Portland Timbers 0-1 Seattle Sounders: It's Time to Talk About Larry

Third image under "idiot son."

I’ll keep this short. (Now, how many of you guessed that I’ve started scores of posts with that exact same phrase, only to delete it when the proof slipped straight out of the pudding? And...failed again.)

To start with the short version, the Seattle Sounders (specifically, centerback Kim Kee-hee) pegged an own-goal off the heel (probably) of the presently-struggling Julio Cascante. They’ve built their late streak on fluky/lucky goals, Seattle has, and that one goal allowed them to smuggle all three points out of Providence Park  last night. The ending 0-1 score-line in no way represented the action on the field - see the box score and the evidence of the eyes of all witnesses to this, just, gross injustice - and, so, to wrap up the short version, those motherfuckers…

The Portland Timbers (I haven’t even named them yet? seriously?) played the better game out there tonight and were, without question, the better team. I heard talk that the Timbers withdrew into the safety of the “Christmas Tree” formation for tonight and the contours of the match bore that out: the wretched cluster-fuckedness and missed marks of the last three games gave way to a solid shape and, by the numbers alone, an improved attack. I also saw Zarek Valentin and Alvas Powell push high enough (if somewhat ineffectually) to give said Christmas tree one fat fucking middle section, so I’ll just say that the Timbers played in some way that let Sebastian Blanco and Diego Valeri get on the ball a lot, but all while keeping fairly reliable shape. And that worked well, Timbers players looked like they had a good sense of where to go, and what to do, and that’s good.

It wasn’t enough, of course, and that’s now four straight losses (can I get a “huzzah”?) Moreover, it became even less immediately after Seattle scored their shitty, slop goal. I had to check the highlights to recall the Timbers’ best chance on goal - for me, that’s Samuel Armenteros’ lightly over-heated header across the grain off a (motherfucking) moment by Zarek Valnentin.

About those highlights, they open with this absolute gift of phrasing:

“89th all-time meeting between professional soccer teams calling themselves Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders.”

I can do nothing but applaud that man’s adherence to the strictest of accuracy.

Back to the gristly meat of the matter, there is not a lot of Portland shining in those highlights. Yeah, there’s the one shitty goal for Seattle fans to cling to (lo, it is their guns and religion), but this game otherwise played out as a futility collage, and with Portland trying more and suffering more disappointment for it. Worse, the Portland Timbers plus a slip into the permanent (frankly shameful) midnight of life outside the playoffs, and with the Sounders stepping on their shoulders to get into the light.

Then again, what do you expect when Lawrence Olum starts for your team week after week?

From here, this post is and is not about Olum, and precisely because he is not the fucking problem. Olum delivers exactly as advertised: he’s a smart, disciplined player with reasonable skills, size and mobility. He gets in the way well enough, he’s strong enough on the ball, and he passes safe, and all that gets to why a coach puts him on the field. Say, Giovanni Savarese. What Olum won’t do is deliver the line-splitting, defense-cracking pass from deep, or cover all the ground that, say, an ambitious team needs a player to do a la, say, Diego Chara. To take that a step further - and I can't stress this enough - none of that is Lawrence Olum’s fault. If he was telling people he was the Kenyan-Messi-Only-Residing-in-Portland-Oregon-for-Some-Damn-Reason, that’d be one thing. But he’s not. He’s Lawrence Olum and he does the things described directly above well enough to keep getting paid by this team and I, for one, resent neither that nor him.

That said, I also don’t want to see him start, and more or less ever, and that’s what brings me to the meat of this post, and that goes back to something I would have tweeted pre-game had a combination of technology, real-building (that is old) density, and/or probably an impermeable cloud of sorrow not thwarted the effort:

“Anyone else…irked at the absence of Paredes or Flores or Guzman? What happened to hope, I guess? Also, love ya Larry, but…”

To the same point, look at who Portland had on the bench: Bill Tuiloma, Steve “Mr. 27” Clark, Andres Flores, David Guzman, Cristhian Paredes, Marco Farfan, and Dairon Asprilla. Do you see a savior in that o’er-brimming handful of players, someone who can come onto the field to change a game, maybe rescue a result? I singled out Flores, Paredes (Class of 2018) and Guzman (class of 2017), but the same point extends to Andy Polo (as noted way back here). If you’ve seen more than a couple moments from any of them, or even the hazy outline of real potential, I very much want to borrow your glasses, please advise. I’ll watch video, read articles, stare uncomprehendingly at a heat map: name your fucking challenge, because I’d argue all of the above have been adequate, at most, over 25 games in MLS 2018. And that feels like a sound sample size, enough time for finding feet, etc.

It also leads me to another tweet, this one from a guy named “moojuice_n_oreos,” and without his explicit permission (and with mild disrespect to his superior formatting choices):

“I can’t believe I’m the voice of reason w/Gio. Me. Calm the fuck down & give the guy a chance to actually sign some players that fit how he wants to play. This whole season was thrown together after Porter bailed & he’s done a good job getting some results. Fuck already.”

I don’t think Hizzoner Moojuice is wrong, because Portland played reasonably well last night, only to bump against its ceiling – i.e., the Sounders were that ceiling, but any MLS team with a competent-to-strong defense could stand in for them just fine. To their credit, the Sounders rarely gave up a shot without a couple players on the right side of it (Portland did the same, only to have fate eat her crumpet and spill crumbs in our damn laps). Part of that’s good defense, but the other part follows from the simple fact that Portland has a personnel problem - specifically, the team has all of three reliable attacking players in Valeri, Blanco and Samuel Armenteros (aka, The Big Three). Shut them down and you’re at least halfway to game over. And full credit to those three players for lifting this team as high as they have, too, but I also don’t see how they’ll be enough to lift the team to glory.

A big question lurks in all the above – and this is one that will stare Sounders fans in the face soon enough – and that is: how the Hell did Portland make this work over that 15-game unbeaten streak? There are probably several answers to that – e.g., see rumors that Savarese “tinkered” with the starting line-up during the Timbers’ three prior losses, and, well, maybe – but my short, general answer is that teams hadn't figured out how to manage Portland’s counter during that time. The longer response will take shape with the rest of the 2018 season – ideally, with a season-changing counterpoint delivered by both Savarese and the team, new parts or no new parts. Look, I was content as the next Portland fan during that long streak, all the way down to my Lawrence Olums, but it looks more and more suspect with each loss. 

I know the cavalry is coming – or at least A cavalry, in the persons of Lucas Melano and Jorge Villafana – and here’s to hoping they can do what I wouldn’t bet even a nickel on last night’s bench doing. Even having one loosely viable attacking option, whether in the starting eleven or a sub that’ll come on later, would open up some space for the Big Three to start finding goals again. As much as I bitched about Darlington Nagbe (a lot/obsessively/longingly), he played that role. And, in the here and now, I’d argue the team jettisoned him only to draft 3-4 players (Guzman, Flores, Paredes…and Polo?) to play a similar role, only worse. To stab a thumb in another fresher wound, the Timbers let Fanendo Adi go, first, because he asked, but that had to have stood on at least a vague theory that Armenteros is enough. When Adi left, however, he took what was left of the Timbers’ capacity to make the opposition cope with something different and dangerous. And, again, that’s team, meet ceiling.

I understand that I’m skipping past a buncha shit to focus on all the above - e.g, how’d Liam Ridgewell do on his return (fine, good even), or does the word “wing-back” mean anything when applied to this current Timbers team (probably not) – but I think the most salient issue about the Timbers right now can be summed up in one short, memorable, and, when you think about it long enough, entirely blameless name: Lawrence Olum. To stick all the way up for Olum, I believe he has a place on this team. If nothing else, I trust him to help shut down a game. Seeing that kind of player start, on the other hand, says a couple different things. “We’re trying to shut down the game” is one, sure, but so is “tapped out.” That’s a bigger indictment of the scouting staff - and that’s 1,000% re-directed toward signing players like Asprilla, Polo, and Paredes as well - because the worst thing about seeing a Portland Timbers line-up comes with understanding that’s perilously close to the best team they can field. I understand the case for letting Paredes and Polo to come around, but I think Asprilla has developed to the extent that he’s going to, and the team needs players right now, for 2018, at least if they want to salvage it.

To continue abusing the holy crap out of the first sentence in this post (sorry! almost done!), the Timbers lost to Seattle tonight, and I totally expected that. If I’ve learned nothing else from relentlessly tracking results, it’s that patterns deserve attention, maybe even more than the details you see from one game to the next. The other thing, and one harder to put into words, is that every MLS team’s “level” gets revealed by those results. A team’s level is by no means static – it’s impacted by, say, their current, ongoing/unrelenting stretch (two more games this week? sure, why not?!) – but Portland is a better team that what fans have watched these past two weeks, and that affords an opportunity to end on a high(er) note.

The pile-up of games notwithstanding, the Timbers have a fairly soft September ahead: after hosting Toronto FC this Wednesday, then traveling to New England next weekend, Portland faces the following: Colorado at home, Houston away, Columbus at home, Minnesota away, and finally, FC Dallas at home, and in who knows what shape? And, since I’m close enough, the season ends with a home-and-home series against Real Salt Lake, before closing away to Vancouver. That is doable (goddammit), but it still requires the team to actually do it. And that includes Lawrence Olum.