Portland Timbers, at the Break: Was It Underachieving?

something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's...

To open the post with a question, does the Portland Timbers conscious uncoupling from Phil Neville render all that came before it even partially irrelevant?

Answer: Some combination of we’re about to find out and we’ll only know if the new hire makes the current team rise above lower middle-table class.

As I thought about what I wanted to write into the record during the moral injury timeout of Major League Soccer’s 2026 season, aka, the 2026 World Cup, I came up with a couple different approaches – e.g., reviewing every goal allowed this season to see if I could get a handle on whatever ails the Timbers defense (28 goals allowed so far, 2.0/game), or mining themes out of all the posts I’d written since First Kick 2026. On the theory that Neville’s departure renders all that at least partially irrelevant, all that’s going out the window.

Related, I’m not going to bother picking at the bones of the rotting camel carcass that ended Phil’s tenure, last Saturday’s 1-3 home loss versus the San Jose Earthquakes. On the most basic level, it was an(other?) example of game getting away from the Timbers; they gave up three goals with just over a quarter of the game played and Portland hasn’t scored more than two goals in any game outside the opener versus Columbus and versus a wretched, yet rising Sporting Kansas City team (now just three points below the Timbers). I doubt I would have put much time into that one had Neville stuck around. Setting aside the question of whether he was up to it (he wasn’t), the two-month The World Cup break will give every team in MLS something like a fresh start. Sure, some teams would make that start with more baggage than others – think of Portland running eight points behind the pace for the “real” (as in non-play-in) playoffs as starting adulthood with student debt in a race against trust-fund kids – but the Timbers brain-trust had plenty of information for gauging what was and wasn't working and making the relevant adjustments.

Those adjustments can only go so far, of course, with the extent limited by the players currently under contract with Portland. And that’s what the rest of this post will be: one man’s examination of the cards the Timbers currently hold in their hand and that its next manager will have to play. I’ll take those one at a time in player-by-player, position-by-position blurbs below - most based on the eye test, with a glance at the numbers – starting with the regulars and then on through the bench. Before touching on the present realities, however, let us turn our attention to a couple other externals.

Portland v. Vancouver: A Timely Experiment (that should end right now).

Not pictured: Blas Perez running in to kick these kids.

Well, that was fun, yeah? Seeing a collection of (metaphorical) toddlers run out against a bunch of (metaphorical) first-teamers. (OK, yes, low blow. Vancouver Whitecaps fans, you have my apologies. And yet...)

Immediately after I told the guy sitting next to me something to the effect that the Portland Timbers were doing pretty well in terms of keeping Vancouver's first team off the scoreboard? Of course they scored. Of course...a better fan would have gone piss immediately after to insure that the Timbers would have scored in his absence. I guess I'm not that fan, but, then again, scoring wasn't really on the cards for the Portland Timbers tonight, was it?

In case it's not clear by now, the Portland Timbers trotted out a clear B-Team tonight, to play against....yep, that's pretty much the Vancouver Whitecaps starting eleven. Well, give or take on Vancouver's starting eleven, but, still, they had more of their A-team in the game than Portland did, and by a country mile. Any Timbers fans losing his/her mind over this....well, first of all, he/she shouldn't. Not even the guy on the MAX who wondered out loud to his girlfriend how a team that won MLS Cup only a few months ago could lose at home in their preseason. He seemed especially disappointed that this happened right after beating Minnesota United so comprehensively just a few nights ago? It's not that shocking, is it? (And, to his credit, the same guy acknowledged shortly thereafter that Portland started virtually none of their, uh, starters, so...again, he was surprised, why?).

Speaking for myself, I didn't know what to expect when I showed up tonight – and that's mostly down to willful ignorance of Portland's staring eleven on any given match day. With that in mind, any and all can paint me all colors of giddy about what I watched out there tonight – e.g., our depth against (most of) an MLS club that many people expect to do pretty well in 2016. For this lukewarm mess of a team to lose just 2-0 to a club that scored once with a new striker (left wide-open on the back post) and again with one of last year's starters? Well, I wouldn't say I learned a ton about what to expect from the Timbers as a team this year. What I did learn, however, was a thing or two about Portland's depth, plus a likely sub here, maybe a starter there. And that's what the rest of this will be about. Ready, steady...go!