Red Bull New York 1-1 Portland Timbers: Through Wind, Through Rain, Through Bull, etc.

It is called showing up to work. Dammit.

To offer a metaphor, the Portland Timbers road game at Harrison, New Jersey, compared to the experience of walking to the mailbox in a windstorm. It feels impossible when you first step into it, but, foot by foot, you figure out how to stand up, then you figure out how to walk, and, finally, you get the mail. Mission accomplished.

Sure, the wind still knocked you into a face-plant on the way back, but also, you got mail!

To set aside the metaphor, the Timbers poached a point from Red Bull New York, and stole two of theirs in the deal. No one wanted the 1-1 draw it ended on, but, returning to the metaphor, Portland found their feet tonight, and it was good. With few exceptions, either for players or in moments, they looked neither flustered nor too casual, and nearly every player in green grew into the game. Even if the result itself wasn’t good, it was good for morale. Die with yer boots on, if you’re gonna go down, take a good swing before the stars come out, etc.

To expand the commentary(/switch metaphors), playing Red Bull amounts to an effort in treading water - i.e., keeping your head up long enough find a safe harbor where you can get it together and get out of the situation. And, after a shaky start - and Pablo Bonilla and Marvin Loria stood out in that regard - the Timbers did that. In a nice bit of chemistry meeting in the middle, they collectively picked up the pace on the passes and provided options to make them happen. The way Red Bull plays makes it hard to get far out ahead - and, if you love the Timbers don’t look at the xG (because it wasn’t far wrong) - but Portland chose a moment to try to get something out of the game and pulled it off. I’ll have more on that later - due to some specifics I want to pull out - but, after three games after fairly uncompetitive soccer, just the idea of rising to an opponent plays like a choir of angels.

The Red Bulls got back into the game, of course. It took them about five minutes after the Timbers’ go-ahead goal (wait for it) for them to scratch back into the game, and only 10 minutes (or so) after that for Aaron Long to put back a second ball off a corner kick, but, a (heavy) flurry on the fringes of Portland’s back-line aside, the home team didn’t create a lot of opportunities. Moreover, when a great opening bounced their way, one that saw Omar Fernandez wide open and way up the field on Justin Rasmussen’s side and with young Justin on walkabout, the further he pushed up-field, the lonelier he got. That happened around the 82nd minute; the legs just weren’t there, something that has long struck me as the risk side of RBNY risk/reward system. I wouldn’t say they had an actual bad night; it’s more that when you shoot a little wild, as they do, you don’t hit a lot.

All in all, they turned in a slightly Borg-ish performance: they collective did well enough, but no one Red Bull player really stood out; even Luquinhas, a guy I worried about going in, looked too slow to make the Timbers defense sweat it.

That, finally, shifts the convo over Portland. Both Dario Zuparic and Larrys Mabiala lead from the back, playing strong, proactive games, nipping at any player and everything that came their way; going the other way, Larrys, in particular, found good lanes for passing out of the back and made them count more often than not. I thought Cristhian Paredes had his 2022-standard quietly amazing game, and in both directions. I don’t know if anyone puts out tackling maps for a player, but he got in the way of things all over Portland’s defensive third and, gods bless him, turned offense to defense on a dime whenever it fell to him to do so. I haven’t liked a lot of what I’ve seen in the Timbers’ 2022 season, but Paredes has been a consistent, personal highlight; he's in the running for my favorite player at this point, so quick, so clean (and what kind of a monster doesn't love a redemption story?). After that, it was just a matter of Portland getting the ball forward…which is where the notes turn.

I saw a couple people crapping on Yimmi Chara during the game and, for all his limits, he does a couple important things well. He might be one-third the player Darlington Nagbe is when it comes to transition, but he does more (or at least better) defensive work than Nagbe and he remains one of Portland’s better outlets when they simply have to go the ball out of the back, and under control. Surviving the above-noted “(heavy) flurry on the fringes of Portland’s back-line” was absolutely a team effort - Paredes found just the right spot to cut out a cross - but Yimmi did more to actually break it than any other player involved. He does a lot of grunt-work, and there’s nothing wrong with questioning whether you want to spend DP-money on a player who does that, but it’s not my money and Yimmi has his uses. And, in the here and now, I can’t think of any player on the roster who can replace what he does.

If I had to hand out player for most-improved during the game, I’d give it to Loria. The Red Bulls might have read his dribbles early, but Loria adjusted and kept the ball closer, something that gradually became one of Portland’s more effective tactics for holding possession high. Again, that’s more grunt work, something that doesn’t show up on the stats sheet, but Loria played a good, sturdy shift tonight. And that’s most of what the Timbers needed to survive this game.

Last, but not least, I’d call Santiago Moreno the player who did the most to change my mind tonight. In a game where he really had to get stuck in, he rose to it; as much as any Timber, Moreno found a way to finish off the labor (for it was) of getting the ball to the Red Bull’s defensive third. He did better when he had space to run into, something he created fairly well on his own when others didn’t do it for him (receiving the ball BY turning does wonders when it comes to making the field look different in the blink of an eye), and I’d credit him for giving the Red Bull defense/midfield the biggest one-man threat to manage over the full 90.

The last three paragraphs get to why I waited to talk about Portland’s opening goal. Scoring it didn’t require them to apply some particular move, or to harness one individual’s talent: it took the work of moving the ball forward, stubbornly, and in the face of a breeze blowing with a fury…if not in the particular moment…I mean, nothing says something went wrong quite like Shep Messing admitting as much. One more note…

Here, Q = space.

Jaroslaw Niezgoda, a forward who has struggled throughout 2022, scored Portland’s equalizer and I really hope Gio, et. al, paid attention to, 1) how he scored it, and 2) what made Niezgoda more effective tonight than he has been in weeks. First, look at how few players Portland had in the box when he scored, note the way Red Bull defenders occupied positions/space, but not attacking players. Next, tick back to Moreno’s shot off the crossbar (sequence starts around 0:25 in the full highlights); first, nice combo by Paredes to start the play, and nice pass forward by Yimmi, but note how he played Niezgoda - i.e., into space. That's Niezgoda's game; he does far better facing/running forward: I can think of a number of ways to utilize that, both with Niezgoda and in the attack generally, but the Venn Diagram of it all meets over one word: space. Without a player like Felipe Mora to do the hold-‘n’-dish thing, the Timbers offense needs to organize its attack in a way that lets players run onto the ball - i.e., the attack needs vertical space in which to operate, at least with its current personnel, so maybe set the back of the attacking line about 10-15 yards and have the ball go back (and across) that space, and have players run at from there over and over until someone gets either through a crack or around the outside. Based on what I've seen, that beats, say, compressing against the goal line, getting the ball wide and trying to cut one across to three dudes crashing different parts of the net (or, gods forbid, why not have two dudes crash different parts and have one dude hold his run for a cut-back?).

All in all, I call this a point, maybe even a very good one. When it comes to getting back on track, the first thing the Timbers need to do is show up. In some ways, Red Bull felt like the perfect scenario for teaching Portland a lesson it seems like they’d collectively forgotten - i.e., that, first and foremost, they need to compete. Forget game-plan, forget posture, don't get cagey, don't get cute, don't over-think it, generally put everything else on the back-burner: when each player on the team puts in the work to make sure they’re the first person to do something in their individual battle, good things tend to follow. Any given player can choose to do about half dozen things, but actually making the choice counts as much as anything...until you bite like some idiot trout over and over (see: Bravo, Claudio).

And, yeah, it’s another all-narrative post. I don’t have many notes beyond this. A couple bobbles aside, I thought David Bingham had a solid night, plus one great save, even if it was the one that led to the Red Bull corner that led to the equalizer. I thought Eryk Williamson was pretty damn invisible, even if he had a really great tackle (think it was) at the end of the first. That didn’t matter and I think he’ll get there (and, for some reason, I’d like to see if he can become the next Timbers talisman), but I’m hoping the way he’s getting back up to speed will rhyme with what happens with the Timbers as a whole. Again, this was encouraging, and more please.

To get a little cosmic-cycle about it, maybe this is what Gio/the Timbers do every season - e.g., throw out the best present concept, see what sticks, then refine the formula from there. We shall see, we shall see….and till the next one.