Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Readings from a Spoiled Sample

This plus a couple geezers. Not great, man.

I saw the question of whether the referee should have awarded the Portland Timbers late in Sunday’s game posed a half dozen times on the Timbers subreddit yesterday and answered with a raging “motherfucker, YES!” It was a massive call to miss, no question – calling advantage on that play does actual violence to the word “advantage” – and, while having two more points wouldn’t have helped Portland in 2024, it would have lifted Portland into the playoffs in 2022, given them homefield advantage for the play-in in 2023.

I get the frustration, in other words, and a very stupid non-call can matter, even in MLS’s largely pointless regular season, but…and you knew this was coming…shouldn’t we all be more concerned with the fact that the Timbers struggled to manage a Los Angeles Galaxy B- team?

About the Game
To start with some positives, seeing Santiago Moreno back in the XI did the soul good – particularly after a couple of his early runs made it look as if he might win the game on his own. The team as a whole looked more comfortable on the ball and decently connected over several periods in the first half, even if all that running and kicking didn’t necessarily translate into anything particularly, or at all, meaningful – i.e., seeing halftime stats like three shots, one on goal for the Timbers, and five (apparently) wayward shots for the Galaxy sounded about right, as did both teams’ piteous xG. Portland even tried to press here and there, which attempt I described in my real-time notes as “looks/works half-ass, but not a total waste.” The fact that came against a veritable “who’s that?” of Galaxy players – e.g., Tucker Lepley, Isaiah Parente, and Harbor Miller (that last one begs the question of what his ancestors did for a living) – always left open the hope that the Timbers were just working out their angles before absolutely destroying the whelps. And, when Felipe Mora deflected a David Da Costa grass-cutter cross from Portland’s right to score Portland's one and only goal, that plan seemed in motion – and with a bonus of giving Timbers fans a glimpse of how Da Costa’s skill set could help the mission. That bright shiny feeling that lasted only until the second half turned into a stalemated slog. I had a sense that LA got the better of the game while the Timbers sucked back into defense as I watched, but still appreciate the confirmation from the official stats page. It’s possible Gabriel Pec hoisted too much weight onto his own shoulders – more below – but he created at least one goal-line scramble and the Galaxy fired some better shots from range between the 60th and 70th minutes. The Timbers defense held…firm-esque through all that pressure, which only made LA's equalizer, from a simple ball over the top to Christian Ramirez (wake up, Zac), more simmeringly infuriating. I just circled back to the highlights, which helpfully reminded me that the Timbers had a couple chances to get back in the lead, and that brings the game and summary back to the non-call on the penalty that started the post.

An Aside on the Los Angeles Galaxy
For anyone who has seen me gripe about how the Timbers should look better, even with key players missing, watching the Galaxy B- team boot the ball around provided a sound case-study for that argument. Their starting XI wasn’t totally bereft of regular, capable starters – after Pec, you’ve got Edwin Cerrillo, Maya Yoshida, and sturdy veteran Diego Fagundez – but even the randos showed some understanding of where to be and how LA’s head coach, Greg Vanney, wants them to play. The simple, even fundamental, structure is precisely what helps a team survive injuries, suspensions, acts of gods, etc., over the course of a long, long, long season. Very much related, none of the Galaxy’s youngsters looked out of place – if I had to name a standout, I’d go with Julian Aude at left back – and, thanks to Ramirez’s late goal, this motley collection of players gave their team an unexpected point on top of stealing two from a Western Conference rival. That’s mission accomplished 75% of the time in any book. Having a style of play helps, basically, and it should get turbo-charged as injured Galaxy players like Joseph Paintsil returns – or, against time and tides, Marco Reus somehow gets as whole as an aging soccer player can.

Bottom line: How much I struggled to name how things actually get better for the Galaxy absent the return of Riqui Puig and (don’t think this is possible, but) new signings says something about how rocky their road through 2025 looks. Hell, yes, a win would have made me feel better, but nothing gets around the brute fact that Portland blew yet another solid opportunity to pick up points at home. Yeah, the Timbers have players missing. So does fucking LA. And that’s why that excuse wears thinner every time I hear it.

Feeling saucy and a little bitter, which will probably come through some more in the…

Talking Points
In the order they popped into my head:

LITERALLY, anyone!?

1) Hello! (Hello!) Echo! Echo!
The Timbers have almost no goddamn presence in the middle of the field, something I’ve seen over and over without recognizing it for the liability that it is. They only play into as it last resort and rarely get through it when they do; the days of Diego Chara making that his own personal kingdom are at least two seasons in the past and I haven’t seen much in the way of attempts to rebuild that structure. Some of that follows from personnel – see below – but at least some of it follows from abandoning the project. When the Timbers build out of the back, both Chara and David Ayala sit deep and mill about in way that suggest that only expect to receive the ball in the most desperate (yet somehow still frequent) circumstances. When the ball gets past them up the flanks, they rarely push higher to offer options inside and generally only get up there once Portland has the opposition pinned into their own end. In fairness, I think I’ve seen this a lot and hereby commit to looking harder for it going forward.

1a) A Defense of Joao Ortiz
Given how much people bitch about Phil Neville – and, to be clear, the same conversation goes on my own head – the fact that no one has attributed Ortiz’s failure to adjust to Neville’s (alleged*) shitty coaching surprises me a little. I suspect the argument in the above paragraph got me thinking about it. I mean, what if he’s trying to follow Phil’s game-plan all while thinking, “what the fuck is this dude even doing,” only the Spanish version of that.

* I'm pretty much on Neville is a bad coach until he proves me wrong. Which feels like a primary talking point, but for that major qualifier.  

1b) Is Portland Wasting Cristhian Paredes
Part of this follows from a fire-ants-in-my-pants mania to move on from Chara, but I genuinely feel like it’s time to give him real minutes, maybe even adjust the team to his style of play (perhaps even as a straight-up No. 6), to see what comes of it.

2) Midfield Obsession, Part Deux: Defensive Woes
As with the observation above (see No. 1), I saw the Timbers midfield players compact against Portland back four to the extent that fewer than six yards separated one line from the other. First, what the fuck even is that? Second, have I been watching that same thing happen over and over, only without fully registering that collapsed shape? When that happened (or happens), it ceded all that space to the Galaxy for passing and probing. It didn’t do a ton of good last Sunday, hence that pin-point hoofer over the top, but, even as few things beat two banks of four for demoralizing and attack and/or sucking the life out of a game and treating everyone watching as collateral damage, a defensive shape should have some depth to it, if only to keep the other team from setting up a shooting gallery. The only thing a flattened gives an offense is a strong reason to run at and/or throughout.

2b) The Worst of Both Worlds
Then again, if you start watching the highlights around the 4:05 mark, you’ll see Lepley receive a pass, tee up and force a save out of Pantemis with Ayala and Chara too late in the rotations and the “3” in Portland’s 4-2-3-1 (Antony, Da Costa and Moreno, at that point) too high to help cover. Hence the title for this sub-talking point.

3) Still No Heir Apparent
Finn Surman was not the worst defender for the Timbers. I heard chatter during the broadcast that suggested Neville has committed to giving him starting minutes and the grace to make mistakes as he levels up. I’m not against that, but the thing I have yet to see from Surman the defining eye-test for the great defenders: rarely seen, but preening like a bird of paradise every time you do.

4) Written Out of the Will
I have never been neither hater nor stan when it comes to Kamal Miller…until tonight. I’ve moved on to hater, if without the overt hostility (it’s about the team, Kamal!), and it’s more of an accumulation foul than anything I saw on Sunday. Kamal has his defenders, eloquent ones too, perhaps because of their rarity, people who have dug harder and found shit I don’t even look for, and I don’t doubt they’re presenting me with good, well-sourced data. I also have my eyes and…he’s just commits all the sins defenders cannot: bad decisions, clumsy challenges, late reads, etc.

4a) Zac’s Codicil
Is McGraw in the same spot? On any other team, he would be. On a Timbers team with too few safe options…gods know.

Right. That’s it for this one. I’ll get a Scouting Report posted on the Colorado Rapids later this week. Till then…