FC Cincinnati 2020 Rambling Retrospective (on Foundations)

Ignore your eyes. This glass is fucking empty.

I’ve been struggling with what to think about FC Cincinnati’s 2020 season since it ended, never mind what to write about it. I had a fair sense of its high point - I’d call it the playoff-round loss to the Portland Timbers during the MLS Is Back Tournament in Orlando (covered in my patented over-written style here) - but the rest of the season felt like passing a gall stone (literally) bound and determined to not exit. Hope died both early and reasonably.

For as long as that was all I had to say about Cincy’s 2020, I couldn’t see the point in writing anything, because piling on. As most people know, it was a (briefly-) former FC Cincinnati player - Derrick Etienne, Jr. - who scored a tidy second goal in MLS Cup 2020. That one (unlikely) moment put something that had been visible all night in eye-catching italics: Etienne looked active and useful up to that point; he played defense, his passes connected, his runs had purpose, and he made at least a couple solid attacking decisions/actions and against Seattle’s demonstrably sturdy defense (as backed up by the numbers). He looked connected to the team and the game-plan, in other words. The same player looked lost or useless more often than not when he wore Orange and Blue, but one player having a good game could be anything - a fluke, for one- but that started the ball rolling. Slowly, obviously…

Someone asked me the other day, both out of the blue and when I had time to spare it some thought (toilet), whether I still follow the U.S. Men’s National Team. The answer started with “some” (for the record, I caught all of one game, parts of another, and I tracked the other two (the late blowouts) but that’s it) and ended on a jaded take on the next generation. Moreover, the odd highlight aside, I almost never see the up-‘n’-comers in Europe. A longer version: I see the individual talent and the teams they’re starting for, but how much do those clearly better teams raise those players’ games and vice versa? In other words, when all the weight of making the game-plan work falls on all those same individual talents, will they be World Cup-competitive, never mind World-Cup worthy? The rest of the thought ends with, I’ve seen the results for 2020, and this is nothing like the first time I’ve seen a bright future projected for the U.S. Men’s National Team based on objectively non-representative results - i.e., I’m giving more weight to the draw against Wales than I’ll ever give to a U.S. team kicking the shit out of El Salvador or a post-Golden Panama, c’mon, people, the 90s were fucking ages ago.

The idea that started with Etienne playing a big role in a final ended with a question: how much do FC Cincinnati’s seemingly defining struggles follow more from problems with the people/circumstances guiding the team than they come from the playing personnel? The players aren’t blameless by any means, but there’s something unusually dazed and confused about FC Cincy every time they take the field. I’ve followed a number of teams in a number of leagues since the 1990s, from the shittiest leagues they’d put on TV (the A-League!) to Europe’s finest leagues to the World Cup, and I’ve never followed a team that looks so…uncomfortable in every side of the game - and I watched the late-90s New England Revolution as if God was watching and cared as much.

Portland Timbers 1(7) - 1(8) FC Dallas: Outta Gas...

That's the thing...you never know when it'll hit...

Glimmers of hope aside - e.g., the seven to eight of the final ten minutes of the second period of extra-time (but…keep reading) - things looked bleak for the Portland Timbers from the precise second Ricardo Pepi’s shot caromed off the post and…right back to set up Pepi for the perfect finish over the sprawling Steve Clark. It’s like the rather big little shit planned it or something.

Long story short, when fate tells you you’re fucked, there’s not a lot of room for negotiation. Sixes meet sevens, good gods, where to begin?

It was fitting, if nothing else, for the season to end on an ill-timed goal against one of those Major League Soccer teams that lives and dies by grit. Portland hardly put in a dominant performance, but they managed to play the ball inside the six-yard area, and with minimal contact from any FC Dallas player at various, if sporadic moments over the first 70 minutes, but the Texans always had one last defender to block the shot or poke the ball away (this is what I meant in the preview thread when I said they nearly always have someone in the way). When a toe, foot or shin couldn’t get in the way, Jimmy Maurer jumped in front ofeverythingelse - and all the way to the death as it happened.

That penalty shoot-out possessed a twilight kind of vibe, something that hinted it could go on forever, with shooter scoring and ‘keepers missing indefinitely…and then Jorge Villafana did and, as noted above, Jimmy Maurer got in the way one final, decisive time and, just like that, game over, season over, and sweet Jesus, how am I going to keep body and soul together until the 2021 MLS regular season/dodgeball with COVID resumes? I guess I’m still getting over the shock of losing one of my favorite stabilizers amid the madness. If you’ve got movie/TV/youtube recommends that don’t traffic in flaming paranoia, I’m listening…

In the event I haven’t mentioned the score yet, the Portland Timbers went up 1-0 in the…are fucking kidding me? 82nd minute, and through the kind of goal that, near as I can tell, they’d tried to score all night. For all their faults - and those started with letting Dallas bestir themselves in the second half of the first half - the Timbers managed to pin Dallas against its own backline on multiple occasions tonight; moreover, they came within one step, one spin, one poke, one lunge of playing the ball to within 12 feet of Dallas’ goal-line and having nothing but daylight and a yawning goal resplendently before them…only to have something go awry at the last second. For what it’s worth, I think the box score tells a fair story: Portland posted 22 shots, and with 8 on goal, so they found enough chances. Dallas kept them out by defending all the way to their back-line - which is something you can really see around the tiny fucking spaces in which Valeri and Villafana had to operate for the go-ahead goal.

Los Angeles FC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Running Through Hell to Glory

Ma tenders!

There was a lot to love about the Portland Timbers’ late, late (late, late, late, late) equalizer against Los Angeles FC tonight e.g., the way it felt like Portland looking at the right side of the mirror, for once, after they’ve looked at it from the wrong side too often this season, or the fluid beauty of the full faith and execution with which all the players involved found the right passes and made the right runs, not to mention seeing Diego Valeri drop the cross on a goddamn dime to Jorge Villafana’s back-post run. This was after 90 minutes into an exhausting duel and running on legs I’d given up on, frankly, too many seasons ago.

Personally, I most appreciated the aesthetic of the way it played out on my TV. I got only as far as “wai” into “wait, where’s that cross going?” before I spotted Villafana’s run. Watching the ball fly through the air as Villafana sprinted to meet it, seeing LAFC’s goalkeeper and defender pinch together to stop it - swear to God, it brushed the defender’s hair (who was it? no one important, just another victim) - and to see that it always could only land exactly where it did: ah, thing of beauty…

…what’s that? What about the 90 sweaty minutes passed before it? Yes, yes, LAFC pinged the woodwork like it was the object of the game - twice if byDiego Rossi, once if by Carlos Vela, and through disturbingly clear openings - but I’ve got caveats for days from Portland’s side of the “what ifs,” and Timbers fans got their fairy tale ending in a 1-1 draw that booked them a date with FC Dallas. In the grand scheme of everything, I’d call that result a steal worth not asking too many questions about.

First, either forget the box score (too even) or know that LAFC ran good-golly-gosh-darn riot for nearly all of the first half; hell, the Timbers could barely get out of their defensive third for the first 25-30 minutes. Portland settled down their affairs as the game continued, but I doubt even one dollar’s worth of the live betting shifted in their direction until the 80th minute. That said, the smart money would have started moving in the Timbers’ direction around the 85th, even if in search of a big payoff. They finally posted someshots and, I’m guessing, did most of the work to doing those last-minute revisions to the box score.

Portland Timbers 0-1 Colorado Rapids: I Think the Word Is Sanguine...or Conditionally Cocky

Blake, buddy, c'mon. It's win-win.

A tight affair falls apart when Diego Chara misplays a pass and a combination of Younes Namli and Diego Rubio gets it vertical fast enough to bump the ball over to Kellyn Acosta, who flawlessly executed a “shall-we-dance” one-step around the Bill Tuiloma in the 83rd minute to tuck home the only goal scored tonight.

Also, and shit, the rumors were true: the Portland Timbers didn’t manage a shot on goal tonight and that’s the surest way in the sport to lose a game 0-1 at home and coursing down the stretch. Also, don’t worry, I’ll actually write about the game this time. You’ll see…

That said, the balance of the notes will talk about all the players who took the field tonight in big picture terms, but, to focus on tonight’s 96 minutes’ worth of…not ideal…

I’m going to start by referring back to my post on the last Timbers’ game, e.g., the 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps (in a past that feels like 20 years ago). That’s not a great piece of writing, but I want to reiterate what I see as a major, unappreciated idea in most discussions about soccer: every game is different, and for a dozen different reasons. That’s the broad argument, but things get really different any time a team doesn’t play what it believes to be its best team - I phrased it that way specifically to talk around armchair managing - which is what the Timbers did tonight, and certain things follow from that.

As much as I feel like the Timbers started all right - e.g., they looked fine over the first 10 minutes - they slipped off the front foot from there and to the end of the first half. It wasn’t that they did nothing - they created a decent kerfuffle, in fact, as the first half was winding down (dignity!) - but the threat never rose elevated above kerfuffling and the Timbers didn’t score and therefore didn’t win, and that’s all you really need to know….but, if you’d like to kick this thing around until it doesn’t get up, well, you’ve come to the right place.

Because I’m struggling to say it at all, I’ll just have to say it unartfully: why would you expect an attack run by, in descending order, Felipe Mora, Eryk Williamson, Diego Chara…it’s getting harder, um, Andy Polo(?), Pablo Bonilla/Marco Farfan, uh, Cristhian Paredes, then Andres Flores (who I’m still tempted to tuck under Bill Tuiloma, but…) to mount a competent offense against, 1) a defensively competent Colorado side (5th best in a 12-team Western Conference, and seven fewer goals against than Portland), and 2) those players running the show? Examples of just how much the personnel matters abounded in the first half in the form of passes mis-hit by 10% or more (Paredes), or players dribbling into slowly-forming cul-de-sacs for lack of a better idea (Paredes); I’m dumping on Paredes out of frustration, but everyone all the way to Chara was guilty of it.

Giovanni Savarese massaged the line-up into shape with subs, starting with Yimmi Chara coming on for the uncharacteristically useful Andres Flores (see below) and, later, Diego Valeri for Williamson, who’d faded out of the game during the first half and never quite found the second (more below). The balance shifted when Yimmi came on and flipped all the way when Valeri did. Mora wasn’t fielding hopeful passes on an island for one, but a pressing style generally works better when you’ve got somewhere to go with the ball - something the Timbers didn’t have throughout the first half, because see above.

As much as the attack cohered into something dangerous over the second half - Jorge Villafana’s shot off the wrong side of his foot from Valeri’s seeing eye heel pass started the Timbers’ best period and Dairon Asprilla’s shot off the post ended it (and they also had a nice detour in some interplay between Yimmi and Mora; maybe you have to watch the full highlights to get any of that)) - they didn’t get it done, not even conceptually. The most menacing thing Rapids’ ‘keeper William Yarbrough saw tonight was Dario Zuparic’s body flopping into it.

So, no, it wasn’t a good night, but I can’t get angry at it. I’ve been begging to get some of Portland’s…more mature players rested for some time now. I’m only half-satisfied on that count, because Savarese rested Valeri, but decided to play Chara…who, for all his works, good and imperfect, picked up a (well-deserved) yellow card. He’ll miss Sunday’s game against Los Angeles FC as a result and, to read the letter of the law, Chara was lucky to not get sent off for a late challenge on…didn’t write it in my notes, but it happened and you get my point. If I had to choose which game I’d have Chara play between Colorado and LAFC, I’d choose LAFC every time. That’s not because I’m right or when it’s happening, or any clear, coherent argument, it’s just what I feel, and that’s how America works right now, so there.

By all that I mean, I’ve got a general anxiety around burn-out. Given the results and, let’s face it, genuinely complicated man-management that Gio has faced during the 2020 season - and that’s before holding the pandemic shit together - every argument I make about what is or is not working comes into the conversation facing an uphill stumble. Against that, Valeri came on and shined like the gem he is; I mean, you could see how much he stretched the defense just by being him (gravity, baby), and he didn’t burn his legs too much to boot with only 35 minutes played. I’d call that a decent gamble. Gio also deserves props, in my book, for getting Williamson off the field in short order after Diego Chara picked up the yellow card that keeps him out of the regular season finale at LAFC...

…and just to flag it, you know you’ve still got Renzo Zambrano, right, Gio?

That’s it for game-specific commentary. Went on longer than I thought it would, honestly, but I think some of that bleeds into what I’ll do in the rest of the post - especially the stuff about Williamson and Flores I flagged in parentheses above. The rest of this post will pick through all the Timbers’ reasonable depth to try to peg where they fit in the grand scheme going into Fucked Up 2020 Playoffs, and wherever the Timbers hit it. Taking them in the order they’re listed in the box score (mostly not worth your time, but also flagged with an asterisk), or that they come to me:

Bill…wait, stop…

Larrys Mabiala*: He’s the anchor of my back-line, full-stop.

Dario Zuparic*: Quietly solid tonight, invisible yet often the answer to the question, “how did that attack break down?” My other starting center back, no question.

Bill Tuiloma: He’s good cover, and generally makes me feel safe, but, the latest revisions to the rules be damned, I would have called that a penalty (i.e., if there’s dead air behind you and your hand stops the progress of the ball?), and Tuiloma doesn't stray so far from that as a defender.

Marco Farfan*: Didn’t like seeing him leaving with a non-contact injury. Just pissed off.

Jorge Villafana: He does good things in the attack and enough in the defense. Not really happy about the absence of an understudy, but I think that’s the deal.

Pablo Bonilla*: I’ve come around on him and, again, if he’s all that’s left, so be it, but he got pulled apart and rounded as much as Farfan did tonight. I’m not too worried because I haven’t seen that a lot, but Colorado knew how to work the Timbers’ fullbacks.

Andres Flores*: This will be longer-form. I value Flores on the roster because he’s reliable and you know exactly what you’ll get out of him - e.g., 100% hustle and brains, but not a lot else. While I’m generally a fan, and on the grounds he doesn’t fuck up much and does the odd good thing, Flores didn’t do much good tonight. I still think he’s a solid piece for the current playoff stretch, and he beats a kick in the head, but this is one of those “don’t be afraid to upgrade situations” that cell phone companies talk about…if with less justification.

Andy Polo*: I’d call that his best night of 2020, and, yes, even better than this goal, because he did more to move the cause forward tonight than he sometimes does, and that's more important in the grand scheme. He killed his share of plays too and, bluntly, that one comment explains the concept of a starting eleven better than I ever will. He's never been central to Portland's plans, so...

Cristhian Paredes*: Somewhere around the 50th minute, he had a surging run up the gut and with numbers around him that a decent attacking player would consistently turn into a shot. Instead, he over-hit the pass, and the attack strained against the weight of it from that pass forward. If he defended strongly, he’d have a role; if he could do what Williamson does, he’d have a role. Paredes doesn’t have a role, not in Portland.

Diego Chara*: Vital. Still.

Eryk Williamson*: Based on what I saw tonight, I don’t see him replacing Valeri’s particular skill-set. Honestly, the more I watch Williamson, the more I think he looks like Michael Bradley, only better on the dribble and close combination more than the long-ball, someone who will do his best work on late runs. That’s just my sense…

Felipe Mora*: A one-man army, and facing tall odds tonight. He can’t quite lead the line (too small), but Mora can make shit happen so long as he can get people close enough to him. I’m totally sold on this signing.

Diego Valeri*: I’m starting to wonder if this season wasn’t tailor-made for the Maestro…

Marvin Loria: I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s just not doing it this season, and on either side of the ball.

Renzo Zambrano: The fact that Zambrano hasn’t started is like the Michele Miscavige mystery of the Timbers in 2020.

Yimmi Chara*: Solid addition. I think he’ll get better too.

Dairon Asprilla*: As I’ve said every season since he’s joined the team, why not? (And with good reason!)

Tomas Conechny: For emergency use only at this point.

Steve Clark: When he’s confident, he’s very good.

Aljaz Ivacic: His one bad game has stuck with me.

Jeff Attinella: He’s still on the team? If so, good.

Chris Duvall: Is he broken? If not, hurray!

Jeremy Ebobisse: Given everyone who’s missing, Ebobisse becomes even more important to the team. Not at the risk of his health, but, absolutely, I believe the Timbers have a chance at winning MLS Cup if he’s healthy, less so if he’s not.

OK, I think that’s everyone who I think has a snowball’s chance of getting on a game-day roster between today and the end of 2020 - i.e., all the respect in the world, Blake Bodily, and I will buy you Burt Reynold’s Trans Am from Smokey and the Mother Fucking Bandit if you score the game-winning goal in Fucked Up MLS Cup 2020. (But not if you actually do it, because those odds are properly cosmic and might foretell environmental collapse by way of Nostradamus.)

As implied in what I said about Ebobisse, I think Portland has a decent chance, at least so long as COVID doesn’t win the 2020 MLS Playoffs and, by translation, certain things line up. All the same, and with the fullest of appreciation to every player that wears green and gold - yes, even Blake Bodily (and Zac McGraw, and anyone else I didn’t name) - thanks for a great season. You gave me a happy distraction through one of the most challenging years of my life and what’s better for keeping up morale!

Portland Timbers 1-0 Vancouver Whitecaps: T.C.O.B.

Taking. Care. of. Business.

To get something off my chest right away, few things drive me crazier than people talking about the Portland Timbers’ varying gallery of (now) bi-weekly villains as a bunch of apples - e.g., why would anyone expect the same thing from a game against the Los Angeles Galaxy (for sake of argument, an apple) that they would against the Vancouver Whitecaps (going with a kumquat)?

Full disclosure - and, no bullshit, I love when this happens - I wrote that first paragraph believing that the Whitecaps had a far, far better defensive record than the Galaxy, but, nope. They’re worse, actually, having allowed 44 goals to LA’s 41, so the whole “apple” thing holds up there, but let’s look elsewhere. OK…they suck roughly equally on the attacking side, so…let’s try the big picture/more practical route: Vancouver has played the Timbers close in both meetings during this Fucked Up 2020. Last night’s final score matched the only other one in the sample - e.g., a 1-0 win for Portland, and in the same venue.

Having just reviewed my notes on that prior game, I’ll flag two things: 1) the Timbers fielded a heavily rotated squad for it and still won by the same margin - also of note, that was the 3rd game in a 5-game winning streak for Portland - but, 2) this win felt cagey where the earlier win felt like an experiment in what the Timbers can get away with. While last night wasn’t quite “all hands on deck” (because the Timbers have a couple hands missing - e.g., Sebastian Blanco, Jeremy Ebobisse, etc.), Portland played something like their starting alignment. They turned in a more controlled outing, but I also know I wasn’t the only one watching who suffered unwelcome flashbacks to those three games from October 14 to October 22nd - e.g., the loss to Real Salt Lake, and the back-to-back 1-1 draws against LAFC then the Seattle Sounders.

The Timbers held on last night and, to return to the larger argument, that’s because they had more quality to manage against LAFC and Seattle…and RSL turned out to be Portland’s bogey team for 2020 (they managed just one point against RSL all season, which is nuts given that they dropped five goals on them over those two games). Also, because I just read it (which means I actually posted this for public consumption), read this dynamite analysis from the last Vancouver win and wonder whether you should take anything I write seriously:

Atlanta United FC 2-0 FC Cincinnati: Scrap It for Parts (and even that's hard)

Yessir, it's been that kind of year.

I hadn’t planned on writing about this game, but I had an hour to kill between games yesterday, so what the hell? Also, I’m barely writing about FC Cincinnati’s 0-2 road loss to Atlanta United FC so much as I’m writing about the season as a whole and state of things generally. Which makes sense because what was last night’s game but a 90-minute microcosm of the season and state of things as a whole?

Cincinnati went down one goal early - and under the weight of…was that just three attacking players for Atlanta? - something that’s proved fatal nearly every time it’s happened. That’s just what happens for any team that’s scored just five goals in sixteen games. That’s right: Cincinnati’s attack hasn’t even arrived at a point where I can start to use actual numbers when I write about them - e.g., it’s “five” instead of “5,” or, God forbid, “16” or, dare I orgasm mid-preamble by typing “30”?

Atlanta scored again, Cincinnati never did, the end. Point to anything in the box score - e.g., the Orange and Blue’s lopsided edge in possession and passing accuracy, their stockpile of passes, the fact they held the edge in every available attacking category - and I’ll point to the scoreboard. Cincinnati’s attackers gave Brad Guzan a little work to do, but, to get all existential about it, I can’t remember the last time I tuned into an FC Cincinnati game without expecting unbelievable, unrelenting tragedy. It’s not whether they’ll fail, but how long we’ll have to wait for it to become the familiar, sickening combination of both obvious and final. Atlanta did all concerned a solid by scoring their second by the 26th minute (and tough night for Kendall Waston). Anyone clear on why Jaap Stam swapped out Nick Hagglund, when central defense was working better than most things?

The only question left open for me in 2020 - that’s to say, yes, I think that FC Cincinnati 2020’s team will go down as the shittiest attacking team in MLS history (they have to score four goals to avoid that fate) - is which players the team holds onto going forward. I’ll tick through tonight’s starters and subs below - and, to be clear, this is an entirely ruthless and mercenary exercise, done without regard to how much turnover any given team can withstand, or even the realities of any player’s existing and legally binding contract, e.g., if Cincinnati’s contractually-bound to keep that player around, it is what it is. With that, here’s who I’d keep and who’d I’d cut bait on listed in the order they appear in the box score (don’t read into the order, basically):

FC Cincinnati 0-1 Sporting Kansas City: Here's to 2021 and 20 New Players, JFC

Left at Nippert Stadium yesterday.

The best thing I can about FC Cincinnati’s 0-1 home loss last night against Sporting Kansas City was that they at least made the Western Conference’s best look average. Don’t know about you, but I was hoping they’d take one last happy memory from Nippert Stadium…then again, they’d go against FC Cincy’s history in Major League Soccer, as it has been written…

…don’t worry, this won’t take much of your time. Certainly less than 90 agonizing minutes.

Say they managed to draw the game - or, given at least two clear-cut chances, say Siem de Jong tucked away his penalty kick (nope!), or Brandon Vazquez finished his late, elegant turn with something effective (nope!), say, God forbid (because it seems he has), FC Cincy put away both chances and won the game. Say they make the Fucked Up 2020 Playoffs (and that the beef jerky maker of your dreams sponsored it): do you really think this FC Cincinnati…mess would get even one step beyond the first round? Or, to come at it from a future hypothetical, what would FC Cincinnati have to do to erase the profound, even off-putting frustration of their second season in MLS?

The short answer, and a disturbingly real one: why bother? Looking back at FC Cincinnati’s 2020 is an exercise in counting wasted hours.

Bluntly, literally every attacking player Cincinnati signed going into the 2020 season failed to pan out. Last night, I saw a couple positive reads on Jurgen Locadia switching to play wide left and, sure, he found more room out there and he posted a competent shot on goal, but what might have been isn’t what happened; the fact remains that Locadia hasn’t returned on investment any better than Fanendo Adi, and at greater effort and expense. It’s not just that he scored just one goal in 13 starts (15 games played), but that the ball gets caught in the spokes more often than he kicks it out and in anything like a useful direction.

Portland Timbers 5-2 Los Angeles Galaxy: You Know They Suck...Right?

Look into my eyes and fail, MF.

Every thought and argument takes the fact that the Los Angeles Galaxy is a terrible fucking soccer team in 2020 as a given. Dead last in the Western Conference, deep into the snipe hunt for worst defensive record in MLS (just four goals off the San Jose Earthquakes’ torrid pace of 45 goals allowed), and just two points ahead of FC Fucking Cincinnati? Live by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, as they have, you wilt like flowers in direct sun when he’s gone, baby.

Also, the Portland Timbers really seem to have their number. With tonight’s 5-2 win, the Timbers have scored 15 goals against the Galaxy this season and in just four games, more than 1/3 of LA’s total goals allowed for 2020 (this assumes the interns updated the current standings timely). The numbers just keep getting bigger for LA, too, seeing that the Timbers scored eleven of those two goals over their past two….just painfully lopsided wins. I mean, holy shit, LA…

What I want to lead with tonight are the 10-15 minutes that followed the half-time whistle. It wasn’t just that the Galaxy scored a goal inside the first minute so much as what happened afterwards that really sticks with me - largely because we’ve all seen it before. First, the opposition starts cutting out the passes that used to flow freely out of the Timbers back line; next thing you know, tackles get less crisp and timely in the defensive third and, about five minutes later, the whole goddamn Timbers defense can’t clear its lines with a free header or a clean boot. It doesn’t even take a good team to set off waves of panic - as proved by tonight’s Exhibit A, the LA Galaxy. Had they pulled the game to 3-2 by, say, the 58th minute, who knows? LA had their chances, and they pulled the Timbers all over all the way up until Eryk Williamson scored one not so much against the run of play as the laws of physics to restore the Timbers the three-goal lead they never quite gave up. Seriously, for all the moments of calm Portland managed, LA tied them on shots and pushed them hard for shots on goal - oh, and neither team polished a diamond in this one.

To return to a theme, and regardless of whether or not this counts as a late development - as in, the Timbers own the 2020 series 3-1-0, and with a +6 goal differential (15 gf, 9 ga), but the last two results (6-3 and 5-2, both for Portland) skew the hell out of the sample - the Timbers have pulled some snake-charmer shit on the Galaxy recently, just a whole thing of dazing them then fucking them up over and over and over.

Seattle Sounders 1-1 Portland Timbers: Theories on Erosion

Wears one down a bit...

Personally, I can spin the Portland Timbers' 1-1 draw on the road to the loath’d Seattle Sounders several ways. A sampling:

The Optimist: The Timbers paced the first 60 minutes and could have scored several times over the next 20 minutes. The last 15 minutes never happened, there were no last 15 minutes.

The Pessimist: When your bend-don’t-break defense keeps breaking, you no longer have a bend-don’t-break defense. (Hold this thought, because it’s a biggie.)

The Fatalist: The Timbers can score on any team and pace large portions of any game; they also reliably give up goals: this is the unbendable nature of this timeline.

The Psychologist/Gambler: Everyone makes the playoffs and, with Portland and Seattle at No. 1 and No. 2 in the Western Conference and wholly manageable regular season schedules ahead of them* and only Sporting Kansas City as immediate competition (e.g., seven points separate both teams from Los Angeles FC (today)), there’s a decent chance that the Timbers and Sounders won’t meet until the Conference semis and Portland has a 2-1-1 edge in the series for 2020 - i.e., they grabbed four of those seven points in the series in Seattle - so they’re deep enough in Seattle’s head to hold the edge in that eventual match-up.

(* Portland’s remaining schedule: v. LA Galaxy, v. Vancouver, v. Colorado (maybe), @ LAFC;
Seattle’s remaining schedule: @ Vancouver, @ Colorado (maybe), @ LA Galaxy, v. San Jose)

All those arguments strike me as reasonable, for what it’s worth, because, per the fatalist take (aka, my jam), this is the team that Timbers fans have in front of them right now. What causes those late, fatal defensive mistakes? Beats the hell out of me. Also worth mentioning, the Timbers have only done the “draw-that-feels-like-a-loss” thing four times in 19 games this season. On the one hand, yes, that is just north of something happening 20% of the time. On the other hand, and prior to the recent shitty, 0-1-2 stretch, Portland won five straight games. Most of those happened at "home" (see the Vancouver Whitecaps), but the real blowouts - e.g., the 6-1 dismantling of San Jose and the 6-3 fun-fest against the Galaxy - happened on the road. Like tonight’s draw against a team that is, by common consent, the best in the Western Conference…except the Timbers for some damn reason, but, when the only real measure is who lifts the trophy in the end, who fucking cares about the chatter?

FC Cincinnati 1-2 DC United: Fall Down, Go Boom

I laugh every time. And I have children.

There is almost nothing to say about FC Cincinnati that doesn’t acknowledge a damning reality about the team - i.e., that they’re more or less doomd the second they go behind a goal. After that, every other thing you want to state or argue about them is academic.

As such, no, it didn’t help when their young stand-in goalkeeper, Bobby Edwards, screwed all the way up on a thoroughly innocuous DC United set-piece by misreading the flight of the ball and then “recovering” by trying too damn hard to prevent a corner kick. He effectively corralled the ball for DC’s Donovan Pines, instead, who collected the ball and poked it home. To get a real-time sense of how unexpected all that was, track Andrew Gutman’s movement and attention during that play. He clearly assumed it was over after glancing at Edwards’ attempt to keep in the ball; little did he know, Edwards would fall down and Cincinnati’s goal would go “boom.”

Now one year, plus one fucked-up year into their existence - what’s that, like a year and five-fourths or some shit? - FC Cincinnati still has no reliable approach to goal, neither a functioning attacking mechanism (e.g., get behind and play crosses) nor any one player or combination of attacking players to play through to get things moving. It’s just guys running around hoping the next pass finds an open player with a good sight of goal - preferably a better one than Joe Gyau’s shot through a thicket of players at or around the 25th minute.

More to the point, the earlier to opposition goes up, the more time FC Cincy spends chasing the game and/or opening themselves up on the counter. This played out in almost insulting effect in Cincinnati’s 1-2 home loss yesterday. As the good lord tormented Job, so the soccer fates gleefully gifted the theretofore struggling Brandon Vazquez with the gift of a bobble by DC’s stand-in ‘keeper, the experienced Chris Seitz. That tied the game on paper, but another, more meaningful dynamic had taken hold on the field: DC kept breaking through in midfield and pushing even-numbered counters against Cincinnati’s back-pedaling defense. On one occasion before Cincy equalized, a cross to the far side found a wide-open (I think) Erik Sorga, who skied his shot over a (basically) open net with a first-time strike.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles FC: Aggressively Sticking with the Positives

And here I shall stay until I am moved...

To come right out and say it, the Portland Timbers' 1-1 home draw against Los Angeles FC broadcast a freaky signal. On the one hand, you’ve got the bare result - i.e., a loss at home and against a direct rival - while, on the other, you had had the Timbers best-possible attacking set-up pin-down and straight-up fuck-up one the league’s reigning powers, yes, even with several key players missing, but didn’t they already kick their own ass by shipping Walker Zimmermann, I mean, it’s not like the Timbers stipulated to that in the pre-game, but I digress…

To continue a stray thought in the above, the Timbers got all the way up LAFC’s head and well into their ass from, loosely, the 35th minute to the 55th, and it was equal parts relentless and delightful. As often happens with LAFC and Portland, they played a wide-open game, with both teams wanting space and, where they wanted to, giving it, and with most of the defending coming in either final third; it was confident and tidy on both sides. All that chaos failed to show up as shots in the box score for a reason, in other words, but the Timbers put their boot on the game and created enough chances until they finally unlocked LAFC’s defense for Jeremy Ebobisse. That goal didn’t just put a bow on a team effort: it reminded anyone who’s watching of all the ways that Portland’s attack can hurt you…which is not to say that Ebobisse hasn’t scored plenty in 2020, because he has. And that’s global for the Timbers at the moment.

That’s genuinely impressive, by the way, because not every fan gets to follow a team with actual game-winning talent. I know people in that predicament and I experience it myself, if not as acutely. The affliction is real…

And there’s no real flip on this one, no point where I cut against what feels like a reasonable assumption right now: the Timbers are, at worst, competitive for just about any trophy for 2020 that COVID-19 doesn’t take out of the running first. When you consider the grand/decidedly uneven scheme that is the MLS 2020 “regular season” schedule - Portland has lined up against the Seattle Sounders, aka, league special boo, and…fallen legends LAFC, and [mumble, mumble] San Jose [mumble, mumble], while Eastern Conference “royalty” like Toronto FC, the Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew SC have faced a lot of FC Cincinnati, L’Impact Montreal, DC United, Inter Miami CF, and the New York Red Bulls - even if to varying degrees, you can’t help but have questions about all the hidden strengths and weaknesses getting buried with every passing week. To clarify and confirm everything in the above, yes, I do think that Seattle, Portland, and LAFC are playing among the hardest schedules in MLS right now, and I suspect that’ll come through in the end. In other words, the team that crawls out of that pile should have a dynamite shot at a trophy.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Columbus Crew SC: A Faint Glimmering From Hell?

One of you ordered the salmon pate, right?

FC Cincinnati has shown fans a couple looks over this short, weird 2020, but joylessly organized on defense and a combination of clueless and inept in the attack has remained the go-to since they surprised a couple teams (the New York Red Bulls, mostly) back in the Orlando bubble.

At least that’s where I left off with them about a month ago after that win over (again) the Red Bulls. I’d kept tabs while I was checked out, even took a longer look at a couple results. The results didn’t look great - they’d gone 0-4-1 over that time - even if all the results mostly made sense (e.g., losing 0-4 away to New York City FC and 0-3 on the road to the Philadelphia Union, both of which still hold double-digit leads over Cincy, even in a low-points season). Frustration mounted among the fan-base, or at least the corner of it I see on twitter, often to the point where thinking ahead to the 2021 season felt better than living through 2020…and I realize, as I typed those words, what a very low bar that is. So, so pervasively, consumingly low….

When I finally decided to tune back in for last night’s game against Columbus Crew SC, in a match-up I still can’t bring myself to call “Hell Is Real” (I mean, if just one of the teams has taken up full-time residence in hell, aren’t they just hosting at that point?), someone on the twitters pointed out that FC Cincy’s supporters’ groups had packed up all the banners and tifos with an eye to sending the team a message. I don’t know whether or not the players received it, but I had one hell of a laugh when a player alluding to it in an post-game interview. (Something like, “yeah, I noticed that. I heard they were trying to tell us something.” Ach, priceless…)

In fewer words, I’d missed more games than I’d noticed (FC Cincy went to Minnesota? huh), while getting the clear, steady message that not much of meaning had changed. As such, I tuned in last night bracing for more of the same. FC Cincinnati delivered something else. A 2-1 home win, for starters, but also more coherence on the attacking side than I’d seen since…well, let’s call it a while, because that could be 2019 on the phone for all I know. (Wait! You’re not gonna believe this, but it’s a guy telling me I won a prize! All I have to do is give him my bank account and routing numbers! Yaayyyyyy!)

Real Salt Lake 2-1 Portland Timbers: So Much Not Trying

Yeah, why not?

Near as I can tell, the Portland Timbers made a total and collective decision to do as little as possible tonight, just to see if they could get away with it. More than anything else, tonight’s 1-2 road loss to Real Salt Lake felt like watching a B-movie, like a real one. It has scene and setting like any other movie, action and dialogue, and real people playing the parts, but everyone involved feels it falling apart around them from one scene to the next, only no one can put their finger on the one change to make, so that everything can fall into place and make something half-decent. And so everyone keeps doing the things they’re supposed to, one bad scene after another; they keep going because that’s the only way to make it end and go home.

What the hell happened out there tonight? I’m too confused to be angry. Moving on…

Judging by what…just kept going on the field tonight, I assume Portland decided to open up the game by spreading out its players, probably with the idea of making space in which to run, play and generally frolick. Playing in Salt Lake usually means saving lungs and legs, so maybe the coaching staff issued a secondary order about taking chances carefully and only moving when the reward outweighed the risk. Setting aside the question of whether or not this was Portland’s game-plan - I have no insight into that - I don’t see anything odd or irresponsible about those choices…but what adjustments do you make when those choices don’t work?

When I talk about a “total and collective decision,” that absolutely includes the coaching staff - it might even start with them - because what the Timbers got nothing of value out of what happened tonight. Not only did the game-plan suck, it shouldn't take two dumps on said game-plan - Douglas Martinez's and Damir Kreilach's - to change the revise or even re-write the damn thing. Worse, they taxed the Diegos (Valeri’s and Chara’s) (slowly) aging legs with 90 full minutes at altitude - and with Portland hosting Los Angeles FC at home this Sunday (so that’s travel too). I mean, if you're gonna go for it, shouldn't you?

Worst, the two main players they called up to audition for playing time - Tomas Conechny and Cristhian Paredes - continued to show they’re not even ready to study under the understudies. Thus, worst feeds worse and you’ve got nothing to show from a trip to Utah.

Portland Timbers 3-0 San Jose Earthquakes: GUYS....

Mood.

Was it a solid win? Absolutely. The first half fulfilled my pre-game prophecy - the prediction of equivalent of saying, “you will get sliced bread for dinner tonight” - but the Portland Timbers scored…was it even minute(?), into the second half. Diego Chara and Eryk Williamson worked something breezy up the right and Chara finished their work with a perfect cross to Jaroslaw Niezgoda, who finished with a header that I can’t imagine 95% of ‘keepers keeping out.

And, yes, San Jose forced a cold-sweat moment of doubt, one that sounded loud echoes of a dreaded relapse into one or two of the deadly sins - this was Tanner Beason’s put-back (speaking of, this kid looked good) - but Referee Guido Gonzalez, Jr. (badass handle, btw) called it back for handball or offside. Honestly, the Timbers leaned a little too heavily into the “most dangerous lead in soccer” trope tonight, but when Chara (yes, again; do they give medals for MVP?) floated another assist to Felipe Mora running naked at the back-post that put away the game and the jitters. The game ended 3-0, Portland over the San Jose Earthquakes…

…but let’s not speak of the Timbers’ second goal. And if the Timbers Army could turn this song into a chant, I’d be both happy and very, very impressed. Factually, you could squeeze that goal through the lens of San Jose ‘keeper, James Marcinkowski’s frayed second half. Who was it that he presented the open-goal opportunity to? That’s the kind of night it was: Portland could throw away gold tonight and it didn’t cost ‘em. Reminded me of the win over the Los Angeles Galaxy…and the obscured the memory of those dreary back-to-back wins over the Seattle Sounders and the Vancouver Whitecaps.

That said, to continue from the title, GUYS, has anyone either noticed or commented upon the fact that every player Portland brought in for 2020 has worked, like, all the way out (so far)?? For instance:

MLS 2020 Down the Stretch: Expectations, Oddballs & Watercoolers

Valeri's goal, amirite?

Before getting into the details, I’ll start with an observation: I see almost no real give in the Eastern Conference standings - i.e., I don’t really see any of the bottom four climbing out of the outhouse - while the Western Conference looks decently interesting from 6th place on down. Do note, however, the 8th-place Colorado Rapids’ two-three games in hand on everyone around them.

As threatened last week, I’m back to handicapping MLS as a whole, if from a greater distance. The formula will likely evolve from the original plan of separating expected results from the oddballs, but the general idea is to dig deeper on the results that don’t make sense to try to figure out how they happened. I want to go Monday-to-Monday for the long haul, but I got this itch to drop a prototype and that’s what this is. Plus, I wanted to see (some of) what happened when FC Cincinnati visited Philadelphia last Wednesday. (The short, familiar answer: nothing good.)

What I’m fishing for with these weekly posts is enough information to clock some general trends, maybe drop some names about who did what and how often. Call it an acquaintance level relationship with Major League Soccer in sum, enough to join a water-cooler conversation about comings and goings and talking from somewhere more sophisticated than my ass.

Most weeks, I’ll start by ticking through the expected results, touching (very) briefly on stray points of interest. I’ll then close with as many of the oddballs as I can get to - which, for this week, included only two games (though it should've included one more) - and dig deeper into those. The biggest difference comes with the amount of video review - e.g., “baby highlights” + box scores for the expected results and MLS-in-15 plus box scores for the oddballs.

I’ll start this edition with a (very) late round-up of FC Cincy’s midweek loss to Philly, a result that was…so very expected.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3-6 Portland Timbers: A Dream-Logic Romp

Ooh, better than my metaphor...

That was weird, right? Fun, for sure…but weird.

No question surrounds the game’s decisive factor: the Los Angeles Galaxy’s defense, which fucking s-s-s-s-s-sucked tonight. I’m going to check something, but I swear I’m not peaking. How many shots on goal did the Portland Timbers post tonight?

Ah, off by one. I was almost certain the Timbers had as many shots on goal and they had goals tonight, but that still makes the same point: Portland put just 10 shots on LA’s goal tonight, and that’s a rarefied strike-rate, six to ten. Or the indication of a defense - and a back-line, in particular - at odds with itself. When Portland broke down the Galaxy’s defense tonight, I damn near shattered - see here and definitely here. How many things had to go wrong, all the way down to LA’s defense almost miraculously keeping Jorge Villafana onside for the knock-back to Eryk Williamson (right?) - and, like most miracles, you don’t want to look too closely (fuck off, VAR!) - for that goal to come together? And yet, the Galaxy still had a couple more fuck-ups in ‘em, and on that one play, God bless ‘em.

That takes nothing away from Jeremy Ebobisse’s hammer of a short-range free-kick (and I’m always shocked when they go in clean from that close), or Diego Valeri’s cross-body, seeing-eye lob over LA ‘keeper, David Bingham, who probably didn’t even know he was exposed until he watched the ball sail over his head. In true Timbers fashion, they gave fans reason to doubt they’d hold a succession of leads, but they held on for what, when you add it all up, was a solid 6-3 win. And, for those not keeping track, Portland has built an impressive road record since coming back from Orlando. That kind of resilience serves a team well in playoff systems.

LA fought sporadically but fought hard when they did. For stretches of the game, they pushed the ball back into Portland’s half as if sending wave after wave of fresh players at them (it’s good; it was just the same eleven dudes). And congrats to Julian Araujo on his first MLS goal, because breaking your duck that hard sticks nicely in the memory, but it captured the essence of LA’s attack tonight: if you take away Christian Pavon’s final attempt to throw his team a life-line, something about the Galaxy attack felt over-improvised. I held out Pavon’s goal because, going from memory and broadcast-booth chatter, he tries that same move all the time. At times, LA took a basketball-style approach to Pavon - e.g., give him the rock and let him loose.

Major League Soccer 2020: Acts of Penance on the Back 8

Once the Magical World of Major League Soccer ended and all the teams returned to the far Less Magical World of COVID, I pretty much checked out of everything related to MLS except the feats and failures of the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati. I even dialed back on FC Cincy a couple weeks ago, and with regrets, because what’s more compelling than an eternal mystery? (In this case, how a collection of professional athletes can so consistently fail to do anything well for that long.)

With just eight games left in Fucking 2020 for nearly every team in MLS (cue faint coughing from Colorado), the lack of context for the results I’m seeing - e.g., San Jose Earthquakes 2-1 Los Angeles Galaxy, a couple nights ago, in the conservatory, with gods know what for a murder weapon - prompts that twitch I get in my right eyebrow when I feel too disconnected from what’s going on…

…so I’ve decided to review the results and compile them in one place, perhaps as some kind of monastic-style penance, to get myself re-centered (breath). The grander, more deluded effort is to once again chase the damned white whale of my amateur pundit existence - e.g., a way that lets me keep current on comings and goings of this weird little league, but without it consuming every minute of my free time. I think I have one, but I’ve thought that literally every time I’ve attempted the same thing over the whole goddamn life of my homely, yet much-beloved little league. Little league…funny...

I’ll describe what I have in mind at the end of this post. For now, let's get caught up! And let’s do this best teams to worst, i.e., from the teams likely to do something interesting to those ones who rarely do anything you want to look at. TO BE CLEAR, the ONLY thing I’m looking at below are the top-liniest of top-line numbers: results, goal-differential, and a loose read on the relative strength of the opposition that each team has faced since the Magical World of Major League Soccer (MWoMLS) sprinkled the last of its pixie dust on this wretched motherfucker of a year. With that, here goes…and expect the odd factual error and I'll apologize for and/or retract dumb opinions as needed.

Columbus Crew SC: 9-2-4, 31 pts., +15 goal-differential (GD), goals for (GF), 25, post-MLS Is Back Record (“post-MIB”), 5-2-3
Results, post-MIB
Wins: v CHI, v PHI, v CIN, v NSH, v MIN
Losses: @ NYC, @ TFC
Draws: @CIN, @CHI, @FCD
Last 10: WLDWWDWWLD
Notes
What stands out here is the divide between home and road records; I’m not seeing the line drawn that cleanly anywhere else below, and maybe that’s the key tell with Columbus. They’re beating…loosely credible teams at home (Philly, mostly), but even patsies (and Dallas) can hold them when they travel. That said, the losses are reasonable and they do have the best records, so…

Vancouver Whitecaps 0-1 Portland Timbers: Road Games & Resources

The perverse reality of the road at home.

You shouldn’t look like the road team at home, not even during a pandemic, but the Portland Timbers did that through the long…interminable, really, middle passage of their…let’s call it loosely-justified 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps, at home, in Portland, Oregon tonight. Holy shit, that’s a lotta commas. Now, more ellipses…

First, externalities are key to understanding this game. The Timbers just played five games in 14 days, and with the first three of those games on the road. That, obviously, points to the second externality - e.g., the fact that Portland had no choice but to rotate a lot of the squad tonight. It wasn’t second-team top-to-bottom, of course, by which I mean you can make arguments about who would start at fullback for your best possible Starting XI for the Portland Timbers in 2020 (fwiw, tonight was 50/50 for me), but Steve Clark in goal, with Dario Zuparic and Larrys Mabiala in front of him, and Diego Chara in front of them is Portland’s starting set, if only until Chara’s scarcely comprehensible retirement. In a key sense, then - in the key sense, for my money - the Timbers made the correct gamble tonight.

While that opinion wasn’t quite “proved” by the final 15 minutes of the game - i.e., when Jeremy Ebobisse and Jaroslaw Niezgoda came in for Christian Paredes and Felipe Mora, respectively - it posited a powerful argument against the team that started for the Timbers tonight. Explaining why that is requires going back to the beginning.

Felipe Mora nodded home the game’s one and only goal not just early in the game, but during the first stage of Portland’s early period of dominance. The Timbers had the Whitecaps over a barrel for the first…I’d say 25 minutes of the game. That period culminated in Eryk Williamson hitting a Mora chest-bump-pass first-time toward…what’s his name’s goal (fine; Bryan Meredith), but that was a solid stretch for Portland. They looked comfortable, confident, not just in defending, but in moving the ball forward.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Seattle Sounders: On Surviving a Pithing

Portland, right now. Still standing.

I want to start this post on a human note - a sincere one too, because I don’t know what my “voice” sounds like in other people’s heads. As I watched the Portland Timbers…I’ll get into it later, but let’s call it very fortunate 1-0 win over the Seattle Sounders, I noted a lot of players who played half-absent, i.e., they couldn’t and/or weren’t focused for this reason or that. If/when I dump on any given player down below, let me make one thing clear: Portland is a heavy goddamn place to be right now, what with the fires, the right-wing goon parades, protests, plus an ongoing, never-ending pandemic, and, as such, I hereby pardon anyone for a lack of focus, from now and until things are either better, or we’ve figured out how to endure Idiocracy with some form of grace.

The good news: the Timbers gutted the Sounders! And I have the good fortune of writing that literally, because by what other name do you call such a perfect incision?

The bad news: sweet Jesus' saliva, what the hell was going on with the team tonight? The Timbers were masters of nothing and nowhere, stumbling bumpkins on their home patch.

The Timbers haven’t played this flat, dazed and passive for the length of 2020. I could be talked into calling this worse than any of the regular nightmares from the 2019 season, if only in the sense that more people did several things wrong: sure, the 2019 Timbers tortured us all by flailing to score for hundreds of minutes on end, but the Timbers survived global failures just now and all around the field: the defensive posture respected Seattle more than they’ll ever deserve, which undoubtedly followed from the dead-frog-wired-to-an-electrode energy that Portland just couldn’t seem to snap out of, plus they couldn’t pass fucking wind out of the defensive third, and since the fuck when does a Timbers team not use passes to the low-side of the middle third - aka, Diego Chara land - to play out of the back?

New York Red Bulls 0-1 FC Cincinnati: Shall We Dance Again?

RBNY tomorrow, RBNY forever!

For what it’s worth, refreshing my memory by watching the MLS-in-15 cast a brighter light on FC Cincinnati’s grinding 1-0 road win over the New York Red Bulls. If nothing else, it made the whole thing come off as less of a grind - at least on Cincy’s end of things. Oh, and the goal that won it was an absolute delight: Haris Medunjanin floated an olimpico over Red Bulls’ ‘keeper David Jensen’s head, who was dead to rights even before he bumbled backward a defender who’s name doesn’t really matter. Better still, seeing all those Cincy players come up to Medunjanin during the after-game handshakes with dazed and happy looks on their faces might count as my personal highlight of their 2020 season so far. If there were other, better ones, blame it on recency bias.

My strongest overall reaction to the game is pretty simple: wow, do the Red Bulls suck. I accept that’s a strange thing to say, what with them two whole points over FC Cincy in the Eastern Conference standings, but my eyes aren’t lying to me either. New York managed just two shots on goal last Saturday, one of them a pathetic slow-roller that Cincy ‘keeper saw coming from a mile away and had to wait on its arrival. They flailed a couple shots from range - Brian White probably had the best one of those at just half a dozen feet over the crossbar - but, overall, the Red Bulls strained for openings and didn’t look like they’d ever score.

That adds up a little better when you check the standings (already one game stale) and see that New York has scored just one more goal than Cincinnati during the 2020 season - and, so long as you accept that Cincy’s attack sucks (it does, but…) certain obvious things follow from. Every time I’ve watched the Red Bulls over the past couple seasons, I see a team that doesn’t do anything particularly well. And that’s a hell of a fall off for a team that won the Supporters’ Shield three times during the 2010s. While I’m still able to place most of the players in their starting XI, New York’s overall vibe is an anonymous collection of guys role-playing their assigned positions. Again, Cincinnati hasn’t been good, but New York hasn’t been much better: just 1-4-1 over their last six games.

Just one more thing about the Red Bulls: FC Cincy seems to have their number. They hold the edge in the series between the teams for 2020, two wins to New York’s one and, now, a 5-3 advantage in goals scored. A related fun(?) fact: Cincinnati has scored just three goals against teams that aren’t the Red Bulls this fucked-up season for a frankly wretched 0.33 goals for average against all other comers (well, four goals if you add the one they bagged against the Portland Timbers in the MLS Is Back tournament). I mean…what do you do with this information except ask for more games against New York?

San Jose Earthquakes 1-6 Portland Timbers: Margaritas and Grains of Salt

They work best together, yes?

A lot of teams come out with “high energy” - i.e., a plan to overwhelm the opposition with bodies and velocity - and one can weigh the question of how well it worked on any given night in minutes and momentum. The Portland Timbers announced their intentions tonight by letting every San Jose Earthquake player within checking distance know they showed up tonight; every ball was challenged, especially in the first 5 minutes or so.

It’s where things go after that shapes a game. A(n, as it turns out, 20 minute-)wilderness stretched between that 5th-minute domination and Portland’s first goal, which was scored via penalty by Living, Playing MLS-Legend Diego Valeri. The crucial detail comes with how that penalty kick came to be and why it presented as almost absurdly replicable template for the ultimately six-goal rout that the Timbers dropped on San Jose tonight. Yes, all right, I may be over-drawing the lines of the argument, but I also know and aver that my very own eyes saw a parade of Portland players break San Jose’s defense entirely with either a run or a pass to a run straight into the dazed heart of San Jose’s defense, something that any given professional athlete - for sake of argument, a professional soccer player, aka, someone who, in practical terms, convinced someone to pay them money to play a game (seriously, think about that for a minute) - should never be able to do by simply jogging straight up the middle of the field with the ball at his feet. San Jose has issues.

A thought follows from that: if cracking San Jose is complicated as guessing a “12345” password, what does your team’s rampant success really mean? If a bully asks a kid for his lunch money and he just hands it over, is the kid still a bully, or just a very persuasive speaker? [Ed. - I don't know quite know what I meant by that either.]

Overall, call me optimistic, while also binging on grains of salt. Onto the details…

The one thing I have to fault about the Timbers 6-1 study in several of San Jose’s collective short-comings tonight was the aggressively-passive choices Portland’s heavily-rotated defense made in allowing the ‘Quakes’ one goal on the night. Don’t get too bothered because that’s one goal surrendered…plus a barrage of chances nobly swatted away by, I’m saying it now, Slovenian royalty (Aljaz Ivacic crushed it tonight), but there was a moment when a Timbers defense almost let a team they’d drop two goals on, away and in the first half (here's the other one), back into the game. Momentum matters in soccer and that’s been a real buzzsaw for the Timbers lately. As such, it was fairly encouraging to see a make-shift defense - e.g., Marco Farfan, out of position at right back, plus real or alleged back-ups, Bill Tuiloma and Julio Cascante - hold up against any team in MLS, because that hasn't been a regular thing lately. And I mean that even as San Jose arguably started more of a B-Team than the Timbers.

San Jose Earthquakes 1-1 Portland Timbers: Burner Game...But Can They Afford It?

Yeah, yeah, all good. You forget me, I forget you.

Honestly, my head is swimming after the Portland Timbers’ 1-1 draw away to the San Jose Earthquakes. Sweet Ginger Brown, where to begin?

Broadly speaking and specific circumstances notwithstanding, I will never understand why anyone expects happy revelations of any line-up that doesn’t involve some number of starers. The argument against is in the bare concept of “starter” - i.e., they’re first-choice for a reason. As such, a wholesale change to your local team’s starting Xi should be treated, and I mean this generally, as a “burner game” in the same sense drug dealers use burner phones - e.g., it’s not Plan A and/or what you use to call your family, or even your mistress.

After that top-line thought, things get really complicated…

I want to start with San Jose because, based on what I’ve seen, the current standings and/or their league-leading goals against record - 2.45 goals against, y’all - this is not a good team. I hadn’t seen the goal Jordan Morris scored against them (early) in the Seattle Sounders’ 7-1 demolition of them two, three games ago (for San Jose), but that’s a why are you even in this league moment. Getting beat by the soccer equivalent of the end-around is down-right shameful. Regardless of the specific alignment they chose for tonight (but it looks starter heavy), that’s the team Portland’s reserves played tonight and, frankly, it wasn’t encouraging. Going the other way, that means San Jose either couldn’t bury Portland’s B-team at home - where they haven’t won since August 31 of 2019 (and they lost six straight through the rest of the season) - and while rarely looking anything like goal-dangerous, despite having number heavily in their favor. To the credit of exactly one man (Valeri Qazaishvili, aka, Vako), they scored the one goal they needed tonight earn the draw...if just to avoid shame. And even that barely went in. Look at the box score and weep, San Jose fans.

They had quality shots, though, that, but for the grace of God and Steve Clark’s left or right shoulder (c’mon, do you care?) could have turned the game into a runaway - and at various points throughout. Suffice to say, starting Diego Chara in a sea of newbs had its consequences and the Timbers were fortunate to survive all that, and for as long as it went on (which is to say, Cade Cowell hit the wood work at the 82nd minute and Clark had to bail out Portland again and damn-near the death). In case I haven’t hammered this home enough, there’s a transition coming down the pike for the Timbers and things are looking…again, complicated.

Los Angeles FC 4-2 Portland Timbers: Half-Empty Glasses and the State of the Auditions

Are we sad glass?!

“Nobody thought we’d have five goals in this half, but we do!”
- Max Bretos, at the end of the first half

Why wouldn’t people expect five goals? The Portland Timbers came into the game having given up 11 goals over their past four games; add the four goals they, by and large, handed Los Angeles FC in last night’s 4-2 loss, and the Timbers now average three goals against per game. Fun fact, LAFC let in three goals in three of their past five games (they did better against the San Jose Earthquakes, and now the Timbers). Fans should have expected goals, in other words, because both these teams have taken to bleeding them.

Concerns about the Timbers’ defense, which has officially reached “holy shit” levels of concern, have merged into worries about the team's future. That doesn’t make it unreasonable, however, to ask what the average Timbers fans expected out of a game with two vertebrae removed from Portland’s defensive scheme (e.g., Larrys Mabiala and Diego Chara) and one arm tied behind its back in the attack (aka, the wounded Sebastian Blanco). I can’t account for what caused it - extreme recency bias (aka, the win over Seattle)? a perfect balance and quantity of chemical encouragement? a wildly burning lust for any positive sensation? - but I somehow went into the game thinking that things would work out. And, for as long as Portland contained everything LAFC tried to do, and after they pulled them apart and ran riot through the openings for a beautiful and impressive team goal, the delusion held up very nicely, thanks!

Reality started knocking rather loudly, however, and shortly after the hydration break. I saw some chatter during the game about that stalling the Timbers’ momentum, but it seems just as likely that LAFC made some adjustments I didn’t notice (see, “balance and quantity of chemical encouragement”). Their first goal didn’t bother me overly - a set-piece, a lost mark, etc. - but, when LAFC returned the “pull ‘em apart and run riot” favor for the go-ahead goal, and then Portland's defenders shared a collective, simultaneous snooze on another set-piece that, frankly, sucked, the alarms that had been blaring before the win over Seattle blared anew. Fortunately, just when you started to wonder how bad things could get, Jeremy Ebobisse lobbed Jorge Villafana’s pin-point cross over LAFC ‘keeper Pablo Sisniega on the last play of the first half.

New York City FC 2-1 FC Cincinnati: 20 Happy MInutes and the Nature of Inevitability

Yes,  you can play that way, but...

Not many people would take a second glance at FC Cincinnati’s 1-2 loss to New York City FC. They’d file it away as expected and move on; if anything piqued his/her/their interest it would be the fact that Cincy scored a goal. (Not that record, motherfuckers! Not today!). The bird’s-eye-view isn’t wrong, but it’s not entirely right either. This thing’s hairy with nuance…have I mentioned how much I miss the routine of soaking up context by watching too many goddamn MLS in 15 highlights? Have I mentioned how much the pandemic murdered the logic of going through that particular motion?

To stare directly at the warts, yes, FC Cincinnati played a sloppy, madding opening…65 minutes, and “opening” and “65 minutes” should never go together. To frame the point around two emblematic moments, the first came when Alexander Ring made what felt like NYCFC’s 100th scything run straight up Cincinnati’s gut; Ring slipped to the outside when Kendall Waston lunged in, but, and this is very much to Waston’s credit (especially at 32) he got enough of his body in the way and eventually muscled Ring off the ball, which almost certainly would have ended in a goal. He managed to clear it…maybe to the top of the defensive third? The ball might have crossed over into NYCFC’s half in a particularly #blessed moment, but it didn’t stray much further upfield for most of the first half and too much of the second.

The real question became apparent only after Allan Cruz and (sure, why not?) Nick Hagglund came on at the 65th minute: why the hell did FC Cincinnati spend 65 minutes hanging from the edge of a goddamn cliff when, according to what happened after the 65th minute, it’s possible - and merely possible - they didn’t have to?

The second moment relates to the first, in that it expresses the flip-side of the same dynamic. On one of the rare occasions that the ball crossed the center stripe and into NYCFC’s half, Yuya Kubo bolted up the left side of the field with the ball at his feet; the literally only other Cincinnati player who joined him on the happy side of the center stripe was Jurgen Locadia, and he was all the way on the other side of the damn field. For the sake of argument, set aside whatever specific acts you think either of those players should or should not do in any given moment and focus on the deeper question how the hell two dudes split on opposite sides of entire goddamn half of a soccer field are supposed to beat four-to-six players defending that same space?