“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.
Olum aside, my thoughts/questions about the Timbers’ depth actually
revolve around Andres Flores. When you watch him play, you see why Giovanni
Savarese packed him when he moved to Portland. He covers a lot of ground and plays clean and simply
- the kind of guy you can send out there and feel pretty good about him not
fucking up, basically, and that’s a good player to have in the back pocket
when, say, an injury comes up (Chara) or international duty calls (Andy Polo). That
also happens to be his ceiling as a player, or at least that’s what it looks
like, and I guess that circles all the way back to the top of this post and the
question of leaving four points from the last two home games on the table.
I realize that some this amounts to quibbling over a
word/verb - “reorganize” - but I’ve been with the Larrys Mabiala/Julio Cascante
centerback pairing for as long as we’ve had it. Mabiala has his limits, but he
makes up for them, more or less, with good decisions and/or positioning. As for
Cascante, he looks like he’s getting better with each passing week; I recall a
couple solid interventions last night (and take that with as much salt as you
need to given my confession above), and he makes a reasonable enough partner
with Larrys and that’s enough for me to wonder why you’d automatically return Liam
Ridgewell to the line-up if/when he gets whole. (Also, does anyone wish Larrys was really erratic to make it easier to joke about "which of the Larrys will show up"? No?) I guess I’m arguing that, if
this is a “reorganized” defense, the rebuild went well enough. My concern,
then, remains on the attacking side.
These last two draws have shaken my faith in Portland winning
any trophies this season - not unless Cristhian Paredes or Andy Polo (or
anyone, really) can help the team into a higher gear. That six-game winning
streak suspended gravity for a bit, but that’s where I started this season, and
regular laws of gravity appear to have returned. This is a good Portland team, one
I trust to compete in every game, but without any real sense that the sky is
its limit. As currently constituted, I can see the Timbers winning, say, the
U.S. Open Cup - I could be persuaded to go as far as saying it’s built for that
kind of tournament - so maybe it’s time I started watching that tournament. Because
I think Timbers fans have a good team, that doesn’t necessarily rule out
reaching MLS Cup, but it doesn’t make a case for it either.
One last note in closing: it’s been so long since I’ve seen
David Guzman start a game, that I’ve pretty much forgotten how the team works
with him in the line-up. More to the point, Guzman has yet to play a steady
role in this version of the Timbers - e.g., with Polo, Paredes, or even Samuel
Armenteros running around up top instead of Fanendo Adi. Who knows? Maybe
Guzman’s return will help the team find that higher gear. My only thought on that
is that he didn’t look like the guy to do it during his last run of regular
appearances - which is to say, Guzman didn’t look up to holding things together
without Chara on the field, and that’s enough to make me question his capacity
to transform this team…
…or to give it the “oomph” it needs on the attacking side of
the ball. Anyway, that’s all for this week until the Portland Timbers next
game. I’ll drop a couple posts on FC Cincinnati between here and there, but
otherwise, see all y’all after the World Cup break.
After the personal self-doubt caused by those first five away games, I think Gio really liked the feeling of the Timbers going two months without a loss. So, there was a cold calculation- SKC is good, probably better than we are judging by results. How do we not lose? By stymieing their attack and hope for something good happening the other way. Playing Eryk not Olum and starting Armenteros instead of Adi would have made a statement that we would take risks to go for the win. I think Gio is saying to himself, "Umm, no. Maybe we''ll go that direction after the WC break..."
ReplyDeleteWhat didn't help was that Blanco and Valeri both had so-so games against SKC. And Adi rarely now has moments where he looks to create something all on his own. So, the rope-a-dope provided another tie.
Broadly, I agree with all that - down to your read on Gio's thought process - but only up to the possibility of going in a fresh direction after the WC break. Even there, it's not a hard disagreement, so much as the overall premise of the post: does this team have the personnel to play any other way, or does it need other pieces to do that?
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the follow-up to your good points on Blanco and Valeri: can they do what they've been able to do during the Timbers' great run, or will that always hit a wall against better teams like SKC?
Thanks for reading and commenting! And, I gotta ask, do you write on this (or other stuff) elsewhere? (Hold on...lemme try...
...yeah, clicking on your name doesn't lead anywhere.)
ReplyDelete