Colorado Rapids 0-3 Portland Timbers: Comfortable in Commerce City

When you feel confident, you can do anything...

Think I mentioned this on Bluesky, but some dude on subreddit (who heard it from a friend of a friend’s co-worker, who heard it from her boss) floated the argument that the Portland Timbers were better than they earned after four games. Between Kamal Miller’s (stupid fucking) red card in Game 1 and the ref getting drunkenly novel with the concept of “advantage” in Game 4, they'd tripped themselves more than they'd been tripped, basically.

Did Timbers fans just get proof of concept with yesterday’s subtly lopsided 3-0 win at the Colorado Rapids, or…

About the Game
As happens more often than I’d like to admit, the Scouting Report I posted on…think it was Friday, but who cares because it went out the window within the first 20 minutes. The Colorado Rapids played like a constipated shadow of the team I’d watched from afar and the Portland Timbers looked – and, to be clear, this feels like a typo as I’m tapping it out…capable. We didn’t get seamless perfection by any means – see Jimer Fory at a dead sprint toward his own goal to corral an eighth-minute breakaway by Kevin Cabral (hold that thought*) and Finn Surman eating the entire fake Djordje Mihailovic baited him with at the edge of the fucking six – but the one, literally massive thing that stood out was how immediately calm and connected the Timbers looked playing out of the back. David Ayala offering himself as a first option and seeming to have a plan for his first pass went a long damn way with that; whether turning out of the pressure, dropping the ball to someone behind, who then played it forward to either Ayala or another option (Santiago Moreno, often as not), Portland had fewer problems playing out of back than they have so far in this young season. The defensive shape held up pretty well too, if with an assist from whatever the hell was going on with Rapids; I saw no evidence of the movement and connectivity I’d come to expect after watching 90 minutes of them for the Scouting Report. The Timbers looked, for lack of a better word, comfortable for the first time in 2025 – even when Colorado upped the pressure. The Rapids found a couple chances, here and there, mostly through Reggie “Grumpy” Cannon firing unchecked crosses from the right, but a state of disconnection plagued them through most of the game. With the game knotted on zeroes and the ref puckering up for the halftime whistle, the breakthrough finally came. After trying to play through the brick the Rapids dropped in front of their goal, someone hopefully played the ball wide to David Da Costa. When he kicked the ball back into the mixer, just as hopefully, it caught Josh Atencio’s ankle and bobbled into the Rapids’ goal. And thank gods for that, because, per the official statisticians (aka, the broadcast team) zero shots had been fired on goal, in anger or otherwise, to that point. That first goal opened the game, as goals by the road team often do, and the Rapids lost little time in making a second and worse mistake to allow Portland's second. For whatever reason, three defenders lumped around Felipe Mora like he was [Insert Global Star Name] and their left-sided defender drifting to cover Eric Miller (just…why, and hold that thought%) and that left Antony footloose and fancy-free up the middle of the field and, I assume, a little baffled at his good fortune before slotting home the insurance goal that the Timbers ultimately did not need. That goal arrived just prior to the 50th minute, but it effectively ended the game as a contest. With a nod to the final xG in the official stats – just to note/celebrate it, the Timbers broke the elusive 1.0 xG barrier for the first time in 2025 yesterday - Colorado’s stats aren’t wildly off the Timbers’. And yet the question of which was the better team isn’t so much as half open. The question is why?

An Aside on the Colorado Rapids
I’ll have to leave to Colorado fans to answer, because that’s something I couldn’t possibly explain after a combined 120 minutes of watching them. Maybe the game-plan was to sit back, wait for the Timbers to burn themselves (aka, “The Schumer”), but, whatever caused it, the Rapids made some kind of silent, collective choice to forgo every advantage of playing at home…going the other way, you can literally hear any single person who decides to raise his or her voice inside that stadium, or at least they came through broadcast mics down to someone planning what they’re doing after the game (okay, yes, made that last bit up). Suffice to say this was not the Colorado team I expected, up to and including the hiccups in defense – and, sorry, forgot to link to the Timbers’ third goal, but that’s just more bad defending. Best case, they started flat, then the game got away from them, then they started forcing passes that Portland’s midfield and defenders picked off at a trot. While there’s not a lot to take out of going from unbeaten to thrashed in 90 minutes, the failings were collective, and all that, *Kevin “No Stranger to Controversy” Cabral did his share of violence to Colorado’s better attacking moments. His respectable 2024 aside, I struggle to believe the Rapids don’t have someone on the roster who deserves a look by now.

"Feeling spring breeze" gets weird quick.

Bottom line: For all the reasons laced into the thoughts above, I’m taking yesterday as a win to celebrate, but not quite embrace. Even as I’m generally disinclined to make much of head-to-heads, and one slim win aside, the Timbers have made kicking the shit out of Colorado by multiple-goal margins something of a hobby since 2024. That said, seeing the Timbers look like a real, functioning team for the first time this season feels like a scented spring breeze blowing through my TV screen. If it wasn’t against soul-sucking Houston Dynamo FC, I’d be looking forward to next weekend with a smile on my face…

Talking Points…which may or may not be spicy. Like you, I’m reading them for the first time [seriously, i feel like someone I've never met wrote that gibberish]
1) A Cavalry Has Arrived
I cheered Moreno with faint praise in last weekend’s post, but I’m circling back to raise the volume on the grounds that we now have a two-game sample to argue that the improved play out of the back and through the midfield coincided with his return to the first team. Also, I’m not sure he used to run at fullbacks the way he has over the past two games, but I’m here for it.

2) Look, Ma! Clean Sheets!
With the greater share of the credit going to Surman, Fory, and a gold star going to Diego Chara (who, full disclosure, I have begged Phil, et al, to move on from repeatedly), Portland kept the opposition off the board for the second time this season. For comparison, the Timbers didn’t get their first clean sheet of 2024 until May 30 – i.e., the 16th game of the regular season. Better still, both Surman and Fory have improved game-on-game and they both bordered on lights out in their one-v-ones yesterday.

2b) Moving on, to Where I'm Just Looking to Find Fault
Kamal Miller made three glaring errors over the opening 30 minutes. Just straight, bone-headed plays/decisions that would easily have cost the Timbers a goal, if on a better night from Colorado. I don’t doubt his stats on paper, so much as I know that he’s good for at least that many bad decisions on any given Saturday. It’s not that I’m against giving him real minutes as a sub, or even good shots at redemption, as I’m willing to start any healthy center back over him going forward.

4) Latest Read on the New Guy
For all his talent as a dribbler, I think people generally agree that Da Costa likes to pass first and ask questions later. I also think that undersells his preferred game a little. When Da Costa gets on the ball, at least without someone on his back and eyes facing forward, I’m starting to think that the very first thing he’s looking for is a run. I’m talking T-Rex level of motion detection, and I believe the Timbers – with Jonathan Rodriguez in the back of my mind – can make something good and useful out of that. So far, Da Costa strikes me as a player who, more often that not, likes to let the ball do the work, aka, my kind of player.

5) % Let Eric Defend, Let Eric Be Happy

His assist to Da Costa's assist to Josh Atencio's ankle notwithstanding, Eric Miller doesn't have much to offer going forward. He took the space he was given on Saturday, as he had every reason to do, but there was also a reason why he was given that space. I'm trying to say as much as I can without saying it directly here.  

That’s it for this one. And, in case it didn’t come through, this was a good win. Three points on a road against a team that has earned more points than they’ve dropped isn’t just good; it’s banking points for the long haul. Better still, the Timbers have enough soft spots in the schedule ahead to stuff a little more padding into the cushion. Till the Scouting Report on Houston…that I have been damned to draft and post…