 |
| I worry sometimes, perhaps more than I should. |
The Portland Timbers rolled into Sandy, Utah last night “needing
a result” against Real Salt Lake, if in some non-specific sense. To give a
tautly symbolic answer for what they wound up getting, I give you Lucas
Melano’s first goal of 2018, and Portland’s fourth of the game. After playing
something like even for 70 minutes, RSL either fell apart or the Timbers tore
them apart - and in Sandy, too, a rare feat in 2018 - on the way to a 4-1 win that arrived late, but with gusto.
It was a strange game, honestly. Portland could barely
connect more than three passes in the opening 10-15 minutes - and not by
anything RSL was doing, but by just giving away the ball. It took them some time
to knock that shit off and, even when they managed it long enough to create
Jeremy Ebobisse’s game-opening goal, the quality and composure of their work
came in and out like a series of cameos. If you watched the first 70 minutes of
this game with your heart beating green and gold, you never stopped checking
over your shoulder for the inevitable falling axe (you know that thing, where they show you a gun at the beginning of a play?). I can speak only for myself,
but I didn’t stop checking my 5 and 7 for that axe, even after Sebastian Blanco
put Portland up 2-1 with some strapping thievery. That lingering paranoia would last took three, maybe four
minutes more when Blanco buried the game with his second goal of the game, and
the Timbers’ third.
I became a contented puddle after that unswaddled miracle. Once
it became clear that the Timbers could fuck up without fucking up the game? Plop,
plop, fizz, fizz, etc. After a long day of watching my country self-immolate, this
was very, very welcome. It was nice to have an uncomplicated, happy emotion for
a few.
Portland built its win on all those goals (if with a dash of
slam-dunk (e.g., Melano’s goal)), but, around half time, I noticed something that I wasn’t
seeing: looks at goal for RSL, never mind any good ones. RSL scored, obviously,
and through a slightly enormous seam left open when the Timbers’ got wrapped up
in defending a cross that never came, but they didn’t get too many shots in
the end (nine total; numbers mean something when they match what you see). As I
review the game in my mind, it feels like Portland’s midfield - ft. Mssrs.
Chara and Guzman - managed the game as much as anyone else out there; I don’t
recall heroics from this or that defender and Steve Clark didn’t have much to
do in goal either. Portland kept RSL away from goal, basically, and for most of
the game. The reality is, the Timbers managed the Hell out of this game. As
much as that’s obvious in retrospect, I really never did stop checking for that
axe. How many dumb/sloppy/clumsy goals have the Timbers allowed this season? No
idea, and it doesn’t matter; what matters is the extent to which I’ve
internalized that as “a thing,” something that just happens because bad things
happen to good people. Or just Julio Cascante. When he came on, I could have
sworn I saw a red dot on his back...
That’s less weird than I’m making it to be because, the odd
boner aside (ah, my favorite under-used word for “mistake”), Portland has been
solid in defense this season….or have they? I just ran the numbers, and they
tell me it’s decidedly middling among playoff teams - which is where Portland
happens to fall in the standings. (Put it this way: FC Dallas, Sporting Kansas
City and the Seattle Sounders have all allowed fewer goals per game all season,
and I’m guessing the standings will bear that out in the end.) Ahem. The point is, Portland has struggled more on the attacking side of the ball - I don’t
think anyone would dispute that - and, in a league of thin margins, that’s the
area where they needed to raise their game to get a result. And, golly, did they
do that last night. This was less about running up the number of shots (just
13), than making those shots count: the Timbers put eight of those 13 shots on
frame. (For those confused by those (most recent) italics, I look at shots on
goal every week, and for every team in MLS, and that ratio is rare.) And one
guy, the team’s little Napoleon, played a big role in that.
“For Portland, the good signs begin with Sebastian Blanco’s
return to the team…”
That came from my preview for Week 32, but I won’t pretend I
believed he’d rip through Sandy, Utah the way he did last night. Sebastian
Blanco - and, yes, I spoke his full name again, as if in celebration - put on a
three-act play last night of what a quality, “hustling” player can mean to a
team. The run that created his assist to Jeremy Ebobisse’s goal
started it, but it was the Indiana-Jones-style sliver that he fired through for
his second goal (Portland’s third) that iced the game. If there’s a verb that
never entirely escapes the orbit of sports clichés, it’s the idea of “stepping
up” - something that gets pinned on the stars more than anyone else -but that’s
exactly what made last night special and/or awesome: a player stepped up,
planted his cleated boot into the ground and his opponents’ collective asses. Thank
God for that, because did anyone else think Valeri looked a little choked last
night?
If there’s a “yes, but” to this otherwise happy post, it comes
with the realization that the Timbers can only be as good as Blanco,
Valeri and, of course, Diego Chara make them. The same gang is here, basically,
and for whatever it’s worth; they’re all another year older. On the other hand,
these are our cards, live in the now, that’s not changing, and that means
Portland has to ride those horses into the ground, like in one of those old
cowboy movies - I think they did that in True Grit.
I haven’t read or watched any commentary on this game yet, but I won’t be
surprised to see someone talk up the shift to the 4-2-3-1 as a factor. I’m gonna resist that narrative, because I think there’s a simpler one in
play - specifically, that this tracks how the Timbers have found success throughout
the 2018 season: so long as the defense holds up, and Valeri and/or Blanco can
find room to operate, Portland will compete; and I’m going to hold on to that “or”
because Portland did it with a slightly wayward Valeri last night. (Yeah, yeah,
I conditioned the bugger out of that: it’s just every time I crap on one of
Valeri’s performances, I come across a stat a day or two later that shows he
completed some stupid percentage of passes.) This is the margin the Timbers
have lived on all season, or at least that’s my argument. I mostly wonder
whether the team got anything more from Andy Polo by playing him where he makes
a little more sense. Can’t say I noticed it, but I was tracking a bunch of
other things.
This was a test, without question, one made mysterious by a
lack of direct information: Portland hadn’t played RSL in 2018, so it was
impossible to know how the teams would fit together. What I did have in front
of me were clear signs of RSL more or less getting its act together in recent
weeks. As much as they sputtered lately, its mini-run of draws and losses came
against teams (e.g., Atlanta United FC) and in circumstances (away to SKC) that
excused the result (or, in the case of SKC away, inflated it). It’s possible -
hell, it’s probably likely - that scouring the Timbers across a critical rasp
week after week caused RSL to grow into something bigger and scarier than they
deserved. It wasn’t a senseless fear, by any means, not after Portland lost to
Minnesota (and played…just fucking harrowing half of soccer in it) and got
man-handled by the Houston Dynamo. Because I’m me, I caveated the hell out of
my prediction that RSL would win this game, and those caveats held up (and that’s
why I make them). On the one hand, is RSL just the kind of team that Portland
will beat more often than five times out of 10? Was this a naturally favorable
match-up, in other words?
Or, to pull out another theory I’ve been tinkering with all
season, did Blanco having a week off make this performance possible? If so,
that could be a great thing for the return leg, where the balance of advantages
tilts in Portland’s favor?
We’ll see, we’ll see. Until then, though, I’m just going to
let “happy” and “surprised” keep on tangoing in my head.
No comments:
Post a Comment