St. Louis CITY FC 2-1 Portland Timbers: Paging General Buck Turgidson

Didn't get the joke in this character's name till I saw it spelled.

So, St. Louis CITY FC was about two times better, by some raw numbers? I figured they had a firm grip on the edge, but there go the judges handing them the decision...

St. Louis CITY FC 2-1 Portland Timbers
About the Game
The Timbers scored the first goal for the second match day in a row and by a cleaner strike from the same player – David Da Costa - within a mere foot or three of where he scored last week’s winner. Santiago Moreno played the (surprisingly easy) ball that slipped Da Costa behind St. Louis’ midfield, thereby challenging the defenders to do anything but back up. They backed off, allowing Da Costa to squeeze his shot through a tangle of legs not much bigger than a mousehole – and good for him!

Portland’s goal came more than a little against the run of play, even with St. Louis failing to mine many chances out of their possession and general upper-handedness. That also typified what passed for the game-state of the first half – i.e., the Timbers met St. Louis’ overall attacking prowess at a 1:3 of raw, undistinguished shots, while making something dangerous out of their best moments (e.g., that slick overlap between Da Costa and Jimer Fory that squeezed some sweat out of Roman Burki; per the full highlights, Da Costa woulda done better to pull back to Kelsy instead of shooting). Portland carried a 1-0 advantage into the halftime locker room…but the numbers were against them even then and that was the last happy memory I have.

Credit for the decisive moment goes to St. Louis’ Tomas Ostrak, who climbed his way up the spine of midfield, one vertebrae at a time, shaking off Timbers defenders on two of them, before forcing the ball forward to where Marcel Hartel (still a funny name) roofed it into Maxime Crepeau’s goal. That moment pinned the tail into the competitive heart of the game: whether Portland could keep finding their slashing paths to chances on St. Louis’ goal versus the weight of St. Louis’ attacking and counter-pressing pressure.

Just 13 minutes passed before St. Louis scored the winner. Despite the timing and the relief St. Louis fans surely feel about his return, I’m going to resist nodding too hard toward Eduard Lowen’s introduction as a second game-changing moment. He fired a fine freekick, but the ball took a damn journey from Crepeau’s near-(75%?) save to Conrad Wallem for the cross that found Marcel Hartel the Shell for today's lucky winner (hello, you're the third caller!). Moreover, it took two Timbers to help it past Crepeau – Juan David Mosquera for not seeing/sensing Hartel lurking at his seven o’clock and Kevin Kelsy’s arm(?) for (further) flustering Crepeau. And there went the Timbers' margin...

I’ve decided to kick the aside on the opposition to the end for continuity’s sake and that’s all I have on the game besides the slurry of doubt and disappointment sloshing around my skull. I’m not too bothered about some lost theoretical momentum*, mostly on the grounds that I wasn’t sold on the argument that the Timbers had momentum. I’ll get to that way toward the bottom of the Strays because a couple other themes and through-lines strike me as bigger issues.

Still...come at me, you itchy motherfucker.

Some Strays on the Timbers
1) Closing the Intensity Gap
The Timbers lost to St. Louis today because St. Louis wanted it more. In a better world, that would have improved on the loss at Toronto when Portland played like they didn’t want it at all; viewed from my living room (and once from the stands), the Timbers collective tendency to shut off feels like a pattern that may or may not reach back to the middle of May (i.e., the goal-less draw at RSL, which, if I’m being honest I don’t remember). It definitely goes back to the slow starts versus Colorado and St. Louis. Portland recovered both results, sure, and they ultimately bagged the (semi-fortunate) winner versus the Revs, but the strongest argument I can make against any theory of momentum (*which, it now occurs to me, is a strawman exhumed from a skeet making the hopeful argument that maybe a result in this game would provide said momentum) turns on one question: how confident has Portland looked in any game since mid-May? Answer that how you will, but I know my answer.

2) Peek-a-Boo Playmakers?
I feel confident stating that Da Costa comes into and fades out of games – like in a way that makes it hard to think of him as a pure “play-maker,” never mind a No. 10 (which, again, only matters in the context of who he was (allegedly) replacing). Moreno comes out of a similar mold. Yeah, yeah, all playmakers do that to varying degrees but both Moreno’s and Da Costa’s absences last for a half or more at a time. For all of both players’ upsides – e.g., I have a specific note celebrating Moreno’s grunt work in kick-starting transition and his willingness to ride a challenge into his back and then turn around to face up field – their moments of greatness still feel more like delightful surprises than them meeting justly high expectations. I air that less as a complaint than simply accepting reality. Moreover, I suspect that playing them under Kelsy (or Felipe Mora, who I'm warming to again) gives the Timbers their best path to regular play-making. Related, and I say that believing Da Costa’s first half was as good as any he’s had in all of 2025. Very busy…

And yet, 1 + 2 = a pretty good argument that the Timbers won’t get that far without raising the collective intensity to make up for their shortcomings as a well-oiled machine with key player or two at the steering wheel.

related…

3) A Midfield Triumvirate?
On the theory that they look at their best (to me) when they do this, I’d like to see Phil move toward a game-plan that keeps Moreno, Da Costa and David Ayala as close together as they can be without leaving gulf-sized channels between them and the wide players. They’re at their best, collectively, when they can play and move off one another. This one’s preliminary, but also raises a question.

4) How Much Ground Can Ortiz Cover and How Well?
First, there are days – like today – where I wonder about the (perhaps) untapped intensity purring beneath Joao Ortiz’s hood. Second, I’ve seen real improvement in the guy, but still note that he’s a ponderous player in every sense of the word – touches, tackles, choices. He won't be totally abandoned, because the give and take of runs, passes and generally interchanging should leave someone around about Ortiz as the play moves forward, even in the event of a turnover – particularly with how the Timbers get vertical (at their best). Still, making No. 3 come off would drop a lot in Ortiz’s lap for defensive responsibilities.

5) Gage Guerra over Mora? Really?

Still processing, but open to an argument? Maybe? More than anything else, I'm not sure the main problem comes from the player leading the line.   

Before closing out…

An Aside on St. Louis
While I wouldn’t bet much on it, I don’t see this team making the playoffs. I’m also not sure about how many teams they’ll trip up as summer turns to autumn, not even after what they did to Portland. I’ll close that thought down below, but I did come away genuinely impressed by Ostrak, Wallem and St. Louis’ collective willingness to keep trying to fight their way out of the basement. I didn’t fully appreciate how much they played through Hartel and Cedric Teuchert till today – and suspect that’ll change and improve if, and to the extent, Lowen comes all the way back. St. Louis isn’t much slicker than Portland without the latter, but I did see unnoted upsides here and there in things outside fighting spirit – e.g., Josh Yaro plays a pretty good/smart ball out of the back. Fortunately, any leveling up St. Louis does is a problem for every other team in the West because Portland doesn’t play them again. Here’s to hoping they do the Timbers a solid and kick some points out of the direct competition.

If anything about today’s loss weighs on me, it’s a growing impression that teams can build a game-plan around pushing Portland around. Increasingly concerned about The Intensity Gap, basically…

I won’t have time for Scouting Reports for Portland’s next game (or Cincinnati’s for that matter), but I will say this: I just looked at Portland’s schedule from today until the end of the season. Getting all three points from Wednesday = a big goddamn deal – especially with Portland slipping to fifth place. Till the next one…

...oh, and I should say this more often: feel free to kick in talking points of your own in the comments. I'll post any comment that isn't hawking crypto and doesn't come in too flaming-asshole.