Minnesota United FC 1-0 Portland Timbers: On the Psychiatrist's Chair

(Just probing you for weaknesses...)

To lead with the unpopular opinion, whether or not that was a handball by Larrys Mabiala – and I’m of the opinion that it was – he took one hell of a risk flapping both arms high in the air and goal-side of the player he was marking. That moment of stupidity capped a game that, between extreme heat and terrible aesthetics, all concerned parties wanted to end. Losing 0-1 on the road to a good team – e.g., Minnesota United FC – only rises to the level of a crime because the Portland Timbers play the same team in just a few days’ time and the same venue in the U.S. Open Cup with a shot at the final on the line.

That shifts the frame, in my mind, from the meaning of the loss to the question of whether one team or the other gained a psychological edge from this game, no matter how narrow. An answer (“the answer” is a high bar, y’all) circles back to the starting premise for this match-up – i.e., the Portland Timbers played a good team on the road. There’s a massive mitigating variable in this particular mix as well because, after a first half in which the Timbers looked like some version of its better self – mostly on the passing side – the game played out as if they’d downed some shots at the half and during the hydration breaks, as opposed to sugar, water and electrolytes. A late flurry from Brian Fernandez (et al., obviously) aside, the passes stopped connecting and got a little more wild and ambitious (and lazy), and the Timbers collectively tailed off as the game progressed.

One open question is, why? Was it fatigue? The heat? Did a second-half shift in Minnesota’s structure fluster what had been, to that point, the high standard of Portland passing? Did Giovanni Savarese direct them to dial back the intensity knowing that that most of those players would take the field again in just three days? Answer those according to your personal theories; they’re mostly rhetorical fodder, and is it possible that only the sports bras these guys wear truly know the answer to any of those questions? (Are those things micced up? Do they hear/feel pep talks from the coaches?)

We do, however, have the base-line facts on hand: 1) Portland stopped connecting passes with any consistency in the second half; 2) they pushed Minnesota to the wall in their own house. It took a penalty call that over half the people on my twitter feed crapped all over for Minnesota to win the game, at the death, and with Portland ‘keeper, Steve Clark, guessing right on Ethan Finlay’s shot. That’s one thin goddamn line, and enough for me to render my final verdict:

Unless the Portland’s slow breakdown followed from fatigue or whatever sporting professionals call ennui, I’d give the psychological edge to Portland.

Now that I’ve got the numbers to confirm it, I can back up “pushed [them] to the wall” in math and highlights. Despite the exhausting hideousness of the second half, both teams put up a goodly number of shots (I stare at enough box scores for those to translate as the better side of average); the other point of interest is Portland out-possessing/passing Minnesota, and by a fair stretch. The broadcast booth got several things right tonight, but there’s this national media narrative about the Timbers “absorbing pressure” and killing you in transition. The latter piece holds up, by and large – they go forward fast to keep the opposition off-balance – but the “absorbs pressure” piece totally misstates how the Timbers actually play. Usually, at least.

I’ve fretted about the Timbers’ combativeness enough to notice its absence. Sure, the Timbers got a rash of yellow cards on either side of the 50-minute mark, but none of them came from aggression. (Diego Chara’s came closest, but that was more professional foul.) Minnesota won most of the game’s duels (see "the numbers" for facts), but the game never felt much like a battle. The question I’m raising here, is whether Minnesota beat Portland by engaging them on terms that worked better for Minnesota than for Portland. With the sum of the boxscore in my head, it’s worth wondering whether Minnesota was the team absorbing pressure and killing you (or Portland) in transition – only without nearly enough killing in transition. At this point, the Timbers strike me as a team that wants to beat the opposition to every ball; maybe Minnesota adopted an approach of letting Portland win the first ball, and then challenging them to do something worthwhile with the next one? That’s something a team can do, so long as it’s defense is good enough…and Minnesota’s was tonight. Done and done.

However they pulled it off, Minnesota played a good game. They created chances of their own (including the easy shot Miguel Ibarra forwarded to God), and they wreaked havoc down the Timbers’ left for most of the night. (For what it’s worth, I think opposing teams overload their side in the hopes of isolating Jorge Moreira against one of their attacking players on the weak side.) The havoc came from Jan Gregus coming over to help Romain Metanaire and Finlay overload Minnesota’s right, with an occasional assist from Kevin Molino. Minnesota rarely asked its left to do anything. Finlay stood out of that bunch, but Angelo Rodriguez bulled his way all over to move the ball up the field, rugby-style (he and Mabiala had one of hell of a battle today). It was blunt instrument stuff from Minnesota, the subtlety of a brick-bat, and it barely worked, but you don’t need much more of that, so long as you’re one of those teams that’s hard to beat – e.g., Minnesota United FC.

I have one last note on the game writ large. Portland had its share of very good chances. That’s good news no matter how the final score read, or how shitty the second half looked. That’s good even when people (looking at you, Twellman) raise (valid) questions about how Portland uses Brian Fernandez. The kinds and quantity of chances the Timbers created today should come good in the handful of winnable home games they have ahead of them (v VAN, CHI, RSL, SKC(?), DC). They’ll have to win more games than that, obviously – especially when playing catch up from the start of 2019 – but, I feel good about the old aggression coming back when the Timbers return home…

…that’s probably not what you want to hear with the U.S. Open Cup game at Minnesota on Wednesday. I’m not writing off that game at all. Based on this one alone – even including what went wrong in it – the Timbers showed they have something close to an even chance of winning on Wednesday. On the other hand, even with the sufficiency of shots they created, Portland left a half dozen or more promising moments on the table; they got to the beating heart of Zone 14 over and over again, but they could never raise the stakes above menacing; they either hit the final ball too far, or it got picked off, or they played it wide and the list of more lethal things than Portland playing a cross is a long and sad one. And that’s where the angst returns.

Maybe Minnesota did fluster them, maybe their game-plan funneled traffic to Ike Opara and Michael Boxall by design; if so, that means Portland has three days training on weird, indecent fields to come up with alternative approaches to goal. On the other hand, maybe Portland resented being dragged again from their homes after so much time away, and the road funk stinks a little harder these days. The Timbers have just three days to eradicate whatever it is, at least if they want a cup final to play (and the shortest ticket to the win/lose paradise of international competition in CONCACAF).

Whatever happens Wednesday feels equal parts open-ended and written in the stars. For anyone needing to feel better about this game (present company, raising his hand, and extending it to the (motherfucking, murderous) weekend as a whole), tonight’s loss was just a blip. This was never a game Portland had any profound need to win; even if all points count the same, they’re easier to get some places than others. And that’s the bottom line: there are other games ahead – 12 at last count – and 11 of those at home. When it comes to the playoffs, winning or losing this game felt a helluva lot more important to Minnesota than it did to Portland. The Timbers have games like this ahead of them – i.e., tough games at home – and how they handle those will decide how they reach the post-season, and in what shape.

The only other thing I want to note is that, per the broadcast, this was Diego Chara’s 250th game for the Portland Timbers. That’s just cool. You think he has 250 yellow cards to go with it, ‘cause that’d be EPIC!

All right, that’s it. Hope you enjoyed the game more than I did, and that the angst lingers lower in your mind.