Portland Timbers 3-1 Houston Dynamo FC: Goal, Assist, Yellow Card

Closest I could get given the search...

A referee has to fuck up a lot to get a nod in any post I put up, res ipso loquitur, etc.. Also, congrats to the handful of people outside the greater Portland and Houston metro areas who saw the Timbers v the Dynamo and thought, “yeah, I guess I don’t have anything better tonight” because that was a pretty fun game to watch. Right? That was fun, right? What, you’re too big for salt water taffy now? Okay, big shot. Fine. (No, I’m not. You're the one going through separation anxiety!)

The point is, the game wasn’t boring, predictions of an incompetent Portland attack slap-fighting a dour Houston defense that barely noticed them held their own sad disco in my head as opposed to crossing over into and ruining the real world. I got a couple things wrong in my Scouting Report on Houston and I couldn’t be happier about it. Time to pick through the guts!

About the Game
The Portland Timbers got off to an electric start on their way to a 3-1 home win that looked like it could have ended 5-1 before the halftime whistle. After a ball squirted forward out of a tackle on Antony (probably) Jimer Fory broke down Houston’s right with everyone in orange furiously back-pedaling in time; his cross to Santiago Moreno actually found Daniel Steres first, but, per one of several themes that repeated/rhymed across the first half, he poked his clearance to Moreno, who fed Felipe Mora, who (probably) announced his wife was pregnant (everyone seemed happier than usual) after scoring Portland’s first goal. I know I wasn’t the only Timbers fan with dreams of jelly drops and a blow-out win dancing in my head over the next (literally) six minutes because Houston handed Portland at least two more tantalizing transition opportunities between the opener and Houston’s equalizer. There’s not much to say about the latter than why is Fory (barely) defending two players and great cross by Jack McGlynn (which means I got some things right in the Scouting Report), but it didn’t take long for the game to revert back to the Dynamo panicking and Portland taking advantage. Once Antony started and finished his run up the right for the Timbers’ second goal – tied together by an inch-perfect pass by Mora – it felt like the only question left to ask was how many more Portland could score. As it happens, the answer to that question was one. The Timbers scored just one more goal between the halftime whistle and the one that called the game – it involved the same players too, Mora and Antony – and that made for a gently nervous start to the second half. Assuming I’m not mashing them into some kind of omni-clip, I counted at least four times over the second half where Houston meticulously played the ball to the edge of Portland’s 18, and even got their toe in it, before the last, desperate shot went wide or smacked into Kamal Miller, Fory, of (most likely) Finn Surman. Houston head coach, Ben Olsen, added Erik Sviatchenko at the beginning of the second half, prompting the first of several “wait, why not start him?” questions, and that got the Dynamo’s feet under them for almost 25…vaguely menacing minutes. If I oversold Houston’s competence in the Scouting Report (I did), this was the place: this team works the ball up the field as well as any team in MLS – particularly when they heed Olsen’s pleas for “CALM” – but the end-result amounts to driving a freshly-paved highway that dead-ends into some Houston neighborhood built off-code and well beneath a flood-plain. A result can be lost in one bad moment – I get it – and, by the same token, any of Houston’s long progressive possessions could have ended with a second equalizer. Back in the real world, they didn't. Moreover, at least eight of them ended with four to five Timbers running at three to four Houston players prioritizing getting back to their own goal, by necessity, because the onslaught didn’t give them the luxury of setting up the optimal match ups. Carrying the point forward…

An Aside on Houston Dynamo FC
What’s the right phrase? Bad as they are incomplete? Starving on their best moments? With an absolute minimum of disrespect to the players not named in the following, I feel sorry for players like Artur, McGlynn, Griffin Dorsey, Franco Escobar and, what the heck, maybe even Ezequiel Ponce. Houston blew up their staring XI after 2024 (hit this link, then scroll down), but never got around to replacing Hector Herrera, Coco Carrasquilla, Micael, or even Jan Gregus. They lost something all over the field, including an assumption about how they play, in other words, and have committed to making do until the right deals come in. That hasn’t helped them in 2025, so far, and it left them for dead at Portland. Olsen has started Steres at left back twice this season, and it bordered on an act of hostility against the player both times. Things aren’t much better close to goal: neither Amin Bassi nor Sebastian Kowalczyk have the tools to advance the ball absent the grand, multi-part dance that, so far, looks like Houston’s only way to get the ball within a sniff of the opposition’s goal. That disconnects Ponce from the players behind him and strands him as a (largely) solitary target for anything Dorsey and Escobar can hoist into the area. And that gets me looping back to something hinted at above, i.e., the players Ben Olsen left on the bench versus the ones he started. If Sviatchenko can’t go 90 minutes, I get holding him until the second half, but Junior Urso will give you at least twice as much energy as Lodeiro and with two-thirds of the skill, and that’s at a minimum; how can he not start Ibrahim Aliyu over either Bassi or Kowalczyk, even if just to change the “two small dudes operating behind” dynamic. Aliyu can at least stretch the field and would (or should) give Houston a little more body to throw forward so…why start Bassi and Kowalczyk, who matched my expectations?

Bottom line, I’m delighted with the…broad comfort of win, even as I’m already baking Houston’s many, overlapping issues into the equation. More important than any detail, the Timbers had to win this game and they did. And, for anyone who hasn’t noticed, they’re in a good spot for the end of March.

Right, I don’t have a lot and they won’t take long, so let’s get into…

Talking Points
1) No, Seriously, Don’t Read a Lot Into This One
When it comes to rating the meaning of any given result, the only factor the rates above the state of the opposition for me is their fundamental quality. While it is good and right for the Timbers to win this game – I mean, line up, because four other teams have done it – Portland fans should not lose sight of the fact that the only thing Houston has on most USL teams right now are a few players they can’t afford.

A legend among a league of legends.

2) Happy (Not Your) Birthday, Felipe!
I was thrilled to see Mora tear it up tonight, involved in every goal, etc. Here’s to hoping tonight counted as his official 2025 re-launch. For anyone puzzling over the subtitle, that came from the broadcast booth. It felt like them handing Mora his EGOT in the moment.

3) More Than Faith, I Have Belief
For all his fine moment, and his fancy ones, David Da Costa didn’t play a starring role in tonight’s win. Those honors fell to Mora, Antony and a couple players to be named later, but I’m still on sitting on the David Da Costa Express, waiting for that fucker to ROLL INTO A BRIGHTER FUTURE, BABY!! Ahem. To sharpen the thesis proposed in last week’s post, Da Costa looks like a guy who wants to combine, cursed to operate in a system designed to open space – i.e., he wants players to run off him, as opposed to running away from him. That’s glib, sure, but I think Portland has multiple players who can operate off a playmaker – or, if you prefer, a “playmaker” – that wants to feed them the pass before the pass that scores the goal. 

3a) Would Da Costa Thrive Under Ben Olsen?
Inquiring minds want to know…

4) Some Serious Shit on Our Hands…
Surman looks really fucking good as a center back at age 21. That is all.

5) Yes, the Ref Sucked
Even if I think he missed a certain kind of foul – e.g., the hard, blatant shove in the back – more than he looked past others, Pierre-Luc Lauziere called a crap game and with what could only be interpreted as animus against the Timbers…or a kink for getting booed by the home team. Naughty little minion…

Here’s to hoping all the above makes some kind of sense. If you’re reading any kind of reservation into the above, please don’t. Portland did the job tonight and, if I’ve learned anything from…so many years of following professional sports, it’s to take the games as they come and one at a time. This was a good win, can I get a huzzah?!