Seattle Sounders 1-2 Portland Timbers: Good, Slightly Dirty, Feelings

The same coiled buttocks, I tell you....

If there’s a soccer equivalent of telling someone they won a good-sized raffle only to tell them you read the name wrong one minute and fifteen seconds later, this was it. After applying too little pressure to notice for…more or less the entire game, the Seattle Sounders poached a goal off a Julio Cascante bungle to even the score at 1-1. In that tiny amount of time later, Sebastian Blanco earned his paycheck by feeding Brian Fernandez the inch-perfect pass that Fernandez would slip under Stefan Frei’s elbow and win the game for the Portland Timbers. 2-1 to Portland in Seattle, and all is forgiven for at least one of those home draws. Fuck it, both. Tonight has me in a giving mood.

Fernandez got the Timbers’ other goal tonight, a put-back on the kind of Jorge Moreira overlap ‘n’ drive that he’ll surely be patenting before too long (along with that brick of hair he sports atop his head). As much as the last 15-20 minutes made me want to crawl out of my own skin and read a book in a quiet corner, Seattle got the same kinds of chances when the Timbers laid back as they did all game, and that’s more or less the tale of the tape: Portland handled everything Seattle threw at them, and mostly without panicking. Moreover, when Portland actually played – as in tried to dictate what happened on the field and where – they were the better team tonight.

I ended my preview thread for this game with one thought – e.g., the question of whether Seattle is (or was) 10 points better than Portland, as they were in the standings at the start of the day. The current answer is seven points, which is the number of points that separate the teams right now; the question is if/when Portland will overtake the Sounders in the standings. To pick up something noted in the same thread, Seattle has built their vaunted home record by stealing lunch money (big fan of that phrase suddenly) – i.e., winning games against weaker opposition in favorable circumstances. I still rate the Sounders a good bet for the playoffs, but I don’t see the current team roaring into the post-season as they have over the past three years. This isn’t the same team, not without Osvaldo Alonso and Chad Marshall. Losing a spine tends to have consequences…

Portland, on the other hand, looks like they’ve got another year with its main components intact and firing right: Diego Chara showed what he’s all about when he ran down Joevin Jones with his first touch of the ball; Brian Fernandez did the same by trading jabs with Roman Torres…pretty much all game; and, for as long as they pressed the game, the usual suspects, Blanco and Diego Valeri, found a succession of pockets from which to prod Seattle’s defenses. For as long as all that holds up – and for as long Portland can recruit and maintain a sound defense behind it – the Timbers will be competitive in MLS. And, with Larrys Mabiala anchoring that line and Steve Clark playing like his own number one fan behind him, I’m not worried about that part. Portland will always be at its best when it can get its animal spirits running free, and they pulled it off tonight and at the best possible time and place.

To tread, however, on a delicate subject, I am getting a little concerned about the Timbers…I think the euphemism is “physicality.” Portland’s players have fought for damn near every ball this season, and that is absolutely something you want to see and encourage, but there’s also Chara picking up a stupid yellow and missing the next game against the Los Angeles Galaxy (then again, that’s more stage team for Renzo Zambrano); there’s Fernandez, frankly, risking a red with a tackle from behind on Kim Kee-Hee; there’s Mabiala hoisting an elbow into Raul Ruidiaz’s chin, something that went unpunished during the game, but, after it, who knows? The only one of those I’d count as outright dirty play was Fernandez’s tackle on Kim, but those will remain dangerous to the cause so long as they keep flying in. Put is this way: I like commitment to the cause, but I’m also a fan of avoiding stupid risks, and I think that line could start moving if the narrative shifts too far in a certain direction.

If I was a Seattle fan, I’m not sure what I’d think about this loss. On the one hand, they do have a solid record, they’re third in the West and all that. At the same time, it really is worth going to the MLS’s Form Guide to review the teams they beat at home this season, because it’s enough to make you think this goddamn league is fixed; I think Atlanta United FC was the toughest team they’ve played at home and, sure, they beat them, but that’s Atlanta 2019, and everyone knows that’s not the same as Atlanta 2018. At the same time, Portland 2018 and Portland 2019 took points out of CenturyLink – plus another one during this season’s U.S. Open Cup - so maybe there’s some kind of constant after all.

All in all, I’d argue this win matters more to Portland than the loss matters to Seattle – I mean rivalry humiliation aside. Between the home draws against Orlando City SC and the Colorado Rapids, the Timbers dropped two points at a minimum, so getting a win away to Seattle, plus getting within two points of the playoff line was as enormous and satisfying as a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon. It made the heart full, in so many words. Something else I liked: knowing that Portland can batten down the hatches against completely determined and fairly competent foes and ride out a result. Better still, anxious as I might have been from around the 77th minute to the 90th, the Timbers did a bang-up job pushing the game farther up the field and away from its own goal from the 90th minute forward…I mean apart from that solid header Torres lunged at goal in stoppage time. Then again, that was of the same piece as his pair of wild, shanked damn-near free headers earlier in the game. Don’t tell me the Sounders don’t miss Chad Marshall, people…

That’s all my big picture commentary. To round up a few strays…

- I’m getting closer and closer to the position that Mabiala might be Portland’s best all-time center-back. He’s not perfect, but I haven’t felt this much assurance with a starting CB since Nat Borchers.

- Cristhian Paredes came back a totally different player in 2019, aka, I’m a lot less worried about Chara’s absences than I used to be.

- I think we got a taste of “dark Fernandez” tonight. And I think that’s simultaneously something that’s worth it, and something to worry about.

- Moreira. That guy is just a kick in the goddamn pants.

- I think it’s lost on a lot of the rest of the league, but Portland does something fairly similar to LAFC, or even the Red Bulls – i.e., the force mistakes and, when they happen, they just GO! All three teams can pass into and play out of tight spaces, but Portland is really good at it. They had a play tonight that ended in a wild flail by Paredes, but everything that came before it showed why the Timbers have been so hard to contain since they’ve figured their shit out. And we’ve had a fun 2019 as a result. That’s all for tonight. Bring on the next one, yeah?