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.]

On that, here’s what I saw in RSL’s win over Sporting Kansas City - and this is before RSL took over the game, and I’ll get to that. SKC didn’t press all-out, but they did pressure the passes out of the back and into midfield. Related, RSL played a minimum of three complete shit balls out of the back, stuff so bad it would have killed them on a different day. They survived that, obviously, and, little by little, pushed SKC deeper into their heels with each passing minute. Between memory and a quick review of the highlights (the short version), I’d put RSL’s victory down more to pressure than precision. Still, I’m impressed they scored both goals in open play; the movement on Anderson Julio’s equalizer between him and Kreilach is something to which any attack should aspire.

The only thing I’d call a reach in Stumptown Footy’s preview was their prediction of a back-and-forth game; as readily as each team has scored against the other all season long, I can easily see “they will trade goals” stumbling to “they traded penalty kicks.” All it would take is both teams setting up to absorb and counter…

…but, no, I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen. Whether advised or not, I expect Portland to play for the kill early. That’s not to say that’s what I hope will happen, more that it’s what I expect. And it’s not a terrible plan. Portland’s attacking corps doesn’t reach the chase-till-they-fuck-up level of Maxi Urruti, but they have the legs to stress out anxious or defenders wondering whether they left the oven on - even Blanco, should he wind up starting (…and should he?). Moreover, I don’t think pressure requires pressing, strictly speaking, i.e., running their legs off; there’s also the in-fill method of defending high, denying the short pass by flooding higher spaces with bodies. I see Portland setting up something close to the same way SKC did during the first half. For what it’s worth, I think RSL did, and will do, something similar: call it man-marking, only in the context of keeping a shape, and maintaining the correct tension between those two choices. Getting reliable pressure to the ball, basically, by loitering in the vicinity with intent.

As much as anything else, I expect the game to turn on a collective mental breaking point. If said moment comes early, the game will end in a rout for one team or the other - and, for what it’s worth, my money’s on Portland for that scenario. The reason I italicized “collective” two lines up goes back to RSL’s win over SKC: Aaron Herrera put them in a hole, and pretty damn early, but RSL recovered and went from strength-to-strength from there; going the other way, SKC broke with the equalizer, which made everyone uptight in a way you could feel through the TV screen. That game became a question of how could RSL not, in other words.

More than any expected result or score-line, I anticipate a game won or lost on various aspects of intensity - e.g., who comes out most energetic, whether the team on the wrong end early can recover from it - and, if the game achieves equilibrium, which team can hold onto the necessary combination of adrenaline and their collective heads to return to the locker-room as MLS Cup finalists.

In closing, some bullet points/loose theories on the Timbers:

1) When’s Blanco’s Best Time
This turns on how healthy he is, of course, but I’d prefer to see him off the bench regardless. Use Blanco as a mental game, even (especially?) if the whole, “he’s probable” thing is bullshit. I see an advantage is showing the ace in the hole before you play it in this one.

2) Bare-Ass Fullbacks
I haven’t watched enough to know the truth of it, but Stumptown Footy wrote some copy about how Rusnak’s movement helps free up Aaron Herrera to maraud from his right fullback position. Assuming that’s true that sets up Herrera, in particular, to run at (on the subject of drunk puppies), Portland’s Claudio Bravo. There’s Juancarlos Van Rankin on the other side, of course, so that’s hopeful lunging on one side and (at times) hopeless defending on the other. However Gio chooses to line them up, I expect that will take either Chara, Diego or Yimmi, and/or Cristhian Paredes cheating toward the back-line a bit to help the fullbacks manage the space between them and the center-backs. For what it’s worth, I think that takes more planning than running - e.g., drop into the right shape the second the ball turns over, then start managing the movement from there - but I’d call leaving either fullback defending on an island the biggest risk to the Timbers’ near-future well-being. So long as they can keep the game in front of ‘em, they’re good and I’m good.

3) Keep the Chara Brothers Close, Go Vertical, NOW!
No matter how the Timbers set up, I don’t expect them to chase too hard or wildly, i.e., they’ll fall back when the ball gets into midfield and manage from there. In other words, regardless of where they go between a high (is there such a thing?) and a mid-block, they’ll still spend a fair amount of time absorbing. That’ll tee up transition, but only if the Timbers can get the ball out of deep positions fast enough to get the ball past the first wave of pressure with a player facing/running forward, ready to take advantage of players stretching the field in front of him. I’ve seen the Chara brothers excel at finding one another and creating the “player facing/running forward” dynamic down the stretch. I don’t know what that means for Paredes - who, to state a position clearly, has improved - but it’ll be down to the Charas to make and keep the Timbers dangerous tomorrow.

4) Niezgoda v Mora
I only bring this up because it comes up, but, in a game where you want to pressure the defense, I’d go with the latter; Jaroslaw Niezgoda has a languid quality to him that convinces me that he never actually has to run, so there’s that. If you start Blanco and Sebastian Moreno, I can see starting Niezgoda - who, to be clear, I know can run, pass and dribble (I’ve seen him do it; true story) - but his now-you-see-him/now-you-don’t style doesn’t pair so good with a high-intensity affair. He’s more the quiet, shivving type.

5) On Asprilla’s Absence
This matters and I embrace the whole thing and on multiple, Kama-Sutra-ic poses. In the here and now (because who knows if the whole “tantric” thing even works?), Dairon Asprilla’s absence complicates the hell out of writing the starting line-up in pen. Specifically, his absence not only puts No. 4 (above) in play, it poses very direct questions as to how ready George Fochive and Renzo Zambrano are to step into the spotlight. Going the other way, if Moreno comes close enough to a like-for-like for government work, Timbers fans can rest easy with Moreno simply starting in his place...though, again, that depends on Blanco starting in my mind, even if it doesn't in Gio's and even if I'm so very, very wrong. That’s a big “if” for me, for what it’s worth. Related, if Gio starts Yimmi as a winger…………….I got questions? Do I got questions? Shit. I don’t even know any more.

That’s all I’ve got. There’s nothing left but to see what the lunch-lady throws on the plate.