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| Only less good than the Blazing Sword. |
As noted in early communications, I only realized today that I’ve been posting real-time narratives of every game I’ve watched for two, three years now. Here’s tonight’s transcript and, for what it’s worth, I think it catches the highlights, just so and all that. Now, to expand a little…
I’ve heard the phrase “a half to forget” to describe one of those 45 minutes in Hell stretches that every team faces now and again. That phrase is stupid, and may no one utter it every again, even in jest. Those are precisely the kinds of halves (halfs? calfs?) that a team should never forget. It should be the bulletin board rage-spiration that one gets from looking in the mirror on his/her/their worst day, an interminable 45 minutes where every player on the field contributed a little fuck up to create a great big Voltron of fuck up. So, yeah, #neverforget
The headless-chicken scramble you see in the highlights of each of Jesus Ferreira’s threefirst-halfgoals gives a fair impression of Portland’s first half, aka, the soccering equivalent of asking “what the fuck just happened?” two full fucking minutes after it did. It would take a miracle to come back from such colossal and repeated breakdowns. To their credit, the Timbers gave it a fair crack. And that’s real praise. Speaking for myself, I would have asked the refereeing crew for a towel throw in under the rules of Association Football, as currently written and adjudicated, to spare my eyes the sore.
Portland took their first big step into the game - “back into” amounts to forgiving anything about that first half - when they started to, for lack of a better word, try. They ditched staying organized and vaguely interested for making Dallas work for just about any pass closer to Portland’s goal than Dallas’ attacking third. The second big adjustment came with Sebastian Blanco coming on for a theretofore pretty well useless Santiago Moreno. I’ll get into all that shortly, but first…
I’ve heard the phrase “a half to forget” to describe one of those 45 minutes in Hell stretches that every team faces now and again. That phrase is stupid, and may no one utter it every again, even in jest. Those are precisely the kinds of halves (halfs? calfs?) that a team should never forget. It should be the bulletin board rage-spiration that one gets from looking in the mirror on his/her/their worst day, an interminable 45 minutes where every player on the field contributed a little fuck up to create a great big Voltron of fuck up. So, yeah, #neverforget
The headless-chicken scramble you see in the highlights of each of Jesus Ferreira’s threefirst-halfgoals gives a fair impression of Portland’s first half, aka, the soccering equivalent of asking “what the fuck just happened?” two full fucking minutes after it did. It would take a miracle to come back from such colossal and repeated breakdowns. To their credit, the Timbers gave it a fair crack. And that’s real praise. Speaking for myself, I would have asked the refereeing crew for a towel throw in under the rules of Association Football, as currently written and adjudicated, to spare my eyes the sore.
Portland took their first big step into the game - “back into” amounts to forgiving anything about that first half - when they started to, for lack of a better word, try. They ditched staying organized and vaguely interested for making Dallas work for just about any pass closer to Portland’s goal than Dallas’ attacking third. The second big adjustment came with Sebastian Blanco coming on for a theretofore pretty well useless Santiago Moreno. I’ll get into all that shortly, but first…
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| His joy = your pain. |
This game ended in a 1-4 loss for the Timbers. It’s been about…nine months(? no, eight) since I’ve seen them fall apart like they did today. And, sure, I get the thing about Texas and March and the team will get better as [_______] player comes back. None of that explains away the sheer, collective uselessness of Portland’s first half. All they can do is play like it never happened…which, okeh, yes, I picked at the metaphor long enough to figure out the true meaning of “a half to forget,” it’s possible I found the true meaning of Christmas (don’t let dad drink before noon), and that’s pretty much my take-away from this…game. Portland kinda sorta punched back, if 36 minutes far too fucking late, but I’ve watched this team long enough to know how they work. Or can work. And, in their defense on most days, it does. Now, back to the action…
The game really did change when Blanco came on, but I want to get to the why of that, because it really mattered today. For all his ability to see the better pass - and hit it - for all his energy, commitment and, dare I say, talismanic qualities, Blanco’s greatest contribution to the Timbers’ wee-hijack of a revival was the most basic of all: he made decisions, and quickly. I was excited as anyone to see David Ayala’s first start, probably even more so, but he was the guiltiest culprit of taking the Timbers out of their usual game/tempo by far. He just lingered on the ball, pulling it this way and that in search of the perfect pass, something that doesn’t work in a Timbers system that runs best when the first good pass finds the second good pass, which in turn finds the third and so on, until, goal scored and/or anxiety in the opposition defense. It was classic perfect being the enemy of the good and, I think Ayala will get past it. If didn’t hurt that he showed a little of what he's about with that battling run and rasping shot somewhere around the 70th minute…shit, I keep indulging intruding thoughts. Back to the actual action…
The Timbers scored their one and only goal when Blanco lofted a ball in behind for Jaroslaw Niezgoda…and I want to linger on this too, because I saw Blanco getting props for this, but, holy shit, did anyone else see Niezgoda conjure a goal out of two touches rare enough to register as endangered? Niezgoda had a good enough game, even if it only started in the second half, along with everyone else’s, but that’s kinda him, the guy who can wander aimlessly for 90 minutes and then McGyver a goal from something close to nothing, and entirely different from the day before. If there’s a moment people should be talking about, it’s Asprilla’s momentum-murdering miss somewhere around the…65th minute?
That’s less because Asprilla missed the shot than because he, like Moreno, played like a little bit o’ crap tonight. If I had to choose a symbol for the Timbers playing loose on getting out of its own half in the first, I’d offer Moreno as a symbol. The questions get bigger around Asprilla, who has yet to look like Dairon.v.2021 in 2022. As the classic blunt instrument, he’s rarely elegant, but he usually has enough pep in his step to lift his teammates. That hasn’t been there, not just this year, but going back into 2021. Asprilla being only half there, coupled with Moreno’s turnovers and the whole belatedly-reactive shell thing, goes a long way to explaining and/or excusing Portland’s loss today.
The game really did change when Blanco came on, but I want to get to the why of that, because it really mattered today. For all his ability to see the better pass - and hit it - for all his energy, commitment and, dare I say, talismanic qualities, Blanco’s greatest contribution to the Timbers’ wee-hijack of a revival was the most basic of all: he made decisions, and quickly. I was excited as anyone to see David Ayala’s first start, probably even more so, but he was the guiltiest culprit of taking the Timbers out of their usual game/tempo by far. He just lingered on the ball, pulling it this way and that in search of the perfect pass, something that doesn’t work in a Timbers system that runs best when the first good pass finds the second good pass, which in turn finds the third and so on, until, goal scored and/or anxiety in the opposition defense. It was classic perfect being the enemy of the good and, I think Ayala will get past it. If didn’t hurt that he showed a little of what he's about with that battling run and rasping shot somewhere around the 70th minute…shit, I keep indulging intruding thoughts. Back to the actual action…
The Timbers scored their one and only goal when Blanco lofted a ball in behind for Jaroslaw Niezgoda…and I want to linger on this too, because I saw Blanco getting props for this, but, holy shit, did anyone else see Niezgoda conjure a goal out of two touches rare enough to register as endangered? Niezgoda had a good enough game, even if it only started in the second half, along with everyone else’s, but that’s kinda him, the guy who can wander aimlessly for 90 minutes and then McGyver a goal from something close to nothing, and entirely different from the day before. If there’s a moment people should be talking about, it’s Asprilla’s momentum-murdering miss somewhere around the…65th minute?
That’s less because Asprilla missed the shot than because he, like Moreno, played like a little bit o’ crap tonight. If I had to choose a symbol for the Timbers playing loose on getting out of its own half in the first, I’d offer Moreno as a symbol. The questions get bigger around Asprilla, who has yet to look like Dairon.v.2021 in 2022. As the classic blunt instrument, he’s rarely elegant, but he usually has enough pep in his step to lift his teammates. That hasn’t been there, not just this year, but going back into 2021. Asprilla being only half there, coupled with Moreno’s turnovers and the whole belatedly-reactive shell thing, goes a long way to explaining and/or excusing Portland’s loss today.
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| Bravo, and yet not first teamers. |
That takes care of the summary. Before wrapping up with bullet points on the Timbers, I want to give Dallas its/their due. The pressure/speed they applied/maximized over the first 40 minutes made Portland look like a U-50 squad today. They were fast, they exploited the Timbers deranged shape (the number of times Dallas found space at the top of Portland’s 18…uuufff, da), and they did the thing I most feared - i.e., make chances off moving their will-o’-wisps around. I’d say they pulled Portland’s shape apart, but that assumes the Timbers had a shape…
Now, in closing, talking points…
1) What Paredes Gets/What Ayala Will Have to Learn/Change
I’ve kicked around Paredes as much as anyone who writes about the Timbers, if not more, but he has come to understand The Golden Rule of Timbers/Gio soccer: keep the damn ball moving when you’re going forward. Paredes has mastered this talent to where you don’t really see him do it; the man knows his role, he’s a conduit/disruptor/back-stop, and he’s getting better at it every season. Ayala, if during the (entirety of) the first half, kept receiving the ball and holding it, presumably in search of “wonder ball.” And that’s why I think he stood out tonight like the sorest of thumbs. The man is just 19, he’ll learn or become the next thought after the question, “do you remember Lucas Melano?,” but I mostly think he’ll learn. I mean, how long did it take Paredes? That said, and this is the thing about Ayala: what if he can figure out a way to do it differently, and better?
2) Blame and Not to Blame
While I put the balance of the blame for tonight’s defensive meltdown on every player stationed at the outside channels and beyond - that’s Moreno, Asprilla, Claudio Bravo, and Josecarlos Van Rankin - I have to acknowledge the decisive pair of fuck-ups by the center-back pairing we’ve all fallen in love with, Zac McGraw and Bill Tuiloma. On the one hand, yes, Alan Velasco had the whole damn space-continuum to toy with down Portland’s right ahead of Ferreira’s first goal, but McGraw still let the Dallas forward step ahead and inside on the other. And, sure, Dallas worked the ball from Arriola (on the left) to Ferreria half-naked on the 18, then out to Brandon Servania, but, if Ferreira running free within 10 yards of the goal-frame isn’t Bill’s job, whose job is it?
As I said, the blame for that first half falls on everyone…
3) Card-Carrying Claudio Bravo Apologist
I can name at least one person I follow on twitter who simply does not rate Bravo, a position that’s several miles from untenable. And, no, I can’t deny that Bravo doesn’t make…a substantial number of what could reasonably be called defensive mistakes in every game. Still, Bravo has a couple arguments in his favor as a first-team starter. First and lowest-hanging: who’s better? Second, I credit him as much as Blanco for taking that necessary first step to getting back in the game - and that second point is Bravo’s upside. He is absolutely high-risk, but he’s also one hell of a catalyst - i.e., his risks have an unusually high-percentage chances of making things happen in the other direction. When all's said and done, I think of him as a midfielder who does an unusual amount of defending. I mean, the guy plays as if he thinks he’s Blanco, only playing as a fullback, and I am so fucking here for that, even if it means giving up the odd goal.
4) Van Tankin (aka, my proudest typo on twitter)
For me, he’s Portland’s worst player on the field in every game. I’d rather risk Pablo Bonilla’s recklessness or Justin Rasmussen’s inexperience and/or wrong-footedness than watching Van Rankin flop around out there like a Disney villain in the third act.
5) Not Good Enough. Even His Name Is Ridiculous
Blake Bodily sounds like a soap opera character, or the name of an NPC, a piece in an updated version of Clue, or the name a novelist gives a character until he can find a less naked metaphor.
In closing, I was prepared for a loss, just not one that looked like this. I also have faith that it doesn’t have to look like this again for the Timbers. Which isn’t to say it can’t, but, no, I don’t think it will. Till the next one…
Now, in closing, talking points…
1) What Paredes Gets/What Ayala Will Have to Learn/Change
I’ve kicked around Paredes as much as anyone who writes about the Timbers, if not more, but he has come to understand The Golden Rule of Timbers/Gio soccer: keep the damn ball moving when you’re going forward. Paredes has mastered this talent to where you don’t really see him do it; the man knows his role, he’s a conduit/disruptor/back-stop, and he’s getting better at it every season. Ayala, if during the (entirety of) the first half, kept receiving the ball and holding it, presumably in search of “wonder ball.” And that’s why I think he stood out tonight like the sorest of thumbs. The man is just 19, he’ll learn or become the next thought after the question, “do you remember Lucas Melano?,” but I mostly think he’ll learn. I mean, how long did it take Paredes? That said, and this is the thing about Ayala: what if he can figure out a way to do it differently, and better?
2) Blame and Not to Blame
While I put the balance of the blame for tonight’s defensive meltdown on every player stationed at the outside channels and beyond - that’s Moreno, Asprilla, Claudio Bravo, and Josecarlos Van Rankin - I have to acknowledge the decisive pair of fuck-ups by the center-back pairing we’ve all fallen in love with, Zac McGraw and Bill Tuiloma. On the one hand, yes, Alan Velasco had the whole damn space-continuum to toy with down Portland’s right ahead of Ferreira’s first goal, but McGraw still let the Dallas forward step ahead and inside on the other. And, sure, Dallas worked the ball from Arriola (on the left) to Ferreria half-naked on the 18, then out to Brandon Servania, but, if Ferreira running free within 10 yards of the goal-frame isn’t Bill’s job, whose job is it?
As I said, the blame for that first half falls on everyone…
3) Card-Carrying Claudio Bravo Apologist
I can name at least one person I follow on twitter who simply does not rate Bravo, a position that’s several miles from untenable. And, no, I can’t deny that Bravo doesn’t make…a substantial number of what could reasonably be called defensive mistakes in every game. Still, Bravo has a couple arguments in his favor as a first-team starter. First and lowest-hanging: who’s better? Second, I credit him as much as Blanco for taking that necessary first step to getting back in the game - and that second point is Bravo’s upside. He is absolutely high-risk, but he’s also one hell of a catalyst - i.e., his risks have an unusually high-percentage chances of making things happen in the other direction. When all's said and done, I think of him as a midfielder who does an unusual amount of defending. I mean, the guy plays as if he thinks he’s Blanco, only playing as a fullback, and I am so fucking here for that, even if it means giving up the odd goal.
4) Van Tankin (aka, my proudest typo on twitter)
For me, he’s Portland’s worst player on the field in every game. I’d rather risk Pablo Bonilla’s recklessness or Justin Rasmussen’s inexperience and/or wrong-footedness than watching Van Rankin flop around out there like a Disney villain in the third act.
5) Not Good Enough. Even His Name Is Ridiculous
Blake Bodily sounds like a soap opera character, or the name of an NPC, a piece in an updated version of Clue, or the name a novelist gives a character until he can find a less naked metaphor.
In closing, I was prepared for a loss, just not one that looked like this. I also have faith that it doesn’t have to look like this again for the Timbers. Which isn’t to say it can’t, but, no, I don’t think it will. Till the next one…
To give the Portland commentariat its due (at least on the sites I frequent) they didn't completely lose their sh*t over this Dallas performance. No great rants about how everyone in the organization including the concession folks should be canned and cancelled for life.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we all knew in our hearts that the first three games which seemed so promising wouldn't be the order of the day for every other match. Maybe rebuilding a team on the move would still supply a good amount of misery from players reverting to their mean and/or learning their trade as they were thrust into starting roles. Maybe the rebuilding pain was given a slight deferral?
That said, the Timbers aren't as bad as we looked on Sunday. Most of the time ineptness won't be that kind of complete team effort.
I'm expecting the Timbers to get better as they do every season. And then to crap out for no clear reason somewhere in the middle of the season, then to rally late and get into the playoffs, though from God only knows what seed. But, yeah, they looked half-asleep out there on Saturday. It was truly weird.
ReplyDelete