Portland Timbers 1-1 Orlando City SC: Birds in the Bush

They are in the bush. They are not yours.

I’ve got another game to watch/write about (or, rather, I feel compelled to watch another game and write about), so I will try (and arguably fail) to keep this short. (Eh, I've done worse.)

Given the relative promise of each team, and the fact Dom Dwyer was suspended, Nani was home barfing (or something), and Ruan was God knows where (and whatever the hell else happened with Orlando’s regular starting set-up, e.g., Sane), and the fact that Orlando rarely defended beyond its own attacking third, yeah, I’m willing to call the Portland Timbers’ 1-1 draw at home against Orlando City SC the worst-case scenario. The result doesn’t mean anything and/or everything, there are other games (there will always be other games, won't there, James?), but there’s also a time and place for picking up points, and Orlando and Colorado at home is (are?) that time and that place. Goddammit.

As I hinted in the preview thread, all Orlando needs is one goal. Part of me guessed it would take just one mistake, and that gets to what I didn’t say in the thread, and what I could never have foreseen: Zarek Valentin switching way the hell off on a single play. It took impeccable timing meeting a soft clearance for that that shot (one of two for Orlando) to come off, but sometimes soccer’s a sadistic mistress (and, if I’m being honest, that’s probably why I like it) and a team operationally undeserving of a goal gets the first one and comes perilously close to making it count for three points.

Thankfully, Jeremy Ebobisse came on, (arguably) loosened up Orlando’s defensive brick, and scored the second-bite equalizer that salvaged what would have been watching a gymnast fail to stick the landing 26 damn times (and only really coming close on four of them). I’ve got a question that follows from that, and it breaks in (at least) two directions: is Portland better off with Ebobisse out there instead of Andy Polo? Whoops, I just found the third direction on that question. (hmu if you wanna know the three directions, just don’t expect me to remember them.)

After watching tonight’s draw and the one against Colorado before it, the main maddening thought I can’t step away from is whether Portland will play its best soccer against MLS’s better teams. By that I mean, will the Timbers find the most success against teams that actually play, whether by general norms of playing at home or tactical predilection? Going the other way, will the teams locked in a season-long Battle Royale for scraps prove to be the teams that give Portland the most trouble? A case has been started, at the very least, for the latter. Just file that away…

Before trailing off into talking points, I want to give Orlando their due. Top line, they got a result on the road playing, at most, 1/2 their regular starters. We’ve yet to know what Portland’s home-field advantage will look like in 2019 – hence the subtitle to this post – but, by just about any indicator, this was a good point for Orlando. The deeper point to all those absences noted above – e.g., puking Nani, Dwyer, even Ruan – is that those are just the guys who score the goals, but Orlando’s much-improved defense is what makes them competitive (according to Taylor Twellman (which means I haven't looked into it), they're projected to give up 25 fewer goals against...of which, damn). True, they stayed did nothing more complicated that stacking up in classic banks of four, but they covered damn near everything within that space, and knew enough about pushing back to make things suck for the Timbers attack.

Shit on the tactic all you want; Portland will have to figure out how to break that down regardless. I think the “better against good teams” thing will pay off in the post-season, but the Timbers have to get to the post-season for that to come off. And that means beating teams determined to turn things ugly.

Sweet Jesus, this is already going on too long. I’ll make these bullet points/loose thoughts fast…

- Any team that can force Portland to cross has a [__]% chance of beating them. Answer that as you see fit.

- It took watching Larrys Mabiala defend in isolation for me to fall in love with him.

- During the game, I tweeted something to the effect that Portland needed to be more patient on offense and less patient on defense. To complete the thought on the other side, too many players rushed shots and I don’t know what the hell Claude Dielna was thinking with that shank-and-a-prayer at the start of the second half. To flag a trend that might have happened just twice, I got it in my head that some players stabbed at worse shots instead of listening to calls to “leave it!” Then again, that might have only happened when Brian Fernandez swiped at a shot he should have dished to Cristhian Paredes, and when Paredes later returned the favor by straining for a header he would have been wiser to let fall to Fernandez. Um, knock it off, guys! Yeah…

- Hopefully, tonight has finally returned Brian Fernandez's feet to the Earth. He's neither a miracle-worker nor a savior. I know there's a line between excitement and hubris - and I think most of the tweets I saw came from the former - but there aren't really any shortcuts in this business. And playing in Providence Park doesn't cure anything on its own either. The Timbers do have shit to figure out, though, if not this week, then next week, etc.

I think that’s it, really. Telling a team to “run a team over” in one breath (as I did during the preview thread), then urging them to be patient in the next sends a mixed signal, obviously (but I think also think athletes from all sports translate that in their heads into something like "be more awesomer," which they do understand). This wasn’t a terrible result, obviously, but there’s also no way to call it good and/or positive. If there’s a clammy fear to take out of this draw, it’s the possibility that teams will try to frustrate Portland down the stretch – i.e., when they actually need to catch up - in the exact same way that Colorado and Orlando (maybe it's teams that end with "o" that trouble us?) did over the past two games. Time will tell...

OK, hope that was loosely coherent. On to the next one! (Peggy? Peggy?! Where are my pills? No, the fighter-pilot kind. P.S. They did not work. I was forced to finish that second post this morning.)