 |
| 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:
“Bonilla gave them some things to manage - a fair amount of the danger came from the flanks, in the first half, especially - but the Timbers managed nearly everything that broke into their defensive third, and that’s more or less what happened tonight. And on Wednesday, only a little better, because visibly worse team…and yet that visibly worse team got off some shots, so...” [Ed. - what?]
Well, that was fun. Back to the game at hand…
To close out the over-arching thought, I’d expect a good Timbers team - which is what they are - to manage an under-achieving team like the ‘Caps; that they struggled a little to do that last night probably arises from the specific match-up (which is why Portland keeps blowing out LA, who is stunning vulnerable to the voodoo that they do so well). By similar logic, that earlier win against Vancouver looked hairier than Burt Reynolds because the Timbers only have so much in terms of practical depth; they’re still a better team top-to-bottom, but, to answer some of last night’s tweets, they’ve continued starting Diegos Valeri and Chara in every game because they’ve had to in order to maintain that global edge.
Over the past month or so, I developed an operational theory on the Portland Timbers that goes something like so:
“The Timbers can score against any team, and hand a goal to any team.”
They’ve thrived by consistently being a little bit better than just about every team they’ve played, basically. They’re good for that first place in the West says they are and, not to kick a man while he’s down and vomiting with every kick, but it takes seeing the absence of what the Timbers do so very fucking well to appreciate it - which, here, means watching FC Cincinnati week in and out, i.e., where you reliably see its opposite. This Timbers team has figured out how to get the ball moving forward as quickly as any team I’ve ever watched. They get kicked around as a defend-and-counter team more than they deserve, because I think that misses what they do - e.g., attack immediately whenever, wherever, and however any one of them gets the ball on their feet. It’s “counter-attacking” as a constant threat/strategy. The first player to get the ball might not be able to get things rolling - say because he’s facing the wrong direction - but the ball will get to someone who can within one or two passes and, whether by a pass or a positive first touch, it’s off to the races. (Cincinnati, meanwhile, plays 20 passes among its defenders and midfielders before passing forward, and too often with marginal results.)
The Timbers went to the top of the Western Conference last night - if on the narrowest of imaginable edges. They’re just ahead of Sporting Kansas City on the metric deemed most relevant by league authorities, points-per-game (1.81 to 1.8, anyone?). Both Portland and Seattle have one more game in which to earn or lose points than SKC, which I think puts the Timbers in a strong position against the latter; I could be mis-parsing the competitive rules, or even the math - e.g., maybe an SKC win does something I’m not thinking about if SKC wins and the Timbers, say, draw their next two games - but I think we’re down to just a two-horse race to win the West between Seattle and Portland…as God intended. I just noticed that the Timbers have really cleaned up their goal differential down the stretch - i.e., they lingered around break-even after returning home from the Magical World of Major League Soccer, but it now perches at a lofty +12 - but that’s a step off Seattle’s +18. Going the other way, the Timbers have three more points than Seattle and they’re .06 higher on points-per-game. Assuming tie-breakers work the same as las…fine, I’ll check. Here are the top three tie-breakers:
1) Total number of wins;
2) goal differential; and
3) goals for…
…and all that’s on a points-per-game basis as well, so I don’t know what the hell’s going on. So…I guess that’s just keep winning. And that’s where this really does come full circle. The Timbers are in the 2020 playoffs, and that’s until another team or all 19 COVIDS knock them out. I’m on board for as long as it doesn’t get too gross and, so far, it hasn’t…even as I hear Minnesota’s going through some shit. There was also that thing about the USL having to cancel its final…
To give Vancouver some kind of due, they have some genuinely talented players - e.g., Ali Adnan, Jr., and I appreciated the Haris Medunjanin-esque diagonals I saw out of Michael Baldisimo - and they kept the Timbers sweating balls till the end, but they never presented as anything but a desperate team working a played-out hand. They have another rebuild ahead, in all likelihood, but that doesn’t change the reality that Portland got another gut-check win out of a season that’s seen plenty of them.
In a broad and general sense, it’s easy to feel encouraged about things: the Timbers have a good team on their hands. In the here and now, no, Jaroslaw Niezgoda going down isn’t ideal, not unless, Jeremy Ebobisse gets well and heals in a way that doesn’t make me feel like he’s an extra in Rollerball. But that might yet not matter because, as has happened since Blanco went down, everything that Portland tries seems to come off - and quite well on the attacking side. I just noticed, for instance, that they lead MLS in goals scored - and, at 45 goals, most of the league by some distance (only LAFC (44) and the Philadelphia Union (42) come within five).
Looking back at all those words above, I notice that I didn’t do much breaking down of last night’s game, of which, whoops. That said, saying they’re doing well says everything I want to and I can’t think of a better way to explain how that’s happening than to point to the highlights of the one goal Portland scored last night, because they’re winning games on the back of beautifully-executed goals like that. Long may they continue.
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:
“Bonilla gave them some things to manage - a fair amount of the danger came from the flanks, in the first half, especially - but the Timbers managed nearly everything that broke into their defensive third, and that’s more or less what happened tonight. And on Wednesday, only a little better, because visibly worse team…and yet that visibly worse team got off some shots, so...” [Ed. - what?]
Well, that was fun. Back to the game at hand…
To close out the over-arching thought, I’d expect a good Timbers team - which is what they are - to manage an under-achieving team like the ‘Caps; that they struggled a little to do that last night probably arises from the specific match-up (which is why Portland keeps blowing out LA, who is stunning vulnerable to the voodoo that they do so well). By similar logic, that earlier win against Vancouver looked hairier than Burt Reynolds because the Timbers only have so much in terms of practical depth; they’re still a better team top-to-bottom, but, to answer some of last night’s tweets, they’ve continued starting Diegos Valeri and Chara in every game because they’ve had to in order to maintain that global edge.
Over the past month or so, I developed an operational theory on the Portland Timbers that goes something like so:
“The Timbers can score against any team, and hand a goal to any team.”
They’ve thrived by consistently being a little bit better than just about every team they’ve played, basically. They’re good for that first place in the West says they are and, not to kick a man while he’s down and vomiting with every kick, but it takes seeing the absence of what the Timbers do so very fucking well to appreciate it - which, here, means watching FC Cincinnati week in and out, i.e., where you reliably see its opposite. This Timbers team has figured out how to get the ball moving forward as quickly as any team I’ve ever watched. They get kicked around as a defend-and-counter team more than they deserve, because I think that misses what they do - e.g., attack immediately whenever, wherever, and however any one of them gets the ball on their feet. It’s “counter-attacking” as a constant threat/strategy. The first player to get the ball might not be able to get things rolling - say because he’s facing the wrong direction - but the ball will get to someone who can within one or two passes and, whether by a pass or a positive first touch, it’s off to the races. (Cincinnati, meanwhile, plays 20 passes among its defenders and midfielders before passing forward, and too often with marginal results.)
The Timbers went to the top of the Western Conference last night - if on the narrowest of imaginable edges. They’re just ahead of Sporting Kansas City on the metric deemed most relevant by league authorities, points-per-game (1.81 to 1.8, anyone?). Both Portland and Seattle have one more game in which to earn or lose points than SKC, which I think puts the Timbers in a strong position against the latter; I could be mis-parsing the competitive rules, or even the math - e.g., maybe an SKC win does something I’m not thinking about if SKC wins and the Timbers, say, draw their next two games - but I think we’re down to just a two-horse race to win the West between Seattle and Portland…as God intended. I just noticed that the Timbers have really cleaned up their goal differential down the stretch - i.e., they lingered around break-even after returning home from the Magical World of Major League Soccer, but it now perches at a lofty +12 - but that’s a step off Seattle’s +18. Going the other way, the Timbers have three more points than Seattle and they’re .06 higher on points-per-game. Assuming tie-breakers work the same as las…fine, I’ll check. Here are the top three tie-breakers:
1) Total number of wins;
2) goal differential; and
3) goals for…
…and all that’s on a points-per-game basis as well, so I don’t know what the hell’s going on. So…I guess that’s just keep winning. And that’s where this really does come full circle. The Timbers are in the 2020 playoffs, and that’s until another team or all 19 COVIDS knock them out. I’m on board for as long as it doesn’t get too gross and, so far, it hasn’t…even as I hear Minnesota’s going through some shit. There was also that thing about the USL having to cancel its final…
To give Vancouver some kind of due, they have some genuinely talented players - e.g., Ali Adnan, Jr., and I appreciated the Haris Medunjanin-esque diagonals I saw out of Michael Baldisimo - and they kept the Timbers sweating balls till the end, but they never presented as anything but a desperate team working a played-out hand. They have another rebuild ahead, in all likelihood, but that doesn’t change the reality that Portland got another gut-check win out of a season that’s seen plenty of them.
In a broad and general sense, it’s easy to feel encouraged about things: the Timbers have a good team on their hands. In the here and now, no, Jaroslaw Niezgoda going down isn’t ideal, not unless, Jeremy Ebobisse gets well and heals in a way that doesn’t make me feel like he’s an extra in Rollerball. But that might yet not matter because, as has happened since Blanco went down, everything that Portland tries seems to come off - and quite well on the attacking side. I just noticed, for instance, that they lead MLS in goals scored - and, at 45 goals, most of the league by some distance (only LAFC (44) and the Philadelphia Union (42) come within five).
Looking back at all those words above, I notice that I didn’t do much breaking down of last night’s game, of which, whoops. That said, saying they’re doing well says everything I want to and I can’t think of a better way to explain how that’s happening than to point to the highlights of the one goal Portland scored last night, because they’re winning games on the back of beautifully-executed goals like that. Long may they continue.
No comments:
Post a Comment