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I
can’t remember whether I wrote it or tweeted it – and I’m not about to find it
- but sometime in the very recent past I said that I never needed to see Dairon
Asprilla in a Timbers uniform again. Yes, that sentiment resides at the
intersection of harsh and ruthless, and you can go ahead and call me a bastard
for it, but, obviously, 1,000 erotic poets banging away on 1,000 typewriters
and stoned on “molly” could not express my appreciation for the man and his
works in last night’s absolutely fucking glorious victory over the Seattle
Sounders. In Seattle. Just…savor it. I re-watched the highlights just now and
I want a gif of the little dance Asprilla did after slamming the winning
penalty kick past “The Dread” Stefan Frei for Christmas.
While
I’m in the business of giving shout-outs to Timbers I’ve recently crapped on, I
want to single out/salute Andy Polo for setting the tone at “never-say-die-motherfucker”
over the match’s opening 20 minutes. Until Jair Marrufo pulled him aside for a
little chat, Polo played like he wanted to fight not just the Sounders starting
eleven, but every last one of the 40,000 Sounders fans in attendance.
I’ll
close out the introductions with a nod to Marrufo, who let both teams play in a
way that was brave, even gutsy, and fair. No quarter was asked, and no quarter
was given between the teams and credit to Marrufo for toeing what could have
been a damned precarious line.
Getting
into the usual (or sometimes?) fine-tooth combing over tactics, goals, or game
states feels misplaced, like talking about the brush strokes of a beautiful
painting instead of stepping back to appreciate the whole thing. Another
factor: with all the goals came late in the match, I couldn’t remember half of
them (aka, around the time “the root kicked in”); factually, I couldn’t
remember even one of Seattle’s goals this morning* and, given my understanding
of how trauma works, that’s something. Asprilla’s headed goal, on the other
hand, somehow set up permanent, immovable residency in my mind, like one of
those “core memories” in Inside Out.
(*
Having now relived them – this one and this one, in particular – God bless the
root and keep it holy. The intensity of…just everything swallowed up the sheer
awfulness of the mistakes involved. Holy shit, how’d the Timbers get out of
there alive?)
Diana
Ross recorded a song called “Love Hangover” back when, and that’s very much
part of my personal hangover collection this morning. Sounders head coach Brian
Schmetzer called this “the most painful loss of my career.” Coming at the
experience from the opposite side, this goes down as my favorite all-time Timbers victory. Yes, even more than winning MLS Cup in 2015.
This
morning, I am sloppy with happiness.
There
were moments of doubt last night – none more sticky and ominous than the goal
Raul Ruidiaz scored that would have put the Sounders through to the Western
Conference finals. I worried that the Timbers had spent too much time absorbing
waves of Sounders attacks; I wasn’t sure the team could re-orient to punching
back, not just on the road and in that particular stadium. As they did when
they went down a goal in the first leg, the Timbers clapped back just 10
minutes later. The gloom and anxiety never had time to settle.
Along
the same lines, the way Portland opened the game made little room for doubt.
They back four defended lustily, winning just about every battle they were
called on to fight; I’ll admit that Alvas Powell scared the holy living shit
out of me here and there, but he held up, Jorge Villafana put out at least two
fires that threatened to rage, and both Liam Ridgewell and Larrys Mabiala won a
little place in my heart forever. Every Timbers player on the field dusted
himself off every time he got knocked down and was back in the fight seconds
later. I’m fully aware of how over-the-top all this reads, but this is as good
an occasion for hyperbole as any I’ve experienced. Just freaking incredible.
In
one my preview tweets yesterday, I wrote something about how the Timbers wouldn’t
be where they are without the players who held the team together when the
starters were down. And that’s why I want to close this mash-note with Andres
Flores. I don’t think any player on the field played as many shitty passes as
Flores did; in the attacking third, especially, “wayward” charitably describes the worst of his passes. All the
same, Flores is a dude one season out of the NASL and last night he played in
one of the biggest games in the Timbers’ MLS history, and with 40,000
people watching and willing him to fuck up. (In a moment of clarity last night,
I finally understood why the crowd really matters; took me 40+ years; I’m
slow.) Flores held it together. The whole damn team did, and that’s magical.
The Portland Timbers
needed every player on its roster last night, just as they did all season long.
I know I’ll be back to calling out players and putting sharp questions to their
personal livelihoods. And, yeah, that makes me a bit of a bastard. This
morning, though, I want to buy every man on the team a drink, one of those big
colorful fancy ones with garnishes and novelty umbrellas, the whole damn
nine-yards. Hit me up, guys. There’s room on my credit card.
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