Portland Timbers 1-4 Vancouver Whitecaps: The Brutal Laws of the Game & a Game to Aggressively Memory-Hole

So long as it feels better later, I'm good.

The rules of the game, when read and applied in black and white, make some calls unavoidable, even inevitable. I don’t know what Kamal Miller could have done differently in real time – i.e., Brian White’s first touch took the ball into the space into which Miller was running to catch up, he couldn’t do much to avoid some contact, so the real question was always going to turn on the kind of contact that occurred (you can toggle to the video here, but the link doesn't appear to change to the specific highlight) – but, no matter how many details you drop into the basic scenario, there is simply no getting around the fact that Miller was the last defender covering White, an attacking player running into a one-v-one against the ‘keeper, Maxime Crepeau.

I’m confident some Portland Timbers fan will undertake a frame-by-frame deconstruction to argue that White went down too easily and that another other fan will explore the practical physics of how much weight Miller’s hand would have needed to exert upon White’s shoulder in order to cause him to actually fall: by my reading, calling White for a dive presents the only alternative to the red card and I don’t see enough in what happened to sustain a flop.

Miller’s red card wasn’t the only mistake the Timbers made today; it was merely the first. It took several more to get to today’s lopsided 1-4 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps in Portland. Again. The smoldering question turns on how many of those mistakes followed from Miller’s red card against the balance of them that happened all on their own.

Before getting to that, or to anything else really, I want any Timbers fan who finds this post to keep one thought firmly in mind: as much as this result stings, maybe even embarrasses, it does not matter. It doesn’t matter even a little. Portland still has 33 games left to play and they remain very much alive on the bare terms of competing for an indulgently generous allotment of playoff slots. As MLS fans learn every season, and appear to unlearn after each regular season starts, a team can eat absolute clown-shit for three, even four months and still redeem the season with a good run in the playoffs – see, United FC, Atlanta, just one season ago (even if their own fans don’t entirely feel it). So, throw in the fact that the Timbers couldn’t field its best-possible team, take a deep breath, take the L (/spectator-sports equivalent of an enema), get out those binoculars so that you can take the longest possible view of the overall situation…

…which isn’t the same thing as thinking the Timbers are destined to have a good season, never mind a great one.

With that tension in mind, let’s turn away from the carnage that just unfolded at Providence Park and talk about what I want and hope to see from the 2025, 50th-anniversary edition of the Portland Timbers. In no particular order:

1) an improved defense, however it happens;

2) better connection and (gods forbid) rhythm in possession; and

3) the capacity to put together a string of five-to-six positive results and without too many shit results in between.

That makes for two blindingly obvious choices, of course, but No. 3, in particular, gets lost when people think their local team’s chances of success in a given season. Red Bull New York reiterated that argument in 2024 just as surely as the Timbers proved it in 2015. Frustration and embarrassment aside, Portland still has multiple mulligans in the bank; the real question is whether Phil Neville, et al – which very much includes every Timber who played today - can learn from and correct all the things that went wrong today. With that, let’s get back to the game.

If only today's choices were this smokin' hot.

Playing with ten is never easy, but it gets a hell of a lot harder when your ‘keeper clips his clearance short and forces the defense into a succession of Sophie’s choices. After Crepeau’s error, neither Zac McGraw nor Finn Surman had smarter options than the ones they chose and that left David Ayala in a footrace against Ryan Gauld that he had no chance of winning. The larger, repeated and ultimately unresolved issue was Jayden Nelson repeatedly tearing a rift into the space between Jimer Fory and whichever Timber happened to be the last line of defense on Portland’s left. Credit to Vancouver for spotting the weakness and working the holy shit out of it, but I was less concerned about seeing Pedro Vite score a banger from that channel than I was to see that remain wide open for business all day and all of the night. If an alien tuned into this broadcast, Bleep-Blorp (for that is her name) could be forgiven for asking where the ‘Caps found an overlooked future star as opposed to a guy who literally doubled his career goals/assist production in today's game. Nelson’s afternoon recalled nothing so much as Antony’s performance in Portland’s 2024 opener against the Colorado Rapids…

At any rate, the game ended in every way except all that (fucking) time on the clock after Vancouver’s second(/Vite's) goal at the 32nd minute. I don’t know what actually counted as the first of Portland’s six total shots, but I do know that they didn’t fire a single shot until the second half and had the unique honor of posting an xG of 0.00 by the halftime whistle. And that gets to item No. 2 in the list above: the Timbers continue to struggle to connect when they get on the ball. Is it possible that, absent the early (early) red card, they would have settled into the game and started to string together a pass or three? Sure. Is that theory supported by anything except their preseason game and a run of games (yay!) in 2024 when it looked like they had a high-school band’s worth of rhythm, timing and connectivity? No, not really, and it’s well worth pointing out that several of last season’s best games came against bad/struggling opposition – including teams that would later come good.

Too many things argue against doing anything with this game beyond writing it off and toasting the final whistle. People can choose to relive Vancouver’s third and fourth goal – even if they don’t prove much beyond that fact that Joao Ortiz is slower than Nelson and that chasing the game with nine field players invites danger/doom – and, yes, good on Antony and new-guy Kevin Kelsy for combining to score a dignity goal for Portland, no matter how clumsily, before the final whistle. This one’s already in the rearview for me, so I’m looking ahead to what the Timbers do, between players and the coaching staff, to get this team connected when they get on the ball. And what I want/hope to see there are the players looking more proactive than reactive – i.e., I want to see them moving in a way that allows them to dictate the passing/ball-progression patterns. If I had to reduce the Timbers’ performance today into one word, that word would be “reactive.”

For what it’s worth, this isn’t the way I want these posts to look (dammit), but this is the first game of my season as well. For what it’s worth, it’s supposed to go something more like, quick description of the game, some general notes on the Timbers, some general notes on the opposition, then close with some talking points/questions about the Timbers to kick about. I hope to take a big step toward the formula in next week’s post, but the fact this was a weird fucker of a game threw the plan into chaos. With an eye to next week’s post, here are some talking points/questions about the Timbers, starting with the biggest apparent positive

1) The New Ringer
I don’t want to read too much into this because Vancouver scored just seven minutes after he came on and the game was already fucked by then, but Portland looked better and more connected after David Da Costa came into the game. The quality and timing of his passes put the receiving Timber in a better position to find the next pass and that’s more or less the first step in what Portland needs to do in order to become a better passing team.

2) Jimer Fory
This was a baptism by fire for him and I am confident this will be a game he remembers and, ideally, grows from. I don’t know how one wouldn’t read Jesper Sorensen’s clear choice to run at his side as anything but conscious and deliberate – not unless Kamal Miller’s sending off changed something (lemme know) – and that should be a flashing warning sign for next week’s preparations.

3) Midfield Construction, Ye Olde Obsession
Once Da Costa comes in full time, I am really, super, obsessively intrigued by who Phil Neville chooses to start alongside him. I’m also not sure his best choice is obvious at this time. That’s a long way of saying, there will be flux.

4) A(n Ideally) Minor Disturbance in the Force...

Anyone get bad vibes out of Mora walking off the field after getting subbed early? The choice felt wholly defensible for me - the Timbers couldn't stick with two forwards, given the situation, and having Kelsy's younger legs made sense - so seeing that left me worried about some simmering discontent in the locker room...which feels like the last thing this team needs. Put a pin in this moment/memory, while also hoping it's the last time you have occasion to think about it.

That’s it for this week. Here’s to hoping the Timbers look smarter and more prepared when Austin FC comes to visit…and I’ll have notes on that up by…it could be Wednesday this week, but Tuesday’s the plan. Till then…