Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers: Kindly Stop Saying "Unbeaten in Three"

In a word, the strategy feels off...

A sum of the sum of things. As in one example of several things. I think that gets to the marrow of it.

Would it help if Timbers attackers did better with their rare chances? Of course. When the call came, neither Marvin Loria nor Santiago Moreno answered (shit…there was one more chance I’m forgetting, but…). Loria, at least, had a dynamite moment of half-consciousness proficiency at the end of the first half, and off the Portland Timbers’ best chance of the day (helluva shot, kid), but Timbers attackers mostly fired the ball over William Yarbrough’s goal like they thought that was the point of the game. To float a theory, when your team isn’t great at finishing chances, that only raises the importance of creating more of them - i.e., if you only score once in every 30 chances, getting to 30 chances as quickly as possible feels like the shortest distance to goal. This being the age of analytics, a necessary disclaimer: I don’t know the Timbers’ goal:chance ratio. I only know they don’t generate a lot of good chances (40 shots total over their last three games), and that makes every chance a little more sacred.

Speaking of creating chances, the Colorado Rapids’ xG spiked for the first time after Diego Rubio got sent off in the 63rd minute. And, sadly, that's what it looked like in real time. The Timbers, meanwhile, flat-lined for the next 10-15 minutes thereafter and generally pissed away a man-advantage for the last 30 minutes of the game. The Big Bad Wolf howling at the brick house. And that seems to be a theme for 2022.

That inspired the title, by the way. After three games unbeaten, the Timbers got beat tonight - 2-0 at the Colorado Rapids - but I can’t remember the last time Portland looked like beating any team. Playing at that level puts their ceiling at draws, most of them goal-less, and that’s not a great place to be for a variety of reasons, up to and including entertainment. Worse, they haven’t exactly played the cream of MLS during that time - i.e., at Houston, v Real Salt Lake, and, tonight, at Colorado, aka, as close to middling (and yet still higher than the Timbers) that it gets - and that adds up to 282 minutes, plus stoppage time and in reasonably playable conditions, since the Timbers have scored a goal. I never thought Colorado on the road would be easy, but the few chances Portland got seemed to surprise (and baffle) them as much as they did me and it’s been the same thing for a while now: they don’t make chances, they grasp at them. So long as a team plays like that, the defense needs to have a perfect evening, maybe even something Disney magical…and yet the 0-2 final score speaks for itself…

Portland Timbers 1-0 Austin FC: Forest Versus Trees; Even If I Can't Get that Metaphor Straight

We are in a good place, and we love each other.

Started a new tradition tonight: I didn’t write down notes of any kind until the second half. Except on twitter…also, there wasn’t much to say about that first half. It was a classic vague, mutual groping, a feeling out period that went on a little too long without going anywhere. Nothing of real note stood out, at least not beyond Austin FC having a lot of the ball and the Portland Timbers getting the best look. Bottom line, all that played to the Timbers strengths, only at an angle that arguably benefited Austin’s strengths more than Portland’s.

Now, I’m not a fan of the halftime speech. That could because I’ve never heard a real stem-winder, at least not one that didn’t involve me as a half-negative argument for inspiration (again, the frame was, “if he can do it”; true story, at least twice), but whatever Giovanni Savarese said before he sent his charges back onto the field, whatever adjustments he made, I’d put the number that worked at somewhere between 60-80%. The other part of that equation, and the one I’m least equipped to make: what adjustments to Josh Wolff make to what Austin did?

For all the noise that came between the whistle that started the second half and the one that ended it, the loudest came in the 62nd minute when Bill Tuiloma got a big step in front of whoever the hell wears Austin’s No. 4 jersey (Ruben Gabrielsen, huh), and powered home a point-blank header off a pretty-as-you-like Yimmi Chara set-piece to put the Timbers up 1-0. Some sweaty moments aside, if fewer than one might think, that was all the Timbers needed to pick up their first win of 2022.

Tuiloma had a wonderful game. Give or take 10 minutes after he scored, he cleared an absolute, no questions asked Austin goal off the line, and during a scrum that had Timbers defenders flying around their own area like clay pigeons. And that’s one of my take-aways from today: the Timbers bent their defense to the breaking point, but made sure that it didn’t. Tuiloma and Zac McGraw deserve a tip for all the clean-up they did today, but they got a decent lift from Josecarlos Van Rankin’s best game of the season, plus a…well, let’s just say we’ve got something to think about after Justin Rasmussen’s wholly impressive first-team debut. As much as I hate making judgments off a tiny sample size, I wasn’t nearly as impressed by Rasmussen’s defending - which wasn’t bad at all - as by his composure on the ball. Good passes forward, smart slip passes under pressure…suffice to say questions abound and the answers don’t seem so obvious all the sudden…

…no. No. Don’t give in. Cool your jets. It’s one game. It’s one game. Moving on…