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| Jon Payne is the only one-armed bandit you should run towards. |
That subtitle quotes Brian Dunseth from the broadcast booth, and fairly late in the game. It is a clunky masterpiece. Due to the editing on the condensed game, it came context-free, but I can only assume he’s crediting Portland for superior finishing. If so, I don’t think he got it quite right, because things got weirder than that.
Diego Valeri’s game-winning goal contains within itself the sheer improbability of the Portland Timbers' 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake down in sunny Sandy, Utah. The wicked beauty of the shot notwithstanding, Diego had to slice that between two sets of legs, each oriented along a different axis, to knock that past Andrew “Who?” Putna. The Timbers did plenty of things right yesterday evening, but there’s not much point avoiding how much good fortune gave an assist on both Timbers goals. When you’re blessed, you’re blessed. What are you gonna do?
With the way it warped physics, Valeri’s goal rendered an unspoken final judgment on the game, one that lingered in the air after Steve Clark’s save on Albert Rusnak’s (deserved) 23rd-minute penalty kick. It said, no, Real Salt Lake will not win this game. Not for anything they have done wrong – though they certainly had (see below) – and not for anything they would do wrong after Valeri's shot rolled around inside the net, but, in that precise moment, it became manifest where the good Lord chose to shine his favor. The result feels a little Calvinistic, predestination meets soccer, and so on, but there's that old saying about God and mysterious ways.
Diego Valeri’s game-winning goal contains within itself the sheer improbability of the Portland Timbers' 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake down in sunny Sandy, Utah. The wicked beauty of the shot notwithstanding, Diego had to slice that between two sets of legs, each oriented along a different axis, to knock that past Andrew “Who?” Putna. The Timbers did plenty of things right yesterday evening, but there’s not much point avoiding how much good fortune gave an assist on both Timbers goals. When you’re blessed, you’re blessed. What are you gonna do?
With the way it warped physics, Valeri’s goal rendered an unspoken final judgment on the game, one that lingered in the air after Steve Clark’s save on Albert Rusnak’s (deserved) 23rd-minute penalty kick. It said, no, Real Salt Lake will not win this game. Not for anything they have done wrong – though they certainly had (see below) – and not for anything they would do wrong after Valeri's shot rolled around inside the net, but, in that precise moment, it became manifest where the good Lord chose to shine his favor. The result feels a little Calvinistic, predestination meets soccer, and so on, but there's that old saying about God and mysterious ways.
To turn now to the “works” part of the “faith v. works” argument, Portland didn’t do much to earn the win. For too much of the game, they played as if they could only complete a pass if the ball hit an RSL player on the way to the next Timber. Sloppy doesn’t begin describe it – “a fucking mess” comes closer – but, in the end, their sins against the sport end there. When called upon to defend, the Timbers back four either defended well (Bill Tuiloma, especially, put in a strong emergency shift; e.g., “Tuiloma, right place” at the end of this clip) or well enough to convince RSL that their best chances could come from range. To borrow/adapt a phrase from my earlier post on FC Cincinnati’s loss (hurt), while I can’t call this a good game for Portland, I can call it a good result, maybe even a great one. In a lot of ways, the Timbers are running out of ways to fuck up this long road trip.
