Portland Timbers 5-4 Minnesota United FC: How's Your Heart?

It was that kinda night.

When Vincent Janssen scored the third of his historic goals, I went through all the reactions – e.g., doubting I still knew how to count to three, looking for an offside flag to descend from the Heavens because Such Things Cannot Be. Polling the people around me came next – “that’s three, right? that was that specific player’s third goal?” – and, upon confirmation, I took a minute to just breathe in the moment. It’s not every day that a snake bite heals itself, you know?

About five minutes later, it occurred to me that the Portland Timbers could somehow piss away the win and the air suddenly didn’t taste the same. Was that the sulfurous tang of the smoke bombs that celebrated Portland’s (then) fourth goal, or the smell of a flatulent imp come to spoil the evening? When Minnesota scored their fourth goal (oof) with a cushion of added time still available (and with more time still added due to the Loons’ goal celebration), I crossed myself in both the Catholic and Orthodox traditions. One can never be too sure, no?

Portland Timbers 5-4 Minnesota United FC
What Passes for a Match Report
One could argue the game belonged to Janssen from the jump: the opening minutes saw him lose control of his first three touches and the Timbers struggled, collectively, over that same period. That gave the Loons at least one clear chance to take an early lead, maybe two, before Portland found their feet - viva la slow starts, I guess – but they hit a steady trot before scoring their first (all of that's probably in here, maybe even in here). A little give-‘n’-go set it up, allowing Jimer Fory to step clean into Minnesota’s penalty box (the little fucker) and forced Drake Callender into a flop save and a rebound. Minnesota CB Morris Duggan made the mistake of going to ground, where his raised leg sent Cole Bassett tumbling over (it looked like Bassett fell over him in real time) and Janssen to the penalty spot. Janssen’s kicked it home and sent the game into a frenzy. Before the final whistle blew, that game delivered more twists than a primetime soap opera featuring amnesia, a possession, and three affairs and at least one mystery murder.

Chicago Fire 2-1 Portland Timbers: Ground Down by the Grind

One of many movies titled "The Grind"

You can’t win ‘em all is a mantra all fans should embrace. Maybe this is simple as losing to a good home team at their place?

It would have felt worse had the Timbers played all right…they did not. Moving on...

Chicago Fire FC 2-1 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
The Fire took the within the first ten minutes of the game. They extended that lead mere minutes later when Portland’s defense literally fell all over itself as they failed to keep out a second goal. Things generally improved from there, though neither much nor quickly. The ref was thinking about the halftime whistle before Portland fired an even mildly threatening shot and the broadcast booth (whatever you think of the talent) could still say something along the lines of Portland had a couple chances though none with conviction as late at the 80th minute with essential accuracy. The Timbers did finally pull back one goal – and I was just reminded by the highlights that Omir Fernandez added one more late sneaky chance – but the Timbers never really got going in this one. Thus endeth the overview.

On Chicago’s first goal, I saw several people fret online during the Club Tijuana game about how high Finn Surman pushes up in (what we understand as) Marti Cifuentes’ system. Seems like the Fire’s brain trust may have spotted that as well because Andrew Gutman’s ball over the top to Robin Lod found that space like he knew where to look. Such was the chaos around Chicago’s second goal that it barely feels worth picking apart – i.e., what started as a modest oil fire raged to a big one when (yikes) Surman attempted pass(?!) out of the back went straight to Phillip Zinckernagel and all the Timbers could think to do from there was throw bodies in front of it. The only commendable thing about the entire episode was Dje D’Avilla’s finish. Too much of the first half happened to the Timbers; they struggled to find their feet, never mind their front one. Passes and players slipped by and around defenders before Portland’s defenders seemed to register their presence. If the entire afternoon had anything to redeeem it, it came when Surman headed home the Timbers' only goal off a solid, (too) late set piece.

Chicago had a couple chances to pad their lead – e.g., a Robert Lewandowski shot that James Pantemis padded away (has to be in here, right?) and, happily, just past the right shoulder of a lurking Zinckernagel (why does that sound dirty?) – but they flattened a little as the game quite literally wore on. It wasn’t one for the ages, probably wasn’t even one for the month; no one besides D’Avilla should remember this game past this week. (It’s only his third goal as a pro.)

Seattle Sounders 1-5 Portland Timbers: On the Right Side of a Snowball...

A peace I hope we all find...

Maybe there’ll be some benefit to spitting this out same day in my older years…

Let’s move this fast and keep it tight, people. The Portland Timbers kicked off their return to regular season action by kicking the holy shit and ever-lovin' stuffin' out of the Seattle Sounders. The 5-1 win felt like dunking by the end, even if the numbers pad the Sounders’ pain a little.

The Game, Very Briefly
It opened as I expected, with Seattle worked to get their attacking patterns going and they collapsed space effectively every time the Timbers worked the ball wide. The Sounders probably hit their high in those early moments (the five-minute interval agrees; see, the numbers), but their grasp on the game slipped away little by little. It started with the Timbers cutting out passes, disrupting Seattle’s inlets into he attacking third, but their game plan really got upended when…well, the Sounders got punched in the mouth.

The game turned from the second Jimer Fory floated that leading cross to Kevin Kelsy sprinting between two defenders to score Portland's first goal (wait for it, and so much of it). It took a double save, first by James “Canuck Wall” Pantemis, then by Kamal “Maybe Wily Veteran’s His Game?” Miller to hold Portland’s lead (has to be in here somewhere, maybe even here?), but Seattle never really recovered before the half. After the half? Shit broke all the way down…

I’ve used the phrase “five-minute fuck up” in the past and (with allowances for the fact all this unfolded in more than five minutes) Seattle’s defense served up a peach of an example tonight. First, their defense got beat at the back post – twice! – which allowed Miller to keep up the heroics. Four minutes later (still within bounds), Cole Bassett started and finished a goal off transition courtesy of a David Da Costa pushing then snapping across Seattle’s backline. Three minutes later (shit!), Kelsy bullied in a goal to complete his brace. That had the Timbers up 4-0 and rolling all. the. way. down the river.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Something I'm Choosing to See the (or Some) Good in + a MLS Week 5 Recap

Me, before they even leave The Shire.

Welcome to another week of me triangulating toward what’s possible between time and other ambitions. Dreams of putting in long shifts on several games have shrunk to watching the Portland Timbers game, scouting the team they play next for 60-plus minutes, spending about the same amount of time on, literally, just one other game, plus going through as many highlights as I can get to. The plan is to tighten things up on the content side, but I've been dreaming that same dream since the late 2000s and yet what did I do but top the Director's Cut of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with commentary and all the songs from The Hobbit (plus commentary on the songs). My therapist told me that not working on my problems is the worst thing I can do, so here we are. Something else I learned about myself this past weekend: I will not sit through ten minutes of a game when neither team scored and I know the result. With that in mind, I need to revamp one of the regular sections a little:

Results That Surprised Me (This section will be removed going forward)
Charlotte FC 6-1 Red Bull New York (wait for it...)
Sporting Kansas City 1-4 Colorado Rapids (didn't think SKC was this bad; don't trust a word I type)
Vancouver Whitecaps 0-1 San Jose Earthquakes (though maybe it shouldn’t have; more later)
San Diego FC 2-2 Real Salt Lake (maybe less “surprised” than notice taken?)

Results I Ignored (no surprises here; but also links provided!)
Atlanta United FC 0-0 DC United (but Atlanta should feel very disappointed)
St. Louis CITY FC 3-1 New England Revolution (expected it enough, and good for St. Louis)
Austin FC 0-0 LAFC (don’t think this was good for anyone, but see below)
FC Cincinnati 4-3 Club du Foot Montreal (Cincy dodged a bullet that shouldn’t be sighting them)
New York City FC 2-3 Inter Miami CF (they’re both good teams; didn’t feel educational)
Minnesota United FC 0-0 Seattle Sounders (see note on Austin v LAFC and below)

I’m tracking results/opposition for all teams, for what it’s worth – and fuck The Mothership for letting the Form Guide cut off at Week 23 and not including anything to scroll over (they don't add one later; I check) – and that gives me big-picture perspective on some of the results I’m ignoring. For instance, LAFC’s goal-less draw at Austin looks different than, say, Minnesota's goal-less home draw versus Seattle: the context for LAFC's result includes a road game, sitting atop MLS’s Western Conference and not a goal allowed all season; the context for Minnesota’s is them scoring less than one goal per game (0.8/game, fwiw) and allowing 11 (2.2/game, fwiw, though most of that happened at Vancouver) and just generally presenting as a team running through mud. With those games dismissed (I'll do this better/deeper in the copy next week, promise), let's turn to The Main Event:

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution, The Late (Late), but Still Pretty Good Show

Treat yourself!

Just rewatched the full highlights and think I heard something about both the Portland Timbers and the New England Revolution rolling into Saturday on unbeaten streaks. Sound salesmanship, but also inaccurate.

Still, the most affirming talking point about the Timbers in 2025 is the fact that, unfortunate trips to the North side of the Great Lakes region notwithstanding (one for your therapist or for your priest, depending on one’s outward reaction), Portland has improved on winning more of the games they should win. Hosting a Revolution team running (currently) four points under the Eastern Conference play-in line definitely makes the list and – drink ‘em if you got ‘em – Portland won this one. As for how they looked doing it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution
About the Game, Briefly
Given the past three or four weeks, just seeing Portland start as the better team counts as a l’il victory (so treat yourself!). They crowned that period of…let’s go with subtle dominance with a go-ahead goal that, all things considered, took a couple happy accidents to come together. That’s not to dismiss (or diss) the goal – the Timbers put together a might chain of “yes, and” to create the opening – but I doubt Santiago Moreno consciously weighted his cross to fall to Ian Smith (who didn’t line up where they had him…right?) and I bet Smith only hits side netting on that same shot once in every half dozen attempts (but prove me wrong, kid; prove me wrong). Now, the worrying thing…

The Revolution equalized 15 minutes later and in a way that highlighted one of Portland’s regular weaknesses (see Stray No. 5), but I was less concerned by that than how close Portland came to stumbling into a five-minute fall apart, i.e., one of those back-to-back goal, multi-goal, bed-shitting breakdowns that sees a game slip away from a team. Just two (or three) minutes after Luca Langoni finished around a firmly-seated Kamal Miller, New England’s Peyton Miller teed up Leo Campana for a simple, short finish that would have handed them the lead. Per the final score, Campana skied it, thereby sparing Portland from chasing the game.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Colorado Rapids: Strong Response to a Near-Death Experience

That ain't a light, son, it's a train. But also a light/a journey.

The Portland Timbers topped the Colorado Rapids 2-1 at Providence Park tonight. Hey! Get your mind out of the gutter! Think more two dudes laddering their hand up a baseball bat…dammit. My brain started glitching immediately after hearing Jake Zivin say “Timber Joey’s Victory Log.”

Right. Hitting the ground running…

About the Game
Not many soccer games turn on such a clear and decisive before-and-after – and most games that do get stuffed into the all-devouring “Tale of Two Halves” file – but that’s…mostly not what happened tonight. An almost wanton chance to put Colorado up 2-0 crept to Sam Bassett (more below) around the 75th minute and he couldn’t get it closer inside the goal than the crossbar.; after a couple bobbles around the right, the ball flies out of defense, (in short order) falls to David Da Costa, who plays Antony around the Rapids’ last defender, and the Rapids Calmer (TM; don’t touch that; I’m lawyered up) slips into under Nicholas Hansen for the equalizer. For most of the time before that goal, the Timbers couldn’t find much, never mind each other. Somewhere in the late stages of that curs'd time, Finn Surman picked up a bargain-bin yellow that Chris Penso waved around like so much foreshadowing; nine minutes later, working-man’s DP Djordje Mihailovic gets a step ahead of him leaving Surman no option but to keep one step behind, so as to avoid the foul. When Colorado went up 1-0, they looked convincing enough…

…the question is whether the Timbers pried open the first crack on the play in the first half that led to the penalty call against Andreas Maxso. That, in my mind, was their first truly competent attacking build of the night. Felipe Mora took the ensuing kick like he’d been either drugged or compromised (“when I snap my fingers, you will realize you missed, and too late too”; probably in here? if not, why not?), but the final moments of the first half might have been the beginning, given the final result and how it was arrived at, of what could justly be dubbed a Portland Timbers revival. If I asked to provide proof for that theory, I’d point to the barrage/siege the Timbers poured toward the Rapids’ goal after the equalizer. For anyone requiring more proof (what’s with this fuckin’ guy?), I’d flag the several…semi-effectual shots Portland found in the Rapids’ weak side in the minutes before Kevin Kelsy tapped-in the winner. Full disclosure: wondered how Juan David Mosquera squeezed his assist into the space between Colorado’s last defender and Hansen, but now I see that fear of an own-goal froze Reggie Cannon. The game wasn’t entirely over even then – see whatever you think Diego Chara did to Calvin Harris late, late in the game, which surely has to be in the full highlights (surely?) – but the ref waved it off and the Timbers swept all three points off the board, the end.

San Jose Earthquakes (Oof) 4-1 Portland Timbers: I Believe the Term Is Jointly and Severally

The number of things that went wrong...

A team can survive a bad night at the office, being a step behind, connected only in sad little spurts, etc. A team cannot, however, survive a half dozen or so catastrophic defensive errors.

I call that kind of collapse a Five-Minute Fall Apart, even when they unfold over an 11-minute span. The rest of the game wasn’t much better and that’s the beginning of the story of how the San Jose Earthquakes rolled the Portland Timbers 4-1 tonight.

About the Game
The post started with a distinction between collective and individual failure for a reason: the Timbers committed sins both individually and as a team tonight, but they might have muddled through, even if just to a more respectable final score, had, say, both Finn Surman and Kamal Miller not bit like half-starved basses on the pieces of bait San Jose dangled before them. Their mistakes turned into the (borderline) sitters that put the game beyond Portland’s likely longest reach inside the first 30 minutes. Maxime Crepeau could have done better on both shots – the man’s head and feet didn’t seem to have an open channel, on the second goal more than the third, for me – and, as much as I get wishing James Pantemis was there, that does everyone the same amount of good as wishing Surman didn’t overcommit all the way into Nevada on the ball into Ousseni Bouda, or that Miller didn’t sprint all the way to the left sideline just to get nutmegged by DeJuan Jones. That’s the individual stuff and I feel confident arguing that three-minute span killed Portland’s chances at three points tonight. Moving on to the stuff that made even one point unlikely…

San Jose scored their first goal on their third (or fourth) run at the same attacking movement – i.e., push the ball outside to a runner sprinting to get around the Timbers’ widest defender on one side or the other, then pull it back to an attacking player who drifted into the space left open by a Portland backline that appears willing to collapse into its own damn goal. Seeing them come close mere minutes before the 90th on the same damn play felt like the right way to wrap up the game, but the problem was always the same. When San Jose pushed the ball wide, an Earthquake player curled off Portland’s defensive line and none of those players tracked that movement; Timbers midfielders – e.g., Joao Ortiz was the closest available option on their first goal – failed to run back to cover that run, leaving some quality attackers with time and the full width of the goal to fire at from around the penalty spot. Under those circumstances, whose man is that? The answer falls somewhere between everyone’s, no one’s and the first player to see him peel off. And that’s the, or maybe just a, collective failure.

Colorado Rapids 0-3 Portland Timbers: Comfortable in Commerce City

When you feel confident, you can do anything...

Think I mentioned this on Bluesky, but some dude on subreddit (who heard it from a friend of a friend’s co-worker, who heard it from her boss) floated the argument that the Portland Timbers were better than they earned after four games. Between Kamal Miller’s (stupid fucking) red card in Game 1 and the ref getting drunkenly novel with the concept of “advantage” in Game 4, they'd tripped themselves more than they'd been tripped, basically.

Did Timbers fans just get proof of concept with yesterday’s subtly lopsided 3-0 win at the Colorado Rapids, or…

About the Game
As happens more often than I’d like to admit, the Scouting Report I posted on…think it was Friday, but who cares because it went out the window within the first 20 minutes. The Colorado Rapids played like a constipated shadow of the team I’d watched from afar and the Portland Timbers looked – and, to be clear, this feels like a typo as I’m tapping it out…capable. We didn’t get seamless perfection by any means – see Jimer Fory at a dead sprint toward his own goal to corral an eighth-minute breakaway by Kevin Cabral (hold that thought*) and Finn Surman eating the entire fake Djordje Mihailovic baited him with at the edge of the fucking six – but the one, literally massive thing that stood out was how immediately calm and connected the Timbers looked playing out of the back. David Ayala offering himself as a first option and seeming to have a plan for his first pass went a long damn way with that; whether turning out of the pressure, dropping the ball to someone behind, who then played it forward to either Ayala or another option (Santiago Moreno, often as not), Portland had fewer problems playing out of back than they have so far in this young season. The defensive shape held up pretty well too, if with an assist from whatever the hell was going on with Rapids; I saw no evidence of the movement and connectivity I’d come to expect after watching 90 minutes of them for the Scouting Report. The Timbers looked, for lack of a better word, comfortable for the first time in 2025 – even when Colorado upped the pressure. The Rapids found a couple chances, here and there, mostly through Reggie “Grumpy” Cannon firing unchecked crosses from the right, but a state of disconnection plagued them through most of the game. With the game knotted on zeroes and the ref puckering up for the halftime whistle, the breakthrough finally came. After trying to play through the brick the Rapids dropped in front of their goal, someone hopefully played the ball wide to David Da Costa. When he kicked the ball back into the mixer, just as hopefully, it caught Josh Atencio’s ankle and bobbled into the Rapids’ goal. And thank gods for that, because, per the official statisticians (aka, the broadcast team) zero shots had been fired on goal, in anger or otherwise, to that point. That first goal opened the game, as goals by the road team often do, and the Rapids lost little time in making a second and worse mistake to allow Portland's second. For whatever reason, three defenders lumped around Felipe Mora like he was [Insert Global Star Name] and their left-sided defender drifting to cover Eric Miller (just…why, and hold that thought%) and that left Antony footloose and fancy-free up the middle of the field and, I assume, a little baffled at his good fortune before slotting home the insurance goal that the Timbers ultimately did not need. That goal arrived just prior to the 50th minute, but it effectively ended the game as a contest. With a nod to the final xG in the official stats – just to note/celebrate it, the Timbers broke the elusive 1.0 xG barrier for the first time in 2025 yesterday - Colorado’s stats aren’t wildly off the Timbers’. And yet the question of which was the better team isn’t so much as half open. The question is why?

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Readings from a Spoiled Sample

This plus a couple geezers. Not great, man.

I saw the question of whether the referee should have awarded the Portland Timbers late in Sunday’s game posed a half dozen times on the Timbers subreddit yesterday and answered with a raging “motherfucker, YES!” It was a massive call to miss, no question – calling advantage on that play does actual violence to the word “advantage” – and, while having two more points wouldn’t have helped Portland in 2024, it would have lifted Portland into the playoffs in 2022, given them homefield advantage for the play-in in 2023.

I get the frustration, in other words, and a very stupid non-call can matter, even in MLS’s largely pointless regular season, but…and you knew this was coming…shouldn’t we all be more concerned with the fact that the Timbers struggled to manage a Los Angeles Galaxy B- team?

About the Game
To start with some positives, seeing Santiago Moreno back in the XI did the soul good – particularly after a couple of his early runs made it look as if he might win the game on his own. The team as a whole looked more comfortable on the ball and decently connected over several periods in the first half, even if all that running and kicking didn’t necessarily translate into anything particularly, or at all, meaningful – i.e., seeing halftime stats like three shots, one on goal for the Timbers, and five (apparently) wayward shots for the Galaxy sounded about right, as did both teams’ piteous xG. Portland even tried to press here and there, which attempt I described in my real-time notes as “looks/works half-ass, but not a total waste.” The fact that came against a veritable “who’s that?” of Galaxy players – e.g., Tucker Lepley, Isaiah Parente, and Harbor Miller (that last one begs the question of what his ancestors did for a living) – always left open the hope that the Timbers were just working out their angles before absolutely destroying the whelps. And, when Felipe Mora deflected a David Da Costa grass-cutter cross from Portland’s right to score Portland's one and only goal, that plan seemed in motion – and with a bonus of giving Timbers fans a glimpse of how Da Costa’s skill set could help the mission. That bright shiny feeling that lasted only until the second half turned into a stalemated slog. I had a sense that LA got the better of the game while the Timbers sucked back into defense as I watched, but still appreciate the confirmation from the official stats page. It’s possible Gabriel Pec hoisted too much weight onto his own shoulders – more below – but he created at least one goal-line scramble and the Galaxy fired some better shots from range between the 60th and 70th minutes. The Timbers defense held…firm-esque through all that pressure, which only made LA's equalizer, from a simple ball over the top to Christian Ramirez (wake up, Zac), more simmeringly infuriating. I just circled back to the highlights, which helpfully reminded me that the Timbers had a couple chances to get back in the lead, and that brings the game and summary back to the non-call on the penalty that started the post.

Portland Timbers 1-4 Vancouver Whitecaps: The Brutal Laws of the Game & a Game to Aggressively Memory-Hole

So long as it feels better later, I'm good.

The rules of the game, when read and applied in black and white, make some calls unavoidable, even inevitable. I don’t know what Kamal Miller could have done differently in real time – i.e., Brian White’s first touch took the ball into the space into which Miller was running to catch up, he couldn’t do much to avoid some contact, so the real question was always going to turn on the kind of contact that occurred (you can toggle to the video here, but the link doesn't appear to change to the specific highlight) – but, no matter how many details you drop into the basic scenario, there is simply no getting around the fact that Miller was the last defender covering White, an attacking player running into a one-v-one against the ‘keeper, Maxime Crepeau.

I’m confident some Portland Timbers fan will undertake a frame-by-frame deconstruction to argue that White went down too easily and that another other fan will explore the practical physics of how much weight Miller’s hand would have needed to exert upon White’s shoulder in order to cause him to actually fall: by my reading, calling White for a dive presents the only alternative to the red card and I don’t see enough in what happened to sustain a flop.

Miller’s red card wasn’t the only mistake the Timbers made today; it was merely the first. It took several more to get to today’s lopsided 1-4 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps in Portland. Again. The smoldering question turns on how many of those mistakes followed from Miller’s red card against the balance of them that happened all on their own.

Before getting to that, or to anything else really, I want any Timbers fan who finds this post to keep one thought firmly in mind: as much as this result stings, maybe even embarrasses, it does not matter. It doesn’t matter even a little. Portland still has 33 games left to play and they remain very much alive on the bare terms of competing for an indulgently generous allotment of playoff slots. As MLS fans learn every season, and appear to unlearn after each regular season starts, a team can eat absolute clown-shit for three, even four months and still redeem the season with a good run in the playoffs – see, United FC, Atlanta, just one season ago (even if their own fans don’t entirely feel it). So, throw in the fact that the Timbers couldn’t field its best-possible team, take a deep breath, take the L (/spectator-sports equivalent of an enema), get out those binoculars so that you can take the longest possible view of the overall situation…

…which isn’t the same thing as thinking the Timbers are destined to have a good season, never mind a great one.

Timbers Win! Timbers Win! (Just Take It)

Marv Gomez, actually gets us.

While I didn’t intend to post anything about tonight’s game, I did manage to see all the goals, failures and indelible mysteries that made the Portland Timbers 4-2 win over the San Jose Earthquakes end the way it did.

I had a handful of talking points, but they don’t matter. Some pointed to persistent issues, some flagged some new ones, but I doubt many of them will translate to the next opponent never mind the three, four after them. I won’t question anything (though I have some), discuss where luck met competence or when, or do the usual digging and nitpicking I usually do after a game..

In the here and now, the only thing that matters is that the Timbers won a must-win game. They had to win this one because, for all their strengths (and they have a few), San Jose is a shit road team with the worst defensive record in Major League Soccer. Portland did the job and as my personal savior, Marv Gomez, the Leatherman, once said: dancing, everything else is bullshit.

When things bounce your way, the smart thing to do is catch the ball and run with it.

That said, the one and only thing I want to point out is Portland’s second goal and, per a talking point posted in last week’s Portland Timbers Snapshot (branding!), note Jonathan Rodriguez’s role in it. To be clear, it wasn’t just him; all the things that led up to that goal - Kamal Miller playing a line-breaker, Evander making a run from the depths, etc. - are the sum of what the Timbers fail to do in the many times when they under-perform. As they have for most of 2024. Still, Rodriguez feels key to the equation because he's the guy who ultimately solves it.

Why this team needs halftime adjustments like visits to the chiropractor, I'll never know. Also, God bless the man and I love him, but never let Larrys Mabiala on the field again.

Till…I’m guessing some time in the middle of next week.

New York City FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: A Long, Lucky Breather

No, really. We got this coach...

If there is a bigger cliché in soccer than the Tale of Two Halves, I don’t know what it is. New York City FC freshened it up a little, in that it was mostly them to which the cliché applied. It was as if Nick Cushing asked his players at halftime whether they were tired and, upon agreeing they all were, they torched a game-plan that had run over the Portland Timbers over the opening 30 minutes. Portland took the space NYC left open for them to (very) slowly get back in the game (I have the Timbers first shot on goal at the 73rd through Nathan Fogaca) and yet, with time on the edge of running out, a heretofore indifferent Evander floated a late, glorious winner over NYC ‘keeper Matt Freese. With that, Portland picked up a 2-1 road win that no one could have seen coming even by the halftime whistle.

Which was weird, right? I try to avoid counterfactuals – because, lo, the game played out the way it did in all known dimensions – but some part of me has to wonder about all the different ways that game could have ended. Especially given that it started with New York City so deep down Portland’s throat that I’m surprised that didn’t run clear out their ass all the way to New Jersey.

Words to describe how scattered and dizzy Portland started don’t come easy. The only part of any Timber to touch the ball over the opening 10 minutes was Dairon Asprilla’s forehead and even that happened only once or twice (related, please relegate that tactical choice to the rubbish heap, on the grounds it does not work). When NYCFC scored their inevitable break-through goal off a thrice-recycled corner at the 10th minute (think of all the planet we could save with such a program), things looked bad. That outlook downgraded to dire over the ensuing 25 minutes and, here, even the most stubborn Timbers fan should acknowledge that New York should have gone two goals up at a minimum and going up three was deeply in the conversation. The exhibits on offer:

Exhibit A: the (sixth or seventh) run around Portland’s right that had Mounsef Bakrar running free at an actually prone Maxime Crepeau in Portland’s goal; and

Exhibit B: the slip/sideways pass by Crepeau directly to an NYCFC player who had nothing a recovering Zac McGraw between him and an open goal.

New York had more chances besides (the highlights have most of 'em, just not Exhibit B) – in all honesty, they could have been up 4-0 with true finishing – and then, to paraphrase Star Wars, the guns, they stopped.

Portland Timbers 2024 Preview: Hopes, Fears & Theories

In a better world...

“It’s Feb. 15 and [the Timbers] still have two open DP spots. It’s almost not even worth talking about them until they fill those spots.”

- Sam Jones, MLS Daily Kickoff

I hold this truth to be self-evident, and to the extent that this post won’t be so much a preview as a series of thoughts, opinions and speculation. Moreover, it starts in a place where I wish I didn’t.

When I saw the Portland Timbers line-up for their final preseason warm-up against Chicago Fire FC, I did not feel the glitz and glamour I’ve come to expect from events in the Coachella Valley. Instead, I saw too much of the same line-up I’ve seen over two back-to-back unsuccessful seasons. Here’s the (probable) line-up for that game (I couldn’t tell because that skeazy miser, Merritt Paulson, lacks the good goddamn sense to treat preseason like the course of appetizers they are):

4-2-3-1: James Pantemis (GK); Juan David Mosquera (RB), Zac McGraw and Kamal Miller (CBs), Eric Miller (LB); at the 2, Diego Chara paired with Eryk Williamson; at the 3, Santiago Moreno, Evander and Dairon Asprilla, and all that with a cherry on top named Felipe Mora.

Between turnover in the roster and players coming back from injury, that isn’t a name-for-name match to the line-up the Timbers trotted out, say, at the beginning of 2023. And yet, when you look at the line-up the Timbers used in MLS Week 1 2023, it amounts to splitting the difference between identical and fraternal twins. In the sense that I rate Mora higher than the departed Jaroslaw Niezgoda and Moreno over the bizarrely hesitant (and also departed) Yimmi Chara, sure, that counts as improvement. But how much?

The fact that Timbers line-up lost their final preseason game to a serially terrible Chicago team injects some vibez gloom into the launch of the 2024 regular season. I don’t know of any franchise in all of sports has put in the work to alienate its fanbase the way Chicago has. Missing the playoffs in 10 of the last 11 seasons is the tip of an iceberg that could sink 100 Titanics. I don’t put any more stock into preseason than the next fan, and I understand that one of Chicago’s goals was a freak-show error that couldn’t be replicated without a live chicken and copious amounts of despair, but, as they say, still…

FC Cincinnati Preview: Bring Your Running Shoes, the Good Ones

Lace 'em tight, stay frosty.

Club du Foot Montreal have a new crest (eh), and a solid run over the past 10 games, going 6-2-2 and against reasonably spry opposition. They lost a step on the back end of the 10, going 3-2-0; fwiw, they got home wins over Atlanta and Orlando, plus one on the road over Charlotte, but they lost away to Nashville…and then at home last weekend against Real Salt Lake. And one can make a reasonable argument that RSL outplayed them. So…what looms largest, a 6-2-2 recent record or the one oddball loss that goes against it?

I’ll start with this: Montreal doesn’t run the tightest ship at the back. They’ve allowed at least one goal in every game except that win over Charlotte. They’ve also scored above the league average (which I put at 17.5; Montreal has 24), which makes me think FC Cincinnati has another track meet on tap for this weekend. That’s not unusual for these Montreal v Cincy: they played to a 4-3 game with Cincinnati at home and on the losing end, which repeated another game in 2021, when they played the same venue (right?) with the Orange and Blue coming out at the wrong end of a 5-4 final score.

That’s the past, because a couple things have changed since even that last meeting – e.g., the arrival of Obinna Nwodobo and a fully-functioning midfield (with Junior Moreno). So, first question: can Cincinnati’s overall defensive shape/personnel keep Montreal to one or zero goals? I lean toward yes, but with some caveats and caution signs. Montreal has some sharp players working the width/channels – e.g., Djordje Mihailovic (assuming he’s not gone yet…The Mothership is behind on the availability info) and Lassi Lappalainen on their left and Alistair Johnston and Joaquin Torres on the right – and they spread the field nicely and play into the internal channels or to the far post according to the space they have. It’s a decent system, even if RSL bottled it up pretty nicely.

Against that methodology, the way Cincy plays its fullbacks – I assume Pat Noonan goes Alvas Powell and John Nelson again – looms larger than normal (also relevant: I think I say this every time). I hope they go a little conservative, at least on one side, and rely more on the fullbacks playing into Moreno and Nwobodo then out to Dominique Badji and (again, I assume) Alvaro Barreal, respectively, to work the ball up the field. I don’t mind either fullback taking chances once the ball is high, but hope they don’t hand Montreal any gifts, especially breaks behind the fullbacks inside Cincy's half. It’s not that Montreal can’t push up the gut, and Victor Wanyama does make his share of late runs to the top of the area, but he mostly seems to sit deep and coordinate, with the forward momentum happening on either side of him. That said, Montreal can change that up by calling in Kei Kamara, King of Journeymen, to act as a battering ram later in the game; that’s against Romell Quioto, who strikes me as just another guy they play into space.