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.

As noted on one tweet, Minnesota looked like the Timbers at their worst for, oh, round-a-bout 65 minutes of the game. They tried to force the ball into tight-to-shrinking spaces, they crossed into bristling defense, they got beat to even good passes more often than they should (the boxscore backs me up here; also, note Minnesota's ever-increasing xG while you're in there), and just generally looked like a bunch of dudes punching a wall bare-knuckled in some blind hope that it would crack. I will go to my grave convinced (I kid, I kid) that Portland did not have to lose this game. I can’t claim that Portland looked the better team at any point (well, the start of the 2nd half was all right), nor will I try, but they could have managed the game much better. That said, credit to an opportunistic player like Robin Lod and credit to Ethan Finlay for coming off the bench and making Minnesota a more threatening team 5+ minutes later. Going the other way, Brett Kalman made enough Timbers-esque gaffes in one half to allow the Timbers to steal the game and if one spelled Minnesota’s attacking shortcomings “Niko Hansen,” I think even Minnesota fans would go along.

Whatever I think, the Loons just won the season series against the Timbers - rarely a good thing, whatever the circumstances, and that provides a worry/talking point all on its own, even if I’m not going to list it among the Five Thoughts for this game. I’ll start by taking the pin out of the first talking point pushed into the imaginary board above.

Five Thoughts
1) Exactly Backwards
After scoring their first goal, the Timbers dropped into an aggressive 5-3-2 in defense, one so compact that the guys in that “3” could easily shake hands with the guys in the “5,” and, regardless of whether they could do that all day, that extremely negative formation made it damned hard for Minnesota to either play through them (not enough depth) or cross (dude in your back pocket at nearly all-times). I’ll be the first to admit that didn’t make for a winning game-plan - no matter how well they defended (quite), Portland mostly defended and, worse, looked confused breaking out of the back - but, once they went up a goal, Portland had a shot at gutting it out. That held up...more or less well, and for reasons we may not all agree on, but someone (assuming Giovanni Savarese) made a decision to start defending inside Minnesota's half somewhere after the Loons' equalizer, something that can't work without either a press or at least someone pressuring the passer. That didn't happen, which raises my big question: why would you take that posture late in a game where your team clearly looked gassed? As noted above, that opened a lot of vertical space, something that gave an assist to Minnesota’s transition. Bad call by whoever made it. Or didn't stop it. The aggressive 5-3-2 would have been a better call late; call it the path not taken.

2) Warning Signs Flashing Red
Because I’m forced to assume the coaching staff has a better view than I do, I’ll take it on faith that Diego Chara didn’t look as gassed to them as he did to me. Assuming I’m right,though,  I saw recovery runs Chara didn’t make, I saw him walk to cover instead to trotting to it like he owned the place, and just little things like that. Look, I accept that I see signs of Chara and Diego Valeri aging out the same way your most rabid evangelical millenarian sees the Apocalypse in everything down to my dog farting at exactly 3:37 p.m. every day (how can that be a coincidence?), but this was the first time I’ve seen Chara that far behind the play over and over in a game. He’s still the d-mid Portland has, but I’m very much on team “manage his minutes.” Another segue….

3) The Academy & Its Students
For as much as I thought Marvin Loria (till the 46th), Renzo Zambrano, and Cristhian Paredes (the latter was a read-‘n’-toe-poke wizard for much of the night) did some version of fine tonight, there's a rub: “Some version of fine” will not look like what most Timbers’ fans are used to - e.g., success every three, four years with a lot of "well, aktually" in between. Worst case, it might look something like Houston Dynamo FC. Shorter, and based on everything I’ve seen, the Timbers don’t have the players to replace their greats - at least not right now - and I'm struggling to see a brighter future after the "Build a Statue" era ends.

4) Defining a Popular Concept
Pundits - with local, in-house expert Ross Smith leading the way - insist that Portland has to get on the ball for a stretch, even if only to spell the defense from a state of constant alertness and/or activity. My first response is both simple and historical: the Timbers notwithstanding, some teams can clearly defend for 90+ minutes, something I know because I’ve seen it scores of times in my life-time. Trouble is, that all falls apart when a team no longer has the focus/legs to defend. It’s not like Smith, et. al. are articulating a bad idea - a team that poses no threat (e.g., Portland, tonight) allows a team to attack with abandon in the other direction - but Portland struggled to connect passes and generally struggled to play through Minnesota’s clear tactical choice to deny the short pass, even after getting fresh players on the field. Insofar as they failed, my counter-argument contains one hyphenated word: short-rest. To personify that in one player, sure, Paredes hasn’t started in months, but he’s also coming back from injury. My most dead-eyed take on this whole issues is, it’ll come or it won’t; moreover, I’m less sure as to how that’ll break than I was two months ago. My larger point is that, given personnel and proper preparation, a team of professional players can do all kinds of things. Portland made one, big wrong choice tonight - see No. 1 - and I think that cost them a point. Because that's all I think they'd get.

5) Open the Shooting Gallery or Bust
The Timbers need to figure out a way to set up shots from range. As much as I fully appreciate why so few Timbers players fired from range tonight (e.g., someone was in the way)…I mean, there has to be a way to incorporate movement, picks and feints that will open a good look at goal from, say, 20-25 yards out, and with a decent angle on the goal. I’m pretty sure sufficiently-motivated team could iron out a simple system of delayed runs to make this an option, but I’m also an amateur who never really had a shot I could be proud of (the shame!), so what do I know?

Overall, I’m content to chalk this up to a tough stretch, with a dash of fatigue. Two-thirds of the points in three games isn’t bad in general, especially with a quick turnaround at a tough venue at the end of it. Fun fact, the Timbers will have to do the same thing twice over between today and late August. Here’s the schedule:

@ Los Angeles Galaxy
v San Jose Earthquakes
v Real Salt Lake
v Seattle Sounders
@ Sporting Kansas City
@ Austin FC

That’s a remarkably clarifying sample of locations, good and bad, and strength of opposition over a six-game period - and all that takes place from July 30th to August 21st, e.g., two three-game weeks with a week in between. By my math, Portland will need 10 points out of that, as a bare-ass minimum, to keep me on board with them having a shot at a trophy…and that might even take 12 points. Look, I'm not a mathematician, and the part of me that thinks that’s doable is at the wheel right now. Punch my ticket on tonight's loss at, but for fatigue…

Till the next one.