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| 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…
…related, did I hear that the ‘Quakes have never won at Providence Park? If so…shit.
It’s too late in the season for grand analysis or, “if only this works out” indulgence: it’s all YES (they win) or NO (they don’t) from here. As such, it’s all a bunch of semi-detached notes from here. In no particular order…
Turning the Page
Someday the Timbers will have to figure out how to win without Diego Chara. For now, it’s good enough to see them win without Sebastian Blanco (or Diego Valeri. Or, since he was in the building tonight, Jeremy Ebobisse). Any team that can’t win without [PLAYER] can’t be all that great.
Yimmi/Felipe Find a Way
By the second half (i.e., after San Jose broke), Felipe Mora found a half-dozen paths to back-to-goal magic, decisions fast and effective enough to set the ‘Quakes defense to scrambling. After getting kicked for trying over the first 20 minutes, Yimmi found the same. For me, it was dropping off San Jose’s back four, about even with their midfielders; from there, all it took was Portland players having an easy, forward-facing teammate to play to (ht: @shrekpdx), they could spring overlapping players and, again, break San Jose’s defensive shape…I still can’t account for why the ‘Quakes kept passing away the ball, and investigations have ceased at this point, so it’s a cold case…
Perhaps Too Dependent?
Based on extended viewing, just about any defense that can force the Timbers wide can neutralize its attack - and, fwiw, I think that’s mostly about the runs. Portland doesn’t hate crossing, so much as they like crossing from the channels - e.g., floating a cross to a run on the same side of the far side. The Timbers set that up several times tonight - often through the efforts of Santiago Moreno - and it was game over (and the first goal) when Portland did. Miracles (see intro) and through-balls from deep aside, that could be the best and only way they really know how to attack.
Santiago Moreno
I read some/the accolades and agree: this was Moreno’s best/most-promising starts. Beating one defender and making the next one to decide is, again, a great way to break a team…and yet, once it’s broken, how well does that translate to a team that still has a plan and reason for faith in it?
A Compliment
Felipe Mora reminds me of Alejandro Moreno at his best, only with more upside and less reliance on drawing fouls. This is high praise. Between his mobility and his technique, he’s hell for most defenses to manage.
Tonight’s Roll-Call of Honor
As tweeted early in the game, I wanted to see Portland win the 50/50s tonight, or even just 50% of them. The stats say they didn’t, but I wanted to acknowledge the players who did before getting back to the gripes: Pablo Bonilla (tops the list), Dario Zuparic, Bill Tuiloma (if nothing than for containing Jeremy Ebobisse), Santiago Moreno, and, yeah, yeah, it’s like the sun coming up, Diego Chara.
It’s less that everyone else sucked, than things got a whole lot easier for everyone else wearing green tonight because and after those guys stepped up. And, now…
Like Believing in the Easter Bunny After You’ve Seen Your Parent Slip a Quarter Under Your Pillow and Pulling Out Your Tooth
Cristhian Paredes. It wasn’t all bad, he might have other duties, etc. And I don’t begrudge him missing either the header or the gift/follow-up…it’s more the God-knows-what-give-away he passed from the midfield stripe to Marcinkowski. And everything before it. To put it politely, he lacks the proverbial quality and a little too often. And yet…
Van Rankin, Van Nullity
At some point during the broadcast, I heard someone point out that one part of The Game-Plan had both Moreno (Santiago; since I mentioned the other one) and Paredes helping Juancarlos Van Rankin help cover the right - this was as Bonilla played like he could have covered two lefts. When a team protects a player that much, he better attack like the bastard son of Pele and Maradona. Van Rankin…does not, and I expect to see teams key on his flank for as long as he’s on the field and, worst-case, the Timbers burn two players trying to keep his head up.
Bottom-line on tonight’s performance: both good and necessary, but also perhaps too easy to get high on and, therefore, perhaps not a good measure for the future. I don’t know that Portland will win either or both of the next two - though I’d like to think they can sacrifice Austin FC to the home crowd, even if just for come-uppance - but they’ll have to be better immediately after the end of the regular season. I don’t know about you, but, happy as this win made me (i.e., quite), I don’t see tonight to projecting to winning MLS’s second-most prestigious trophy: MLS Cup.
Till the next test…
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…
…related, did I hear that the ‘Quakes have never won at Providence Park? If so…shit.
It’s too late in the season for grand analysis or, “if only this works out” indulgence: it’s all YES (they win) or NO (they don’t) from here. As such, it’s all a bunch of semi-detached notes from here. In no particular order…
Turning the Page
Someday the Timbers will have to figure out how to win without Diego Chara. For now, it’s good enough to see them win without Sebastian Blanco (or Diego Valeri. Or, since he was in the building tonight, Jeremy Ebobisse). Any team that can’t win without [PLAYER] can’t be all that great.
Yimmi/Felipe Find a Way
By the second half (i.e., after San Jose broke), Felipe Mora found a half-dozen paths to back-to-goal magic, decisions fast and effective enough to set the ‘Quakes defense to scrambling. After getting kicked for trying over the first 20 minutes, Yimmi found the same. For me, it was dropping off San Jose’s back four, about even with their midfielders; from there, all it took was Portland players having an easy, forward-facing teammate to play to (ht: @shrekpdx), they could spring overlapping players and, again, break San Jose’s defensive shape…I still can’t account for why the ‘Quakes kept passing away the ball, and investigations have ceased at this point, so it’s a cold case…
Perhaps Too Dependent?
Based on extended viewing, just about any defense that can force the Timbers wide can neutralize its attack - and, fwiw, I think that’s mostly about the runs. Portland doesn’t hate crossing, so much as they like crossing from the channels - e.g., floating a cross to a run on the same side of the far side. The Timbers set that up several times tonight - often through the efforts of Santiago Moreno - and it was game over (and the first goal) when Portland did. Miracles (see intro) and through-balls from deep aside, that could be the best and only way they really know how to attack.
Santiago Moreno
I read some/the accolades and agree: this was Moreno’s best/most-promising starts. Beating one defender and making the next one to decide is, again, a great way to break a team…and yet, once it’s broken, how well does that translate to a team that still has a plan and reason for faith in it?
A Compliment
Felipe Mora reminds me of Alejandro Moreno at his best, only with more upside and less reliance on drawing fouls. This is high praise. Between his mobility and his technique, he’s hell for most defenses to manage.
Tonight’s Roll-Call of Honor
As tweeted early in the game, I wanted to see Portland win the 50/50s tonight, or even just 50% of them. The stats say they didn’t, but I wanted to acknowledge the players who did before getting back to the gripes: Pablo Bonilla (tops the list), Dario Zuparic, Bill Tuiloma (if nothing than for containing Jeremy Ebobisse), Santiago Moreno, and, yeah, yeah, it’s like the sun coming up, Diego Chara.
It’s less that everyone else sucked, than things got a whole lot easier for everyone else wearing green tonight because and after those guys stepped up. And, now…
Like Believing in the Easter Bunny After You’ve Seen Your Parent Slip a Quarter Under Your Pillow and Pulling Out Your Tooth
Cristhian Paredes. It wasn’t all bad, he might have other duties, etc. And I don’t begrudge him missing either the header or the gift/follow-up…it’s more the God-knows-what-give-away he passed from the midfield stripe to Marcinkowski. And everything before it. To put it politely, he lacks the proverbial quality and a little too often. And yet…
Van Rankin, Van Nullity
At some point during the broadcast, I heard someone point out that one part of The Game-Plan had both Moreno (Santiago; since I mentioned the other one) and Paredes helping Juancarlos Van Rankin help cover the right - this was as Bonilla played like he could have covered two lefts. When a team protects a player that much, he better attack like the bastard son of Pele and Maradona. Van Rankin…does not, and I expect to see teams key on his flank for as long as he’s on the field and, worst-case, the Timbers burn two players trying to keep his head up.
Bottom-line on tonight’s performance: both good and necessary, but also perhaps too easy to get high on and, therefore, perhaps not a good measure for the future. I don’t know that Portland will win either or both of the next two - though I’d like to think they can sacrifice Austin FC to the home crowd, even if just for come-uppance - but they’ll have to be better immediately after the end of the regular season. I don’t know about you, but, happy as this win made me (i.e., quite), I don’t see tonight to projecting to winning MLS’s second-most prestigious trophy: MLS Cup.
Till the next test…
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