Austin FC Scouting Report: Looking at a Mountain, Walking Up a Hill?

Keep climbing! It gets easier! (Plus extra points!)

All the games are big for the Timbers at this point. It’s weirdly invigorating, honestly, all this living on the edge of failure...but let’s talk about the opposition, Austin FC, staring with:

The Basics
6-4-5, 23 pts., 20 gf, 18 ga (+2); home 5-1-2, away 1-3-3, 5th West, 10th overall
Last 10:    WWLWWTLWWT
Venue:      AHHAAHAHHA

My GOD, I love data! For instance, if you just had Austin’s record, you’d see that 6-2-2 over their past 10 games and have every reason to brace for a hiding. If you poked around, say, the Form Guide, you’d see that Austin only loss at home came all the way back at MLS Week 1 (versus Minnesota – and who hasn’t done that this season?), that the two draws came shortly thereafter, and that’s been nothing but Ws since.

If you look a little longer, say, walk through the teams Austin have beat at home – in order, FC Dallas, San Jose, the Galaxy, Houston, then Sporting KC – or that the 15 goals for and 10 goals against over the past 10 games tighten to just six goals for and five goals over the past five games, you'd start to wonder. They still went 2-2-1 over that five-game stretch, sturdy, sure, but the hill to climb shrinks a little every time you look at it. Next thing you know you’re seeing stats pop up in broadcast – e.g., the Head to Head going into the win over Houston that showed Austin’s xG differential at -8.6. I don’t want to oversell that narrative – not least because Portland’s checks all the boxes for being the next team to stumble into Q2 Stadium (aka, Austin’s home ground) and face-plant on the field. And that 1-5-2 road record only makes you wonder just  how hard their face will hit it.

But for that horse-fly in the ointment, this one looks wide-open. With that, let’s get back to Austin.

The Team
All-time head coach/impressive-chin possessor, Josh Wolff, does not deviate from the 4-2-3-1, and Brad Stuver always starts in goal (you’ll hear “STUUUV” every time he makes a save). Moreover, Wolff sticks with most of the same players, which include:

San Jose Earthquakes 1-6 Portland Timbers: Margaritas and Grains of Salt

They work best together, yes?

A lot of teams come out with “high energy” - i.e., a plan to overwhelm the opposition with bodies and velocity - and one can weigh the question of how well it worked on any given night in minutes and momentum. The Portland Timbers announced their intentions tonight by letting every San Jose Earthquake player within checking distance know they showed up tonight; every ball was challenged, especially in the first 5 minutes or so.

It’s where things go after that shapes a game. A(n, as it turns out, 20 minute-)wilderness stretched between that 5th-minute domination and Portland’s first goal, which was scored via penalty by Living, Playing MLS-Legend Diego Valeri. The crucial detail comes with how that penalty kick came to be and why it presented as almost absurdly replicable template for the ultimately six-goal rout that the Timbers dropped on San Jose tonight. Yes, all right, I may be over-drawing the lines of the argument, but I also know and aver that my very own eyes saw a parade of Portland players break San Jose’s defense entirely with either a run or a pass to a run straight into the dazed heart of San Jose’s defense, something that any given professional athlete - for sake of argument, a professional soccer player, aka, someone who, in practical terms, convinced someone to pay them money to play a game (seriously, think about that for a minute) - should never be able to do by simply jogging straight up the middle of the field with the ball at his feet. San Jose has issues.

A thought follows from that: if cracking San Jose is complicated as guessing a “12345” password, what does your team’s rampant success really mean? If a bully asks a kid for his lunch money and he just hands it over, is the kid still a bully, or just a very persuasive speaker? [Ed. - I don't know quite know what I meant by that either.]

Overall, call me optimistic, while also binging on grains of salt. Onto the details…

The one thing I have to fault about the Timbers 6-1 study in several of San Jose’s collective short-comings tonight was the aggressively-passive choices Portland’s heavily-rotated defense made in allowing the ‘Quakes’ one goal on the night. Don’t get too bothered because that’s one goal surrendered…plus a barrage of chances nobly swatted away by, I’m saying it now, Slovenian royalty (Aljaz Ivacic crushed it tonight), but there was a moment when a Timbers defense almost let a team they’d drop two goals on, away and in the first half (here's the other one), back into the game. Momentum matters in soccer and that’s been a real buzzsaw for the Timbers lately. As such, it was fairly encouraging to see a make-shift defense - e.g., Marco Farfan, out of position at right back, plus real or alleged back-ups, Bill Tuiloma and Julio Cascante - hold up against any team in MLS, because that hasn't been a regular thing lately. And I mean that even as San Jose arguably started more of a B-Team than the Timbers.

Portland Timbers 0-2 Atlanta United FC: Narratives and Their Wrinkles

That is clarifying (apparently), but who sees it as such?

I loved this game for everything except the result. It was a fucking diamond, I tell you, in that it reveals different things when you hold it up to the light…

I didn’t like that the game ended with the Portland Timbers losing to Atlanta United FC 0-2 in Portland, obviously, even if I kinda saw it coming, or at least the outlines of it. To make a list of it, if you look at Portland’s last 10 opponents – @ MTL, v FCD, @ NYC, v COL, v ORL, @ SEA (ha!), v LAG, @ MIN, v VAN, v CHI – between talent and form, Atlanta presents as the most thoroughly leveled-up of the bunch. Sure, NYCFC looked as strong as Atlanta when the Timbers beat them in the Bronx, but the rest of all of those teams rolled into their game against Portland with some amount of baggage and pain, and that’s the line I’m drawing in this post: in Atlanta, Portland finally met a team with a similar kind/amount of talent and momentum and, the shocking evenness of the evening notwithstanding, it didn’t go great for the Timbers. They lost at home and with…a solid percentage of what most people seem to regard as its best team on the field. The only question I have is what percentage of Timbers fans found this result disappointing and what percentage see it as clarifying.

I’m borne for the latter camp (Team Clarifying!), even as it cuts against the record the Timbers compiled over their last 10 games; trust me, 20 points from 30 is fucking rare in this league, but that’s been Portland’s level. (Immediately relevant thereto, Atlanta has managed 19 points in its last 10 games, MLS regular season only, as in, not this game, or what the Mexican press thought of it.) At the same time, Atlanta has played well – sometimes very well - against MLS’s better teams – e.g., your NYCFCs, your LAFCs, your Galaxys (a fallen family, but still). Portland, to their very real and enduring credit, has done the proverbial business since finding their feet toward the end of its long, opening road trip; whatever I think of each of the ten teams listed below, wins in those games didn’t just happen and Portland posted some memorable wins during that stretch – there, wins over Seattle and LA stand out – but that doesn’t change the blunt reality that this resurgent, surging Atlanta teams was a different animal.

Before digging into details, sure, it could have gone either way last night…and that applies even if I think Atlanta created the better chances overall. As much as it’s fair to point out that Julio Cascante made the inexplicable decision that lead to Atlanta’s second goal (not sarcasm!), that wasn’t every reason why the Timbers failed to draw, never mind win, last night’s game. (Also, and because I ignored it entirely below, here's Atlanta's first goal.) They were not centered, they did not feel…

Portland Timbers 4-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: This Summer's Coming of Age Movie

Another coming of age movie that's very worth seeing...that cast...

Swear to God, that game, despite the lopsided final score, should be what a soccer fan shows the heretics to convert them to the cause. Until the Portland Timbers scored their second pair of goals late in their ultimate, and profoundlysatisfying 4-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy, this game could have gone anywhere from Poulsbo, Washington to Mars. Until the Timbers scored its third goal, this game could have gone, literally, anywhere. As I might have said more than once this season, there but for the grace of Steve Clark…

Despite the lopsided score, this is game was a fucking blast, an example to teams across the league as to how soccer should be played – i.e., both teams looking to both win it and play, and leaving the vertical space open to allow that to happen. (Every time I hear people complain about that, the same thought runs through my head on repeat: “But that’s how you make the game fun, but that’s how you make the game fun, but that’s how you make the game fun,” etc.) That allowed the Galaxy to give as good as they got with disturbing frequency, and that made the whole thing such a grand time. At least half the six saves Steve Clark made were desperate and tricky AF, and the entire experience had the feel of navigating that weird board game/puzzle where you had to steer a ball through a maze with holes all over it, but only by tilting the plane of the board (it was tres analog, obviously). But fun!

The Timbers survived it, though, and a shit-ton of the pressure landed on the shoulders of Cristhian Paredes. And, holy shit, did that kid take it all on and then some. After two seasons of contributing (more or less) nothing to the attack, Paredes delivered, nodding home a freebie and then followed that up by scoring a gem that refracted the light according to scientific parameters. In between those, he chewed up midfield real estate (just in a different way than Timbers fans are used to seeing); I lost track of all the times Paredes played a short lateral pass from the top of Portland’s defense, or rode a crap challenge and kept charging forward, but he starred last night as much as any Timber and, for a 21-year-old who struggled for daylight (or just for me to notice) in 2018, that’s a great fucking sign for the future. It’s quite possible that Portland Timbers fans previewed a coming of age movie last night. (And if you haven’t seen Booksmart, see it. It’s amazing, and it feels a little like this…but probably without the ayahuasca scene. But, to get back to non-claymation/stop-motion references…)

The Timbers as a whole brought the now-familiar aggression, and that kept the game poised on the ragged edge of chaos. Frayed tempers continue as a feature of Timbers games and…it’s complicated. On the one hand, I don’t think they win without playing at a certain heightened pitch, but, on another, it’s entirely possible that MLS referees will start comparing notes on the games they struggle to manage and, if/when Portland’s name keeps coming up? There’s the gamesmanship too – and Paredes gives an example, as when he stayed on the ground after a(n alleged) hard foul only to get up right when LA played the ball out of bounds, or when he took a dive in the area. He got a screaming from Diego Polenta on the former (while Polenta got a card), and ate a yellow for his first dive. Some might call that maturity or savvy, but I call both a risk barely worth taking it. Zlatan lost his shit throughout the game and people will (probably) argue to the end of time over the extent to which Efrain Alvarez's late red followed from Portland driving LA mad. (Again, aggression good, fouls bad. I just see this coming home to roost if it continues…ah, what am I doing, but ruining the moment.

Portland Timbers 1-0 FC Dallas: The First Thing, You See, Is to Get Your Foot Planted

Like this, but with just one yellow card.

Dear God, if that wasn’t a cage match. Referee Allen Chapman blessed the whole thing with professional indifference but, in the end, no limbs were lost and no real crimes committed. The Portland Timbers came out of the rough and tumble with one goal more than visiting FC Dallas. And that felt fair, at least where I live (Portland, OR, so…), but a 0-0 wouldn’t have exactly insulted justice. Dallas gave as good as they got. That’s as much for me as it is for you, because I don’t know what the hell to make out of that goddamn team…

To dust off some clutter, Portland beat Dallas 1-0 last night at Providence Park and not one damn thing about that came easily. At the same time, I thought I saw the unveiling of the Timbers’ broad attacking approach to the game in the stretch between the 5th and the 10th minute: believe that every pass will connect, so try everything, and ruthlessly hunt down anything that tells you differently like the damned lie it is. At the precise time I sketched that note onto my pad, Portland was merrily marching up the field by flailing the ball from one side of the field to the other. It looked a little desperate and more than a little low-percentage, but it generally came off, while definitely confusing Dallas and throwing them off. The (highly relative) success of the whole “swinging for the fences” strategy didn’t last for long, and Dallas came back into the game and, generally put up a real fight…

…but, in one blessed/curs’d moment, every cog in the Timbers game-plan, and broad theory of roster construction, meshed together to steal a goal out of a game seemingly sworn to give up no goals. And I think that’s the real story of last night’s game.

Both of these teams took similar approaches to the game. When I tried to phrase it last night, I started with “defending aggressively” – by which I meant chasing down the ball and/or passer at some point on the field, as opposed to keeping your shape and making him break you down. Both Portland and Dallas assumed that general position, but they started at different parts of the field. In their better moments, Dallas rasied a bristling line of confrontation at the center stripe – i.e., anything that crossed it got swarmed like piranhas on whatever the hell is dumb enough to walk into the Amazon. During one truly fascinating phase, the kept both of Portland’s centerbacks and Sebastian Blanco trying to force their way inside that line; Blanco, specifically, could drop out of it, but he couldn’t go back in. Given that Blanco is, or has been, a major piece for Portland getting the ball moving forward, maybe Dallas studied some video and adopted that strategy to nip his usefulness in the bud.

Colorado Rapids 3-3 Portland Timbers: Of Snow & Fortunate Deflections

Just do your best out there, guys. We fucked ya up goin' in.

The Department of Cross-Platform Corrections will open this post by announcing that, after further review, Axel Sjoberg’s not-quite-goal-saving handball was deliberate. (During the game, I tweeted that I wouldn’t have called it, but watch his hand (over and over); yes, the VAR got it right.) Moving on now, to the Ministry of Justice, given that either of two Portland Timbers players could have nodded home Sjoberg’s naughty deflection, part of me would have just taken the goal and moved on. Back in this timeline, the shock-collar “tickled” Drew Fischer (that’s what they use right?), alerting him to matter of controversy (Sjoberg’s handball), and, after review, the whole thing ended up with red card for the Colorado Rapids and the Timbers wound up with a penalty kick.

Diego Valeri scored it, the game ultimately ended 3-3, and all the above wasn’t even the weirdest thing that happened some miles removed from Denver, Colorado yesterday. If nothing else, it snowed like goddamn crazy, but, to lick the brassiest of brass tacks, had you given 1,000 Timbers fans the top-level scenario for yesterday’s game – e.g., a high-scoring draw in Colorado and with snow falling – and asked them whether or not they’d call it a good result, I put the number of “yes” answers at or around 2/3 of respondents. (Sharper question: would that number go up or down immediately after the game and with all respondents 4+ drinks in?) As with what we shall henceforth call Sjoberg’s Goal (MLS’s/Kant’s answer to Schrodinger’s Cat), would you get different answers from those 1,000 Timbers fans had you watched that game with each of them and then asked them afterwards how they felt? (Focus groups = Group-think. Also, fluoride.)

Cold weather games are almost always memorable, in that they borrow a central principle from hockey – i.e., putting as many obstacles as possible in the way of success (e.g., “here are some skates, here’s a stick; now, go chase piece of frozen rubber around a sheet of fucking ice, I said do it!”; I finally get why hockey players are so fucking angry). Snow counts as the most unnatural, recurring condition for soccer, because it makes all the players run using weird, choppy strides, and guys slip all over the place…but does snow typically cause ‘keepers to cough up that many rebounds? It took reviewing the highlights to fully absorb the reality that half of yesterday’s goals came off rebounds. (So, to you kids watching at home, your coach isn’t full of shit when he tells you to follow up on shots. A lot of it’s bullshit, but that one’s real.)

All in all, though, is there anything real to take away from this game, or was it dog-pile of X-factors and the toddler-esque beginning of any regular season? For all the commentary on snow, both teams played a recognizable and accepted version of soccer out there. Sure people looked a little clumsy from time to time – one of them being Benny Feilhaber’s equalizer – but they moved the ball to where they wanted it to go and, deep as the powder got during the game, it didn’t stop the Rapids from scoring its second, the game’s third equalizer. The snow mattered, but it didn’t really.

Phoenix Rising 1-0 Portland Timbers: From Paraguay, WIth Some Confusion

Not in Paraguay...

Knowing that was Phoenix Rising’s first team out there tonight was the only thing that kept me from turning off that game at the half and donating my eyes to science ahead of schedule. (Thereby teaching the next generation how astigmatism; I am a hero.) A wiser man would have followed the instinct, but some online trickster, a Windy City Loki, lured me all the way through all 95 execrable minutes of that nightmare. I felt less frustration watching my toddler trying to tie her shoes the first time around.

Now (speaking of!), put yourself in Jorge Moreira’s shoes. Imagine flying in from Argentina (or Paraguay; does it matter in this case) for your first game of the rest of at least 40, and watching those first 45 minutes. Speaking for myself, I would have called my agent immediately and refused to get on that…disgusting field. The first 38 minutes of the Portland Timbers' 0-1 loss to Phoenix Rising (you lost to that awful slogan as well! Shame!) was nothing more or less than a crime against competence and good taste, an assault to eyeballs, spirit and aesthetics.

Fortunately, the result didn’t matter. Moreover, it’s not Moreira lit it up out there. He had a fauxssist (TM….don't touch it, it's mine!!) on what looked like Cristhian Paredes game-opening goal, but it took me less time to figure out Andy Polo was offside than the ref. (Serious question: what’s with the dramatic pauses? Can we get a little more of “get your ass over here and rubber-stamp the fact he was off” and get on with the goddamn game with VAR?) Outside that shining moment and one particularly cool, calm moment when he shepherded a ball out of a tricky situation with two dudes on his shoulder, you would have thought Moreira was a trialist based on tonight, what with all the USL talent (named Junior Flemmings) making him look like something less than a threat to Zarek Valentin’s one and only day job.

I’m not worried about Moreira (yet…nah, just messin’). This was his first game, new league, new country, that’s just a lot to take in. Also, a good USL team is nothing to sniff at. For instance, after watching Solomon Asante play a full 90, and thinking about all those MLS teams in search of a winger…well, it makes you wonder, if nothing else. (Then again, seriously, will a time come when the influx of talent to North America gathers enough steam that a player like Asante will go to USL as a stepping stone to MLS?)

Given that this game meant less than nothing (aka, Saturday, against the New York Red Bulls 1.5), I don’t want to spend too much time on it. I’ll start with some general thoughts about each of the “Three Units” (e.g., 0-38, 38-79, 79-90), then go through what I’ve seen from the more marginal/contingent crowd on the Timbers line-up. In other words, my comments on Jeff Attinella, Diego Valeri, Diego Chara, Sebastian Blanco, Larrys Mabiala, Jorge Villafana, and even Zarek Valentin, Dairon Asprilla, and Andres Flores start and end with “stay healthy, fellas!” Yes, even if they're not all starters. Just to note it, did Flores pull the “single white female” thing on Lawrence Olum (e.g., unlikely replacement on at least one level that everyone seems to buy)? I’ll get to (marginal) personnel later; let’s talk about each of tonight’s shift.

Portland Timbers 2-2 New York Red Bulls: Choice Paradox

Much as I wouldn't know what to do with all those arms...

It took 70 minutes for Sebastian Blanco to get deep enough in Kyle Duncan’s head to take advantage. In that sense, I came away from this game more impressed by the New York Red Bulls youth than anything else. At the same time…Blanco is my favorite Timber for a reason.

From a Portland Timbers perspective, last night’s 2-2 draw against the Red Bulls coughs up too many variables to manage: too many dudes to assess, an opposing team that played a familiar system with different parts, and that’s on top of a state of play that only raised more questions. I blame preseason, and to the extent that I can’t decide whether the uneasy feeling from Wednesday’s win over the Seattle Sounders carries over. Not all B-teams are created equal, for starters, but New York has the power of their surprisingly reliable plug-‘n’-play system that goes quite a ways toward erasing that distinction. They don’t have an MLS Cup to show for it, but the Red Bulls have been the most reliably “money” team in MLS for nearly half a decade now – so says three of the last six Supporters’ Shields, so says last year’s league-leading goal differential.

Given all that, call this a good test for the Timbers. The result doesn’t mean anything, obviously, and ending in a tie makes it mean a little less, but, outside a whack at someone’s knuckles here and sharper questions there, just about every player performed well. Because the recap posted to MLSSoccer.com doesn’t provide the full treatment (e.g., no box score), I can’t say whether New York out-shot the Timbers. I suspect they generated more chances, and better ones, and that’s where my personal threat level tops out. Your feelings may vary – thanks in no small part to all the variables – so long as you rate the resilience of New York’s system (as I do), seeing Portland come back from two goals down against them felt like a decent evening’s work.

Most of the negatives I saw showed up on the defensive side and a lot of those showed up in the vicinity of Julio Cascante. The lowlight came when Cascante’s misplayed of a ball over the top that forced Larrys Mabiala into a tackle dicey enough for the ref to call it a penalty kick at first glance (it wasn’t; good call), but he also struggled more under the Red Bulls’ pressure than any Timbers this side of David Guzman. And, as alluded to, I don’t think Guzman looked all that sharp yesterday, and on either side of the ball, but he had more good moments than bad ones on balance, just like everyone else in Timbers green. That said, both goals were regrettable – the first for the way Villafana got caught forward and for the way Mabiala and Zarek Valentin lost Brian White between them, the second because that’s shit defending on a corner – and, again, you just don’t want to see that, even in preseason. Mistakes are one way to lose a game, so the fewer the better.

Portland Timbers 2-0 Toronto FC: Dunking on the Expected

Again, without touching it.

So…that was like the loss to Seattle Sounders FC, only with winning, right? The Portland Timbers largely outplayed an opponent, but came out 2-0 winners instead of (mildly) broken losers - because, tonight’s win, right?

To start this review off right, yes, I do love it when the opposition’s starting line-up renders everything I covered in my pre-game tweet-storm totally irrelevant (no, please, kick me again). Why didn’t Sebastian Giovinco start; if not him, why not Jonathan Osorio, or even Victor Vaszquez? On the other hand, Jozy Altidore did start, but Portland swallowed his considerable mass well enough, what with Larrys Mabiala nipping at his heels for as long as the game lasted. (Yes, I’m exaggerating…just translate that thought into the team at large.) Barring a post-game revelation (I won’t follow up), I have no idea why Toronto FC started a B-Team against Portland tonight; I also know it didn’t pan out, so file that away too. Cruise control switched on for this game immediately after Diego Chara slotted home the Timbers’ winner. Portland piling on goals never seemed on the cards any more than a Toronto comeback, but Portland added a back-breaker of a goal to reach 2-0 all the same. Again, I have no idea why Toronto, a team (still) six points out of the playoffs and (now) with only eight games left, tried to win this game on the cheap.

I say that knowing that I’ve advised the Timbers to cheat on personnel time and again. Just this past week, in fact, and against the New England Revolution this upcoming Saturday. I can’t present the evidence on that because I haven’t figured out how to embed a tweet into a Blogger post and, Jesus Christ, I am never gonna do that. (This a space for textasphiliacs, while also being open to converts. But, to get back on track…)

Like at least, oh, 20% of the Timbers fan-base at any given time, I’d decided it was time to deploy Portland with another formation tonight - something the coaching staff took only as far as putting Jorge Villafana into the starting line-up (also, is this how the team lined-up; probably not). Jorge aside (and welcome back, kid), I’m not sure Portland played another formation tonight, so much as I’m pretty damn sure Toronto played against the Timbers the worst possible way they could have - especially this specific iteration of “Portland Timbers.” The past 3-4 teams have defended deep, and that, 1) gave Samuel Armenteros nothing but no space in which to operate, and 2) forced the Timbers to try to break down a compact defense with crosses, i.e., something they can’t do. And so they didn’t. And that’s the history of the past four games…

Sporting Kansas City 3-0 Portland Timbers: Expectations and One (Vague) Idea

I dunno. Maybe try next time.

I had no expectations, at least not good ones. The Portland Timbers played under what expectations I had in the first half before rallying to a kind of latent respectability in the second. A pillow soft goal by Sporting Kansas City's Johnny Russell late in the game undercut the "latent" part of that whole "respectability" thought: in the end, the Timbers looked like discombobulated shit losing 0-3 at Sporting Kansas.

Still, if you ask after the state of my faith, I’d tell you it’s fine. This past week had "suck" written all over it, especially after the home loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps; neither of the week's road games looked easy in context (and, for the record, here are my thoughts on the 1-4 loss to DC United) and also, the road. Given SKC’s recent uptick - e.g., they’ve now won as many straight (3!) as Portland has lost (3?) - this loss really did have the predictability of getting lung cancer from smoking. I won’t buy a doom-spiral until Portland loses another game or two and on some track similar to giving up nine(!) goals and scoring only two. The team would inevitably drop some points this season - every team in MLS does, and usually in bunches - but the good ones recover, to where they win games like DC United away, maybe draw away to a rising SKC side.

The Timbers looked like that team I could lose all faith in tonight and, bring it in for a big group hug, and right now, I will still love that team, yes, the one that struggles. At the same time, I can’t even begin to organize tonight’s errors into some kind of useful hierarchy: the mistakes came from all over the field (no, you have to earn “pitch”), and each of the breakdowns on those three goals were whimperingly pathetic. For a team that has made defense its calling card so far this season, goals like that violate the fucking brand.

And, if you want to ask what’s wrong, this feels like the quickest answer: the Timbers have lost their way defensively and have therefore lost their way. There’s not much more to take out of giving up 3.0 goals per game over their last three (why the decimal? no idea). As for what causes it, questions proliferate until you’re tangled up in chicken-egg madness. With the loss to DC, did the disconnection between the defense and the midfield cause the problems, or should the defenders cope far, far better to…call them catastrophic breakdowns in midfield? That was easier to answer tonight with the red-carpet-welcome goals SKC scored, and that’s a new, disastrous calling card, something a team has to swap out before it kills them? Even when SKC missed, they moved through and around a stunningly stagnant Portland team with depressing ease, and all over the field. A cousin of the same bug played out on the other side of the field? Timbers players: you can’t play back to goal if you keep letting your defender step in front to receive the in-let pass. (And maybe the team is still sorting shit out post-Fanendo Adi, etc. All the same, how long had it been since Adi started/played?)

Los Angeles FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: Mentioning the Unmentionables

As often happens, what you don't talk about matter most.

Won’t lie. I know where the condensed games live (thanks, @FWjmcg!), but I’m still coming to grips with the idea of watching any video on my phone for more than three minutes. That’s my previous record, by the way. It might have gone high as five once, but…I mean, shit, doesn’t the whole thing feel like a compromise? It seems like we’ve spent a couple decades making big ass TVs, and no we’re watching sports on tiny little phone screens? Ain’t wrong, but it ain’t right either.

Right, the game. The Portland Timbers pushed Los Angeles FC to a goal-less draw in Los Angeles, and with the emphasis on “push.” If anyone tells you that the - just to mention it, visiting - Portland didn’t look the likelier team to win, they watched a different game than I did. This confirmed a couple theories, by the way, particularly as evidence about where LAFC fits into the larger picture of Major League Soccer. On that, and lifts my bluntest phrasing out of this sprawling monstrosity, “they’re dropping points in pretty non-elite ways.” Here, the “they” means LAFC. And they did it again tonight.

I didn’t know what to expect today more than anyone else. I’d heard plenty about the LAFC hype-train, but I think even their fans know to take a shot of that with the famous combination of lime and, yes, salt. LAFC might have beat the Timbers on every facet of the box score (except clearances!) but the highlights better match what I recall; on the quality of the shots and, yeah, that’s all Timbers. One team hit the post (thanks again, Samuel Armenteros), while the other floated a couple vague, wet farts toward goal…to think what could have been had Diego Valeri buried that ball he picked off Steven Beitashour’s ambling toe.

God’s honest truth (also, we’ll see), I don’t have a lot to say about this one. In real-world terms - that is, getting a point on the road against a well-regarded and direct rival, and generally looking like the home team doing it, that’s mission accomplished in any league. Portland looked comfortable for most of the night, even on the back foot. LAFC, on the other hand, struggled to contain Portland’s counter (or just its general hyper-verticality and mobility), and couldn’t punch back with anything Jeff Attinella couldn’t swat away. The field tilted Portland’s way on all that, contra the box score and, no, in no way do I think this predicts how Portland will do in Wednesday’s U.S.Open Cup game against this same Los Angeles FC team. Both teams have had their, “no, you throw the first punch” moment, but the real fight - or some version of it, with or without pearl-clutching squad rotation from either team - comes this Wednesday.

Portland Timbers 0-0 Sporting Kansas City: Touching the Ceiling

Welcome back, guys!

“Unbeaten in Nine”

Look, I’m happy about last night - if the performance more than the result - but I’m not having that shit. I pulled that from the official Portland Timbers webpage, so I get that Pravda-esque cheering comes natural, but “Unbeaten” isn’t good enough, not when it leaves two points on the table in consecutive home games. Basically, aim low enough and you risk shooting your damn foot. OK, enough of that.

Because I said “yes” to something I should have said “no” to, this review will necessarily be a little impressionistic. It’s not all a blur: for instance, I remember seeing “No. 32” for the Portland Timbers charge up the gut and asking the people around me at the bar, “Who is that? Is that Cascante?” only to see it was Marco Farfan ranging forward (from a more natural fullback position) and nearly stabbing home a goal. I also remember the name of the dude I introduced myself to after the game - for regular readers, this is the person I conversationally ambushed about a penalty kick last week. That thing where you repeat a name over and over until it sticks really does wonders for sufferers of CRS (that’s “Can’t Remember Shit”).

Farfan’s Foray (TM) didn’t make the highlights (I mean, what the fuck’s up with that? the kid had a moment), but the rest of them rang a bell when I saw them again (for the record, I have modified CRS; my memory works just fine if prompted correctly), and all the other prompts I have in front of me now confirm the same thing: the Timbers played pretty solid soccer in last night’s 0-0 draw at home against Sporting Kansas City. The game played out about the way you’d expect from two good, defensively-stout teams. Both sides found their chances, but they definitely had to look for them, and both sides contained the other’s biggest threats…again, take a bow, Marco Farfan (and welcome to the party, Modou Jadama).

I don’t have much to add about the game itself, but was instead going to move on to chatting about Portland’s game. That said, I just read the comments to the official recap, and I’m kind of glad I did, because it runs into the teeth of those comments. Loose suggestions of a “reorganized defense” come in and out of those (along with this question, which I very much second: “Are you really not considering Valentin a starter at this point?), and I guess I don’t get the premise. “Reorganized” from what?

To back up a little, seeing Lawrence Olum set a couple pre-game butterflies fluttering. He is, without question, a down-grade from Diego Chara (no offense intended, Larry), but Olum can play a role so long as you assign him a role he can play. That is, you’ll never get Chara’s manic herding dog dynamism from Olum, but he can clog the center and manage safe-not-spectacular distribution; playing him means resigning yourself to losing a little something on the attacking side, but, when you’ve got no choice…only the team does have a choice, and his name is Eryk Williamson, and I guess I’ll just leave it there. I don’t watch Timbers2 enough (or ever, I suppose) to make a case that Williamson should start over Olum, but that’ll remain an open question in this space till we get the real-world data to resolve it.

Los Angeles Galaxy 1-2 Portland Timbers: We Have Our (or Some) Dignity

The right kind of vulnerable.

To begin at the actual beginning, I’ll have to switch up a thing or two about “My Process” in the post-condensed-game MLSLive era. The only way I can dial back in to pick up more detail is to watch the entire game all over and again, and no. With that in mind, this week will take a high angle view of the situation that is, at this point in time, by no means perilous.

And that’s the top-line question about the Portland Timbers’ 1-2 road loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy already answered: am I happy with it? Tentatively, and on the level that I didn’t expect any different. Also, the team caught a break in that they didn’t melt into a putrescent puddle after giving up a second goal to the Galaxy. The Timbers stumbled to the edge of the abyss Atlanta United FC visited in their opening loss, but didn’t fall in. And that’s not so bad after a bad performance.

Put that in the context of how much one (maybe two) pundit(s) hyped the Galaxy heading into 2018, and given that big goddamn field - which, as I failed to adequately explain to the people I watched the game with last night, takes Portland out of their element like few fields in MLS - this made for a gutsy start to the Timbers’ 2018. And I say that as someone who, at this point, ranks winning the Supporters’ Shield over all trophies. Face it, MLS Cup is just having a go at the leftovers excellence leaves behind…

My neuroses - or just that specific set of neuroses - can wait for a bit because I want to, 1) get back to the game, and 2) talk more about how I see the Portland Timbers’ 2018. Also, 2)(a) I want to talk about what I see doing with posts like these for the season. With that, let’s start with 2)(a).

With this 2018 Major League Soccer season, my plan is to start with a post about what just happened with the Portland Timbers during and after any game they play (except, say, U.S. Open Cup, which I couldn’t care less about, and the powers that be have only themselves to blame for that). I want those up on Sunday night in the future (ideally), but the plan is to update the same post with anything worthwhile I stumble across on MLSSoccer.com throughout the week. What this should produce is a standard, evolving Portland Timbers/MLS post for each week of the season (when I’m not on vacation, because I’ll totally be on vacation later this year). In a perfect world, this’ll involve just adding touches to the Timbers material, while actually filling in the blanks on notable news from the rest of MLS (i.e., the Houston Dynamo dropping four pieces of unanswered hurt on Atlanta United FC, which supports a personal theory that they’re short on defense). This is idea without action so far, but it feels really, really promising conceptually, so just pretend it happened and was wildly successful (PLEASE!!??).

5 Questions for the Portland Timbers...After a Buncha Shit

I mean broadly, right? Does it feel new to you?

“With the exception of Powell, it’s been a disappointing preseason for the Timbers’ back six. Vytas’s job, obviously, isn’t secure. Olum has been only not-terrible in fill-in duty. Guzman has been subpar. Ridgewell and Mabiala have both been up-and-down. #RCTID”

- Chris Rifer tweet

Rather than speak directly as to how I feel about that tweet - for I have opinions on every point about each named name - I’ll go on for two-three pages in various directions from all that.

First, I watched three preseason games this season - that dispiriting loss to FC Dallas, the B-side scrimmage rout against New York Red Bulls II, and tonight’s 3-2 Jekyll-Hyde win against the Portland Timbers sub-nemesis, Sporting Kansas City (how does a team exorcise a double post?). In the broadest possible terms, that translated to 3 halves of depressingly flaccid soccer from Portland, against one good half and a certain number of glances down fresh avenues that look promising. As for the New York II game, I’m not sure it matters, at least not outside bolstering one particular legend.

I’m going to end/build this post around forwarding 5 questions about the Portland Timbers going into this 2018 season, but I want to park on tonight’s game before getting to those, because 1) it’s our freshest shared experience (come with me, kids!), and 2) it touches on some of the relevant sub-plots to those questions.

To start, however, with one of the least relevant points, Jake Gleeson bailed out the Timbers tonight (with one vital assist from David Guzman(?)). Contrary to the tweet above, Alvas Powell hogged the spotlight in a drunk karaoke vein - i.e., he commanded attention again and again, but missed key notes in crucial moments, and the Geiger count on those moments tracked with proximity to goal; in other words, Powell’s been Powell so far. As for big revelations, if Samuel Armenteros’ preseason hasn’t kindled some hope in your heart, seek professional help, because that fucker’s probably necrotic (shit…yer heart, not Armenteros). Between his mobility, visible glee at combination play, and a highlight reel of good finishes (and none of his finishes for Portland have looked that good so far), Armenteros looks genuinely promising - in a way that a lot of this preseason has not.

In spite of today’s come-back - which, incidentally, lifted Portland a 2-2-1/respectable preseason - Vytas Andruiskevicius busted a hamstring. (Also, thank god for Marco Farfan, and good luck, kid!) And I’m still coming to terms with the full meaning of seeing Dairon Asprilla as my second brightest spot to preseason 2018 - that’s after Armenteros. I mean…that has implications, right?