Portland Timbers 0-0 FC Dallas: A Time to Take Chances

Just because it feels good, doesn't mean it's right.

I’m not sure where to start this post, so I’ll start with Jeff Attinella. Seeing him go down twisted the knot in my stomach a little tighter for the Portland Timbers’ slide down the shute of the 2018 inevitable end-run. It’s not that I think Steve Clark isn’t a good goalkeeper, than I think Attinella is a better ‘keeper. And with the Portland Timbers teetering on the edge of a margin, this team needs every advantage it can get. I don’t know a thing about the recovery time for separating shoulders (it happened a second time, and during the game, right?), but I’d rather have one steady ‘keeper back there, than have a guy start, then try to keep a semi-meaningless ball from rolling off the field, and then, after two-three arduous minutes, get his arm back in place only to have pop out again.

Look, I’m slapping the turf with Jeff Attinella, not at Jeff Attinella. Bottom line, while I might think Attinella is a better ‘keeper, I’m also at a place where I want the best possible, consistently fieldable iteration of the Portland Timbers on the field every week until their whole goddamn season ends - even if that means starting Clark (the fuck you mean “fieldable” isn't a word?).

That said, minus one highly relevant player (see: Blanco, Sebastian), the Timbers fielded its A-team tonight and…look, it’ll take a miracle for this team to do anything serious in 2018. I took a handful of pros and cons away from this game, but the overarching marker for Portland tops out at “good.” A team with any worthwhile mojo wins a game like this - i.e., if they can’t break down one of the top teams in the league with Plan A, they can put a call in to Plan B and get a result or rescue a draw. Generally speaking - and this game coughed up more than the usual number of “yes, buts” - the Timbers aren’t built to do that. That Blanco was missing didn’t help, but, on the evidence, his presence hasn’t been make or break for Portland this season, even as he makes the team usefully better.

At the same time, what goes for Portland applies to Dallas: they’re more or less a solid defensive team with a handful of useful means to get to goal and, Lord willing, score them. Overall, Dallas is every bit as unremarkable as the Timbers - i.e., their results don’t catch the eye, and they’ve lately relied on certain, specific people (in their case, Michael Barrios) to keep them in the running. Close observers of the Portland Timbers should find that both accurate, and a little sad, because, no matter how you arrange the letters, none of what happened tonight, and for either team, spells “G-L-O-R-Y.” Call last night’s 0-0 draw a blown opportunity for both teams, and, holy shit, is that really the first time I mentioned the score?

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Indy Eleven: Fat and Happy in the Lap of Luxury

Loving cradling our collective asses...is it good for you?

FC Cincinnati rotated its squad - more than a little, too - and they still comfortably outplayed visiting Indy Eleven, 3-1. Hey…I lead with the score. (And here’s The Match Center for all the numbers and videos you’re going to get on this game.)

The machinery didn’t run without friction, some portions of it more manifest than others - e.g., Indy made Cincy ‘keeper Evan Newton stretch for a couple shots, and, when Pa Konate came off the field at 53’, nothing about that substitution made me scratch my head - but it never felt like Indy’s game to win. And that makes the numbers from the match curious reading - especially the figures for attack and distribution. A couple testaments to the gap between the game I thought I saw and those numbers lurk on my twitter feed (@JeffBull5), but, who is to say what is real in paranoid times? Who’s to say that some miscreant statistician within the secret sanctums of the USL FO didn’t replace the actual numbers from this game in an attempt to hide FC Cincinnati’s true greatness? No, I can’t prove it, but you can’t not prove it either. (CITIZENS: Keep your eye on the Orange and Blue’s record, watch for skullduggery! Eternal vigilance!!)

(Speaking of conspiracies, did that Cincinnati’s Matt Bahner get away with a goal-line handball early in the second half? And what to make of the Zapruder-esque quality on those replays? Wait...can someone make a basement disappear with the push of a button?)

Whatever the numbers say, Cincy created better openings, some of them boulevard-wide - e.g., when the wonderful work down Indy’s right by Michael Lahoud and Jimmy McLaughlin so mesmerized the defense that they gave Fanendo Adi a public-park’s worth of free acreage. McLaughlin would strike again later, and with a ball over the top to a surging Danni Konig that I didn’t credit enough when I watched it live. Then again, for all the good work by McLaughlin and Konig, the latter couldn’t have finished that chance without a blundering assist by Indy’s ‘keeper, Owain Fon Williams, and two of his defenders. Indy’s defense would cough up yet another mistake when Carlyle Mitchell pinged a (good) Russell Cicerone cross into his own team’s side netting…hell, maybe there is no need for a conspiracy to explain this result.

MLS Week 31 Preview: The Battle for the East

Dreamin'.....

And so the calendar rolls into MLS Week 31…more or less. As with most things, MLS refuses to measure/organize the progression of its season in keeping with real-world practices. I wanted to briefly preview – or, better, frame – this weekend’s games. Because the whole thing about a dogfight in Gresham versus a revolution in China, I’m going to start local.

The Portland Timbers host FC Dallas this Saturday and, as noted in last week’s Form Guide ULTRA, this game ranks pretty highly in my personal order of importance (here, for easier checking on the notes below, is the official Form Guide). It’s a home game, of course, – and that matters with only two left – but a win here offers real, potentially enduring positives. Beating The Cream of the Western Conference (well, this week) will puff some wind in our sails and (big stretch!), who knows? Maybe the confidence will carry Portland an extra step when it counts. More than that, though, a win here sends the Timbers into the rest of its regular season with some a little more padding. Y’know, for safety? So…what are the chances?

While Dallas is hardly on fire (4-3-3), Portland’s ass keeps bumping the ground lately. Sure, the team has been perfect at home over its last 10 games (3 wins!), but those are, 1) the only three wins over that time, and 2) those came against Toronto FC, the Colorado Rapids and (better) Columbus Crew SC. Further complicating matters, Sebastian Blanco (aka, One-Man, Two-Way Kickass Squad) is suspended for the occasion; there are no other significant, or at least not surprising, absences for either team. Having suffered a choking period of their own, Dallas isn’t exactly flying into this game, but they’re comfortably in the top half of defense teams – not great for Portland’s fitful (now Blanco-less) attack – and Dallas transition very quickly, often isolating fullbacks in particular with the kind of long balls that stretch defenses. Oh, and they’re not slouches on set-pieces either. All in all…sigh. For what it’s worth, I think Portland can get all three points…it’s just that I think a draw, goal-less or otherwise, feels more likely.

If Maximiliano Urruti who shivs us…love the guy, but…damn. Just damn. OK, on to the rest of ‘em!

After looking at the weekend’s match-ups, I decided to call Week 31 The Battle for the East. That’s no exaggeration (well, outside being an actual exaggeration), because three games have potential to move things in significant directions. [Ed. - Obviously, all this comes in the context of a league that enforces both parity and an aggressively generous playoff system - i.e., to miss the playoffs is to fuck up enough to disappoint your dad, and have two of his friends mock him. Your mom will always be there for you, pumpkin.] To take them in no particular turn:

MLS Week 30 Form Guide ULTRA: Best Weeks, Worst Weeks and Tripping on the Cellar Stairs

Very, very, very fast walking! YEAH! HELL, YEAH!!!

[Ed. - This post is like an iceberg - most of it lurks down in the InfoBoxes below  - aka, fairly basic tables that show the last 10 results for each team in Major League Soccer, including who they played, where, and the quality of the opposition. I divide quality by: “IN,” teams in the playoffs, or projected to get there; “OUT,” means any team caught between doom and disarray, while “Marginal” teams serially straddle the playoff line.]

I’ll get to Week 30’s Top 5 moments, but I’d also like to call for a moment of silence to commemorate the week’s saddest, loneliest, least cared-for game. Orlando City SC met the Houston Dynamo on Saturday with nothing but pride and some hints of better times ahead on the line. The game ended 0-0. 3...2...1...shh…[quiet sobs, some laughter. and scene.]

Moving on.

Chocolate Mudslide to the Shield

Unless a miracle in the Western Conference meets a total collapse at the top of the Eastern Conference, the only two teams in MLS with a real shot at the Supporters’ Shield are the New York Red Bulls and Atlanta United FC. Both teams won during Week 30: Atlanta twice (a 3-4 thriller at San Jose (which included a solid candidate for GOTW), followed by a 2-0 win over Real Salt Lake), while New York might have taken too long (and it needed this one-man debacle to pad the final score to 2-0). The plot thickens next week when those same two teams meet next Sunday, but it thins out quite a bit for the rest of the season. The only really tough game left for either team is the Philadelphia Union at home - that’s New York’s and, between that and New York already being 4 points below them, that makes the Shield Atlanta’s to lose. New York gets the game at home, but it’s not like Atlanta is bad on the road (try 10-3-2). At the same time, the comparatively soft schedule for both teams means neutrals have to squeeze all the glory of this race into next Sunday. I expect all the excitement of speed-walking for the rest.

Philadelphia Has the Best Week Ever

It’s worth taking time to linger on what the Union did, not just this past weekend, but recently. That they knocked off two off two of the Western Conference’s hottest teams - the Seattle Sounders (1-0) and Sporting Kansas City (2-0), and they played the former in Seattle - only begins the story of how fast and smoothly Philly’s phinest are rolling. Not even going 7-2-1 over their last 10 contains everything about the team’s momentum. They played six of those 10 games on the road and they went 4-1-1 in those games - a number that’s doubly-impressive when set beside the Union’s 6-7-2 road record overall. This team is correcting, powerfully, and at the best possible time. Better yet, they finally found reliable scoring (that said, Jay Simpson scoring two isn’t the normal course of things).

Penn FC 1-2 FC Cincinnati: Consider Yourself...Boned!

My feelings are complex...

When you’ve watched soccer a damned long time, it’s nice to see something you haven’t before. It’s even better when that something plays footsie with absurdity, a la Tiago Calvano’s attempt to get into Danni Konig’s head and/or fuck with the ref’s request that the two players “kiss-and-make-up” early in the game. They need a different color card for this one…when Calvano actually went for Konig’s lips…in another setting, mandatory training would have followed therefrom. Damn.

It’s nice, in a sense, that Penn FC got at least a little of theirs back in this game, because they got…boned in this game. Not to get hung up on sexualized metaphors, but I didn’t come up with Corben Bone’s surname, and there aren’t a lot of verbs that better capture a player who had been theretofore invisible (Bone) stealing the ball from a dallying Aaron Dennis and curling in the game winner. That goal, when added to Emanuel Ledesma’s equalizer, lifted FC Cincinnati to a 2-1 road win over Penn FC, a result I’d call more unfortunate than unfair for Penn; or, FC Cincy’s side, fortunate…and still a little unfair. Not undeserved, mind, just unfair to Penn FC.

On the other hand, screw Penn FC because I wasn’t pulling for them. Still, my condolences. Man, it’s like there’s a devil in one ear and an angel in the other…moving on…

My notes from last night (at least the ones I can read; this was a late, second feature for me yesterday), the teams played fairly even game - and the numbers, read in the clearer light of morning, back up the impression (the link above takes you to The Match Center, aka, The World of Your Imagination). If they decided games by decision like they do in boxing, I could even be persuaded to call the game for Penn. (As my notes in the first half have it, and this is verbatim, “PEN has been better, but not much…meh; good on crosses, not great.”) That doesn’t matter, of course, as demonstrated/symbolized by the way (I think) Richard Menjivar had Cincy ‘keeper Spencer beat for a late Penn FC equalizer, only to have Forrest Lasso perfectly position to head away the shot.

If the game turned on anything in particular, I offer the old cliché, “that little bit of quality.” Cincy’s attackers fired more accurately at Penn’s Sean Lewis, and they forced great saves out of him - with Ledesman leading the list. There are also the kinds of players Cincinnati can call from its bench: it was Emery Welshman’s shot, after all, that Lewis spilled to Ledesma for the Orange and Blue’s first goal. If either Nazmi Albadawi or Kenney Walker changed the game, I missed it, but I do think that Welshman’s running, in terms of both speed and distance, might have given Penn the new look they finally couldn’t handle. And, again, Cincinnati has held that advantage all season - i.e., having real quality on the bench, as well as different varieties of it. Moreover, even if Albabawi and Walker don’t come on and change the game (for the record, still shrugging at that one), Cincinnati can rest almost all of their players without giving up much in quality - at least at the USL level. And that is a luxury…trust me on that one.

Minnesota United FC 3-2 Portland Timbers: Counter-Point

Keep the happy memories, wherever you find them.

Periodically, and only through the latter half of the season, I’ve asked - no, demanded - that the Portland Timbers rest key players - your Diegos (Chara and Valeri) and, although I’ve never mentioned the centerbacks, or fullbacks, I was glad to see Zarek Valentin and Larrys Mabiala catch a breather. When the Timbers did that tonight...it did not go well. Factually, if you’ve got any belief in this team left (and I do, if in heavily-caveated form), the first half of Minnesota United FC’s 3-2 win over Portland felt like someone pulling your esophagus out through your asshole. That goes double when you’ve been persistently arguing, directly or indirectly, that the Timbers have to trust their depth.

To start with the first half (I mean, why not?), and let’s take the Timbers out of the equation, I would have never expected any assemblage of professional players to crumble under pressure like that. Minnesota sicced a player on every ball before Portland players could take a breath, and Portland gave away their giveaways often and by every available means - e.g., stalling on the ball, through panicked, yet ambitious passing, and, in Alvas Powell’s case, by letting indecision cause the professional athlete’s version of a seizure. Warning signs flashed miles/minutes ahead of the goals Minnesota scored and, after all those goals piled on (this one by a defender...nice), I was anticipating the second half like a cancer diagnosis. Something else happened instead - and I’d argue that only complicated the proper understanding of the mess that was tonight.

I appreciate that a stats-loathing crowd exists within the soccer world; I would’ve called myself a card-carrying member for years, but, between not having enough time to follow all the teams and beginning to wonder whether watching every game isn’t just a pathway to more elegant bullshitting, I’ve come around to numbers. And no specific stat captures the shift in game state in this game quite like shots: at the half, Minnesota had 13 shots, 8 on goal to Portland’s 4 shots and 1 on goal. Now comes the flip: the game ended with Minnesota on 18 shots, 10 on goal, while the Timbers finished with 12 and 5 - a number that puts the second half at 5 shots, 2 on versus 8 shots, 4 on. And the game looked like that, and I think that's clarifying. In this case, those numbers told the story (there are no bad stats, there are only stats badly applied).

To step away from the top-line, tonight was all about testing a personal theory that the Timbers can rest key players without falling apart. With that in mind, I report, and with some sorrow, that the live demonstration of a Tomas Conechny start hinted heavily that he’s not yet ready for prime time, and that’s the worst thing about tonight. (Also, is Lucas Melano ready for...any time?) I understand the concept of “young player,” but the contrast between Sebastian Blanco finding the ball versus Conechny’s protracted, and likely accidental, hiding from it is damning. I won’t judge Conechny on this one game because, isolated, “meh” instances aside, I never really saw him. Then again, I clearly wasn't the only person to find him underwhelming: Conechny was subbed at the half, and that Portland - again, by the numbers (and through the eyes) - looked, and shot, far, far better in the second half. To note it, this came before Diego Valeri’s entered the game.

It was Diego Chara who came into the game at the half and, probably, settled everything down. Never forget that, and starting building the mold for that statue. I have persuasive arguments on this subject, don’t test me.

MLS Week 30 Preview: Matchups, Guesses and a Farewell to Tweet-Storms(?)

If you know Hearts, you know her nickname.

I’m going to attempt to return to posting weekly MLS previews to this site instead of composing tweet-storms…mostly because a guy named Gus Rachels made fun of me…

…nah, that’s bullshit. Working in 280-character blocks reined in the rambling - and, as if to underline the point, I tried to make a narrative out of this the first time around and I was choking on kudzu minutes later. Let’s move out, people, and let’s keep it tight.

I’ll start by tossing the chaff: everyone outside of Houston and Orlando has no reason to care about Orlando City SC v. Houston Dynamo (and handful of expats therefrom excepted). While some games matter more or less, that’s the weekend’s only dud.

As for the rest, literally all of the stars aligned to create some fascinating, puzzle-piece match-ups for MLS Week 30 – e.g., a fortuitously-timed game here (e.g., New England Revolution v. Chicago Fire) meets another team drawing the Queen of Spades there (e.g., Philadelphia Union v. Sporting Kansas City; that one’s for all you fans of Hearts out there). With so many angles to cut at, I think I’ll organize the bulleted previews below by going from best fortune to worst. I’ll end the whole thing with Minnesota United FC v. Portland Timbers….which is not intended as a comment on the state of Portland’s luck.

Columbus Crew SC v. Colorado Rapids

Nothing spells “relief” for a team looking to rebound after a midweek loss quite like "Colorado at home." The Rapids…have not improved, and the Crew rested key attacking players against the Portland Timbers midweek. Anything less than all three points would be a bad day for Columbus.

Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders

Hey, same story: Seattle lost on Wednesday and, lo, what comes over the hill but a badly-wounded LA Galaxy, a team whose last happy memory is posting a narrow W versus Orlando at home 6-7 weeks ago. A Seattle team, 1) who was winning all over (literally) nine games prior and that is, 2) exactly one step inside the playoff picture needs to kick a wounded man. Seattle should get all three.

New York Red Bulls v. Toronto FC

After months of posting reliable, positive results, the Red Bulls stampede finally showed real signs of slowing down. They could use a rebound as badly as any team after their last two results (L @ Montreal, high-scoring D @ DC), and they’re not going to get many better breaks than TFC’s nervous defense. Since no sane person cares about TFC, it’s anything less than three points for RBNY that you’re watching for here.

Portland Timbers 3-2 Columbus Crew SC: SUB VALERI (goddammit)

It's just right.

I want to start these notes on a, frankly, relieving win with an apology. Knowing full well that I had at least two full rows of Columbus Crew SC fans in front me, I yelled something very close to this somewhere around Columbus’ second (or third) shot on goal:

“Fuck it. Move ‘em to Austin.”

I don’t think it was just fans either. I think it was spouses and families. And they heard it. I saw the heads turn for the game of "Spot the Asshole." And...to anyone who heard that, I want Columbus to keep the Crew and get a spruced up stadium to boot...and I hope those aren't mutually exclusive. Just jokes…

A friend was kind enough to extend an invite, I got to watch this one live tonight and, honestly, the experience only continued my love/hate relationship with watching soccer live. The angle is never as good as you get on TV - especially buried deep in the southwest corner of the stadium - but, 1) I caught up with an old friend (invaluable past the age of 35); and 2) I had the best possible view of Andy Polo’s debut goal in a Portland Timbers uniform. It was by no means graceful and maybe a quarter planned, at most, but it was also welcome as Christmas morning, and, if I’m not misinterpreting Polo’s celebration, he had ample reason to thank his Lord and Savior for that one.

It was a night of firsts in some ways. David Guzman scored his first goal of his leggy 2018 season [Ed. - Correction: The author fucked up; that was, in fact, Guzman's third goal of 2018 and, as further penance, here is his first goal of 2018 (nice shot, too), and here's his second goal, Hail, Mary, full of grace, etc.], and Steve Clark played his first all-round sound game in a Timbers uniform…just fuckin’ with you, Steve. In all seriousness, hats off, Steve, not just for every free-kick you covered tonight, or every tough save you made, but for all the times you looked more upset than anyone else at every defensive failing. Respect.

Portland wound up winning this entirely vital game 3-2 - Niko Hansen scored his second of two goals (here’s #1) for Columbus, while Samuel Armenteros owes Lalas Abubakar a…let’s go with a Long Island Ice Tea for knocking his tight-angled effort past Crew SC ‘keeper Zak Steffen. In spite of a positively groggy start by Portland (Columbus families: This was my trigger! I’m usually very, very nice (I think)), the 3-1 that held for damn near 60 minutes of this game gives a more accurate read on its lived experience. As tricky as my view made it to read the game, I still believe I saw the Timbers defense round into shape between 25-30 minutes in (had a decent angle for that) and, once the Timbers switched from chasing Crew SC's attack to managing, I told my friend, maybe even before Polo scored, “I think Portland chokes this out.”

To anyone who doubts the MMA has had an impact on our culture…well, that one’s pretty benign, as it goes.

MLS Week 29, Form Guide ULTRA: Building a Team Is Building a Dream

We need animals (who look like they've had plastic surgery) in our lives.

[Ed. -again, this post is like an iceberg - most of it lurks down in the InfoBoxes (aka, just really basic tables) below. Those track the last 10 results for each team in Major League Soccer, including who they played, where, and the quality of the opposition. I divide quality by this broad metric: “IN” = teams in the playoffs, or projected to get there; “OUT” = means those seemingly touched by doom; and “Marginal” designates teams that bounce between those two camps.]

First, yeah, yeah, Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored something weird and delightful, but it was in a lost cause - and, barring a miracle for both teams. The Los Angeles Galaxy blows another shot at bare competence? Rah, rah. Toronto FC beat them on the field (5-3), and to missing out on bare competence. That happened about a month ago, with that draw at the Earthquakes. Zlatan’s goal was the only thing that made this one memorable. Now, to the games that did matter in MLS’s Week…29? (I mean, I’m looking at The Family Bible and only, like, five teams have played their 29th game, so kindly understand my confusion). Anyway, here are the results (writ large) that mattered - and in order too.

TCOB, Motherfucker, Goddammit.

Sporting Kansas City rolled into San Jose and smacked the crap out of the ‘Quakes, 5-1. They flat-out rolled San Jose’s entire defense at least twice (the goal behind the first link is awesome, with writing credit to Felipe Gutierrez), and the player’s they’ve brought in as upgrades - Johnny Russell, Gutierrez (when healthy), and, tonight, Gerso Fernando - showed all the way up tonight, as they have all season, if not always all the time. The one layer of “bite” SKC has behind its attacking corps - Roger Espinoza and Ilie Sanchez - means they can get away with some gaps in defense (Graham Zusi, allegedly); that goes double with Tim Melia holding down the goal. Moreover, they’ve got more attacking options beyond the players named above, and that’s why, all in all, I think SKC looks as “real” as any team in MLS.

You know who doesn’t have options, attacking or otherwise? My Portland Timbers. The team pretty much laid down and died around the 72nd minute last Saturday in a 1-4 loss on the road against the Houston Dynamo. To give Houston their due, Alberth Elis had the kind of game of which he’s capable, but they’re also absolutely doomed this season, and that makes it hard to give that necessary next shit about keeping up with them. The same might apply to the Timbers before we know it. This loss, along with other recent struggles, underlines the Timbers’ built-in limitations. They’ve got, at most, 4-5 consistent attacking players (Sebastian Blanco, Diego Valeri, Samuel Armenteros…uh, Larrys Mabiala? (Shit! I wasn’t wrong! Jeremy Ebobisse?), wow, make 3-4. That makes you, 1) really appreciate how good Blanco and Valeri have been, and 2) how easy it becomes to take just three guys out of the game.

FC Cincinnati 4-3 Toronto FC II: I'm Going to Miss Kenney Walker

No,  it's "Corben." "C-O-R-B-E-N,"

Are your favorite goals individual or team? I ask because FC Cincinnati scored one of each - the former by Fanendo Adi, the latter by Corben Bone - on their way to resuscitating a 4-3 win at home against an eternally gasping Toronto FC II. I’m Team Bone because I feel like team goals are more replicable than solo flights, they make teams feel more like, y’know, a team, and there’s just…something about pulling a defense apart by running and passing. (For me, that’s soccer at its best.) Don’t get me wrong: Adi’s goal was a whole lotta something, one of those moments where a player puts it on himself to make something happen. (You can find that, and reference for everything that comes below at The Match Center.)

The downside: FC Cincy needed both of those goals, and more, to beat a team that has lost twenty one (21) times in this 2018 season. On the plus side, FC Cincy has players capable of turning a game all on his lonesome. Birthday Boy Bone (googled that; results above) would score the winner in this one, but it really is remarkable that Cincinnati would need as many as four goals to beat a team as bad as TFC II, aka, the only team already out of the United Soccer League’s playoffs. (Actually, now that I’m looking, they’ve now been joined by the Richmond Kickers, Seattle Sounders FC 2, Tulsa Roughnecks FC, and Rio Grande Valley FC, though, mysteriously, not Las Vegas Lights FC, who are factually beneath Rio Grande in the standings, but who also have a game in hand, but doesn’t that still look like inoperable cancer for Las Vegas Lights FC? Why dick around with the whole “mathematically eliminated” charade. This is when, people, not if. That patient is dead. Moving on…because life is for the living…)

The other remarkable thing about tonight’s (narrow) win: Cincinnati hasn’t allowed three goals against any team going back to June 27 – when they allowed three goals to the same TFC II team. It was a step in an unfamiliar direction for FC Cincy’s defense, because, whether they’ve paired Forrest Lasso and Dekel Keinan or Lasso and Patrick Barrett, the team’s central defensive pairing generally gets along like steak and chianti, controlled, classy, just hugging every taste bud, etc. There is, however, sub-plot to that, an asterisk hanging at the end: TFC II’s Tsubasa Endoh scored each goal in his hat trick from several yards beyond the lands where central defenders roam; even his third, closer goal came from a place where you’d want a midfielder to shut him down, not a defender.

Houston Dynamo 4-1 Portland Timbers: The (Highly Specific) Curse of Manotas

"The machine" ain't what it used to be.

The thing about science is that the whole damn thing falls apart any time one fails to subsume all the goddamn givens. Sure, a person could assume that refers to the Portland Timbers on-call ‘keeper, Steve Clark - and, yes, he was anything but a pillar of calm and stability tonight - but I’m talking about something that exists beyond the rationale, outside the bounds of science.

The Houston Dynamo’s Mauro Manotas has Portland’s motherfucking number, that’s all there is to it. He scored his first ever hat trick against the Timbers in 2016, another goal in July 2017, and then a brace in tonight. Sure, you say, that’s just six goals. But what if I told you that was six goals out of 27 goals all-time in Manotas' MLS career? That sounds pretty serious until you see that, however vigorously the Dynamo suck as a team, he’s having a pretty good season. His best in MLS, in fact. So let’s get back to blaming Clark for this one, OK?

I kid, I kid. For all his shaky moments (well, hello, X factor!), I only blame Clark for Houston’s third goal; I get the circumstances of the moment, but I also know that any team with any goddamn sense looks for a ‘keeper who handles crosses, etc. better.

So, what to make of this shit? The hyphenated word “must-win” has a lot of meanings. At the top-line, literal level it means a team must either win the game in question, or be cast into perdition. Another meaning holds that, if you want to lurk in the minds of your opposition going into the post-season, you have to win a game like Houston away late in the season, a team that, prior to Saturday, had sputtered through at 0-7-3 in its last 10 games (while scoring only nine entire goddamn goals). That assumes Portland keeps their date with the 2018 MLS Playoffs, and that they aspire to something more than being the team a better one steps on on its way to the next round.

The Timbers didn’t win tonight, obviously. They lost 1-4, in fact, and to a team that (read between the above lines) has been fucking terrible since mid-July. Portland didn’t even score a goal tonight, at least not without a ricocheted assist from the opposition (thanks, Alejandro Fuenmayor!). No matter how you slice it, that’s a terrible look for a team with any ambition. Unless they’ve changed the template (and I don't think they have), the Timbers would have to survive, first, a knockout game as an away team, then a home-and-home against higher-seeded opposition. And, wow, can I just note how much more I like their chances in a Western Conference semifinals match-up than I do in a knock-out road game? Or at least that's how I feel after tonight.

Louisville City FC 0-1 FC Cincinnati: The Puddle Goal of Legend

Well, it ain't gonna fill itself, dipshit...

I have to start with this, mostly because I heard the name over and over: is the Louisville City FC broadcast team contractually obligated to say, “George Davis the Fourth” every time the guy touches the ball? Does George Davis the Third own Louisville, or something?

It’s not so bad to start with George Davis the Fourth - beats the howlers I had lined up about how Louisville closed out the first half with a flurry of goals, and it ended 72 hours and 38 minutes later (and don’t check me math, I barely did) - because the man with the long, formal name wreaked havoc down Louisville’s right. Or, rather, Blake Smith’s left side of FC Cincinnati’s defense. I’ve been high on Smith for as long as I’ve watched FC Cincinnati, and I’ve never seen a player make him work and/or guess as hard as…sigh, George Davis the Fourth (treat?). Fortunately, FC Cincy’s defense held, even where Blake did not - though they did have a trouser-filler around the 51st minute that neither I, nor Louisville can’t believe they didn’t put away - and FC Cincinnati walks away from this absurdist 90 with the 1-0 win.

Who knew they’d make The Puddle Goal hold up? (On that, I can’t wait till I can easily find isolated highlights for FC Cincy games, so I can show the water-logged freakshow that won this game for them. I mean, sure, sit through the highlights (at the Match Center, along with everything else you need!)). As goals go, it’s pretty fortunate and messed up. Corben Bone is clearly among the blessed.

For all the truth of “they all count” when it comes to goals, this game, along with the one before it, should make fairly clear that FC Cincinnati has real work ahead on its way to the 2018 USL Championship. (Also, has the league named its trophy? Shit, has MLS? If not, they both need to get on that shit.) I’m looking at the top eight in the USL East right now, and I’m seeing a healthy share of teams who gave FC Cincy a run for its money this season - not just Louisville and Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC (both of whom played well enough to get all three points), but teams like Bethlehem Steel FC and Nashville SC.

Back to the game(s) at hand (is it accurate to call these two games, were they that different?), Louisville’s best chances to win it dried up around the 58th minute, when Speedy Williams (who also received full-name treatment) skied what I and the broadcast agreed was a sitter. They had at least two great shots in the Saturday’s “first half” - both ably parried by a rock-solid Spencer Richey - and Louisville squeezed FC Cincy’s defense over at least two distressingly extended periods, once in Second First Half (i.e., the rest of the first half played earlier tonight), but also during this rather fascinating time in the actual second half that wound up turning the game.

MLS Week 28, Form Guide ULTRA: Short Week, Long Data

Meaningless. You have never walked a perfectly straight line.

First, the usual caveat: this post is like an iceberg, in that most of it lurks down below, more than you'd imagine (and certainly enough to sink a boat). Most of that takes the form of tracking the last 10 results for all the teams in Major League Soccer. Most of it is self-explanatory (you’ll see), but, to explain the main shorthand I use down below: “IN” = teams in the playoffs, or projected to get there; “OUT” = means those doomed to watch the playoffs; and “Marginal” designates teams that can’t stay in one of those two camps. And, just to note it, some of those teams project to go one way (e.g., DC United, an upgrade after months slotted under “OUT”), while some project downward spirals, perhaps flaming ones (e.g., the New England Revolution and the newly-scrambled Los Angeles Galaxy).

Just to note the stray support for those projections, The Mothership (MLS’s official site), they did a whip-‘round of their analysts to ask which teams each projected into the 2018 post-season for each MLS conference. While the order among each set of six teams changed, every in-house pundit picked the same six for each conference. Were I the editor who got that material back, I would have re-packaged that article without listing everyone’s choices. Seriously, what’s the point?

Speaking of, what is the point of all this - especially when The Mothership already owns and maintains the invaluable Form Guide. To answer in two parts, first, this presents the same information, but without having to hover over the succession of green Ws, yellow Ds and red Ls; don’t know about you, but I forget the info from one square to the next; honestly, it’d take me days and special memory pills to retain that shit. As for the second answer, it’s more involved…

I value first-hand observation more than the most guy - honest - but watching every MLS game is like having a second job (theory: a full-time hobby is a job), and I’ve already got one full-time job. Now for the part where I stick my neck out a bit, I’m honestly not sure doing that is any more elucidating, ultimately, than just clocking a string of each team's final scores. Most fans know the experience of looking at, say, how close the midfield came to “something special,” or wrapping themselves in tea leaves and seeing signs of potential in a new forward, even as those signs recede into an eternal future. The temptation to keep running ahead of the curve creates false positives and true positives (wait.), because what’s more natural to the analysis game/human nature than wanting to be the first person to say something? It’s easy to get wrapped up in your own bullshit, basically, but that’s the upside of just looking at the final score: history and playoff rankings don’t care how close your team got. And when they keep falling short…

To cut the melon from another angle, I watch two teams - the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati (aka, My Hometowns) - one of them for years (it’s harder to do with the other one), and I just posted a review on that team that doubled as a cry for help with understanding what the Hell the Timbers’ head coach is doing with the midfield (and the related question of whether there’s anything he can do given the personnel). Sometimes knowing more means just having more questions. God’s honest truth, I get a better sense of Portland’s chances every week by tracking results than I get from watching them - e.g., 15-game unbeaten streak (16?), four-game losing streak, nah, call it a tear, now they’ve got two wins, and one draw, and the draw came against fucking New England?

Portland Timbers 2-0 Colorado Rapids: A Good Win with an Inescapable Asterisk

Playing hard, playing safe!

It was a frustrating night, one where the whistle seemed to blow on Diego Chara’s every third step and when the officiating team took a…stringently legalistic view of the offside rule (by which I mean butt-puckered sadism, only with footnotes for authority (e.g,. VAR)). The Timbers had two goals called back that anyone but a Puritan would allow. That got Drew Fischer on my bad side, but he acted as a general irritant - e.g., how far he indulged Johan Blomberg’s serial, tacky fouling. Blomberg’s first yellow came four fouls too late, and the red should have come too.

Yeah, were I on the field, and without whatever was up Fischer’s ass not up my ass, I would have allowed both Jeremy Ebobisse’s (hereafter, “Ebo”) and Diego Valeri’s (hereafter “Tango”) goals that were called offside - even after VAR (hmm...looks like you'll have to sit through the full highlights to see them; hide your shame, MLS, hide your shame). As every hep fan of the Portland Timbers knows it didn’t matter in the end because the Timbers beat the Colorado Rapids 2-0 at home, and Ebo and Tango scored those two goals (justice, motherfuckers!).

All this bitching about the referee points at the frustrating side of last night’s win, but, to flip things over to the sunny side, that also means Portland created two more quality chances at a minimum (they created plenty, and good ones). That’s a hopeful sign, especially with Ebo starting. I’ll get to that below, but it’s also important to keep one fact firmly in mind: playing this limping Colorado team at home made this team in must-in - that’s in the sense of, a team that wants to go anywhere at all after the regular season must win games like these.

Overall, Portland did two things tonight that I see as unmitigated “goods.” First, they started Ebo - or just any player at forward - something I believe is as necessary to the team’s short-term success as every player in the game-day 18 remembering to bring his cleats to the game. So long as Portland fields only one forward, they need at least one option at forward that is not Dairon Asprilla, because…well, Dairon Asprilla. I know there’s a camp that has been pushing to get Ebo into the first team for a while now and, I’ve been on that team throughout (if tucked into the back of rally). To underline a point already made, if this team is going to “rock” the soccer equivalent of elbow- and knee-pads of formations (that’s the Christmas tree; safety first!), they need to be able to hit teams with something besides Valeri, Sebastian Blanco and Samuel Armenteros, and them alone, from one game to the next.

MLS Week 27, Form Guide ULTRA: More Data Than the NSA, Plus Reports of Triumph and Demise

My real mom. (I'm lying. But she still values my work, this fake mom.)

I’m going to start this post by alerting anyone who finds it to its absolutely massive goddamn tail - e.g., tabled results that show the result and opposition for the last 10 games for every team in MLS, and not just where they played those games, but the quality of the opposition (Note: “IN” means teams above the playoff line, “OUT” means the opposite; “Marginal” are the teams that traverse that line with some regularity). The same blocks also include each team’s schedule through the rest of the season, and a “Status” report for each teams noting trends (mostly in the results, but patterns, wherever I find them) in their last 10 games.

Anyway, that’s all down there and, my mom thinks it’s informative, and that’s good enough for me. Oh, I also include some very quick notes on the last game (or games) for every MLS team that played in Week 27, but, between all those “InfoBoxes” and now, I’m going to touch on the last week’s bigger games or trends. I decide what matters in that between…just all the damn data below, watching MLSSoccer.com’s Match Day Central (hereafter “MDC”; also, I’m fascinated by Bobby Warshaw), checking out the highlights and box scores for all the games, and reading Matt Doyle’s preview (sometimes) and rear view posts (here's Week 27's). And so, with all that in my head, here’s what I found noteworthy about Week 27….

…but, to highlight some things that’ll get buried otherwise: the New York Red Bulls finally coughed up an inevitable loss, and that’s fine (probably, see Infoboxes); Columbus Crew SC and/or/because Justin Meram had a good week, thanks to a 2-1 win over New York City FC at home; and, finally, the Portland Timbers and the Philadelphia Union had highly similar Week 27s - e.g., winning a you-really-should-win (to put it passive-aggressively), then sacrifice-drawing a team they’d normally expect, and play, to win. I wrote up the Timbers games (for they are my team) - here are notes on the home win on Toronto FC (50% gibberish, I'm guessing), and the later road draw at the New England Revolution (maybe 40%). OK, now on the formal talking points. In no particular order…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Pittsburgh Riverhounds: On Primal Noises and Rumors of Hierarchies

Y'all...

That was ballsy last night, some Cool Hand Luke shit, the kind of win that FC Cincinnati fans will remember for the rest of 2018, if not beyond. I mumbled a slurry “holy shit” (and nearly fell off the household typing stool) when Dekel Keinan powered home his headed equalizer, but Fanendo Adi’s freight-train of a game-winning goal got a noise out of me that I usually save for the bedroom (sweet, sweet release…aahhhhhhh!!!).

Thus came the 2-1 win over the visiting, visibly-engaged Pittsburgh Riverhounds (for numbers and highlights, do visit the Match Center), so continues an ever-lengthening unbeaten streak, and, forgive me I missed it earlier, but did the “(x)” next to FC Cincinnati’s name in the standings appear only last night? They’ve booked their place in the United Soccer League’s post-season regardless, and taking down a rival this immediate in every sense of the word can’t help but bode well for the post-season.

Due to the timing of my getting into FC Cincinnati, I have never seen them in defeat; as such, I have no sense of what that looks like. Due to some perversity in my nature, some part of me wants to see it - maybe on the theory that you can’t really know anyone or anything till you’ve seen them/it fuck up - and last night sure looked like a strong candidate to make that happen. To give just one example, I saw Cincy defender/giant Forrest Lasso struggle like never before: I would have sent him off for his tackle in the 38th minute (he got a yellow, but…hmm, maybe I want this team to lose more than I thought (hey there, my subconscious mind!)), and I still don’t know the meaning of his hand gestures after he committed a clear, clumsy foul in the penalty area…

…there’s a fun thought: could FC Cincy even come back from two goals down? And, holy crap, was that a terrible penalty kick by Kay Banjo (but, lo, his name is unstoppable).

To state the broad contours of the game, Cincinnati looked comfortable enough, but Pittsburgh looked the sharper team (and the numbers bear that out). That held, at least, until Cincy started bringing on subs, starting with Michael Lahoud coming on for Pa Konate - a player, by the way, whose upside I still have yet to see. Jimmy McLaughlin (that name…sounds like an angelic child waiting for a lung transplant) replaced Fatai Alashe, and Adi came on for Danni Konig (who’d been…all right), and that’s probably the biggest difference between my fan experience watching the Portland Timbers and my fan experience watching FC Cincinnati: the idea/presence of game-changers on the bench. Just…count yourselves lucky, FC Cincy fans, and savor it for as long as it lasts, because it won't.

New England Revolution 1-1 Portland Timbers: Larry, You Magnificent Bastard

Yes, sometimes players need their rest. Even "sexy" rest.

The original title for this post read something like, “I Got What I Wished for and Everything Went Horribly,” but, with one magnificent, uncontroversially controversial shot (that shot is over the line; don’t play), team scapegoat/proximate measure for the Portland Timbers’ ceiling, aka, Lawrence Olum, scored the equalizing goal that his team always seemed destined to score. The Portland Timbers utterly frustrated the New England Revolution tonight, knotting them up 1-1 at the middle-of-nowhere they call Gillette Stadium (build a goddamn stadium, Bob; you’re rich and New England fans deserve better), and they did it with a team deep enough into the Bs to register as a B-, maybe even a C+. [ed. a bit of hyperbole, there.]

On a personal level, tonight was huge: the Portland Timbers finally rested some key players - something I’ve been shouting into this tiny megaphone since The Dog Days of 2018 (shit…”Tiny Megaphone,” gotta claim that name before someone else does) - most notably Diegos Valeri and Chara, and, in a welcome twist, they also sat Samuel Armenteros, aka, the only forward who is presently within a freakin’ mile of Portland’s starting line-up (more on that later). I got what I wished for tonight and, won’t lie, tonight also made a pretty good case for why I should not want this. This was a fan’s game, something that any sane neutral would turn off for C-Span, or the radar pattern they showed on the Weather Channel way back when (my dad watched that stuff for hours…probably should have worried about that a little more). I also think that suited the Timbers just fine.

Through the first half, Portland was disconnected enough to make me wonder whether they’d ever practiced this particular starting eleven. Things didn’t improve enormously in the second half, though they did improve. Maybe. Here’s the thing: on the one hand, I have loose memories of seeing Timbers players in New England’s half more often in the second; on the other, I can’t remember a single stand-out moment for any one Portland player. Instead, I see Alvas Powell making a miraculous run into the Revolution’s half, only to pass to some phantom into the right-side spaced he opened by cutting inside, and Lucas Melano making a similar run up the gut, only to shrug and shoot with a head full of doubt somewhere around the 80th minute.

The more remarkable thing is that I can’t recall many similar stirring moments for the New England Revolution, a team leaning fatally hard into the ropes right now. Cristhian Penilla dribbled through some puzzles early for the Revs. They almost broke the Timbers defense right away (seriously, both Jeff Attinella and Larrys Mabiala stayed down longer than even jaded Timbers fans should like), and Scott Caldwell finished off Kelyn Rowe’s strong shot to score the Revs’ one goal (against Steve Clark), but, overall, the Timbers defended well and attacked adequately…and that was enough against a New England team that, arguably, should start thinking real fucking hard about tomorrow, if only because today is unrelenting misery.