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| Once again, a portrait of the author. (Call me.) |
I’ve decided not to feel any particular thing about the 1-1 draw that could have easily been a loss for the Portland Timbers today. The darker side of me - and that’s the fellow I’ll be chatting with for most of my comments tonight - thought Portland was running out of ideas, options and time right around the time Orlando City SC’s Andres Perea tripped Cristhian Paredes at the top of their 18. That mistake handed the Timbers a shot at redemption, as well as a plausible hold on a narrative that says they have a fair shot at getting better as time, familiarity and the return of fresh, healthy faces has time to show up in the starting XI.
And, for what it’s worth, that feels like an important narrative to maintain somewhere between the foreseeable future and the if/when it falls apart. To be clear, I’m pulling for the “if” scenario - i.e., the one in which things don’t necessarily fall apart - even if I believe 2022 has already posed some tricky questions for the Timbers.
Speaking of questions (and I’ll have more below), the big one I had after today’s game: how much did what happened today followed from Portland doing it to themselves versus Orlando doing it to them? Best-case scenario, the Timbers befouled a good game plan with poor execution - i.e., all you need to fix the problem is better execution. I saw Gio Savarese frame this as a “lack of urgency” in the attack, and I more or less accept that, if with a couple re-writes - e.g., maybe favoring early crosses that give attacking players space to run into, instead of tapping and dancing for the perfect cross against an organized defense…and I type that acknowledging that Portland found one of its better chances when Josecarlos “The Maddening” Van Rankin clipped a cross to the back post that Paredes could have buried and put the Timbers up a vital goal. That’s just one example; another could reduce all the way to something blunt and simple as pulling trigger on a half-chance instead of playing for the sitter. All that’s to say, the Timbers have a nagging habit of overelaborating in the final third, and it very much hurt them today…until Perea rescued Paredes’ visibly doomed run across the top of Orlando’s 18…get my mints, Stella, I’m going to French kiss that gift horse for…hold on, brb, and don't mind the tattered clothing…
To turn over to the bright side of things, and as much as the aesthetics favored Orlando, this was a cagey, tactical game. Portland gave them as little as the xG indicates for most of the game, but Orlando made the most of the one vivid breakdown when Alexandre Pato picked out Junior Urso’s run-from-the-depths and the latter calmly poked home the shot (though, on further review, Pato fairly clearly chopped blindly into space that found Urso, so how concscious was it?). And, sure, you could call the (more or less) free header that Benji Michel headed toward a goal in some alternate universe the moment when Orlando could have put the game away, but this was a decent performance for Portland on the defensive side. Diego Chara put in the usual heroic shift and Zac McGraw has given the Timbers good positioning with a side of aerial dominance that should have the people calling the shots thinking, if not second-guessing (and, if the theory holds, more competition should equal a better back-line). After that, Claudio Bravo achieved his usual balance of bad-'n'-ballsy, while Van Rankin played one of his better games of 2022, if only to about 10 minutes before his incredibly pointless self-sending off…again, I’m Team Bonilla/Bravo, risks be damned. Still, the defense more or less did its job, if against a team that plays like Victorian authors write, so, yeah, I’m more concerned about what the offense isn’t doing right than what the defense is doing wrong.
To anyone wondering whether I’ll get to a narrative, this is all I have to offer (for those who don’t want to click through, that’s just a twitter thread typed out with thousands of typos during the game). Also, this game didn’t really have a narrative - or, to fill in a few blanks, both teams managed a handful of moments and got from them what they did, the end. For what it’s worth, I’m still not 100% clear on how, or even whether, Orlando flustered Portland as much as they did. What I can say is that I’m wor…no, I am concerned about the how and the why of Portland’s broad struggles with creating quality chances today. And, somewhat obviously, this concern arises by way of feeling like a pattern. This could be recency bias talking, but I can’t think of a game in 2022 where the Timbers looked like they could create chances, never mind score at will. That’s to say, I don’t know what percentage of cylinders they’re firing on at this point, but, gods willing, don’t let this be it.
It's talking points from here, nearly all of them theories on the cylinders the Timbers might be missing, but I want to wrap on what I’ve seen from Orlando City SC in the two games I’ve watched them. First, I would have bet, like, a year’s supply of free pasta on them winning the possession/total passes duel tonight, but they lost both of those, and passing accuracy to boot. The margins weren’t wild across any of those, but I’d argue they looked like the more poised and in-control team until the second half (i.e., right around the time Sebastian Blanco checked in); that’s to say, maybe they invited(/forced) the Timbers to take the game to them and, to poke at a personal nightmare, and maybe Portland struggled to create anything because Orlando denied them the vertical space the Timbers may or may not rely on to make it happen. To start a conversation from the other side of that thought, I’m guessing there’s a way to organize your defense in a way that thwarts a team that (per some) live and die by transition. If Orlando (arguably) “won” today by sorting that out, it’s a bad day at the office. If what they did works and more teams in the league sort that out - and that goes double if some balance of teams in the Western Conference find the playbook - the Timbers could be in a missing-the-playoffs-level World of Hurt.
In the here and now, and based solely on today, I can say that whatever Orlando did out there today stymied the Timbers attack more than I’d like to see, but for Perea’s real, real stupid lunge. And, for the second or third time this season, I’m going to say that doesn’t worry me overly…but that’s not going to keep me from flagging some theories.
And, for what it’s worth, that feels like an important narrative to maintain somewhere between the foreseeable future and the if/when it falls apart. To be clear, I’m pulling for the “if” scenario - i.e., the one in which things don’t necessarily fall apart - even if I believe 2022 has already posed some tricky questions for the Timbers.
Speaking of questions (and I’ll have more below), the big one I had after today’s game: how much did what happened today followed from Portland doing it to themselves versus Orlando doing it to them? Best-case scenario, the Timbers befouled a good game plan with poor execution - i.e., all you need to fix the problem is better execution. I saw Gio Savarese frame this as a “lack of urgency” in the attack, and I more or less accept that, if with a couple re-writes - e.g., maybe favoring early crosses that give attacking players space to run into, instead of tapping and dancing for the perfect cross against an organized defense…and I type that acknowledging that Portland found one of its better chances when Josecarlos “The Maddening” Van Rankin clipped a cross to the back post that Paredes could have buried and put the Timbers up a vital goal. That’s just one example; another could reduce all the way to something blunt and simple as pulling trigger on a half-chance instead of playing for the sitter. All that’s to say, the Timbers have a nagging habit of overelaborating in the final third, and it very much hurt them today…until Perea rescued Paredes’ visibly doomed run across the top of Orlando’s 18…get my mints, Stella, I’m going to French kiss that gift horse for…hold on, brb, and don't mind the tattered clothing…
To turn over to the bright side of things, and as much as the aesthetics favored Orlando, this was a cagey, tactical game. Portland gave them as little as the xG indicates for most of the game, but Orlando made the most of the one vivid breakdown when Alexandre Pato picked out Junior Urso’s run-from-the-depths and the latter calmly poked home the shot (though, on further review, Pato fairly clearly chopped blindly into space that found Urso, so how concscious was it?). And, sure, you could call the (more or less) free header that Benji Michel headed toward a goal in some alternate universe the moment when Orlando could have put the game away, but this was a decent performance for Portland on the defensive side. Diego Chara put in the usual heroic shift and Zac McGraw has given the Timbers good positioning with a side of aerial dominance that should have the people calling the shots thinking, if not second-guessing (and, if the theory holds, more competition should equal a better back-line). After that, Claudio Bravo achieved his usual balance of bad-'n'-ballsy, while Van Rankin played one of his better games of 2022, if only to about 10 minutes before his incredibly pointless self-sending off…again, I’m Team Bonilla/Bravo, risks be damned. Still, the defense more or less did its job, if against a team that plays like Victorian authors write, so, yeah, I’m more concerned about what the offense isn’t doing right than what the defense is doing wrong.
To anyone wondering whether I’ll get to a narrative, this is all I have to offer (for those who don’t want to click through, that’s just a twitter thread typed out with thousands of typos during the game). Also, this game didn’t really have a narrative - or, to fill in a few blanks, both teams managed a handful of moments and got from them what they did, the end. For what it’s worth, I’m still not 100% clear on how, or even whether, Orlando flustered Portland as much as they did. What I can say is that I’m wor…no, I am concerned about the how and the why of Portland’s broad struggles with creating quality chances today. And, somewhat obviously, this concern arises by way of feeling like a pattern. This could be recency bias talking, but I can’t think of a game in 2022 where the Timbers looked like they could create chances, never mind score at will. That’s to say, I don’t know what percentage of cylinders they’re firing on at this point, but, gods willing, don’t let this be it.
It's talking points from here, nearly all of them theories on the cylinders the Timbers might be missing, but I want to wrap on what I’ve seen from Orlando City SC in the two games I’ve watched them. First, I would have bet, like, a year’s supply of free pasta on them winning the possession/total passes duel tonight, but they lost both of those, and passing accuracy to boot. The margins weren’t wild across any of those, but I’d argue they looked like the more poised and in-control team until the second half (i.e., right around the time Sebastian Blanco checked in); that’s to say, maybe they invited(/forced) the Timbers to take the game to them and, to poke at a personal nightmare, and maybe Portland struggled to create anything because Orlando denied them the vertical space the Timbers may or may not rely on to make it happen. To start a conversation from the other side of that thought, I’m guessing there’s a way to organize your defense in a way that thwarts a team that (per some) live and die by transition. If Orlando (arguably) “won” today by sorting that out, it’s a bad day at the office. If what they did works and more teams in the league sort that out - and that goes double if some balance of teams in the Western Conference find the playbook - the Timbers could be in a missing-the-playoffs-level World of Hurt.
In the here and now, and based solely on today, I can say that whatever Orlando did out there today stymied the Timbers attack more than I’d like to see, but for Perea’s real, real stupid lunge. And, for the second or third time this season, I’m going to say that doesn’t worry me overly…but that’s not going to keep me from flagging some theories.
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No Sharp Tip of the Spear
As poked and prodded at above, I haven’t seen the Timbers look truly goal-dangerous all season. They’ve looked progression-dangerous a fair amount - e.g., Santiago Moreno had some beautiful jail-breaks in the second half - but, when the law (aka, the defense) showed up and shut it down (and this is with very real props going to Orlando’s Robin Jansson), the Timbers stumbled over many of the same mistakes they’ve made throughout this young season. One can point to a lot of shortcomings - e.g., Dairon Asprilla hasn’t looked like his 2021 self yet in 2022, Moreno still doesn’t look all the way connected, the team still plays Jaroslaw Niezgoda as if they’ve never met him (and all kinds of questions follow from this) - but it all boils down to the same broad idea: Portland hasn’t really figured out how to attack with the options on hand.
I know they’ve got reinforcements coming and all - e.g., they’ll have more Blanco and some Eryk Williamson soon, and they should have some Felipe Mora at some point - but I still think they might want to figure out more than one system. Just in case they hit that, “Break Glass in Case of” moment.
Hierarchy of Fullbacks
Because the way Gio makes the Timbers play, the question of who starts at fullback and how they approach the game matters…well, more than I ever thought who starts at fullback would ever matter. So long as Bravo’s risk-taking doesn’t keep him off the field, I assume he’s written in pen as a starter (and make of that what you will), which leaves open the question of who starts at right back between Van Rankin and Pablo Bonilla. In my mind, Van Rankin’s stupid-shit double-yellow went some way toward erasing his advantage over Bonilla and his oddly, for lack of a better phrase, “slap-fighting” approach to defending kind of further shifts the overall equation in Bonilla’s favor. In other words, if they’re both defensive liabilities, maybe go with the one who makes the opposition have a season-ending maiming at the back of their brain every time they try to beat Bonilla on the dribble. Curiously, this narrow point leads to a wider, as yet unknowable one…
Future Odd Men Out
Basic math - e.g., 11=11 - states clearly, if indirectly, that some player on today’s starting roster will not stay on the same after some player return to full heath and, no less crucially, effectiveness (e.g., keep that competition coming). A handful of (so far) irreplaceable players aside - [goalkeeper], Diego Chara, and [center back], plus arguably Yimmi Chara (and make of that what you will) - the first-choice Timbers starting XI could look very different between now and the end of June, never mind the end of the season. If there’s anything that keeps me on HOLD when it comes to the Timbers, it’s the fact that I don’t know what they’ll look like once Sebastian Blanco and Eryk Williamson takes the field, never mind what happens with the fullbacks, nevermind what the team would look like if they, say, favor Moreno over Asprilla as a starter. And even all that assumes Eryk will be a starter on his return, something that feels like a given, even if it isn’t...even if I can see a truly fascinating middle three of Paredes, Diego Chara and Williamson with options beside and in front of them, amen. And that brings up another half-hopeful/half-anxious point.
Paredes Gets It
Cristhian Paredes has been very good this season. He’s better on defense, sure (honestly, he’s had some straight-up Chara-esque moments this season), but he seems to have internalized the concept of Portland’s transition game as well as any player on the roster (i.e., he doesn’t putz around with the ball), and he hit a fair approximation of the xG-building-foot-race-with-the-last-man-pass at least twice today, but it felt like three times. At this point, Paredes is a massive complication in the odd-man out question.
To wrap things up, willing as I am to trust the Timbers to pull the right strings to write the ship - again, as they’ve done to the point of reaching a final three times in the past seven seasons - I see some several tricky questions in their near future. Timbers fans won’t notice them, not unless Gio fails to find the right answers, but didn’t the Sphinx make a steady diet out of its knack for tricky questions?
As poked and prodded at above, I haven’t seen the Timbers look truly goal-dangerous all season. They’ve looked progression-dangerous a fair amount - e.g., Santiago Moreno had some beautiful jail-breaks in the second half - but, when the law (aka, the defense) showed up and shut it down (and this is with very real props going to Orlando’s Robin Jansson), the Timbers stumbled over many of the same mistakes they’ve made throughout this young season. One can point to a lot of shortcomings - e.g., Dairon Asprilla hasn’t looked like his 2021 self yet in 2022, Moreno still doesn’t look all the way connected, the team still plays Jaroslaw Niezgoda as if they’ve never met him (and all kinds of questions follow from this) - but it all boils down to the same broad idea: Portland hasn’t really figured out how to attack with the options on hand.
I know they’ve got reinforcements coming and all - e.g., they’ll have more Blanco and some Eryk Williamson soon, and they should have some Felipe Mora at some point - but I still think they might want to figure out more than one system. Just in case they hit that, “Break Glass in Case of” moment.
Hierarchy of Fullbacks
Because the way Gio makes the Timbers play, the question of who starts at fullback and how they approach the game matters…well, more than I ever thought who starts at fullback would ever matter. So long as Bravo’s risk-taking doesn’t keep him off the field, I assume he’s written in pen as a starter (and make of that what you will), which leaves open the question of who starts at right back between Van Rankin and Pablo Bonilla. In my mind, Van Rankin’s stupid-shit double-yellow went some way toward erasing his advantage over Bonilla and his oddly, for lack of a better phrase, “slap-fighting” approach to defending kind of further shifts the overall equation in Bonilla’s favor. In other words, if they’re both defensive liabilities, maybe go with the one who makes the opposition have a season-ending maiming at the back of their brain every time they try to beat Bonilla on the dribble. Curiously, this narrow point leads to a wider, as yet unknowable one…
Future Odd Men Out
Basic math - e.g., 11=11 - states clearly, if indirectly, that some player on today’s starting roster will not stay on the same after some player return to full heath and, no less crucially, effectiveness (e.g., keep that competition coming). A handful of (so far) irreplaceable players aside - [goalkeeper], Diego Chara, and [center back], plus arguably Yimmi Chara (and make of that what you will) - the first-choice Timbers starting XI could look very different between now and the end of June, never mind the end of the season. If there’s anything that keeps me on HOLD when it comes to the Timbers, it’s the fact that I don’t know what they’ll look like once Sebastian Blanco and Eryk Williamson takes the field, never mind what happens with the fullbacks, nevermind what the team would look like if they, say, favor Moreno over Asprilla as a starter. And even all that assumes Eryk will be a starter on his return, something that feels like a given, even if it isn’t...even if I can see a truly fascinating middle three of Paredes, Diego Chara and Williamson with options beside and in front of them, amen. And that brings up another half-hopeful/half-anxious point.
Paredes Gets It
Cristhian Paredes has been very good this season. He’s better on defense, sure (honestly, he’s had some straight-up Chara-esque moments this season), but he seems to have internalized the concept of Portland’s transition game as well as any player on the roster (i.e., he doesn’t putz around with the ball), and he hit a fair approximation of the xG-building-foot-race-with-the-last-man-pass at least twice today, but it felt like three times. At this point, Paredes is a massive complication in the odd-man out question.
To wrap things up, willing as I am to trust the Timbers to pull the right strings to write the ship - again, as they’ve done to the point of reaching a final three times in the past seven seasons - I see some several tricky questions in their near future. Timbers fans won’t notice them, not unless Gio fails to find the right answers, but didn’t the Sphinx make a steady diet out of its knack for tricky questions?
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