MLS Round-Up: Some Word Association on the Cusp of Decision Day

Ooh. Something about Orlando coming up.

With some strays called in – e.g., Columbus Crew SC (expectedly) picking at the bones of the New England Revolution (4-0) and Los Angeles FC sniping the Vancouver Whitecaps in second-half stoppage (2-1) - and nothing left to play but Decision Day, an urge to get things organized one final time before we take ‘em one game at a time (aka, the playoffs) kicked in. The rest of you do this in the privacy of your own mind, and you’re almost certainly better off for it. And yet, here we are…

Don’t expect deep analysis in anything below and I didn't flag more than a couple players by name. Also, judge me, if you must, for giving up early on doing league-wide coverage literally every season, but I still haven’t landed on a way of actually cover Major League Soccer that 1) I trust and 2) doesn't feel like rehashing the same shit everyone has plowed over three times or more. I’ll take another swing in 2025 – i.e., tinker with the methodology, maybe lower the bar for “trust,” etc. – but the best I can offer for 2024 is recollection of half- (or less-than-half-)remembered videos and highlights, a review of undeniable trends, both long- and short-term, and a succession of hiccups percolating up from my gut.

In nuts-‘n’-bolts terms, I’m gonna list every team in MLS, by conference and in their current order, from top to tail, and give a brief read on where they are now and their season as I understand it. Hot takes will come as my gut gives ‘em, otherwise…allons y!

WESTERN CONFERENCE (hey, that’s my home conference!)
Los Angeles Galaxy (1st in West, 2nd overall)
The somewhat rare team that can pull apart the opposition, arguably as good in possession as they are in transition. Vulnerabilities include a middling road record (6-6-4) and a middling defense, but the Galaxy have real talent all over the attacking third (given a preferred starting XI) and they can score from as many places. They’ve been lethal at home all season – only LAFC beat them there (and the last of their three home draws came in mid-May) – and they can beat any team on their day. They’ll have to win on the road to do it, but the Galaxy have a real shot at MLS Cup.

A Scouting Report & a Tease

Even your mom thinks I'm cool.

It’s not often that one gets to scout both teams that yer local team will play in the play-in they are doomed to play. And yet that’s exactly what happened when the Vancouver Whitecaps hosted Minnesota United FC and let them steal dinner with a 0-1 loss.

Most of the notes below point to Vancouver more than the Loons and, yes, that’s me hedging toward the ‘Caps as the Portland Timbers’ likeliest opposition for the play-in. Hot take. Yeah. At any rate, watching…about 75 minutes of this game dredged up thoughts and memories about both teams, and I’m going to lace those the post below. To be clear, I am familiar with both teams, as well as most of the players that line up for them, but I won’t pretend to I know either of them.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t done obsessive (unhinged) stuff all season to help me keep tabs on every team in Major League Soccer. No, you're the weirdo with the Word doc you created to track the progress of all 29 teams in the league because the Form Guide (hallelujah!) fell short of truly connecting you to the data. Not me, not this winner. That said, if I was that guy, I might have something like this just lying around.

Minnesota United FC
Record/Stats: 14-12-7, 49 pts., 54 gf, 48 ga (+6); home 6-6-4, away 8-6-3; 7th in West; 12th overall
Last 10 Results: LWLWWLWWTW
Venue:                HHHAAHAHAA (again, not laughing; H = home, A = away)
Decision Day Oppo: v STL

Vancouver Whitecaps
Record/Stats: 13-11-8, 47 pts., 50 gf, 45 ga (+5), home 6-6-4, away 7-5-4, 8th West, 14th overall
Last 10 Results:   WLWTWTLTLL
Venue:                  HHAHHAAHHH
Final Games: v LAFC, @ RSL

I’ll reference that below, but let’s start with:

Portland Timbers 0-0 FC Dallas, aka, The Sum of Our Greatest Fears in 48 Minutes

Oh, it's coming, champ.

A should-win on Wednesday versus Austin FC that ended in a loss, followed by a must-win late this afternoon versus FC Dallas that ended in a gutless, goal-less, leg-less draw. Ye gods, egads, etc.

First question: how to put a bow on that much nothing?

Second question: when was the last time (verb tense entirely deliberate, btw) you could either believe or talk yourself into thinking that the Portland Timbers have a chance to end their season on the highest-possible high? Don’t know what that was for you, but for me it was a playoff (or play-in) win and a dream of bigger things (no matter how implausible)?

I was somewhat optimistic, personally, even through the loss versus Austin. That optimism took a square shot to the stones tonight and I can name the moment the blow landed: somewhere around two minutes after Felipe Mora’s best shot of the day, aka, the 48th minute or thereabouts. To that point in through both games, Portland had a firm handle on the game-states. They weren't scoring, sure...and, okay, Austin snuck one past them, but the Timbers were still doing good, productive, proactive things all over the field. And then even that dried up. If one accepts the conventional wisdom that Portland can't defend a lead, they need to be the team that outscores all comers. Instead, they've now gone 230 minutes without scoring. Closer to the point at hand, Dallas took over the game after that last best shot and that’s how they tagged ‘em both (both balls, I mean, paraphrasing Kingpin).

The Very Basics, aka, the (Perversely Happy) Flashbacks to the Austin Loss
Much like last Wednesday versus Austin, the Timbers rolled up the chances versus Dallas from around the 17th minute to the 39th. Mora blew at least two chances before steering his best chance wide, Jonathan Rodriguez almost caromed home a header off an Evander free-kick at the 22nd minute, and Evander tried everything up to and including (repeatedly) trying to salsa his way through the middle of Dallas’ defense. Both Juan David Mosquera and Santiago Moreno flailed some shots wide – one of them a hopeful bicycle attempt (Moreno’s) off one of Portland’s best flurries of night – but, for a second week running, the Timbers’ shot selection looked more desperate than wise or good. Finishing and finished product aside, the signs looked all right over the first half: the Timbers won every 50/50, not to mention most of the 40/60s, and they recycled the ball into Dallas’ end of the field over-and-over. Seeing a functioning recycling program felt good, guys…

Portland Timbers 0-1 Austin FC: Resistance and Young Love

First, a confession: I pay a lot more attention to a game when I’m at home. My wife will knock around for the opening 15-25 minutes – depends on the night – but, after that, it’s just me watching the game and spitting rhetorical questions into the void.

On the rare occasions I go to real-life live games – almost always from Section 210 (shout out! REGGAETON HORNS! REGGAETON HORNS!) – distractions abound. For instance, I missed last night’s only goal (Austin’s. fuckers), reminiscing with an old friend about another old friend’s family all had “hobbit feet.” If it wasn’t that, it was the couple straight-up dry-fucking in the row immediately in front of me. Seriously, light grinding started around the 43th minute and that graduated to full-on grinding and his hand up her shirt by the 80th.

Suffice to say, I didn’t pay perfect attention to this game, and yet, these are my notes…

1) The Game Was Better Than the Result
Swear to God, I will put the minimum amount of lipstick on this…I can’t say “pig of a result” because, all three points dropped aside, the Timbers piled on the chances and in numbers that, eight times out of ten secures at least one goal, sometimes two more, and often all three points. In this case, the official stats for this game do the double work of confirming and denying reality: on the one hand, you saw all the chances; on the other, you saw precisely why they didn’t go in. If Austin excelled at anything last night, it was getting dudes in the way of almost everything Portland attempted in their defensive third. How MLS stats-hacks landed on just two blocked shots for Austin, I’ll never know.

Austin FC Scouting Report: On the Undead and Shitty Committees

Give it to me straight, doc...

It’s nice to be back, feeling like I have the space to let my mind wander. I’ll seek not to abuse the privilege. Oh, and all of this is based on memory, 75+ additional minutes of review and poking around some (real, real) basic stats.

Record/Stats: 9-13-9, 36 pts., 34 gf, 44 ga (-10); home 6-5-5 away 3-8-4, 11th West, 21st overall
Last 10: LWLLTWLLTL
Venue: AHHAHAHAAH (again, not laughing, H=home, A=away)
Remaining Games: @ POR, @ LAG, v COL

First and foremost, yes, mathematical probability is the only thing keeping Austin FC from their due terminal diagnosis. They’re dead in all but name, obviously, but spectator sports count among the rare places where zombies can harm the living. So, shoot the fuckers in the head, yeah?

The (Largely Regular) Lineup
Austin’s head coach, Josh Wolff, has trotted out at least three different formations in recent weeks – 4-3-3, 4-4-2, hell, the man even made a pass at a 4-2-3-1; then again, what else does a coach do but tinker through a 2-6-2 run? – but it’s also a lot of plugging the same dudes into a different shape (for reference, the lineups reviewed go back to the game at Nashville in late August). Guilherme Biro and Mikkel Desler have been constants at fullback, Brendan Hines-Ike has anchored most of the defenses with either Julio Cascante (hi, Julio!) or Matt Hedges at his side. Alex Ring (always) patrols midfield in front of them, with Daniel Pereira the most frequent Batman to his Robin, though (coach’s son) Owen Wolff occasionally spells him. Sebastian Driussi still steers Wolff’s (ahem) attack and mostly toward a semi-stable combination of Jader Obrian and, since he joined, Osman Bukari, but you also see Diego Rubio and, in the briefest of glimpses, Gyasi Zardes (what a signing). Driussi gets a little attacking support from Jon Gallagher, mostly through crosses (he floats wide). It’s a couple cameos from there. The end.

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 Portland Timbers: I Accept This Result, I Love This Result

This can't be anything but disorienting.

The Portland Timbers rolled out of Vancouver with a point after last night’s 1-1 draw at BC Place. Based on a quick little spin around the Timbers subreddit, I liked this result more than others, maybe even more than I should. I’ll defend that choice between now and the end, but first…

The Very Basics
The Vancouver Whitecaps went up 1-0 with the opening whistle still echoing around the stadium (c’mon, roll with it). If the Timbers had hoped to ease their way into the game, the shock of Brian White’s ever-so-early (and unnervingly easy) goal hit them like a bucket of ice water waking them from sleep. The shock of it carried over the opening 15-20 minutes of the game: no Portland player seemed to know where he should be and where he should go from there. The “shock” metaphor seems especially apt because once the Timbers woke all the way up, they took hold of the game and, but for one “this fucking game” moment (Andres Cubas pinging Maxime Crepeau’s left post in second half stoppage), they never let go of it. Portland’s confidence grew side-by-side with the quality of their chance creation – i.e., Antony’s solo-run/desperate flail from the right to Juan David Mosquera firing from a seam up the middle to Santiago Moreno forcing Yohei Takaoka to save off a freekick - until Rodriguez crowned the recovery on his second bite of the apple with a deflected equalizer (his first bite was offside, sadly). The second half was all Timbers (the official stats can go to Hell), with Portland turning 50/50s into 70/30s all over the field and cutting off 90% of the paths out of Vancouver’s half. Had Takaoka’s left post not kept out Felipe Mora’s picture-perfect header, I’d bet my left leg (the bad one, fwiw) that the Timbers would be in 7th this morning.

What’s to Love
To anyone feeling blue about two points (arguably) slipping away, I’d respond with this: which team do you think feels better about not just last night’s result, but last night’s game? Sure, Vancouver punched their ticket to the post-season, but would you rather be the team ruing a slow start and 20 wasted minutes or the team trying to figure out 60+ minutes of getting played off your own pitch – and with three more crucial home games to go? The larger context only makes it worse for the 'Caps: the Timbers have defeated playoff-competitive teams since the Leagues Cup break, while the ‘Caps haven’t beat one since early July (Minnesota, on the road), or even June (Colorado, at home; Minnesota was flailing under the playoff line when the ‘Caps beat them in July). Even if you lean into the argument that Portland can only win at home, last night’s draw with the wild road draw at RSL behind it shows the Timbers getting results that, by the grace of penalty kicks, can become playoff wins. Finally, Portland has the comfort of knowing how they measure up against playoff-bound teams: both Portland and Vancouver have gone 4-3-3 over their past ten games, but the Timbers have played seven playoff-bound teams versus just four for Vancouver. That script will flip over the next two games for Portland and the next three for Vancouver – the Timbers play Austin then Dallas, while Vancouver hosts Seattle, Minnesota and LAFC – and that makes the two points separating them look at little smaller. And yet, neither team had all hands on deck…

Real Salt Lake 3-3 Portland Timbers: A Tale of One and a Half

The boy who cried wolf as an angsty teenager.

Portland Timbers fans have been invited to a transcendentally ridiculous party this season. What can we do but accept the invitation?

Very much related, the Timbers’ wild 3-3 draw at Real Salt Lake defies rational explanation. It was what it was and is what it is. It was necessary to endure the first half, experientially, in order to understand the full import of the second, it is always darkest before the dawn, and on every bloody morning after, one tin soldier will ride away.

Game Notes
The Timbers were very bad in one half, and just good enough in the second to smuggle one point out of Utah. Call it a Tale of One and a Half. I’m sure RSL fans feel aggrieved at the result, for a variety of reasons, but I’d peg one key moment as a shorthand for how/when the game went off the rails for them.

You could see RSL’s ‘keeper, Gavin Beavers (great name, no notes), scrambling to get his defense organized ahead of the corner kick that led to the Timbers’ first and fairly shitty goal. It recalled the boy who cried wolf barking at the villagers when shit got real, at long last, and it went just as well. The cross came in, Eric Miller nicked it more than he met it, but chaos ensued, and the ball rolled to Antony and he, for lack of a better verb, bumbled the ball into the net. At that exact moment, “the most dangerous lead in soccer” went to high alert.

The punchline to the whole thing: RSL had every reason to ignore that boy crying wolf. Their defensive shape and movement had Portland flustered to where they couldn’t connect more than two passes that didn’t go backwards. The Timbers midfield, in particular, didn’t seem to trust one another on either side of the ball; support failed to arrive on the attacking side, leading to wingers getting isolated and Felipe Mora operating in a void, and no one had a clear grasp on how to pass off players and rotate into cover on the defensive side. Between a defense as disarrayed as the Democrats and an offense that barely got off the couch (the Timbers’ official xG in the first half: 0.09), Portland looked doomed to a blowout.