Portland Timbers 2-3 Los Angeles FC: Do It for Tiffany

I'll do anything, girl...

What was the most important part of last night’s game: Jeff Attinella’s colossal, opening-10 fuck-up, or the series of aggro-pointless skirmishes that tripped one over the next for the last five minutes of regulation? For me, that depends on one’s willingness to see each of those moments in symbolic terms.

To lean into controversy early, I don’t want Attinella to start until Steve Clark gets injured, Attinella’s nerves calm down, or Clark has a collection of episodes that evidence some equal or greater measure of nerviness than Attinella’s. I think Attinella is a damned good goalkeeper; I also think he’s set up a long-term campsite in his head and, until he packs out of that fucker, I’d rather see Clark start. Mind, this isn’t some kind of “Jeff Out” campaign; I’m just noting it as a big deal for scale.

Attinella owns just one of last night’s goals – and Los Angeles FC scored three of ‘em on the way to the 3-2 win they stole out of an…engorged Providence Park (let me have it; just this once). Other Timbers fathered LAFC’s other two goals: Jorge Moreira for dozing off and letting Diego Rossi slip past him to score their second goal, and (probably) Jorge Villafana for failing to track Latif Blessing’s second run to knock home their third. LAFC put up plenty of shots – like this one, for instance, which should’ve deepened Portland’s hole (because LAFC was on a roll; but it’s not like they’re dipping SKOL/Bandits) – and the fact they didn’t gives LAFC something of their own to think about. As well they should, the bastards…

…look, LAFC is the soccer team equivalent of the rich, new kid who shows up at your high school, and he’s better than you at sports, he just humiliated you in debate club warm-ups, and now you’re worried about a bunch of other stupid extemporaneous shit because of all the insecurity that follows from those realities, but it’s cool. You just need to get your head on, and your shit together, because that kid is soft…somewhere. It’s just…you haven’t figured out where, but you will. Or, rather, you have to, or Tiffany might dump you for him…I mean, she’s always been out of your league…

I indulged in that John-Hughes/pop-psych drama to explain the good/bad dynamic that carried the Timbers through a…more successful second half. The bad side carried through the entire game: Diego Chara had a bad/potential red early; then Larrys Mabiala did later in the same half, then Sebastian Blanco tackled Carlos Vela from another…less-than-ideal angle toward the end of the second. That, in fact, is what started that series of fracases. Back when he was “coach” of the U.S. Men’s National Team, Jurgen Klinsmann bemoaned the fact that his team wasn’t “nasty” enough, that they lacked that certain physical edge that left one thought hanging in every opposition player’s head every time he went in for the ball: “do I want this badly enough to take a kick for it?” The Timbers had “nasty” to spare last night; if they were gonna go down, they’d bite, kick and scratch all the way down to the floor/tapping out. It was never pretty, and it turned just plain ugly when LAFC started to retaliate (e.g., Eduardo Atuesta giving some late “goon payback” to Blanco). Portland might have kicked in fewer goals, but they kicked more players than LAFC did. That doesn’t get you three points in the standings, but…

There’s no denying that Portland’s Front Office should send and extra ice-pack or two to Carlos Vela’s suite at The Nines (and do something really funny with it, like smear it with a topical laxative…those exist…right?). The Timbers will take up the lion’s share of the “how was that not a red card” discussion on this week’s edition of Instant Replay, but on the plus side, the Timbers went down two goals on two separate occasions against a team that’s shaping up to make history, and they still came back into the game and they ended the second half piling on pressure. A handful of Timbers players committed to winning yesterday – fully, and whatever it takes – and I’m complicatedly happy with that. They went straight vitriolic at times and, even if I don’t want to see it again, I’m not sure I hated it. Portland played last night like they’d been insulted – as a team who sees themselves as contenders – and that “take-all-prisoners” mentality is both my big take-away and my silver lining from this loss. Portland never stopped trying to win this game; they peeled both goals that got them back into the game straight off the bone - the first, especially - and that’s a piece of what mattered about this game: so long as the Timbers resolve to not go down easy, they have enough talent to make sure they won’t do it often.

Sometimes, though, the ship goes down all the same. If my little corner of Timbers twitter is any indication, I’m left wondering how many of those people understand just how well LAFC has done so far this season. They have, flat-out, the best front six in MLS, and they’ve got a back four that gives those six the freedom to suffocate the opposing defense until it coughs up a goal. The goals don’t always come as easily as LAFC’s did last night, but LAFC’s goals-for number tells you that they come reliably and often. People complained about Portland losing the midfield and, sure, that’s something to get upset about. It’s equally important to understand that Portland wasn’t the first team to experience that: Mark-Anthony Kaye, Latif Blessing and Eduardo Atuesta have a solid claim to being the league’s best midfield. Put players with Carlos Vela and Diego Rossi’s talent in front of them, and solid defense behind them, and you wind up with a very, very good MLS team. And, yes, I want to beat them just as badly (very, very), because I don’t want to lose Tiffany…

I don’t want to celebrate the fact that the Timbers went toe-to-toe with the biggest ogre in MLS, and failed. I want the Timbers to kill the goddamn ogre, obviously, but they fell short last night. And, to close on a higher note, Portland has the rest of the season to think about how to beat LAFC later in the season, aka, by the MLS playoffs (they won’t meet them again this regular season). It doesn’t take shoving a couple tea leaves around and squinting to see a fairly obvious first step to make that happen - e.g., don’t give up comical and/or soft goals. The Timbers need to make the playoffs to get that chance, of course, but they’ve got 2-3 games in hand on most of the league right now and one hell of a lot of home games down the stretch. I like their chances of reaching The Promised Land; it’ll be up to them to actually step into when they get there.

That concludes all my big picture thoughts on last night’s game. I’ll close out with a bunch of stray talking points…some of which might one day become bigger ones.

- Why does it matter that this is the first time I’ve mentioned Diego Valeri? Ask yourself that question, and see what you come up with. I have an answer, but I think that idea is best delivered as an open question.

- How concerned do I feel about the defense after tonight? Eh, fuck ups happen, and they haven’t lately. I do, on the other hand, want to flag the simple reality that I’m not sold on Jorge Moreira as a reliable defender. I also wonder how much that’s going to factor into starting XIs for the rest of 2019.

- Cristhian Paredes impressed me early – and he’s looking more like his potential this season generally. He pairs nicely with Chara. Also, he was a worthy player to knock in Portland's first, full-o'-scrappy team goal.

- Nothing impressed me more about Brian Fernandez tonight than seeing him harass the living Hell out of LAFC’s defense and defensive midfield late in the game. Damn nice(/weird) goal and all, but I’m betting you’ll hear and see Portland fans praising his work-rate nearly as much as his goals.

Well, that’s it for Portland for a couple weeks, when they host Houston Dynamo in the newly-engorged digs (last time for that phrasing). That’s June 22nd. And, frankly, I’m more interested in what the Timbers do in that game, than I am in what happened last night. LAFC was always going to be a hell-game, but that won’t matter until they play them again. Till then, they’ve got everything else to get through.