Portland Timbers 2021 Season Review: Say....That Was a Lot

A feeling that, in retrospect, miraculously passed.

I’ve struggled with where to start this look back at a 2021 season that was as complicated for me as it was for the Portland Timbers. I’ll keep the personal side short: I shut down this site in early August - and every intention of walking away forever - only to revive it on October 16. I still tweeted game threads and almost certainly watched more games than I missed, but that choice left a 13-game hole in the permanent record I only lightly consulted before writing this post.

That period contained both the lowest low - the 2-6 loss at home to the Seattle Sounders - and the season-saving high that was the eight-game stretch that saw Portland pick up a nether-stirring 22 points out of 24. For perspective, the Timbers picked up just 33 points over the other (shit!) 26 games of the 2021 season, which amounts to a piddling 1.27 points per game; for further perspective, they picked up 23 points over their first 17 games of 2021, a figure that, somewhat surprisingly, pans out to a superior, overall goal differential of 1.35…I don’t get bowling math either, but that’s a whole other goddamn story. Things ended better than they started, basically, and I wonder how far that slipped down the memory hole and for how many people.

To start with the biggest question - i.e., what to make of it all? - I’ m pretty sure that accounts for the struggle. On the one hand, I know I never expected the Timbers to reach MLS Cup; on the other, I never expected them to tank that badly when they won the right to host the same final, not with how they’d been playing on both sides of the ball. And yet, all it took in the end was the same kind of collective defensive brain-fart that had panicked and enraged Timbers fans since…honestly, I think that’s been a thing for some time, and playing a good defensive team to revert back to a form I noted in the last Timbers post before (temporarily) shutting down this site, a meltdown of a 1-4 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy:

“What are the two most frustrating thing about the Timbers? My bingo card shows stupid defensive errors and aimless attacking moves. This game was a smorgasbord of both…”

While the way(s) Portland struggles/fails files under plus ca change, some of what looked like the biggest moments of 2021 came and, because I don’t have notes (I’m willing to dig up) on it, went during that 13-game gap. For one, fan/personal favorite Jeremy Ebobisse left for the barren, over-priced wastes of San Jose (as opposed to the fertile, over-priced glory of Portland) in August 2021. Quirks in timing - specifically, that loss in which Seattle handed the Timbers their asses six times, followed shortly by the 2nd beat-down at Austin FC of the season - filled the skyline with dark, heavy clouds. At least half the Biblical plagues descended on the Rose City just a few weeks later when Eryk Williamson limped off the field, never to return. Again, I’ve got no written record of exactly what I said or thought in those moments, but “we’re fucked” might have made an appearance or two.

FC Cincinnati, in the Ass Crack Between '21 and '22

FC Cincinnati, the stuff of mythology.

In preparing this post, I tried to sort out the rules around the 2021 Re-Entry Draft, but lost interest in just a couple minutes. One third of that impulse came from boredom with over-technical bullshit, but the list of FC Cincinnati players who are either out of contract, or who did not have their contract options picked up another third:

Options Declined (for now, I think?)
Edgar Castillo
Chris Duvall
Jonas Fjeldberg
Avionne Flanagan
Joseph-Claude Gyau
Nick Hagglund
Ben Lundt
Caleb Stanko
Przemyslaw Tyton

Out of Contract
Haris Medunjanin
Florian Valot
Maikel van der Werff

The other third of me checking out follows from essential fatalism - i.e., accepting things over which I have no control, e.g., rosters of the teams I love and follow - but, to the point at hand, the word “irreplaceable” does not cross my mind when I review that list. Moreover, I don’t even know who Fjeldberg or Flanagan are, the latter sounds made up to the point I’m not even sure he really exists, and, turning to more existential questions, can one miss something that one has never seen? Bottom line - and I say this with zero malice toward anyone on that list, and affection for a couple - all those players file under too old, too injured, or somewhere south of what’s needed for the heavy, seemingly-eternal lift of getting FC Cincy out of its three-year wallow in the gutter.

Ideally, though, some or all those players going will make room for new players to come in. A review of what’s left of Cincinnati’s roster as of today’s speaks to the need, but, call me lazy (ignore the post/thoughts, etc.), I’m not inclined to sort out options beyond bare, non-financial numbers, and here are those: at time of writing, Cincinnati has six senior roster spots open, one spot for Supplemental Slots 21-14, two for 25-28, and one more for 29-30. So, if I’m understanding the rules right, that’s grand total of 11 potential new players. Only, it’s not: the return of Alvas Powell makes it ten and it could be as few as nine if the twitter rumors around Dominique Badji translate into him signing. Based on the numbers from the MLS Players’ Association 2021 MLS Player Salaries data-dump, it looks like Powell can come in as a Supplemental Slot 21-24 player, while Badji, assuming he does come in, will occupy a senior spot. Alec Kann already shows up on Cincy’s roster as a senior player, so, assuming I have all of that right (or will be shortly), that leaves Cincinnati with:

MLS Cup 2021. Dammit.

Always rooted for him too.

You go through a soccer season, sorting out the players you can trust, developing a sense and/or set of beliefs about how far the local team can go, calibrating it from one week to the next by a combination of on-the-ground realities, personal biases, and outright daydreams. You get moments of clarity here and there, times when all those things come together and add up well enough…

…and then your local team has a night like tonight, a night that makes you feel either stupid or hubris-drunk depending how you read 120 minutes’ worth of tea leaves and a debacle of a penalty kick shootout. To finally pitch the headline, the Portland Timbers lost to New York City FC tonight, in Portland, and with the penalty kicks ending quickly enough to confirm an uneven night for the home side. You can play every game you get invited to, but you can’t win ‘em all…

How to describe that? Climbing a mountain, reaching the peak, then falling off the other side? Finally getting multi-ball, only to let all three-to-five balls slip away down both alleys and up the gut before you hit any of the jackpots? Having a tire go flat, discovering you have a spare and putting it on, only to realize you put the patches on wrong? Like playing euchre and having a solid hand when the bid ends in screw-the-dealer, only to get euchred by bad distribution? I’ll add other metaphors as they come to me, but it’s possible that’ll be the only one. two. three. four.

MLS Cup 2021 didn’t serve up a big corpse to dissect. There’s definitely a body on the slab - the Portland Timbers’ - but the time and cause of death seem straightforward enough. By my math, New York City FC looked the better, more (ruthlessly) organized team for…more or less, the first 80 minutes, then the Portland Timbers came too life with…yes, exactly enough time to spare, damn near down to the second, and they carried that momentum through the first half of extra-time. NYCFC got past the shock, regrouped over the second half of extra-time, and rallied to win their first major trophy on penalty kicks. And with breathing room. Hence the thing about falling off the other side of the mountain.

Sure, the Timbers got a couple bubbles under their butts from about the 25th minute only to have Valentin “Taty” Castellanos pop them when he broke wildly free at the back-post (didn’t I mention the back post?), to both nod home the opening goal and unsettle whatever game-plan the Timbers had run to that point…and that’s where I have questions.

2021 MLS Cup Preview: The Timbers Game to Lose, but Let's Count the Ways

“I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”
“And we’re just the guys to do it.”
- Animal House, Whoever Wrote It, and, Yes, I Love that Damn Movie.

I like to think this site has a long tradition of doing excessive, even silly things at least once a season. With the Portland Timbers not just playing in its third MLS Cup, but hosting it as well, it felt like an occasion to really ratchet the excessive and silly to a whole new level. I’ll close this post with some general thoughts, but first, I decided to sit down and watch every goal scored or allowed in 2021 by the team that stands between the Timbers and the 2021 MLS Cup: New York City FC. Call it an attempt to figure out where the blows might come from, even if I’m powerless to do anything about it…

…and, full disclosure, I skipped the last three games of the regular season, and for reasons that will beccome clear when I talk big picture, and also totally forgot NYCFC played Atlanta United FC in the first round of the 2021 post-season, but, I did look at every goal besides that. Which is to say, I spent a stupid amount of time reviewing video for a guy with a tiny platform. And yet, here is my report.

To start with the big picture, NYCFC allowed just 36 goals during the regular season, plus five more during the playoffs, making them the 6th cleanest defense in Major League Soccer. Related, only two teams - the New England Revolution and Nashville SC - had a better regular season goal differential (+24 and +22, respectively), while NYC tied with the Seattle Sounders at third place with a +20. As follows from, I didn’t see a ton of goals scored against NYCFC - i.e., again, they are a good defensive team - but a hefty chunk of them shared two characteristics.

Switching Off/Set-Pieces
Some times they nod off on defense, and it’s full-on lights out when NYCFC does. A lot of ball-watching, heads not on swivels, just general, crippling inattention to the world around them. The Timbers can’t rely on that happening, obviously, because, again, they ended the regular season allowing 1.06 goals/game. Sadly, no one can make their defense switch off on command (but what if I paid you money? I've got like $56 in ones, guys), which makes that a yes/no, they will or they won't kind of factor. Now, for the one Portland can exploit…

Western Conference Final Preview: Notes on Lunch Ladies and Intensity

Best served with a "you're stuck here" hostility.

I’m poking around the Internet tonight in a vain attempt to find something more compelling to say about tomorrow’s Western Conference Final than, they will or they won’t. That’s to say, I don’t think there’s anything anyone involved with either the Portland Timbers or Real Salt Lake can do besides lay down the marks and hope their players hit them.

You see things - e.g., Albert Rusnak coming back for RSL; Sebastian Blanco might be back for the Timbers (but…how much of him?), how so much depends on Yimmi Chara (and a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain; and I agree, if for a different reason), Portland’s considerable dominance over the 2021 season (3 wins, 12 goals to RSL’s four), etc. - but that’s all graffiti on the random-number-generator hype-machine that is The Mothership, more branding than information. And it tells the same story to boot - i.e., they will or they won’t.

Stumptown Footy put in more effort than spitting out a couple hot-takes [Ed. - I’m not likely to give much more, so…] - e.g., they flagged the suspension of Everton Ruiz - but they also took the correct path of chucking regular season results out the window, because I don’t see RSL playing with the same drunk-puppy abandon they did in that 6-1 drubbing back in late September. They also shared a thought I had;  here, the parenthetical is key:

“Whether it is by absorbing and countering, or by dictating the play themselves (I could honestly see it going either way), Portland’s attackers will have to be ready to offset and unbalance RSL’s defense.”

In my mind, the most meaningful will-they/won’t-they Timbers fans will see tomorrow comes with the approach Portland takes to the game. Do they come out aggressive and try to crush RSL’s spirit? Do they focus first on keeping their shit together (as they did against Colorado) to tempt RSL into the drunken puppy thing? If so, how long do they keep it up? And, since I’m writing all this out, what do I think they should do? [Ed. - Does not fucking matter; I’ve moved to thinking about spectator sports the same way I felt about school lunches: Gio et. al. will serve up something and it’ll be good or bad depending on the day. Also, slot machines offer a uniquely valid, if baffling, metaphor.]

Portland Timbers 3-1 Minnesota United FC: Weird, Good and Glorious

My people call it Sebastian Blanco.

Does anyone else think that Portland Timbers fans just witnessed something parts weird, good and glorious? To take the adjectives in turn:

Weird: Did anyone else see as much walking as I did, and from both teams? That note speaks to the second half - specifically, after Sebastian Blanco slipped in his first, deciding dagger - and also covers the time when I thought Minnesota United FC would push the game, if for no better reason than they had to. Related thereto, how many Timbers counters, 1) started about 20 yards from their own goal, and 2) started with Dairon Asprilla either winning the ball or getting it at that place, looking at a wide-open field ahead of him and starting up with a look that said, “this shit again?”

Good: Because, before Blanco scored the dagger described above and the, no, please, after you, insurance goal that Minnesota gifted him, the possibility that he wouldn’t continue, never mind finish the game, looked like a real possibility. I mean, how many of you fretted to sweating about the Timbers’ post-season chances in any shape when you saw Blanco on the ground rubbing his back/ass?

Glorious: Because the Timbers overcame an early deficit against a team who has always given them trouble, pushed through a heavy dose of chippy shit (that was six cards by Minnesota, and one of them should have been red and had damn well better earn a date at Studio 54 (aka, DisCo should review that and fine or otherwise punish Franco Fragapane for that straight-up shitty lunge at Diego Chara)), and had the comfort of seeing Steve Clark cover every piece of, admittedly, weak shit that Minnesota managed to fire on goal.

I won’t lie: I had ample and frequent questions about the choices and posture of the Timbers, and on both sides of the ball, but they still ended the night 3-1 winners over perhaps their fiercest bad match-up in MLS, and looked oddly comfortable once they got back in it. Up next, the Colorado Rapids and 4,000+ more feet in elevation. First, however, let’s drink it in, shall we?

First question, how the hell did this happen?

MLS 2021 Round One Playoff Preview: Data, Borrowed Insights and a Shortage of Firm Predictions

Shit. That's not the future. It's glaucoma...

The first I’ll do is congratulate Major League Soccer for finally navigating the post-season and the international break closer to right. Can’t believe it took ‘em this damn long to get rid of the annual momentum-suffocating break, but, better late the never, I suppose.

Moving onto the main feature, I won’t pretend to have any great insights on how the first-round of the 2021 MLS playoffs will shake out. In fact, I don’t have more to share than stray data points and borrowed insights - e.g., Matt Doyle’s “why they will, why they won’t” playoff preview and Joseph Lowery’s post on X-factors for each team; and I reference both heavily below with “D” standing for a note from Doyle and “L” standing for a note from Lowery - but, what I read in those tells me I have a fair enough grasp on general trends across the league, and I dig talking things out and that’s a fair summary for what comes below in this post.

And so, without further ado, and starting with the big match-up closest to where I live, here goes.

Portland Timbers v Minnesota United FC
2021 Head-to-Head: Well, shit. Two wins for Minnesota, zero for the Timbers, and with a 3-1 edge. If it makes anyone feel better, both came during Portland’s early, uneven phase.
Down the Stretch, Portland: WWWWLLLWWW (6 home, 4 away); best result: 2-1 at LAFC; worst result: 2-3 v Vancouver
Down the Stretch, Minnesota: WLDLWWDLWD (5 home, 5 away); best result: in context, the 3-3 draw at the Galaxy; worst result: 1-3 loss at DC
Notes from MLS’ In-House Hacks
D re Minnesota: “…it’s worth remembering the heater Kevin Molino was on last year. He was the one taking those gaps Reynoso carved into opposing defenses and turning them into chasms, and then turning that into goals.”
D re Portland: “This is very obviously a veteran team that’s entirely comfortable with the idea of flipping the switch when they need to…”
D re Portland: To paraphrase, Portland’s fullbacks take too many risks and Portland’s centerbacks are merely “adequate.”
What I Expect
A close, low-scoring, probably ugly game, honestly, which here means I’m open to food dares if either team wins by two goals. All in all, the 0-1 home loss back in July presents the likeliest template. I expect Minnesota to force Portland to play and look to Reynoso for the open-field back-breaker; second option, a put-back off a corner the Timbers just can’t clear. In Portland’s favor, they haven’t suffered a truly lopsided loss since August (see the 2-6 loss to Seattle in (fucking) Portland), and, apart from the collapse against Vancouver, they haven’t allowed more than three goals in a game since mid-August, and they’ve only allowed two goals twice over the same period. Better, they’ve scored 29 goals over the same period, while allowing only 11: short version, Minnesota will face a different Timbers team this Sunday than the one they played in July and, for all the literally incredible good he’s done, it wasn’t all Blanco. Going the other way, and fretting a little, the Timbers also played a pretty soft schedule down the stretch, and their most impressive wins came against teams they just seemed to pair well against - e.g., LAFC and (especially RSL).

A 2021 Major League Soccer Review, in Which I Circle Back to My Predictions

Revisiting my preseason predictions.

On April 4, 2021, I wrote a loosely predictive post about how all 27 teams in the league would fare over the whole damn regular season.

This post revisits that post.

I retained the groupings from the original post - The Good, The Middling, and Mystery Meat - as a kind of Route One to sorting out how much or how little any given team’s season surprised me. And I agree that makes no goddamn sense, but, once committed, etc. 2021 did throw me a couple curves, but they’re both more subtle and hittable than I expected when I banged out the original post with one good eye on the page.

With that in mind, what trippingly unspools below is a list of every team in MLS, in the order I organized them back in April (and, no, I don’t remember the rationale for the way I organized them, and deleted all the relevant information to boot). In most cases, the words you see after “[2021] Overall [Prediction]” in connection with every team below is a complete, unedited version of the comments in that preview post. The notes after “How That Panned Out” assesses how well my prediction held up, if with some gentle fudging…which sounds gross and wrong now that I’ve typed it.

With that, let’s review how I did.

The Good
Atlanta United FC
[2021] Overall [Prediction]: "I expect Atlanta to compete in the East, and in general, in 2021."
How That Panned Out: Anyone fishing for a reason to feel impressed should recall that Atlanta dumped the potentially sociopathic Gabriel Heinze just last July, because I didn’t see his mad reign coming, but they overcame and made the 2021 playoffs with the talent that was always there. They didn’t exactly kill down the stretch, but they look/feel respectably competitive.

Columbus Crew SC
[2021] Overall [Prediction]: "They still have to rank among the favorites to repeat, so anything short of close to that will look like a fail. Given the above, a slow start wouldn’t throw me too much…"
How That Panned Out: File this under a case of, name one person who saw this coming. If Caleb Porter didn’t have the, “the teams I coach to a championship will miss the playoffs the next season” curse, I’d call this impossible to explain.

MLS Decision Day Primer: Some Math, Some History, the Soft Lie of Decision Day...

When your bit is more important than the formatting...

FC Cincinnati v Atlanta United FC
Columbus Crew SC v Chicago Fire FC
Club du Foot Montreal v Orlando City SC
Nashville SC v Red Bull New York
New England Revolution v Inter Miami CF
New York City FC v Philadelphia Union
Toronto FC v DC United
Colorado Rapids v Los Angeles FC
Sporting Kansas City v Real Salt Lake
Los Angeles Galaxy v Minnesota United FC
Portland Timbers v Austin FC
San Jose Earthquakes v FC Dallas
Vancouver Whitecaps v Seattle Sounders

There they are (barring typos), the final match-ups of Major League Soccer’s 26th(?) season (fuck it, I miss my own anniversary every year, as does my wife). For those wondering about how a 27-team league can have “everyone” play on the final day of the season, while playing only 13 games (as I did until further study), the Houston Dynamo have alreay eaten the hemlock on its 2021 season, splitting the twig with now-former head coach, Tab Ramos, who was let to go today. Or yesterday. Good dude, or least I always liked him. Cheers, Tab.

While I’ve got theories about who will win what in the above games, 1) that’s not the main theme of this post, and 2) I’ve been shit for predictions lately, so my best advice to anyone fishing for that would be to sit a chicken at the center of some arcane pattern with MLS logos, scatter around some feed, see where the chicken pecks, and bet accordingly.

Some of those games don’t matter, of course, and for a variety of reasons. With that in mind, consider the following unconsidered:

Columbus v Chicago
New England v Miami
Portland v Austin
San Jose v Dallas

Real Salt Lake 1-3 Portland Timbers: Easy, Breazy, Kinda Sleazy

Call it a general sentiment.

I don’t know how many times the Portland Timbers’ defense scrambled over the 13 minutes I spent staring at a(n at best) regional football game, but I saw at least two instances after it. Between that and the black box of the opening 13, I didn’t know what to think about the Timbers’ chances early.

Even after Sebastian Blanco cleaned up an oopsie with a standing (well, leaning) header, putting the Timbers up 1-0, I didn’t see any reason to think the game would slip out of competitive…then Blanco forced a fuck-up out of Aaron Herrera, putting Portland up 2-0. The game ended there if you ask me. While I have no doubt RSL out-shot the Portland (and I was right), the Timbers defense never gave them a look even one-seventh as good as the sitter RSL handed Blanco. Put it this way, you can’t build a sound home when you get the angles that wrong.

With that, the Timbers walked out 3-1 winners, sole beneficiaries of RSL’s largesse on the season, and, if I’m not mistaken, immovably in fourth-place in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference.

I’m not sure the game deserves much than that. It crapped out as a contest around the 65th minute, RSL clawed back the one, but I doubt even their fans give a shit about it. They handed it to Portland. And I mean that in at least two ways - i.e., RSL defended with neither a net nor a plan, something Blanco can tear to shit all on his own…and he did, but doesn’t that beg the question, what can we really take from this one/win? I mean, the Timbers beat RSL with a Dairon Asprilla tied behind their backs. The rest files under…

Loose Ends/Theories
Take a Bow, Utahans
To start, I just want to say how impressed I am that RSL had they season they did with that avalanche of bullshit over their heads. I hope they make it…just glad it didn’t come at the Timbers’ expense.

The Rest They’ve Earned
I’d rest starters for the Austin game. The result won’t change a damn thing and it should give the depth of the depths a shot of confidence in case the call comes down…then again, a bad result could shatter their confidence to dust, so…eh, I say go for it. Blanco’s the only player I’d play on principle - he needs the reps at this point - but sit I’d sit anyone else who could use it. That thought starts with the last name Chara, but I’m very open-minded on the rest…does Portland even have a third forward?

MLS End-Run Preview: More (or Less) Static than You Think

Wait for it...

Seeing just one (1!)MLS in 15 video from the past week makes me question the entire concept of global, amateur punditry when it comes to Major League Soccer as a whole. I’d say throw me a fucking bone, but I’m not naïve, I know who I’m dealing with here. [Ed. - That said, I’m struggling to post down this congested stretch and would absolutely understand had the MLS interns who compile those videos went on strike two months ago, by which I mean, I get it.] As such, the end-run preview below relies on equal parts big-picture trends - i.e., results - and recency bias.

As for the frame, I look 10 games back before looking forward to what all the teams with something to either gain or lose will face over the final two or three games of the MLS regular season. To clear out some clutter (see above), I focused on teams operating in, by either numbers or circumstances, plausibly fluid situations - i.e., studiously ignoring all the teams already eliminated - which includes the all-but mathematically-eliminated, e.g., Inter Miami CF - but also the teams that don’t strike me as at risk. So, there goes the New England Revolution - who’ve already clinched top seed in the Eastern Conference, the Supporters’ Shield and the single-season record for points (thrilling for a guy who suffered with them through the aughts) - but also the Philadelphia Union who, because they host FC Cincinnati should escape the tussle ‘n’ tumult below them. Barring a curse, they'll stay in the Top 4 in the East, which means a hosting-at-home-in-Round-1 in the playoffs cream of the Eastern Conference playoffs. I’m pretty sure Nashville will wind up there, but my doubts also persuaded me to look at their end-run to be sure.

When it comes to the Western Conference, that meant pulling Sporting Kansas City, the Seattle Sounders and the Colorado Rapids out of the mix. I don't think a scenario exists where they won't be the Top 3 and I also don’t give a shit about seeding beyond that or which one of them wins the West. And yet, all three are deeply involved when it comes to where all the team below them finish. That’s to say, due to quirks in fate and scheduling, the West ends better than the East.

From here, I list wee data blocks for all the teams competing for either seeding or playoff spots, and organized them according to where I see them finishing the regular season. Also included, the last 10 results for each team, the number of points they’ve taken from that stretch, related notes on strength of schedule, the location and opposition for their final two (or three) games, and, based on that, some notes on their chances at making the playoffs or something better.

For what it's worth, I don’t see a lot of teams hitting the post-season hot. To hazard a sloppy, basically-unobserved guess, I’d give Atlanta, (maybe) DC, Portland, Real Salt Lake, LAFC and (maybe) Vancouver as the teams as the best bets for hitting the playoffs at a run. I can also see literally all of them cocking it up. Related, if the Sounders can't stop tripping over their own toes, maybe that's a global theme for 2021. Maybe we're all tired...

Portland Timbers 2-0 San Jose Earthquakes: Plop, Plop, Fizz, Fizz & Other Thoughts

Celebrate. The demon-child allowed it.

Delightful. Absolutely delightful.

Blown away as I am by Dairon Asprilla’s career-year-capping, wunder-goal, the bigger, better take-away is this: think where the Portland Timbers would be today with Asprilla’s TEN (10) goals in 2021. On numbers alone, they’d be where the San Jose Earthquakes find themselves after tonight’s 2-0 loss at Providence Park: about 10 goals on the wrong side of good and mathematically out of the 2021 Major League Soccer playoffs.

The Timbers haven't stepped into the Promised Land yet - which, here, means the good bits, way past where Moses got - but they’ve bought themselves a fuck-up, maybe even a fuck-up-and-a-half, down the stretch. And I’m starting there for a reason, because a single sentence from Liam Ridgewell, tonight, from the broadcast booth, gave me the words for a concept tonight, maybe even a thesis:

Once one team breaks another, everything else goes out the window. Just put the game on ignore and enjoy it…so long as your team is one the right side of it.

Ridgewell kept going back to the idea of a game-plan, the importance of sticking with it, even to the point of eschewing tempting opportunities for heroism - i.e., know your role, operate within it, trust your teammates will do you the same, block out all the signs and voices bellowing “[YOUR COACH’S NAME HERE] OUT,” and stick with it till the plan comes together and everyone wearing the same shirt as you gets the big win. Sometimes it doesn’t work, sometimes it does and it becomes a team’s “identity,” but,  at the end of it all, it’s just a set of assumptions a team plays under in order to make decisions and/or plays happen a little faster. Right?

As follows from, one team breaks another when they make the assumptions by which they operate fall apart. And, yeah, Asprilla’s goal was spectator-sports ecstasy, but the bigger, better thing framing for tonight’s game was, “there but for the left hand of J. T. Marcinkowski, San Jose would have eaten bowls full of shit.” From the time the ref blew the opening whistle for the second half to the end of the game, the game didn’t look like anything else but a Timbers win. And…confirmed: San Jose’s xG flat-lined after the 45th; it didn’t really do much from the 10th minute, honestly. Which gets back to what I’m saying about breaking a team…

Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers: A Disturbing Glimpse into the Future (and Present)?

Pleasant? God, no. Accurate. Umm....

Bad game, bad result, bad entertainment and, most damning of all, the Portland Timbers played its third “low-energy game” in a row. The only thing saving Portland from a richly-deserved drop to sixth place is the rolling shit-show churning below them. And, so, with a hearty thanks to Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United FC, and, so far, the Los Angeles Galaxy, let’s stare at this turd only for as long as it takes to confirm its shape and composition (don’t worry; won’t use that for the image), and move on.

As the numbers show, that sucked. Aside from losing 2-0 to a half-awake Colorado Rapids team, Portland lost every statistical category besides possession, total passes and passing accuracy - and who gives a shit about those? - and the standard, sharper markers of persistent struggle and failure, clearances, fouls, yellow cards. The Timbers looked good for a draw, at best, up to the point where Colorado scored, but it was a slow bleed to nowhere but another Rapids goal from there…and it’s worth asking, did any Timbers defender have the foggiest fucking idea where any running Rapid was on Colorado’s insurance goal?

There’s nothing to analyze from that loss, honestly, no positives, no promising leads, no what ifs. Reading the cold, hard math, the Timbers will either get the six points of nine that they should get from their final three games (v San Jose, at RSL, v Austin), or they won’t - and let the flood wash over them if they fail.

I don’t have a lot of notes on this one, but, here goes.

The End of an Era…and All That Means
I’ve worried about how Diego Valeri’s career would end earlier than I should have - which is to say, I was wrong and he had a great 2020 - but I’ll be damned if tonight didn’t confirm that the end is nigh, if not already here. One strong shot off a practice-pitch corner aside, I wouldn’t have even known Valeri was on the field tonight. And yet he was, and for 76 minutes.

A Major League Soccer Week 31, Part II (Dammit!) Forecast: Progress in the West, Choking in the East

A view of the playoff line in East and West.

Gods willing, I’ll figure out a more elegant to clock the weekly comings and goings in Major League Soccer at some point. Next year looks a hell of lot better than this one, obviously…

The crush of games at mid-week dropped enough weight on the timeline to make a glance the most an amateur can give when it comes to analysis (say…that sounds like a good brand). The biggest-picture takeaway of MLS Week 31, Part I goes something like this:

Progress in the West, Choking in the East

I’d call the Portland Timbers’ (painful, leggy, stupid) loss at home to the Vancouver Whitecaps the only actual miss in my mid-week forecast, the Nashville’s record-chasing draw get undeserved honorable mention. I gave myself enough wiggle room everywhere else (ah, the blush-sparing beauty of “on one hand, but on the other” phrasing). Looked at from the other side, however, Vancouver’s win tracked with a broad trend in the West - i.e., the teams that needed wins to stay viable - e.g., Vancouver, Los Angeles FC, the Los Angeles Galaxy, and even Minnesota United - all got them. Hence, “Progress in the West.” Their results came either against teams already out of the running (e.g., FC Dallas, Houston Dynamo FC) or a team from another conference (the Philadelphia Union, all listed respectively), meaning they didn’t draw blood from any of the teams above them. Portland drew their own blood (thank you very much), while the Colorado Rapids and Seattle Sounders nicked one another in their 1-1 draw up in the Rockies.

Over in the Eastern Conference, the theme switches (or reverts) to a mass, collective stalemate among all the competitive teams (as in, not including except the New England Revolution, so nothing new there). The two biggest surprises in that regard were Atlanta United FC (who hosted the typically road-stoned New York City FC) and Nashville SC (who hosted Columbus Crew SC, who have…not been good). The former had a shot at climbing to the mid-40s for points, while the latter could dipped over 50 points. Both of those games ended up knotted at 1-1 - as did Orlando City SC v Club du Foot Montreal - all of which combined to keep the spread between fifth (Atlanta) and tenth (Columbus) in the East at five slim points.

FC Cincinnati: Requiem for a Team

I couldn’t watch FC Cincinnati’s latest debacle last night, and The Mothership spared me from the temptation of pissing away another 15 minutes of my life by not posting an MLS in 15 highlight reel. I did, however, take in the highlights, which means I saw Luka Stojanovic kick a rare happy ending into submission. Nine times out of ten, any player skies that shot miles above the bar, but, when you're born under a bad sign...

What I did see of this game immediately reminded me of the road game in back in July, the one in Montreal where Cincy blew two two-point leads in the same afternoon. When they jumped out to the early lead, fans could day-dream a little, maybe even think 2021 would be different. It was early enough in the season for that, honest. That might have been the high water-mark for optimism.

It just occurred to me all three of FC Cincinnati’s seasons in MLS have unfolded the same way. They start out all right - remember flirting with the strongest start for an expansion team in 2019? the playoff-like game against the Portland Timbers in 2020’s MLS Got Back tournament? - and then spend the rest of the season stepping on rakes.

As some point, you’d think all involved would ask themselves who is making decisions for the team and tell (beg?) them to stop. I’ve heard rumors Ken(?) Berding sticks his nose into shit, which makes some sense, given the rich asshole habit of confusing wealth with having useful contributions to make on any subject. They hired Chris Albright, so here’s to hoping the author(s) of the team’s construction and woe steps back, shuts up and gives him room to try to right a ship that starts sinking about ten games into every season.

I put in the time to read Matt Doyle’s wrap on FC Cincy’s 2021, and that’s far more words that anyone needs to put another bad season to bed. What’s wrong with this team?

Everything. Literally everything.

Portland Timbers 2-3 Vancouver Whitecaps: Proportionate Angst

They say it's a marathon, not a sprint...

After going up 2-0 in a game they controlled, but without playing all that well, the Portland Timbers fell apart one goal at a time to hand the Vancouver Whitecaps a 3-2 win at Providence Park. Portland didn’t look sharp all night, so, when the ‘Caps raised their energy…pfft.

The broadcast booth talked up Brian White coming on for Lucas Cavallini as the turning point, but I caught a whiff of something different fairly early in the game. To paraphrase a tweet:

“I can’t read the Timbers’ mood. Is it [calm] or complacency?”

The original word for the one between the brackets was “confidence,” but this performance never looked confident…hold on, is misplaced confidence a long form version of complacency? At any rate, it didn’t feel so unreasonable to believe the way the Timbers could hold its shit together after Deiber Caicedo pulled one back for Vancouver on a hero goal off a sprint up the gut; again, they controlled the first half. That doesn’t mean the patterns were actually encouraging - they weren’t - but, you know, shake off the cobwebs, step up the pace, etc.

I just realized that only 13 minutes passed between Caicedo’s goal and the equalizer. When Brian White saw the cross coming before Juancarlos Van Rankin and scored, he didn’t do anything that every other player in dark blue hadn’t done since the second half whistle blew: Whitecaps players beat Timbers to the ball all over the field, as if they got a pep-talk at the half (or their asses chewed to pieces) and Gio lined up a round of double shots of Goldschlager instead.

Yeah, yeah, the penalty kick. The Timbers would have been lucky to get one point by that time, and they wound up with zero as a result. And I don’t want to spare anyone from blame. I saw Dairon Asprilla go less than his usual all-in on at least two 50/50s in Vancouver’s defensive third. That shit’s contagious and, by the end of the first half, it bit every player on the field sporting a smart white shirt and snazzy green shorts. If only their play matched…

A Major League Soccer Week 31 (probably) Forecast: Binding and Separation

The opposite of a visual for MLS Week 30.

If I had to give myself a grade for prognostication for my last Major League Soccer preview, I’d give myself a C – plus or minus, your call on the math. From the highest of altitudes (generally where I operate on this stuff), I’d call six of the results unexpected, or maybe just noteworthy, though not wildly so. On the competitive side, it’s probably more significant to note that most of the teams who needed results got them. There, I’d include Orlando City SC beating FC Cincinnati*, Atlanta United beating Toronto FC*, and Minnesota beating Austin FC, all on the road, while Real Salt Lake beat the Colorado Rapids and the Vancouver Whitecaps beat Sporting Kansas City, both of those at home.

(* For the record, these wins were both reasonable and largely expected. The ones with asterisk also made enough sense.)

None of those results flipped the furniture or anything – I’d call the big wins for Los Angeles FC and Columbus Crew SC (over the San Jose Earthquakes and Inter Miami CF, respectively), as well as the Philadelphia Union holding serve at Club du Foot Montreal the more meaningful results from the weekend – but they did some fun things to the narrative. Going the other way, two of the weekend’s most eye-popping surprises – the Houston Dynamo beating the Seattle Sounders (anywhere, really, but that one happened in Houston) and Chicago Fire FC (of all teams) forcing the New England Revolution to a draw in New England – don’t add up to much more than blushes for the better teams. Now, about those wee narrative shifts…

Atlanta’s win finally completed their long trek over the playoff line – something that seemed inevitable given their recent form (7-3-0 in their last 10) – which probably counts as the biggest story in the Eastern Conference. [Ed. – If this wasn’t Atlanta’s first week over the playoff line, I barely regret the error, because the narrative still works.] Elsewhere, Orlando, who haven’t been great lately, gave themselves some space over the playoff line – space that looks good to hold up, fwiw – while both Nashville and Philly maintained their breathing room over DC United and Montreal, respectively. Red Bull New York drew level with New York City FC, but the bigger story (maybe) could be Columbus getting within three points of both of them.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 Portland Timbers: Shit Happens & Mapping a Future

All I want to know: will I like the ending?

Give a team two pillow-soft chances, you give up two goals. Give a pig a pancake and….honestly, I have no idea, I’ve only seen the cover of that book.

Obviously, that was not ideal, but, for me, the whole thing had the feel of the Los Angeles Galaxy was due to win, the Portland Timbers were due a loss. As the kids say, shit happens, and the Galaxy wins at home 2-0. The Timbers had some points to burn, they’re not gonna catch the Seattle Sounders, the road ahead is pretty favorable, and so on. Pick, move on, and, for fuck’s sake, play Diego Valeri earlier if you’re gonna play him at all. Maybe try attacking defending with seven while attacking with three skilled players pushed way the fuck up for counters toward the end of a game. I don’t know. I only manage teams online and they do awesome. On toddler mode. And I digress.

Full disclosure, I only watched half that game, stared at some stats (where I saw what I wanted: fairly even for shots on goal and winning the duels), so take all notes below with due caution, etc. At the same time, these are mostly general thoughts about Portland’s stretch run - which, for the record, conncludes with: v Vancouver, at Colorado, v San Jose, at Real Salt Lake, v Austin FC. And, yes, I typed more of the names out to celebrate not forever operating under 280 characters. Some notes…and I mean beyond obvious stuff like, “Blanco RULZ” (and he does) or “mistakes hurt the Timbers tonight.” Wait…moving on…

Van Rankin Van Rankles
Because I saw Steve Clark make two saves (at least) that easily could have gone in (and yet two shit goals did), I’m comfortable accepting the Timbers had plenty of other ways to lose this one…but, Van Rankin. He hasn’t fulfilled my expectations on either side of the ball. He’s not an outright liability either, it’s just….yeah.

A Major League Soccer Week 30 Forecast: Stasis in the West, Potential Cramping in the East

A glimpse at the top of the conferences.

Yeah, yeah. I got tired of editing my phrasing three times just to get under 280 characters. That said, I still want to honor the concept of brevity, so I’ll keep things tidy or try to.

This is Major League Soccer Week 30, apparently, despite virtually the entire league having played 28 games. Damn new math. Wherever we are on our shared journey, the goal here is to provide a little context for Saturday and Sunday’s match-ups. As such, I’ve woven together a brief narrative (with helpful data in parentheses) to forecast the weekend’s action. First up, here are all of Week 30’s games, listed in the order in which they’ll be played:

L’Impact du Montreal v Philadelphia Union (whoops, already on)
Los Angeles FC v San Jose Earthquakes
Columbus Crew SC v Inter Miami CF
New England Revolution v Chicago Fire FC
FC Cincinnati v Orlando City SC
DC United v Nashville SC
Toronto FC v Atlanta United
Houston Dynamo FC v Seattle Sounders
Austin FC v Minnesota United FC
Real Salt Lake v Colorado Rapids
Los Angeles Galaxy v Portland Timbers
Red Bull New York v New York City FC
Vancouver Whitecaps FC v Sporting Kansas City

Now, to address them in completely different order, starting with the two teams on top of both conferences.

Given the opposition, Seattle and the Revs are like two warriors glaring at each other across a battle, each steadily moving toward the other, killing fodder (e.g., Houston and Chicago) on their way. I know New England’s chasing the single-season points record (just seven points to go!), but I wouldn’t blame either team for resting players. Seattle’s only five points clear in the West, but remain a solid bet to win it. That same separation speaks to a general truth about MLS’s Western Conference….hold on, I have to remind myself how this shit works again. OK, ready.

Closing Shop

Keep reaching for the plug, you'll pull it eventually.

I'm closing down this blog. It's nothing more complicated or dramatic than wanting to do other things with the time I put into this. Looking at the back nine of the 2021 Major League Soccer season didn't help. Holy fucking fixture congestion. All that content looks like a one-on-one against Joey Chesnutt.

It's been fun. This blog will always hold a special place in my heart for keeping me sane through (the first part of) the pandemic. Maybe I'll revive it during the next global catastrophe. Hear we're about to have a couple...

MLS Weakly, Week 16: An Update, with Blindspots Acknowledged and Defended

A comment on the methodology

The bastards squeezed me again (three days, Garber?!), so this Week 16 Major League Soccer Weakly will, 1) go up earlier than I like, and 2) I’ll have to do (yet another) combined Week 17 & 18 Weakly after Sunday’s games wrap up.

In other news…yeah, auditioning a new format. It uses last week’s Super Standings post as a point of (very loose) point of reference, but, due to time constraints, I’ll be keeping the format simple, bordering on stupid, yet with some hope it’ll offer some good information - particularly as one week progresses to the next and this trend or that either gets confirmed or crumbles - of which this week has some solid candidates. I think that’s all the explanation it needs, so, moving on…

I didn’t give every match the Silver Service Review (e.g., sitting through the MLS-in-15 video plus diving into the stats) due to, again, time restraints. Happily, every game of some interest played before midnight Saturday, which allowed for some borrowed time on the other side, and I sat through the full 90 of both teams I cover, the Portland Timbers (who died against the Los Angeles Galaxy) and FC Cincinnati (who continued a distressing streak of futility against half of DC United). For the record, those games are (and a link to the Match Center thing is embedded in each score):

Los Angeles FC 2-2 Minnesota United FC
New York City FC 4-1 Columbus Crew SC
Orlando City SC 3-2 Atlanta United FC
Seattle Sounders 0-1 San Jose Earthquakes
Red Bull New York 2-3 New England Revolution
Sporting Kansas City 1-2 FC Dallas

I’ll put what I saw from those Silver Service Reviews into the “This Week” section of each entry below - which entries include every team in the league - but I based everything else on patterns - most of which seem to be holding up nicely, thanks. The second part of each is titled “Trends/Questions,” which is where I’ll note either theories or questions about each team based on the same stuff that informed the Super Standings - e.g., form, strength of schedule, and meaningful trends (e.g., said team struggles to score (e.g., FC Cincinnati), or struggles to avoid avalanches (e.g., the Portland Timbers; the fact they fit those categories so well is my only solace after a weekend of shit spectator sports viewing). With that, here are some notes and theories about where all the teams in MLS are after Week 16, and where they might go from there.

FC Cincinnati 0-0 DC United: There Are No Highlights...

Three inches is generous, kind even.

Well, wasn’t that as pleasant as a team-building “event” at the office? It took an absolutely mind-boggling amount of men doing things in uniforms for nothing to happen. Worse, the few things that did happen - e.g., a timely, deserved red card to DC United’s Moses Nyeman, aka, the same guy who scored the sharpest, yet offside, goal all day - didn’t change a damn thing.

If you’ve ever asked the question, what would happen if FC Cincinnati had a man-advantage at home with 38 minutes to go, you got your answer tonight. Nothing, a fucking pair of useless eggs, a 0-0 home draw against half a DC United team. Lorde, gimme patience. I guessed the right final score - without knowing the many, many players DC had missing (e.g., Paul Arriola, Brendan Hines-Ike, Russell Canouse, etc.) - but that only makes it all worse (see Thought No. 1). I know what Cincinnati is/can and cannot do, and I only had a loose sense of DC as a high energy, low-accuracy team: so long as Cincinnati matched their energy, it’d be on the hosts to score. I see the xG, and, based on what I watched, that’s generous…and I don’t think I’d feel any differently had Cincinnati finally scored.

If Cincinnati had better chances than Joe Gyau’s (of whom and others, see Thought No. 2) header off Ronald Matarrita’s cross and that Nick Hagglund header early, quality yet hopeful header, they don’t register (hold that thought; forgot this one); related, Brandon Vasquez’s late (equally hopeful) lunge represented a better percentage opportunity, but it was no less desperate and unlucky. Ye gods, where to begin when you don’t even want to start?

Cincinnati wrestled both DC and themselves for chances and came up empty. Going the other way, the only chances they allowed DC came via offside plays and Julian Gressel trying to make the most of free-kicks on the cheap and direct. But, again, this was just half a DC United team, and I’d call Gressel and Kevin Paredes (who I’d kill to have on any roster I watched) the two best, most effective and interesting players on the field tonight. DC made the better chances, even if they had to push against legality to make them happen.

That’s my summary of the game and, no, that’s not good.

Los Angeles Galaxy 4-1 Portland Timbers: A Little Like Bankruptcy

There were signs...

I might have told this story before, so I appreciate your patience. When my family moved west in the early mid-1980s, I landed on my first select team - to be clear, though, this was “select” in the context of Pullman, Washington, so not so select. This put me in contact with my first soccer coach who took both himself and the role seriously (more the former, honestly). At any rate, any time he got it in his head that his charges weren’t trying hard enough, he’d throw up his hands and stop watching. I was fine with that - which is about 40% of why my career as an athlete never went anywhere (a lack of natural ability accounts for the other 60%) - but my teammates would beg “Coach” to watch again.

Phil Scudderi (the elder), wherever you are, I finally feel you. I turned away from this turd around the 80th minute.

As for the Portland Timbers, things fell apart gradually and then all at once in a, frankly, embarrassing 1-4 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy. I think that borrowed line is about bankruptcy, but do correct me if I'm wrong…

After a first half decent enough to make one think the game could go either way, holy shit, was that second half off-putting. Then again, the utter failure of the Timbers’ defense on that second goal - three LA players unmarked in the heart of the area? seriously? - gave a warning as unmistakable as a wall of “Do Not Enter” signs guarding a freeway off-ramp. Sadly, that fuck up looked like a brick wall with a force-field in front next to pure drunken chaos that led to the penalty Portland gave up for the third goal; I doubt any of the players could tell you there were in the LA area, never mind where they shouldn've been on the field. Add a fourth goal that shared all the bad habits of the first (ball-watching to the point of paralysis) and there’s your favorite home team on the wrong side of a blowout that could have run to half dozen plus to one. The xG tells the tale as well as anything…

The few positives for Portland came in the first half. They moved the ball pretty well - Diego Valeri, in particular, had some great touches and layoffs - and the Timbers found the chances I thought they would. Jeremy Ebobisse scored one on the least likely of those chances, but, from that point on, the worm had turned and grew into something beastly. Because I watched the game this morning, there goes any hope of blacking out that second half. Sheeeeeeee-iiiiittttttt.

MLS Weakly, Weeks 14 & 15: The Super Standings Return

MLS, perhaps more than you think. But also less.

The Super Standings return! In this post, I’m looking at nothing but results over the last ten games for every team in Major League Soccer and strength of opposition over the same. My dog-shit memory will pitch in with what it can and, after I throw it all together, we’ll see what I get.

I made some tweaks to the Week 10 version of this post (which I referenced, like, a lot less than I thought I would), most notably: I added a loose scale - and trust me when I say loose - for the strength of opposition, something I thought would give further context for those last 10 results (there, T = tough, M = middling, and E = easy). It’s a lot of blah, blah, blah, after that, so the last step is organizing the teams into three tiers:

Competitive: Could win a trophy or, failing that, reach the semi-final
Playoff-Bound: A good bet for MLS's (over-expansive) playoffs, but a bad bet for trophies
Watch-List: Teams who might graduate to the above, no matter how narrowly
The Presently-Irrelevant: Teams who, based on evidence and history, will not

Again, it’ll make sense, honest. If anything stood out, it was the fact that the league’s stronger teams all seemed to play generally weaker schedules than the weaker teams. Then again, it was those weaker teams that made the softer schedules for those stronger teams, so there’s still a lot of big fish eating smaller fish and those smaller fish dying. That’s only part of the narrative, though, and some of the trends I see have serious potential to up-end a narrative here and start a new narrative there. For instance, think of what might happen if MLS’s Canadian teams, nearly all of whom have something better than nothing going for them, get to move back north for actual home games (aka, the “Canadian Asterisk”)? Also, there will be typos, in the numbers, especially, so do double-check as needed. That’s just one factor explored below, even if it doesn’t apply to so much to the top-tier teams, aka, the teams that are…

Competitive
Sporting Kansas City: 9-3-3 (5-0-3 home, 4-3-0 away), 28 gf, 17 ga
Last 10 Results: WWWDLWWWDW (EEEETMMTET)
Strength of Schedule: 50% soft (3 hard, 2 middling, 5 easy), so not too damn hard, but, fair warning, they’re slaying rivals.
Notes: Sure, the Galaxy went sideways, but wasn’t Kansas City part of what turned them? Also, a two-goal over Seattle away (even with the latter’s reasonable beg-offs; see below), pairs nicely with home wins over Colorado and LAFC. All those happened within the last five games, which announces the obvious: Peter Vermes side is, for lack of a better word, doing the steady work of taking names and kicking ass…literally everyone’s except Portland at Providence Park…which suddenly feels like some vampire shit (not inviting them in is step 1 and it solves the problem).
Forecasting: It’s not perfect, but it’s damn good. Given everything, they officially became the team to beat in the West this weekend.

Nashville SC 3-0 FC Cincinnati: Problems Versus Solutions

Because no one wants to look at piles of shit.

Is there anything more to say than FC Cincinnati got beat comprehensively by a better team? Even with some surprises in the numbers - e.g., Cincinnati nearly tied Nashville SC for total shots (…when?) - but the real-time action and the balance of the numbers (0.3 xG for Cincy) all bear out the final verdict: an easy-breezy 3-0 win for Nashville.

The game started (very) poorly, and with a soft goal, and the only “but for” Cincinnati fans can point to is that time Brenner spun a Nashville defender near the center stripe and ran in alone on Joe Willis…only to see Taylor Washington take it off his toes at the decisive moment. Cincy was just one goal down at that point, so who knows what might have been? Back in the real-world, and outside that, I counted one good attacking move for Cincinnati - Brenner combining with Edgar Castillo and Luciano Acosta somewhere around the 50th minute - but that was the most they troubled Nashville’s defense, aka, certainly more than Joe Gyau’s spazzing raid up the middle or Haris Medunjanin’s free-kick from deep-left in Nashville’s defensive third.

The craziest numbers I see are possession/number of passes, the only area where one can argue Cincinnati ran up the numbers. Literally nothing came of that because Cincinnati struggled mightily to play through what I’d call “in-fill” by Nashville, a spin on the concept of pressing. The basics of the tactic (and it’s something I see against the Portland Timbers a fair amount) seek to clog the passing lanes inside your opponent’s half; it gets pressure to the ball, but without chasing it all over, and it mostly works by getting in the way. For all…wow, 653 passes made (again….when?), Cincinnati couldn’t get much of anywhere, at least not up the field. Nashville reined in the line sometime in the 2nd half, but that only translated to Cincinnati dicking around with the ball in a different part of the field.

To wrap up Nashville, I’ll start by thanking C. J. Sapong for backing up my prediction that he’d factor into the result - though I can’t say I saw a two goal, three assist game when I typed that into twitter….golly, last Wednesday. All in all, this was a pretty straightforward case of a team having a couple more piles of its shit together going against one with their piles a little more scattered and disconnected; Nashville hasn’t lost in seven games for a reason and they’re playing even against some of the best in the Eastern Conference (e.g., a 1-0 home win over the Philadelphia Union and a goal-less road draw at Columbus Crew SC). FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, is not.

Minnesota United FC 2-1 Portland Timbers: Legs, and How to Use Them + 5 Thoughts

'Tis a sign.

You can’t win ‘em all and, tonight, the Portland Timbers fell about 20 minutes short. Long story short, Minnesota United FC turned it on after the Timbers could not and they recovered from a smart early Portland/Felipa Mora goal to win the game 2-1. Now, the good, the bad, the ugly, and the fatigued.

First things first, I know I didn’t see Mora’s goal coming; even when it happened, but Dairon Asprilla read his run perfectly and served the ball to the correct side of Bakaye Dibassy, and that put the Timbers up by one deserved goal. Portland would spend the next 35 minutes or so in a pure defensive crouch - more later, and this is big in my mind - but Minnesota labored more than they succeeded; Portland’s step-ins were good where they needed to be and everyone seemed to have a clear idea of where to go when someone stepped to the ball (i.e., the defensive rotations looked good).

The remarkable thing is how well that held for…golly, 35-40 minutes. That means it's possible. But, of course, then it all went to shit.

Suffice to say the warning sounds rang loudly (at least in my head); around the 75th minute, when Timbers' 'keeper, Aljaz Ivacic, punched Emanuel “Bebe” Reynoso’s corner kick to the far side. Portland still had, literally, 10 defenders inside the 18, with the main thing they were doing in that small space was being tired; so, when Hassani Dotson floated a second cross into the area, all they had between Chase Gasper and goal was Dario Zuparic. Zup lost the one-v-one, and that’s how Minnesota equalized. Honestly, it was kind of fine: Minnesota had mid-week off, whereas Portland played Los Angeles FC wid-week, and then had to fly to Minnesota three days later besides to play a team that hadn't just skipped mid-week, but who had played at home the weekend before (the July 18 win over Seattle), and who hadn’t played since July 7 before then. So, yeah, Minnesota was well-rested.

While that’s fine, good and expected, it does not explain Portland’s decision to start defending both higher late in the gam, thereby opening more vertical space between their lines, and without any pressure on the passer - most notably, Reynoso, the guy who makes them “go.” He was somewhere around the center stripe when he carved open the heart of the Timbers' defense to find Robin Lod for the winner. Renzo Zambrano was, oh, five yards from him and laying off, but I’m less pissy about that than I am about the apparent decision to push the line of engagement into Minnesota’s half of the field, and without any intent to go after the ball. That’ll be my first talking point, but I want to cover some points about Minnesota for a tic.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Los Angeles FC: A Cinderella Story

Fixin' to kick yer ass with this shoe once I get it on...

Well, didn’t that end like a fairytale? Going the other way, Cinderella deserved her happy ending. Did the Portland Timbers?

The first, correct answer is, of course, who the fuck cares? The Timbers…. arguably stole all three points with a 2-1 win over Los Angeles FC, but they somehow managed to make it look legit. Or semi-legit. I’ll get to the whys ‘n’ wherefores of that in the 5 Thoughts section, but, in the big picture, this counts as a BIG WIN. And, yes, that’s circumstance specific: the Timbers hit a stumble lately, taking only 1/3 of the available points from the last six games, while LAFC took…4/5th (right?) of the points over their last five games. Despite the Timbers win, that gap still seems consequential - because LAFC was the better team tonight. Only they lost. Anyway…

The game started both brilliantly and historically, with Portland going up on a guilt built by hustle (Marvin Loria) and completed by timeless composure…just…to believe that ball would clear the defender, the chest it down like you were finishing a plate with brittle ingredients, and then to shatter LAFC ‘keeper, Tomas Romero’s five-hole wide-open like that. Diego Valeri couldn’t have scripted a better 100th career goal, not with the assistance of the gods…I mean, the slacker ones like Apollo and Baldir, the artsy-fartsy ones. And, lo, it was good…

…until it was bad, obviously. For all that the Timbers managed to seize initiative here and there, this was LAFC’s game to lose from somewhere around the 10th minute forward. Shorter version, the Timbers had their moments, but LAFC had more moments. A lot of that came from something I’ve seen from LAFC over the past couple games, but that I haven’t seen since somewhere around late 2019: the return of the avalanche. Jose Cifuentes, Francisco Ginella and Latif Blessing (one of the most underrated midfielders in the league for my money) had general control of the midfield and that reliably sets up the most doom-inducing dynamic for the Timbers: an inability to clear the lines, which leads to panic, which leads to chaos, which leads to goals against. If I had to credit anything for LAFC’s, mid-key, general dominance it came with shutting down Portland’s passing outlets and for most of the game. This should come at absolutely no one’s surprised, but LAFC won the xG battle tonight. They do that a lot as it turns out - they produced the highest reading I’ve ever seen in last weekend’s win over RSL (and it held up under the eyeball test as well) - but that didn’t buy them top of the West - Portland’s just two points behind them, in fact - and that’s a big, meaningful reality.