Portland Timbers 1-1 San Jose Earthquakes: A Tale of Wild Cards & Cliches

Killing himself. Wild, right?

For those who missed it, Preston Judd had a big game in the San Jose Earthquakes’ 3-3 draw versus Houston Dynamo FC. Two weeks after that opportunist’s brace, he teed up the winner in San Jose’s win at the till-then utterly hapless Los Angeles Galaxy.

Judd scored the late equalizer in San Jose’s 1-1 draw at the Portland Timbers, of course, but guess who fired the shot that led to the rebound he put back? Ousseni Bouda. Now guess who Judd set up for the winner against the Galaxy? Yep, Bouda.

When prepping to face the ‘Quakes, any sane coach would key on The Cristians (Espinoza and Arango) and Josef Martinez. Martinez didn’t suit up yesterday, something I think was known, but who knows? The larger point is, who builds a game-plan around stopping Ousseni Bouda and Preston-fucking-Judd?

Still, what is a wild card except an old-school cheat code? And yet…is that what really happened?

About the Game
I only half-watch games when I see them live (to anyone wondering why I don’t go to many of them), so I just sat down to re-watch the second half. Even that confirmed a handful of loose perceptions I had from the first half – e.g., the Timbers performed soccer well enough, but the ‘Quakes always looked that little bit more incisive, Dave Romney won every 1-v-1 against Santiago Moreno and basically took him out of the game, etc. Still, and despite what was scored as Portland’s 0.55 xG versus San Jose’s 1.09 at the half, the Timbers played well enough to make me think they would hold it together and had a punter’s chance of figuring it out before the final whistle. Full disclosure, I missed Ian Harkes’ second yellow card – of which, funny! (i.e., his foul on Diego Chara was soft, without being wholly, laughably unreasonable) – plus a couple early shots (which, if The Mothership means to earn its keep, should be in the full highlights). As for the +/- 15 minutes after Harkes’ 52nd -minute sending off? Yeah, caught all of that. Soccer has at least a half dozen cliches and, as just demonstrated by San Jose, a team playing like 12 men after going down to 10 is very much one of them.

Somewhere around the 68th minute, the Timbers shook out of their shell and (finally) started to press their advantage. That weight of that 3+ minutes’ worth of pressure ended with Juan David Mosquera capping a yet another aimless spell of possession with an unlikely give-and-go into and behind San Jose’s defense with Felipe Mora for the go-ahead goal. That move came off, by some goddamn miracle and, based on the past few weeks…does anyone else feel like the Timbers coaching staff see that hogpile of complicated coincidence happenstance as the game plan?

To tighten up all of the above, seeing the Timbers pull it together and overcome a sluggish start felt good until it didn’t. If I had to explain this game to someone in words, I’d call it the game that every anxious Timbers fan worried would happen. Maybe that labored goal holds up in a game where your local team can’t stop giving up chances, but this one ended with a Preston fucking Judd equalizer. That’s two points dropped, both on the evening and in the big picture. Sigh…

Never fully cracked the zeitgeist, this one...

An Aside on San Jose
The ‘Quakes, now 8th in the West, present as a dangerous team. Martinez, Espinoza and Arango – who you realize is a fucking tank when you see him live – get the headlines, and rightly so because they’re hitting their marks, but the secondary production San Jose gets from players like Judd, Bouda and even a new rando like Beau Leroux explains how they stay there. What with their goals against numbers chasing them like a psycho killer, most signs point to San Jose going as far as their scoring takes them in 2025. When I look at their last three lineup – at LA, at St. Louis and at Portland – I see a roster that needs to play half out of its skin just to hang at the low side of competitive on the aggregate. That profile could be enough to get them into the 2025 MLS playoffs, but, at time of writing, it’s the verve of their attack that could carry them through at least one game, maybe even a series. The main place where they deserve credit is the most San Jose Earthquakes thing possible: they never stopped believing they could first win, then later equalize the game. One specific thing I saw last night that struck me as a promising approach: I wouldn’t call San Jose’s defensive set up a press, so much as I’d call it smothering the player who receives each pass – i.e., a choice that says “forget the passer, kill the pass.”

That’s it for the game and the opposition. Let’s close this guy out with…

A theory of Portland's attack, via Pioneer Square.

A Few More Strays re the Timbers
1) The Shortcomings of Portland’s Attack, in Two Moments & One Condition
A couple minutes after Kevin Kelsy came on for Chara, David Ayala split a seam at the top of San Jose’s defensive third and found Jimer Fory in open acres on the left. When (think it was) DeJuan Jones stepped out to stand him up, Fory stood on the ball in a prelude to an attempt to beat him, a choice that froze everything. Fory had (I think) David Da Costa wide open in support and at least as half of much space; taking that option would have further isolated that defender – i.e., does he stick with Fory (particularly if he starts moving), or step to (probably) Da Costa) – not to mention, open up the option of playing back across the field. The Timbers don't always make the most of the latter option, but the above scenario points to what Fory lost by lingering on the ball regardless. Later in the game – this was around the 85th minute – Da Costa (pretty confident this time) was running with the ball behind the left of the ‘Quakes midfield with three Timbers attackers to the(ir) right of him; all three players made straight vertical runs, all with eyes on Da Costa and nothing else throughout the failed movement. While that fit a model of attacking play – e.g., the one with one runner going near-post, one going far-post, one running up the middle – not one Timber made a run to pull a defender out of his comfort zone. It was all super-linear and beyond obvious.

This goes back to the possibility/argument that the Timbers’ Plan A in the attack is “load the area and express yourself.” It all gets pretty limited when the range of expression stalls out at “run toward their goal.” Related…

2) I’m Officially Obsessed with David Da Costa
To paraphrase the not-ready-for-prime-time vice president this country was fated to embrace, the more I watch Da Costa, the more I wonder, who am I? Why am I here? As much as it pains me, I’m inching toward the possibility that Portland signed not just a very expensive No. 8, but one that doesn’t have a cannon of a shot and who can’t play a killer pass.

3) Omir (does not) = Antony
Antony limped off with what looked like a gooned hamstring at the 50th minute – which sucks – and that called Omir Fernandez onto the field and, crucially, asked him to play Antony’s role in the attack. Based on last night and what I’ve seen from his seven seasons in MLS, Fernandez can’t do that – he’s better centrally and scrapping – that suggests to me one place where Portland could shop for some near-term firepower with the two DP spots burning a hole in their pocket.

4) Closing on a High Note
Ayala has mastered coming back to cover a pullback-pass from a player who gets behind the Timbers back line. That’s a little victory, but a victory just the same.

That’s it for this one. Again, this was a game the Timbers should have won and at least two levels (e.g., playing a home and with a man-advantage for 40+ minutes). I’d be less disturbed by the fact they failed to if it didn’t match a similar pattern from previous games. Still, I’ll only start sweating this if it carries forward too far. How far is too far? Hard to say. Every team that doesn’t win the Shield switches off at some point during MLS’s interminable regular season. I’d go so far as to call the latter inevitable and the former a perennial variety of freaks. It’s how long the switch off lasts you have to worry about.