
Remaining Schedule: v NYC; v PHI, v NSH; @ LAG; v ORL; @ RBNY; v MTL
Additions: Ayoub Jabbari (F); Samuel Gidi (M)
Losses: DeAndre Yedlin

Don’t love the Yedlin trade in the here and now – though, to be clear, I’m open to embracing whatever value it ultimately provides – and hope it doesn’t bite ‘em. Ayoub Jabbari and Samuel Gidi are names I have read on the internet. Obligatory “hope they’re good,” and…moving on…

Portland Timbers 2-3 FC Cincinnati: Going (Too) Deep on What Is Likely a Hiccup

I wish they'd stop too, my dude.

I had a working theory about both the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati going into Saturday’s game, to wit, Cincinnati (generally) starts strong, then throttles back and invites the opposition back in, while the Timbers like to take their sweet-ass time to get going, sometimes to where they dig themselves into a hole they can’t climb out of.

When Saturday’s 2-3 home loss for the Timbers generally supported both sides of the theory – i.e., Cincy rolled to a 3-0 lead and looked like a fair bet to run away with it before Portland clawed back two goals and piled on enough shots for an equalizer or more – and that got me all a-flutter about confirming the theory, so I circled back to mine both teams’ recent schedules (Cincy's, Portland's) for circumstantial evidence. About 40 minutes of working that mine yielded some data to support theory. It also turned up enough Fool’s gold to recommend sealing up the mine, paying off the creditors, and walking away. Still, to lay some of it out there…

I worked with a 20-game sample for both teams, including Leagues Cup results, while excluding those from the U.S. Open Cup (you ask why, I ask why not?). That period extends back to around the beginning of May, over which time both Cincy and Portland have fared well enough, 10-6-4 and 8-7-5, respectively. The difference is there, of course, and grows a bit more once you dig in.

The Timbers conceded first eleven times total: Portland failed to score in five of those games and, naturally, lost them; of the six other games when they conceded first, the Timbers rallied to win two of them (v COL, v STL), came back to draw two (v SEA, v MIN) and lost the other two (@ SJ, v CIN). The sum of that yields a 2-7-2 record when conceding first across all games and, for some, an upset tummy. That leaves Portland with a 6-0-3 record when scoring first (or sometimes not scoring at all, e.g., the goal-free turd at RSL), a vast improvement, of course, but weighing eleven games against nine comes perilously close to a wash, so, moving on...

Cincy has scored first over 13 of their past 20 games, four of them wins when they blanked the opposition, nine of them games when they scored first. They held on to win most of those games – only a sociopath sneers at a 6-1-2 record – but it did lead to dropped points (3-3 v Dallas), one searing loss (2-4 home loss to Columbus) and arguably some nervy finishes - e.g., the 3-2 “road” win over Monterrey in Leagues Cup and the nail-gnawing end to Saturday’s game. The rest played out as 2-1 wins over Austin, Orlando and Chicago, hardly the end of the world, but breathing easier feels nice too.

Portland Timbers v FC Cincinnati: A Preview/Parenting Crisis

Which is which? And can you trust what I tell you?

To make one thing clear from the top, I may or may not have two children*, but there’s no question as to which is the favorite. Even with the past three and two-thirds season asking one of them, “why can’t you be more like your brother?,” the Portland Timbers will always be my team and FC Cincinnati my sincerely cherished side-piece. [Psst...I love you, girl! I’ll leave her for you, I swear.]

(* With how often I’ve neglected Cincy, through both good times and bad, I have, at most, a fingernail’s hold on neglectful divorced dad going through…just all of it.)

That said, rooting for both kids makes plenty of sense given the state of play. They both need the win – Cincinnati to keep up with the Supporters’ Shield race/melee, the Timbers to keep in touching distance of hosting a first-round playoff game (or, worst case, just making the damn playoffs) – so any and all results serve a purpose one way or the other…and yet, and as much as I hate to ask, things have been going really well for Cincinnati lately – I know; no, I know – but it has just been so, so long since the Timbers, y’know, had a good season. I’m not asking Cincinnati to let them win, I’m just making things emotionally complicated the way a parent does when, deep down, he’s absolutely asking Cincinnati to let Portland win, but not in a fake way, because I still want them to feel good. Wow, did it feel good to get that off my chest! (Father of two, going great…)

Moving on…

Per the title, the rest of this post throws out the first five coherent thoughts I’d tell fans of one team about the other. My list won’t be everyone’s list, so I’d (literally) love to have anyone who finds this toss in their own thoughts in either the comments or to the skeets when this goes up on Bluesky…somewhat related, I stopped checking Reddit, almost certainly from failure to match the intensity of, oh, 75% of the posters. That’s to say, I miss some chatter, just not that chatter.

Right, like they do in MLS, let’s kick this off with the home team.

FC Dallas 2-0 Portland Timbers: Another Bad Thing Happened in Texas

My personal wingman broods...

The vibes have been good around the Portland Timbers’ over the past few weeks. The dance between player and ball looked more natural and the defense tightened into a none (or few) shall pass knot. It felt real enough, but the idea that some of that improvement came from playing rusty Liga MX teams bubbled under every Leagues Cup broadcast.

In other words, I was looking forward to seeing Portland get back to the MLS regular season. I really was.

FC Dallas 2-0 Portland Timbers
The Game, Still More Briefly
Portland gave up two shit goals – though the first was worst of the two by far(, Mr. Crepeau…has even one of his haters thought to call him "Maximum Crapeau”?) – and didn’t do shit on the attacking end. To be clear, I could end this section right here and still have everything pretty much covered, but, to continue…

Pointing to what went wrong on the defensive side is easy as Pin the Tail on the Donkey without the blindfold, but untangling why every Timber appeared to get the vapors on entering the attacking third takes a little picking. Despite the reported (fucking crazy) heat, Portland’s players shifted around more than usual when they had the ball, not necessarily a well-oiled machine, but at least it moved. Dallas countered by either or both ceding possession (to the tune of 40/60) or/and dropping the defensive line deep enough that it always had the game in front of it. On a better day, maybe Portland finds one another and, from there, some decent openings; on Saturday, too many players looked like they wanted to take back every pass immediately after making it. Their best moments came when Antony broke from the depths to the surface, but that only happened (I think) twice, and David Da Costa taking a crack at finishing off one of those, then firing a strong shot from a fair distance (both probably made the highlight reel, but I'm way, way behind; also, a clip of the second goal; just terrible marking, see?).

That pretty well covers the attack Dallas had to “survive” and they just had to make the most of their shots from there. Without claiming expertise on the subject, this struck me as a typical FC Dallas performance – i.e., they don’t create a lot of chances and rely on their defense to see that the opposition doesn’t get many more. Last night’s three points lifts them closer to the play-in spots, but that hasn’t served them so good in 2025; 11th in still 11th. They do have some real quality pieces – e.g., Petar Musa’s a damn good forward (and would thrive on a better team) and Sebastien Ibeagha has aged well – and Logan Farrington, who I’ve seen play well, made a strong argument for The Man Behind The Man of the Match (The Vice-Man of the Match? The Wingman of the Match?), but they don’t have the same quality of player in every position and, as follows, feel incomplete as a team.

Club America 1-1 Portland Timbers, Then a "Loss": Penalties & Positivity

Make that pass again, Felipe. I'm waiting...

Take it. Take your meaningless, non-regulation, asterisk-weighted win, Club America. It means nothing, not even to you.

Oh, and stopping the game to put a lid on “discriminatory chants”? Sign me up for an all-day pass on that shit…and if I could come up with a functional way to punish a team for one of their shithead fans pointing a laser into a goalkeeper’s eyes during a penalty shootout, I’d do it tomorrow. Too easy to game, sadly. At any rate…

Club America 1-1 Portland Timbers; 5-(maybe)4 in penalties
About the Game
I can’t remember the last time I saw the Timbers counter-punch so cleanly. David Da Costa clipped a ripe peach of an assist off the outside of his right to send Ariel Lassiter clean through for Portland’s opening goal, but Felipe Mora’s chest-trap, reverse through-ball to Juan David Mosquera set my nether to fluttering and they still haven’t calmed down (might be in here). Sure, Mosquera pissed it away with a touch long enough for the record books, but the sweet, sweet memory still titillates.

America took over the rest of the first half and, factually, had more to show for it than I recalled (e.g., 7 shots, 2 on goal, with healthy side of corner kicks), but the Timbers defended stoutly and well (hold that thought) – up to and including Jimer Fory retreating behind an extended Maxime Crepeau to clip a(n offside) shot clear (also, remember him foundly, for…)

I didn’t see Fory’s first yellow card – heard it was something about dissent, and there’s this whole chicken-egg thesis waiting to be written about refs and their thin skin – but no decent ref gives a second yellow for the foul he committed, and yet…the Aristocrats! When the theretofore largely hapless America scored an equalizer off their 19th nervous corner (reference/gotta step there, Mr. Felipe Mora), all signs pointed to the wheels spinning off into outer orbit for the Timbers. Without dipping too far to over-determining, I credit Phil Neville for making a couple smart subs for breaking from depth – Kevin Kelsy for a reasonably overwhelmed Mora and Antony for a drifting Da Costa – and it just took a combination of holding on defensively and scaring America off throwing every player, plus a couple asshole fans, to carry the Timbers to one-third of a loss, instead of a full one.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Queretaro FC: The Joy of Feeling Things & Other Notes

Leagues Cup, in human form.

I don’t know much about Love Island, but I am familiar with the thing where the show throws a bunch of hot new singles into the mix.

That approximates my annual experience with Leagues Cup: a bunch of strangers dropping in to the familiar, interpretable world of the MLS regular season, thereby detouring into some wacky side quest. And it only means something to the team/couple that walks away with the trophy, whether in metal or human form.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Queretaro FC
About the Game
When halftime rolled around and the broadcast got to showing the first half highlights, they started with a wildly overcooked cross that capped one of the rare competent attacking sequences managed by either team. They had a goal to show, of course – a bumbler scored by Cristhian Paredes through a thicket of flailing legs and falling bodies (and that link may or may not take you to it) – but the final stats speak to how little happened before and after. Jonathan Perlaza got sent off for a foul and a fit just before the halftime whistle and that left nothing but the struggle to stay awake through the second half.

Near as I can tell, Queretaro came to defend and without any form of an actionable Plan B. The 0.3 xG awarded to them in the official line matches the eye test…wish I could say the same about the 1.6 they handed Portland, because that would have hit like Red Bull and Everclear compared to what I watched.

That’s all I have on the game and I’ve already exhausted my knowledge of Queretaro. Now, to entertain some, but not all of the thoughts I had as I watched. [Ed. – The Plan is to pare the thoughts down to five for all future posts – and the length of the posts along with ‘em.]

Inter Miami CF 0-0 FC Cincinnati: Patience with the Grind & Exorcised Demons(?)

I hear his screams from beyond...

Does MLS still produce the Instant Replay series, the ones where they take a longer look to decide whether a ref fucked up, or did they retire those along with Simon Borg?

Thinking about that time when DeAndre Yedlin gave himself a cramp by falling into the back of some now-forgotten Inter Miami CF attacker somewhere after the 60th minute. That one quacked like a penalty kick, but Tori Penso didn’t call it and VAR didn’t second-guess her, so what’s the point in picking through the log for that particular piece of corn…

…related, anyone else get the feeling MLS keeps controversial calls/non-calls out of the highlight packages they throw together? Just noticed they didn’t include the late winner they yanked away from Miles Robinson in the full highlights for this one either...guess you bury the bodies where folks can’t find 'em… (To their credit, they did post a whole sidebar video on Robinson's thing.)

Inter Miami CF 0-0 FC Cincinnati
About the Game, Very Briefly
Looked sweaty as balls down in Florida and even Miami’s players looked half-cooked by the 80th minute, but both teams played a lively game in the swamp air. The hosts had the better of the game, but Cincy looked to have the better of the chances – particularly after an unstoned viewing of the highlights – and that captures the way the game played out in as few words as I can manage.

Miami’s high, aggressive defending made it hard for any Cincinnati player ahead of Roman Celentano to play the ball facing forward. Balls into the midfield space went backwards or sideways eight times out of ten and seven balls of ten played forward were long and hopeful. The latter (mostly) kept Miami from turning Cincy over in or around their defensive third (mostly; there were some inevitable miscues), but the Orange and Blue did a lot of defending and passing inside their own half. Miami created more chances – Luis Suarez probably shot and teed up their better ones (e.g., the back-post cross to Fafa Picault, saved by Celentano) – and overlapped around Cincy’s left a couple times, but they had to survive more shots on goal and have decent reason to count themselves a little lucky to escape with a point.

10 Thoughts I Had While Watching the Timbers Slip One Past LAFC

First image for "schadenfreude"

Massive damn win for the Portland Timbers last night. You don’t have to love and/or celebrate every facet of the game to accept that…I said to the imaginary person I saw complaining about it. [Ed. - It’s me! He lives in my head and he’s kind of a dick!]

Let’s get to it, speed-round style…

Los Angeles FC 0-1 Portland Timbers FC SC SP Heroes
The Game, Still More Briefly
More back and forth than the final stats suggest, though the majority of the game played out in the middle space between both teams’ defensive thirds and it wasn’t always inspiring. You’ll see good chances in the full highlights – I’ll touch on a couple below – and, with admission to a two-fold bias (I’m a Timbers fan who likes seeing LAFC fail), I thought the Timbers got the better of them (e.g., David Ayala at the end of the first half, David Da Costa in the early middle of the 2nd half (best shot of the game, probs) and a better build-up/decent shot by Ian Smith late in the 2nd). I have many questions about the state of LAFC after watching – at least two appear below – and those inevitably color how much I trust this result as a step toward progress.

Related, Portland didn’t win the game on their best chances. They won on a set piece, scored by Cristhian Paredes, a four-time starter who has played just under a third of all available minutes in 2025 (aka, 595 minutes of 1980, sans stoppage). Rookie Ian Smith served the cross, a player with a mere 29 minutes more played (if with two more starts) than Paredes. Served and server aside, it’s possible the Timbers benefitted from LAFC going with zonal marking on the corner; in any event, no one came within a yard of Paredes until it was too late.

With the state of LAFC duly stipulated into the record, the Timbers played a genuinely impressive defensive game – and I’d call that worth two uncomplicated cheers. I have more on this below, but on a big picture level, whether full-field, whether pressing, whether covering the space behind, the Timbers defense did their homework, got the math right, and walked into the LA night deserved winners. Almost certainly related, this result pushes the Timbers’ defense further to the right side of average in terms of goals allowed in 2025.

10 Thoughts I Had While Watching Portland Draw Minnesota

Minnesota, in human form, at home.

I decided to try something new for match reports and for a couple reasons, but I’ll only bore you with the substantive one: going deep on any given game isn’t so different from running an experiment once with a small and hyper-specific dataset. When you get right down to it, it takes string of results to make a dataset that’s worth a damn – and even those have ups and downs to go around. As my Portland Timbers have demonstrated over the past five (1-3-1) to ten (3-4-3) match days…

Portland Timbers 1-1 Minnesota United FC
About the Game, Still More Briefly
Nothing of note happened in the first half, thus endeth that portion of the post.

Overall, though, pretty goddamn dull, in part due to Minnesota’s soul-sucking approach to the game and in part due to the Timbers looking…familiar in all the wrong ways. Against that, I’m glad I re-watched the second half (I was entertaining through the first viewing, or was I merely hosting, because was I all that entertaining?) because, even as the result felt insufficient (in the biggest picture), Portland put on a better show than I remembered.

Both teams posted better final numbers than I would have guessed after sitting through it (1.5 times). Still, Minnesota put the Timbers in the uncomfortable position of using the ball and the discomfort showed. Nodding back to expectations, the Loons scored on a set piece – a reported specialty for them, despite all the headers over the crossbar (for both teams, really) – with Anthony Markanich adding to his unexpected haul for 2025. Between there and the final whistle, Minnesota either slipped up by allowing Juan David Mosquera time and space in the right channel – either that, or they got cocky and thought they could manage it – and they got within mere minutes of getting away with it. Mosquera snapped back with, 1) one of his best attacking performances of the season, 2) a shot off the crossbar that put-near broke it (certainly somewhere in here), and 3) an assist on Omir Fernandez’s tidy equalizer. Couldn’t feel happier Fernandez, that scrappy little scamp.

Out of context, I’d call this result respectable. Minnesota’s a brick shithouse of a team, they’re a ways higher in the Western Conference standings, if not as high as they would have been if they’d held on, and seeing Portland push to the end felt good. The fact the Timbers pulled it off with a gently rotated starting XI made it feel a little better. Add context back into the mix – i.e., the run of results over the past five, ten games, the reasonable argument that good, competitive teams beat good, competitive teams at home – and things feel a little worse.

FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew: Sizing Pat Noonan for a Hairshirt

Wait'll I get this off, you little shit...

After the Columbus Crew scored their fourth goal, the camera panned to a young woman in the stands who alternated between glaring at the field in disbelief and shooting “what the fuck just happened” glances toward her father. Cincinnati’s staff should have escorted that young woman into the locker room (after all the players were dressed and decent, of course) to have her level that same withering glare at every player who suited up for FC Cincinnati on Saturday. Or maybe send in a six-year-old boy still in tears from watching his idols lose. Time for the autopsy…

FC Cincinnati 2-4 Columbus Crew
About the Game
Before getting my hands into the viscera (don’t worry; I don’t do snuff images), I want to preface the general comments with one quick note: the highlights looked worse and more hopeless than the full 90. The final stats weren't so bad, and Columbus held a slim 3-2 lead from the 60th minute and into second half stoppage and Cincy got…kinda sorta back into it with two…vaguely promising stretches of play in the late 70s and the late 80s. It wouldn’t have erased the 60 lost minutes that saw FC Cincinnati’s original two-goal lead evaporate, but a face-saving draw would have been nice, or at least nicer…

As anyone who turned off the world and turned on this game knows, FC Cincy took a two-goal lead before the Columbus Crew got their pants on (Pavel Bucha's opener; Cincy's second fit better down below). Sadly, once they got them on (about 15 minutes in) they commenced to thrashing the home team with their belts. All without their pants falling down…

Mistakes by Cincy’s defense added the final bricks to Columbus’ comeback – first, the deflection off Tah Anunga’s arm (right?), then the own goal/general clustercuss set off by Miles Robinson’s late defensive lunge – but Columbus laid the foundation with two things: by blowing through Cincy’s midfield going forward and smothering Cincy's outlets/transition. This hardly accounts for everything that happened coming at and going out Cincy’s defensive third, but I spotted two things that details that accounted for some of it:

St. Louis CITY FC 2-1 Portland Timbers: Paging General Buck Turgidson

Didn't get the joke in this character's name till I saw it spelled.

So, St. Louis CITY FC was about two times better, by some raw numbers? I figured they had a firm grip on the edge, but there go the judges handing them the decision...

St. Louis CITY FC 2-1 Portland Timbers
About the Game
The Timbers scored the first goal for the second match day in a row and by a cleaner strike from the same player – David Da Costa - within a mere foot or three of where he scored last week’s winner. Santiago Moreno played the (surprisingly easy) ball that slipped Da Costa behind St. Louis’ midfield, thereby challenging the defenders to do anything but back up. They backed off, allowing Da Costa to squeeze his shot through a tangle of legs not much bigger than a mousehole – and good for him!

Portland’s goal came more than a little against the run of play, even with St. Louis failing to mine many chances out of their possession and general upper-handedness. That also typified what passed for the game-state of the first half – i.e., the Timbers met St. Louis’ overall attacking prowess at a 1:3 of raw, undistinguished shots, while making something dangerous out of their best moments (e.g., that slick overlap between Da Costa and Jimer Fory that squeezed some sweat out of Roman Burki; per the full highlights, Da Costa woulda done better to pull back to Kelsy instead of shooting). Portland carried a 1-0 advantage into the halftime locker room…but the numbers were against them even then and that was the last happy memory I have.

Credit for the decisive moment goes to St. Louis’ Tomas Ostrak, who climbed his way up the spine of midfield, one vertebrae at a time, shaking off Timbers defenders on two of them, before forcing the ball forward to where Marcel Hartel (still a funny name) roofed it into Maxime Crepeau’s goal. That moment pinned the tail into the competitive heart of the game: whether Portland could keep finding their slashing paths to chances on St. Louis’ goal versus the weight of St. Louis’ attacking and counter-pressing pressure.

St. Louis CITY FC Scouting Report: Despite Everything You Will Read, I'm Not Taking This Lightly

The MLS website, one month ago...

With all due respect to the opposition, I didn’t remember the last time the Portland Timbers played a tough game until I checked Ye Olde Form Guide – which, just to note it, will be rendered useless by the overbearing ads on the right side within weeks. Some days, I think Don Garber has made crushing the spirit of amateur independents his personal mission…

At any rate, I’d date Portland’s last tough games to the second half of May when they played Seattle at home followed by a road game in Orlando. Just one point from six in there. Counting forward, they have two more soft-on-paper games to go before, per the proverb, shit gets real. That starts with…

St. Louis CITY FC
3-12-6, 15 pts., 21 gf, 34 ga (-13); home 2-4-4, away 1-8-2
Last Results: LDLLWLDLLL (1-7-2)
Strength/Location of Schedule
v SD (1-2 L); v SKC (2-2 D); @ MIN (0-3 L); @ COL (0-1 L); v SJ (2-1 W); @ POR (1-2 L); @ LAG (3-3 D); v ORL (2-4 L); @ HOU (0-1 L); @ RSL (2-3 L)

Those are the (brutal) basics, but let’s unpack some further details.

There’s the (comparatively) stronger home record, I suppose, though 12 match days separate St. Louis’ two home wins. Perhaps noteworthy: they have been good for one home draw per month since April, generally in the middle of the month, so arguably they’re due.

In all seriousness, 2025 has put a lot of hurt on St. Louis and their fans and, outside a two-hour window between 4:00 and 6:00 p.m. PST Sunday, they have my sympathy. I don’t know enough to offer a deep read on everything that has gone wrong, but I do see they’ve been without some expected heavy contributors – e.g., Eduard Lowen, Tomas Ostrak and, to a lesser extent, Henry Kessler – for two-thirds to half of the season. (I have vague memories of people hyping Rasmus Alm, but…) I’d check the current availability report for additional, or even new, injuries, but that looks to have been abandoned as well…

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution, The Late (Late), but Still Pretty Good Show

Treat yourself!

Just rewatched the full highlights and think I heard something about both the Portland Timbers and the New England Revolution rolling into Saturday on unbeaten streaks. Sound salesmanship, but also inaccurate.

Still, the most affirming talking point about the Timbers in 2025 is the fact that, unfortunate trips to the North side of the Great Lakes region notwithstanding (one for your therapist or for your priest, depending on one’s outward reaction), Portland has improved on winning more of the games they should win. Hosting a Revolution team running (currently) four points under the Eastern Conference play-in line definitely makes the list and – drink ‘em if you got ‘em – Portland won this one. As for how they looked doing it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution
About the Game, Briefly
Given the past three or four weeks, just seeing Portland start as the better team counts as a l’il victory (so treat yourself!). They crowned that period of…let’s go with subtle dominance with a go-ahead goal that, all things considered, took a couple happy accidents to come together. That’s not to dismiss (or diss) the goal – the Timbers put together a might chain of “yes, and” to create the opening – but I doubt Santiago Moreno consciously weighted his cross to fall to Ian Smith (who didn’t line up where they had him…right?) and I bet Smith only hits side netting on that same shot once in every half dozen attempts (but prove me wrong, kid; prove me wrong). Now, the worrying thing…

The Revolution equalized 15 minutes later and in a way that highlighted one of Portland’s regular weaknesses (see Stray No. 5), but I was less concerned by that than how close Portland came to stumbling into a five-minute fall apart, i.e., one of those back-to-back goal, multi-goal, bed-shitting breakdowns that sees a game slip away from a team. Just two (or three) minutes after Luca Langoni finished around a firmly-seated Kamal Miller, New England’s Peyton Miller teed up Leo Campana for a simple, short finish that would have handed them the lead. Per the final score, Campana skied it, thereby sparing Portland from chasing the game.

FC Cincinnati Weekly, Part I: Flooding a Sinking Ship

Thanks, Mary!

What was better: Evander’s snap strike from the right channel to open the scoring, or the ball he clipped through the closing window between Chicago’s Sam Rogers and Jeff Gal to set up Kevin Denkey’s tap-in?

Answers may vary according to taste, but both moments mattered in a game that turned on little moments of quality. (And the answer is the assist.) To quickly kick around what happened…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Chicago Fire FC
Cincy had the Fire pinned into their half for the opening 10+ minutes. The weight of the siege didn’t translate to any great chances and Chicago ultimately broke out, first by a couple long balls, then by getting on the ball and playing out. The snap strike flagged above came in the 19th minute, a mere five minutes into the Fire’s revival, which left them chasing the game on top of finding the beat. The rest of the first half reflected those opening 10+ minutes like an elongated mirror: the Fire found more of the chances, with Hugo Cuypers running down a ball over the top and forcing a sprawling save out of Roman Celentano probably giving them their best, and things settled into a spirted, if controlled back and forth until the halftime whistle. Cincinnati put another length between them and the Fire with Denkey’s goal at the 50th minute – again, just an incredible pass by Evander (and didn’t this look a lot like one of the goals versus Orlando? Yep!) – which obliged Chicago to take another deep breath and kick a little harder. Philip Zinckernagel did pull one back at the 58th minute – decent goal, too – and with plenty of time left and the Fire dutifully fired away to the end. A lot of those came from range – maybe talk to Mauricio Pineda about patience – and those forced some further saves from Celentano. Set pieces, corner kicks in particular, caused their share of chaos, the ball touched the ground too many times, etc., but Cincy’s make-shift back three scrambled it away every time and various Fire players nodded the ball over the net every time they didn’t.

It wasn’t a dominant performance from Cincinnati, by any means, but still one I’m confident most fans will bless; with an “Ave Maria” thrown in for getting ahead in the Supporters’ Shield race. And I’m also sure Chicago wonders what might have been had anyone stepped to Evander at the 19th minute, but the final numbers tell a tale of a reasonably-balanced game between two teams separated by eight places and fourteen points in the Eastern Conference standings – which begs the question, what to make of Chicago?

Portland Timbers Weekly, The Toronto Flop, the State of Things, the Smell of Chowda

I've tried everything. This xG is just too small.

At this (roughly) middle point in the Portland Timbers 2025 season, I hold the following to be more or less absolutely true:

1) the Timbers aren’t going to win the Supporters’ Shield;

2) the first team isn’t trophy-competitive and I don’t see anything on the current roster or in Phil Neville’s brain changing that; and

3) things aren’t actually going well at the moment.

If any here bearing witness object to #1, speak now or forever hold your piece and what drug does it take to produce hope on that scale? Even half-serious pushback on #2 would surprise me, but crazier things and so on. Which leaves #3…

Toronto FC 0-3 Portland Timbers
About the Game
A fucking disaster. A loss for the memory-hole. Something that – and this is with a nod to #3 – I still don't believe could have happened. Again, that's "could" not "should."

I braced for an off-day, I got soccer’s version of ennui. The Timbers went down early after an eager-puppy foul by Omir Fernandez led to a free kick for Toronto at the top of the 18. The gifts continued to flow when James Pantemis decided to become Second Wall, aka, the wall behind the wall, instead of covering the other half of the goal. Nothing of note improved from there for Portland. They ended the game with just four (fucking) shots, none on goal, and xG so small it couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.

For whatever reason, possibly because I finally ran out of words, I’m going to forego the typical blow-by-blow match reports. If you want to know, ask me about it in the comments or on Bluesky and I’ll flesh it out, but the short version amounts to the idea that they provide a snapshot of limited value. Relive them through the highlights if you gotta, also why?  Ahem. Wrapping up the game.

Indefinite Hiatus

 The author needs to take a minute to resolve some health issues. Dammit.

FC Cincinnati & MLS East (Mostly) Week 18 Check-In: So...How's It Going?

Forever just two personnel moves away...

And…I finally have the time/energy to post an Eastern Conference-wide check-in with an FC Cincinnati cherry on top. Huzzah.

Down below, you'll find all the teams in Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference listed in the order of their current place in the conference standings, along with the most basic factual information about each of them. After that comes a quick riff on how their 2025 looks so far based on 1) my impression of a given team based on seeing them one way or the other over the season and 2) their last 10 results, more or less.

I pulled Cincy out of the regular order and lifted them to the top with an eye to dwelling on my very own Special Little Guys of the East. If you want depth or real knowledge about individual players, I suggest you hit up local sources – something I encourage people to do in any event and often as they can - or, if you’re into that certain flavor of weird, your local team’s subreddit.

The point of the exercise is to look past injuries to key players or arguments about how totally and thoroughly unstoppable any given team will be if [Player A] would just start doing [X], or if only the stupid fucking coach would get his head out of his ass and start [Player B] or move [Player C] to left back, and to flatten the notes on each team to the cold, hard calculus of the results they’ve compiled, where and against what quality of opposition, and holy run-on sentence, Melville. The animating thought behind it seeks to correct the human habit of holding onto a detail – say, a big win over a good team – and interpreting a team through that flawed lens for weeks, or even months, thereafter. With 18 games crossed off on the calendar for most teams, MLS fans finally have a forest to stare at and, personally, that feels like a better way to clock what’s going on than, to muddle a phrase, get into the trees…and, rimshot.

With that, let’s kick things off the East’s silver-medal team:

Portland Timbers 1-1 San Jose Earthquakes: A Tale of Wild Cards & Cliches

Killing himself. Wild, right?

For those who missed it, Preston Judd had a big game in the San Jose Earthquakes’ 3-3 draw versus Houston Dynamo FC. Two weeks after that opportunist’s brace, he teed up the winner in San Jose’s win at the till-then utterly hapless Los Angeles Galaxy.

Judd scored the late equalizer in San Jose’s 1-1 draw at the Portland Timbers, of course, but guess who fired the shot that led to the rebound he put back? Ousseni Bouda. Now guess who Judd set up for the winner against the Galaxy? Yep, Bouda.

When prepping to face the ‘Quakes, any sane coach would key on The Cristians (Espinoza and Arango) and Josef Martinez. Martinez didn’t suit up yesterday, something I think was known, but who knows? The larger point is, who builds a game-plan around stopping Ousseni Bouda and Preston-fucking-Judd?

Still, what is a wild card except an old-school cheat code? And yet…is that what really happened?

About the Game
I only half-watch games when I see them live (to anyone wondering why I don’t go to many of them), so I just sat down to re-watch the second half. Even that confirmed a handful of loose perceptions I had from the first half – e.g., the Timbers performed soccer well enough, but the ‘Quakes always looked that little bit more incisive, Dave Romney won every 1-v-1 against Santiago Moreno and basically took him out of the game, etc. Still, and despite what was scored as Portland’s 0.55 xG versus San Jose’s 1.09 at the half, the Timbers played well enough to make me think they would hold it together and had a punter’s chance of figuring it out before the final whistle. Full disclosure, I missed Ian Harkes’ second yellow card – of which, funny! (i.e., his foul on Diego Chara was soft, without being wholly, laughably unreasonable) – plus a couple early shots (which, if The Mothership means to earn its keep, should be in the full highlights). As for the +/- 15 minutes after Harkes’ 52nd -minute sending off? Yeah, caught all of that. Soccer has at least a half dozen cliches and, as just demonstrated by San Jose, a team playing like 12 men after going down to 10 is very much one of them.

Portland Timbers 2-1 St. Louis CITY FC: Anchor & Inspiration

Antony's contribution: a visual

The Portland Timbers have a long history of slow starts to the regular season. Now off to what I’m told is their strongest start to a season since 2013, and perhaps with a nostalgic glint in their eye to how they once had to rescue entire seasons, the Timbers have acquired a late habit of starting at half speed, even spotting the opposition the first goal.

I flagged the latter as potential kiss of death in one preview thread our another on Bluesky, but, for the second match day in a row, Portland snatched victory for the slackening jaws of defeat with a 2-1 home win over St. Louis CITY FC. Who knows? Maybe the Timbers only feel like their true and best selves when chasing something, whether season or game?

About the Game
Whether due to players they had missing (Eduard Lowen) to caretaker coach, David Critchley, trying to teach his old team new tricks, St. Louis rewrote my expectations by keeping the ball on the ground and working it forward from the back. They stretched the field occasionally (see the first attempt in the full highlights), but they looked up to playing through Portland and, for most of the second half, the Timbers seemed open to allowing it. While not totally helpless – a couple slip passes sent (I think) Santiago Moreno and Kevin Kelsy just behind St. Louis’ last defender – Portland spent most of the first half a step behind both the most recent play and the game. They escaped the first half without giving up a goal, but even that took a double save from James Pantemis on two (or three) clear, close shots jointly gifted to St. Louis by some light dicking around at the back and a clumsy touch by Joao Ortiz. Portland saved their best moments for first half stoppage time – including a shot at redemption for Ortiz that he side-footed softly to nowhere – but the cobwebs lingered long enough into the second half for Portland to give up the first goal 50 minutes in. Former Timbers academy kid, Akil Watts, put St. Louis up 1-0 when he created and capitalized on a wee crisis in front of Pantemis’ goal. Watch the highlights on that goal and you’ll see Watts have time to both give up on the play then get back into it before any Timbers defender even noticed him. You hate to see it, but, stick around. It gets better!

As with last match day’s win over Colorado, this game turned on a vividly decisive moment – specifically, Antony alley-ooping the ball over Tomas Totland, then backing Henry Kessler into his own 18 before equalizing just around the defender’s left shoulder. It was a move sweet and classy enough for The Mothership to give it a long-form puff highlight of its own. From that point to the final whistle, the Timbers played like a stalled car jump-started by a king-sized battery. Legs came to life, movement improved all over with David Ayala acting as an all-purpose gear box that kept the machine running and racing, shifting slower and faster as needed; they even forced Roman Burki to reprise Pantemis' first-half double save in order to keep the game from running away from them. While St. Louis never fully faded out of the game, I have this line in my notes about “losing their nerve, grasping for chances instead of creating them” that sums it up nicely. Had you split the game between St. Louis’ best period and Portland’s, I’m still guessing the Timbers outplayed them over the sum of it, but the final numbers broke close to even and St. Louis are no doubt gnashing teeth and rending garments over not just losing Ayala on the winner, but failing to see him at all. Just heartbreaking defending, but Ayala fully earned a slab of the log after that performance.

St. Louis CITY FC Scouting Report: Needing and Wanting. Or Vice Versa

Why not 9 center backs? Why not 13?

To get the big dodge out of the way, who knows what to make of St. Louis CITY FC right now, what with Olof Mellberg getting shit-canned for an unmissable lack of results and, I’m told, a hard kink for fielding eight center backs in his starting XIs? At any rate, he’s gone, replaced by interim head coach David Critchley…who, for the record, guided the team to its first win since mid-March.

To compile this dossier, I jumped around about…65 minutes’ worth of real-time footage of St. Louis’ 0-1 road loss at the Colorado Rapids and their gently weird 2-1 home win over the San Jose Earthquakes. Normally, I’d put more time into the road game, but suspect the coaching change to color their approach in enough ways that I think that anyone bored and restless enough will benefit more from watching long outtakes of the San Jose game. If nothing else, and barring injuries (looking at Cedric Teuchert here), I’d expect the team that lines up against the Portland Timbers on Sunday will look more like the starting XI versus San Jose. I’ll dig into that more below, but let’s start with…

The Facts
Record/Stats
3-8-5, 14 pts., 13 gf, 21 ga (-8); home 2-3-3, away 1-5-2
Last 10 Results: LLDDLLDLLW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ SKC (0-2 L); v CLB (1-2 L); v VAN (0-0 D); @ LAFC (2-2 D); @ SEA (1-4 L); v SD (1-2 L); v SKC (2-2 D); @ MIN (0-3 L); @ COL (0-1 L); v SJ (2-1 W)

Clearly, things have gone coach-firingly bad for St. Louis this season and, based on the time I put into the San Jose win, I’m not sure now firmly they’ve turned the page. Big picture, St. Louis kept games tighter until recent weeks (see losses at Seattle and Minnesota), but the defense still tilts toward the stronger side of the league average. The attack, unfortunately, leans harder in the other direction. Still, soothe – which bring me to…

Talking Point No. 1: The Timbers Have to Match “Playing for Their Jobs right now” Intensity
That’s it. St. Louis looked listless and gun-shy at Colorado, at least until they had to chase the game after Darren Yapi’s 41st minute goal forced them to chase the game (weird one; also kinda notable; here's the other one by Josef Martinez). They also defended deep (to the point of nesting) in the stretches I watched and played like they forgot St. Louis’ hard-pressing tradition. Maybe the game plan tilts toward allowing shots from range, or maybe that's just what Mellberg's approach encouraged indirectly by way of tactics. I saw more pressing versus San Jose and, again, I expect to see that against the Timbers, road game be damned. St. Louis may press and foul half as hard as they used to, but Portland should come ready to battle…like, really battle.

FC Cincinnati 1-2 DC United, Disappointment, Malaise and a Dash of FC Dallas

A guerrilla warfare situation.

After watching FC Cincinnati stall out to a 1-2 loss versus DC United – i.e., the team currently 12th in the East and who started yesterday with half as many points as Cincinnati – I looped back to their midweek 3-3 home draw versus FC Dallas – i.e., the team currently 11th in the West, who have as many points (18) as DC on the first day of June. That was last night.

Before sitting down to type this, I looped back to my notes on last weekend’s 2-4 loss at Atlanta United FC. At that time, that performance/result presented as a bad day at the office meets an ambush – think the foxhole scene in Red Dawn, the original, not the remake – because who thought an Atlanta team eight games into tripping over their own dicks, particularly on the attacking end, would run over a defense, 1) operating with all hands present, and 2) that had allowed (about) just one goal per game to that point in the season?

So…how many bad days at the office does it take to add up to a slump?

About the Game(s)
When Kevin Denkey crowned a full-field attacking move at the 15th minute that went down easy as an oyster, signs pointed to the machinery being back in place and turning smoothly. Sure, DC had already gone up a goal by then – see Gabriel Pirani’s finish at the second minute from the top of the 18 off a (too) simple set piece – and, after some light preventive bunkering, they returned to a press that forced Cincinnati to play through traffic all over the field. Still, Cincy had managed it well enough, up to and including getting close to goal with avenues and options. Denkey’s goal got the Bailey bopping and DC United didn’t have Christian Benteke to manage, so more of the same seemed possible, maybe even likely…

…and then Conner “Excuse Me, Who?” Antley popped up at the back post on a corner to head DC back into the lead. Two set pieces, two goals; you literally hate to see it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Colorado Rapids: Strong Response to a Near-Death Experience

That ain't a light, son, it's a train. But also a light/a journey.

The Portland Timbers topped the Colorado Rapids 2-1 at Providence Park tonight. Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter! Think more two dudes laddering their hand up a baseball bat…dammit. My brain started glitching immediately after hearing Jake Zivin say “Timber Joey’s Victory Log.”

Right. Hitting the ground running…

About the Game
Not many soccer games turn on such a clear and decisive before-and-after – and most games that do get stuffed into the all-devouring “Tale of Two Halves” file – but that’s…mostly not what happened tonight. An almost wanton chance to put Colorado up 2-0 crept to Sam Bassett (more below) around the 75th minute and he couldn’t get it closer inside the goal than the crossbar.; after a couple bobbles around the right, the ball flies out of defense, (in short order) falls to David Da Costa, who plays Antony around the Rapids’ last defender, and the Rapids Calmer (TM; don’t touch that; I’m lawyered up) slips into under Nicholas Hansen for the equalizer. For most of the time before that goal, the Timbers couldn’t find much, never mind each other. Somewhere in the late stages of that curs'd time, Finn Surman picked up a bargain-bin yellow that Chris Penso waved around like so much foreshadowing; nine minutes later, working-man’s DP Djordje Mihailovic gets a step ahead of him leaving Surman no option but to keep one step behind, so as to avoid the foul. When Colorado went up 1-0, they looked convincing enough…

…the question is whether the Timbers pried open the first crack on the play in the first half that led to the penalty call against Andreas Maxso. That, in my mind, was their first truly competent attacking build of the night. Felipe Mora took the ensuing kick like he’d been either drugged or compromised (“when I snap my fingers, you will realize you missed, and too late too”; probably in here? if not, why not?), but the final moments of the first half might have been the beginning, given the final result and how it was arrived at, of what could justly be dubbed a Portland Timbers revival. If I asked to provide proof for that theory, I’d point to the barrage/siege the Timbers poured toward the Rapids’ goal after the equalizer. For anyone requiring more proof (what’s with this fuckin’ guy?), I’d flag the several…semi-effectual shots Portland found in the Rapids’ weak side in the minutes before Kevin Kelsy tapped-in the winner. Full disclosure: wondered how Juan David Mosquera squeezed his assist into the space between Colorado’s last defender and Hansen, but now I see that fear of an own-goal froze Reggie Cannon. The game wasn’t entirely over even then – see whatever you think Diego Chara did to Calvin Harris late, late in the game, which surely has to be in the full highlights (surely?) – but the ref waved it off and the Timbers swept all three points off the board, the end.

Atlanta United FC 4-2 FC Cincinnati: Bewitched, Bedazzled & Kinda Weird

Plenty to go around, sadly.

As anyone who has interacted with the MLS Season Pass interface knows, it can still slip in the odd the spoiler. For instance, I caught the fact that Miles Robinson scored a goal out of the corner of my eye before starting the full replay, so I had that at back of mind when Atlanta United FC opened the scoring at the 15th minute. I only got halfway through, "nothing to worry about" when Atlanta scored a second goal. I spent the rest of the game hoping that the caption read “Miles Robinson hat trick.” It did not. Atlanta carried that early lead to the final whistle, and only a little uncomfortably, outrunning Cincinnati to a 4-2 win at home.

About the Game
Atlanta looked a (promising) mess over the opening ten minutes with balls played in behind to phantom runs and a full-field defensive shape that looked doomed to watch Cincinnati pull them apart; the two quality shots the visitors created – one a close solo run by Gerardo Valenzuela, the other a sparkling team effort – had the feeling of heavy knocks rattling a door. Next thing you know, Nick Hagglund went down and off on a hard charge by Emmanuel Latte Lath (“I'll show you soft, Ronny!”; weird injury, too; ribs and lung?) and, mere minutes later, Derrick Williams headed home what might have been Atlanta’s first competent pass of the game on a set piece and it was off to the races. Atlanta scored again, of course, with a tap-in by Ajani Fortune five short minutes later after Saba "Well Janice*" Lobjanidze bewitched and bedazzled Lukas Engel on Cincy’s left (* I get so much free delight from closed captioning). From there, a broadcast booth narrative developed that Atlanta had pounced on a defense still working out its assignments. That argument holds up better in a world where Latte Lath didn’t miss two massive, free-free-free opportunities (more on one of those later), all of which fell outside that crucial window. Atlanta had gilded chances at an even half-dozen goals - a rightly shocking note given Cincinnati's typically tight defense - but all those chances ran against an undercurrent of Cincy playing through them with relative ease. That's to say, this was a weird one.

No one knew the game would end where it did when Robinson’s goal finally came just after halftime, of course, especially with Taylor Twellman treating Atlanta’s woes over the first 15 minutes of every second half as a disaster to count on. That note came against the backdrop of some of the best attacking builds Cincinnati has produced all season; the chances rained and the shots poured until they piled up to nearly 30, with nine on goal. Not all of them made Brad Guzan sweat – I’d say Evander’s 60th minute effort gave his Old Spice the biggest workout – but his every save and the 21 shots off target (some of them more wise than good) meant more time playing catch-up for Cincy and with less time to get there. Another defensive breakdown – and on a set piece, again, and with the ball bouncing all over inside the six, again – restored Atlanta’s two-goal margin at the 66th minute, forcing Cincy back into a sprint. The Orange and Blue pulled within one a mere four minutes later when Valenzuela finally got his prize for a great game, but it wouldn’t take look for them to succumb to the game’s other defining feature, fully-bodied defensive breakdowns by the visitors. That hadn’t happened since the opening weeks of 2025 (e.g., the ass-kicking at Philly), but Jamal Thiare insured the win in stoppage time on what must have been Atlanta’s third clean break behind Cincy’s defense. Everything that could go wrong did, basically, and it was more than enough to erase a good amount of right.

Orlando City SC 1-0 Portland Timbers: Hitting a Speedbump, Hitting a Speedbump, Hitting a Spee...

A celebration of a great, perhaps useless design.

Neither a lot to get excited about, nor much to fret over. The Portland Timbers traveled to Orlando City SC and lost a slow, sweaty, tired affair 1-0, a result that, for me, differed from expectations by only a goal or two in Orlando’s favor. To be clear, that was my sense going in. Let’s move on to what actually happened.

About the Game
Orlando got on Portland early and Timbers players did their part to pile pressure on themselves with loose giveaways. The weight of it didn’t translate into much more than a few shots from range, with the best falling to (fortunately) left back David Brekalo and (less so), Luis Muriel. Santiago Moreno fired Portland’s best, early-ish shot with a Short Olimpico (i.e., it knuckled to near-post) and Kevin Kelsy crowned their first half attacking effort with a shot that was more wise than good (46th minute, came closer to the top row than Pedro Gallese’s goal mouth). Sadly, those efforts came on either side of Orlando’s one and only goal of the game, scored by Duncan McGuire off a slick Eduard Atuesta slip pass. Portland’s defenders shared the burden of that goal fairly equally – e.g., who’s to blame more between the three-to-four dudes stepping to Atuesta while (the theretofore great) and Jimer Fory and Finn Surman leaving a wide lane for McGuire between them – and that left Portland’s attack the burden of finding the equalizer. Or at least that’s one way this game could have played out…

Per the official stats, Orlando topped the Timbers by 2-to-1 on the basic attacking stats and (somehow) tripled them for xG…but they never looked much like adding a second goal. I just reviewed the full highlights to see whether there was some great chance or moment I forgot, but the Lions never found much better than aspirational over the second half and they didn’t even find that often. Sadly, the Timbers never really found third gear either – David Da Costa might have had their best chance of their seven (that's 7) total on the night, but that amounted to 2/3 a chance, at best. Unfun reminder, that leaves Portland on just 12 shots over their past two games.

To give them some credit, Portland had the better of play over the second 45 minutes. By the 60th minute, Orlando shipped them as many turnovers as the Timbers sent the other way over the opening 30 minutes of the first half. Portland held the ball better, even if they didn’t always know how to get more out of holding onto it, and they managed to pin Orlando into their own half, it a little further from goal. They even had a reasonable shout for a penalty when 2nd-half sub, Ariel Lassiter, got around Brekalo, but the referee waved it away after seeing the tip of the defender’s toenail catch the ball after passing through Lassiter. As with the game, that “missed call” tracked as neither a lot to get excited about, nor much to fret over. I’ll get to the bigger fish to fry after…

Portland Timbers 1-1 Seattle Sounders: It Was the [BLANK] of Times

I think cuffs and collars matched. You?

Just to note it, these posts should get shorter the deeper we go into Major League Soccer’s 2025 regular season. Barring new signings in the summer, at some point in any season, the teams have what they have when it comes to the competence of their coach and the quality of their players, strong suits and weak links will be well-known in their equal parts.

Have the Portland Timbers reached that point at…hold on…14 games into the season? Here and there, maybe, but not overall? Nah. Let’s get to it…

About the Game
I didn’t clock how few shots the Timbers fired in Saturday’s 1-1 draw versus the Seattle Sounders until checking the final stats (still catching up, still not wholly connected to the game-day experience). Not what one wants to see in terms of offensive output, obviously, but it didn’t translate into the vague chatter I’d caught here and there about Portland being lucky to escape a loss. The Sounders found their chances – particularly from the low-to-mid 30s when the long ball to Danny Musovski and Roy…er, Ryan Kent was very much on (hold this thought) – but the final score didn’t look like they borrowed it from another game or anything, cuffs and collars matched, etc. Still, seeing just five shots total and knowing at least one of those counted as more hopeful than likely (e.g., Santiago Moreno’s at the 22nd) sets a fan to fretting about the latest drop-off on the attacking side (unless my math’s mistaken, the Timbers have been good for ¾ goal/game since the beginning of May). Per the tone of all the above, Seattle hardly piled on the chances, but I’ve already gotten ahead of myself.

Seeing Kamal Miller in a foot race with, oh, 65% of the league generally spells trouble and seeing Musovski win the decisive one felt inevitable. To his credit, Miller stalled a full breakout and Finn Surman did well to put himself between Albert Rusnak and Maxime Crepeau’s goal…only to tragically leave the five-hole open for Rusnak to shoot through. Seeing a similar play almost come off for a second Seattle goal got a couple dings out of the alarm bell, but Crepeau had a better angle to block Musovski’s shot and got down righteously to cover it. Portland hadn’t been helpless to that point - Juan David Mosquera’s solo/run shot at the 9th minute announced…a presence - but it took most of the half for them to build an attack that misdirected the Sounders defense. Maybe the surprise came from David Da Costa switching to the right, maybe it came from getting the ball behind Seattle’s midfield in one pass; whatever happened, the Sounders defense lost track of Da Costa and Moreno in rapid succession and paid the price with an easy equalizer that, despite credible efforts here and there, they never got around to erasing.