Portland Timbers 1-0 Sporting Kansas City: A Result

Taking miracles, in whatever form.

I’m weighing the game I wanted, maybe even expected, against the game that I got. That’s not taking me to dark places, exactly, and for reasons I’ll lay out, or perhaps just accept, below.

Conflicted feels like the right adjective for my thoughts on the Portland Timbers' 1-0 win over – to start picking at it – (still) 12th-place Sporting Kansas City, and yet it doesn’t. With that, let’s pop this zit.

About the Game
Control of the game, so long as you use the word loosely, slipped away from the Timbers at some point in this game. The question is when – and, to be clear, only when. Despite my headful of quibbles with this or that detail or player, the thought of Portland losing never crossed my mind. Pissing away two points, on the other hand, never left the table. Even that thought leaves things to unpack.

I saw three phases in the game, each bleeding into the next. With David Da Costa (typed that as David Dad Costa, kinda liked that) and Santiago Moreno buzzing under Felipe Mora, the Timbers got off to a good start. Antony produced the first big moment for either team with a diagonal run across the box and it came after a build up that felt sustainable. Portland put all of the same things together, and more, in the build-up to the, to call it by its full name, Brilliant and Only Goal of the game at the 10th minute: they worked the ball in, they pushed it up the left, moved it right, switched it back to the left, pushing SKC back the entire time; after, oh, 15-20 passes, it took a buffet of luck, timing and inspiration for Da Costa and Moreno (respectively) to score the winner and, by that, all three points, I hereby give thanks. Thus endeth Phase 1.

You know that moment in a track-‘n’-field relay, when the runner of the next leg gets up to speed in front of the runner from the previous one to build up momentum for the handoff? That was the change between Phase 1 and Phase 2. Sporting KC started finding direct passes through Portland’s lines around the same time the space for Da Costa and Moreno dried up. Their best chance(s) – perhaps for the entire game – came at the beginning of that phase in the form of three shots on Maxime Crepeau’s goal, most by Daniel Salloi, around the 15th minute. Crepeau made those saves and more, if without the confidence I like seeing from a ‘keeper (another came around the 61st minute, see the full highlights), but that didn’t chip away at my confidence in the result as the low-key siege SKC mounted against the Timbers defense for the remainder of Phase 2. Which brings this post to the most complicated part of the game, though not yet to Phase 3.

Despite the vibe shift brought on by Phase 2, Portland had two gold-plated chances to win this game, both patented by the U.S. mint and backed by the full faith and credit of the United States Treasury, an investment opportunity of a lifetime for any patriot. The first fell to Moreno, this time off a gambler’s tackle by Claudio Bravo that sent him flying up SKC’s right; Bravo’s early cross found him wide open, with about two-thirds of the goal to shoot at and John Pulskamp at least one-third exposed, only for Moreno to fire the ball into Pulskamp’s pouting midriff. The “full” highlights didn’t (or have yet to) include, but Mora spurned the Timbers’ next, best gift somewhere around the54th minute when he opted to elaborate in a moment that called for instinct. To anyone who wants to argue the Timbers could have won this 3-0, I don’t disagree.

Spurn the miracle, miss the incredible value.

On the whole, however, Phase 2 saw Sporting KC play into Portland’s defensive midfield, with the receiving player having space and time to turn to push against the last line of defense. This happened over and over and I kept waiting for the fatal slip from any Timber not named Finn Surman (great clean-up work tonight, Kiwi Kid)…but the fatal slip never came and that brings the game to Phase 3. When Phil Neville subbed on Kevin Kelsy and Cristhian Paredes at the 68th minute, it didn’t track as the first step to embracing the 1-0 lead and killing off the game, but Paredes stayed lower than David Ayala had more most of the game and Kelsy spent most of his time chasing lost causes and, to be blunt, fouling. Still, the change worked well enough to see SKC’s chance of even drawing the game dry up. The Timbers capped (maybe even crowned) Phase 3 when Omir Fernandez came onto the field and played game-killing defense, crucially, inside Kansas City’s half. Once Eric Miller came on (86th minute to Fernandez’s 78th, btw), Portland felt good enough about not losing the game to try to win it on the cheap.

Bottom line, I didn’t get the free-flowing, opposition-annihilating victory I’d scripted in my head for this game, the redemption I wanted, maybe even needed, after that shaky and dazed loss in San Jose. What I got instead was…relatively canny game-management that would have felt more satisfying in most settings that weren’t a home game against, again, the 12th-place team in the West.

An Aside on Sporting KC
Circumstances have compelled me to watch this team far more often than I would have otherwise, enough to say I’m comfortable saying they have improved, even since Portland beat them 4-2 in KC. If one pulls Moreno’s bike out of the equation like the God-given miracle it was, I’d give Man of the Match to Nemanja Radoja; he started game-opening counters in all kinds of ways throughout the game, whether spinning out of pressure with a Timber on his back or just coming back to the find the ball and get it going. Andrew Brody unsettled Portland’s left more than once and Manu Garcia had a shot at an equalizer that was at least one-half as open as the chance Pulskamp saved on Moreno. Jansen Miller had his struggles, but continues to improve as a very young starting CB (playing against Mora probably taught him a thing or two). If I had to point to one weakness, it was Jacob Davis’ wasteful spazzing after he came on as a sub at the half. By game’s end, he gave away the ball like a drunk throwing Mardi Gras beads and, not to shit on the kid, but he did his share to undercut SKC's chances at a comeback. That said, that failure doesn’t hold a candle to the larger fact that this loss kicks another dent into SKC’s chances of doing a damn thing in 2025 – see the 3-8-1 record and the West’s second worst defense (if behind an LA team running away with it) – but they are rounding into a team that, 1) could round into the lowest-hanging playoff/play-in places and 2) really fuck up your local team’s (mostly) Saturday afternoons. If I had to flag their biggest area of concern, yeah, I’d go back to the fact they never looked like winning this game, even with a reasonable shout at being the better one on the day.

Stray Comments on the Timbers
1) The Game in a Player
If Man of the Match was decided by its game-state avatar, Claudio Bravo would take the prize running away. After a first half that saw him make several smart, decisive defensive interventions and one but-for-Moreno’s-miss flawless assist, Bravo became an over-eager, gaffe-plagued left back who gave up dumb fouls and drifted behind the play up his side repeatedly. No harm, no foul, of course, but his slow fade tracked with the broader collapse like it was scripted as a symbol.

2) Ortiz
I see him continually improving and rate his speed as game-saving when he gets the right read on a play, but would argue he has work today on where he’s placing his passes – i.e., he goes behind on the possession plays in particular. At some moment late in the second half, I got to thinking about how much he could complement Ayala in terms of spurring Portland’s attack forward, but I can’t do anything more than put a pin in that, at least for now. After some picking, thinking and theorizing, I’ve arrived at a place where I wonder what his best game and/or space in the shape looks like and I’m torn between thinking Neville et al haven’t found it yet and thinking Timbers fans may have already seen it. The one thing I know for sure is that I want to see him continue to start.

3) A Tip of the Hat
I’ve already alluded to this, but I want to make the point crystal clear: regardless of the opposition, I thought Neville nailed both timing and personnel with his subs tonight. And that really is encouraging.

3a) A Question about One of Them
I was genuinely stunned when I saw Paredes come on and Ortiz stay on. My instincts and biases point to Ayala as the whistle-to-whistle midfielder…but I can’t say I hated the choice. Or that I liked it.

That’s it for this one. For what it’s worth, I’ve filed away everything about this…let’s go with useful result, so that I may use it to measure what happens over the next three games (@ RSL, v SEA, @ ORL). What Portland gets for points out of those three will go a long way to cementing my feelings about this win. Till then, if with a little in between.