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| This was how I told them apart. Now? |
It becomes rarer with each passing season, but I still see people argue it’s impossible to support two teams at the same time. My rebuttal: it’s as easy as wanting one of those teams win every game and wanting the other to win every game except the ones where they play that first team. And that’s how I feel about the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati, respectively, and I’ll never understand how that’s complicated.
Going the other way, and unlike past three seasons, watching the Timbers play all season while I watched/tracked Cincy had more value than it did in the past – i.e., most of the past three seasons saw the Timbers wake up sometime in late summer and roll into the playoffs, while Cincy typically started wilting somewhere around late may and continued to the end like some overwrought Shakespearian actor counting his wounds until he rather loudly expired. There has always been a whiff of ne’er the twain shall meet about the experience, in other words, but that changed with Major League Soccer’s 2022 season.
To start with the full disclosures, yes, I really did believe that both Cincinnati and Portland would make the 2022 playoffs. That bet panned out for one team – FC Cincinnati – but not the other...whose name shall go unmentioned. Both teams needed to get something out of their final game of the season - Real Salt Lake away for Portland and DC United away for Cincy. I read both of those games as winnable, hence the whole thing about both teams making the 2022 playoffs, but I also overlooked something, arguably out of habit. The thing that makes that remarkable was how obvious it should have been in retrospect. And that goes back to something I would never expected going into 2022 – i.e., how similar Cincy and Portland would be by season’s end.
First and foremost, Portland and Cincinnati tied a lot - 13 games per team, i.e., tied for second under 2022’s undisputed masters of sharing points, Columbus Crew SC (who had 16 draws and who also missed the playoffs). Another fun fact (and unless I miscounted): Cincy and Portland had only six clean sheets all season, a detail that points to something else that’s obvious - i.e., both teams gave up goals with very real reliability. By the final tally, Cincinnati actually gave up three more goals than Portland did, 56 to 53. Moreover, just four points separated the two teams. And yet Cincy’s in while Portland’s out. And yet, that’s not even the weird part.
Both teams finished above the league average in goals for too. The bar was 50.4 goals scored, a total Cincinnati cleared it with room to spare (64 goals scored) while the Timbers...did not (just 53 goals scored), but even that merely spies the tip of the explanatory iceberg. A number of teams made the post-season with worse goal differentials than the Timbers – e.g., Minnesota United FC (-3) and Real Salt Lake (-2) – and others made it on much worse – e.g., Inter Miami CF (-9) and Orlando City SC (also, -9). The Timbers wound up even on goal differential, but the numbers papered over the problem that plagued them throughout the 2022 season: their persistent shortcomings at chance creation.
I’ve obsessed over the Timbers 7-2 win over Sporting Kansas City back in mid-May since it happened. The game struck me as an anomaly then – SKC was a mess, the Timbers ran up the score in a way that didn’t match what came before and after, etc. - and that’s what it proved to be. And that peels a goal or five off the Timbers’ 53- goal total. Next up, referees handed the Timbers the second most penalty kicks in the league this season – 11 in all, 10 of which they scored – and penalty kicks are, strictly speaking, not explicit chance creation. It’s less a question of whether or not they earned the penalties, than the fact that getting a penalty involves the two-step process of the foul happening and the ref calling it, that some penalties happen less through an immediately dangerous situation than the fact the defense committed a foul in the area. You can’t count on them, in other words, the same way you can count on creating chances from open play. And that brings the conversation to the key distinction.
Cincinnati’s total goals scored for the season got its share of boosts throughout the 2022 season – starting with two recent wins against two of the league’s weakest teams – e.g., the San Jose Earthquakes (69 goals allowed) and DC United (71 goals allowed). The 11 goals scored against those pudding-soft defenses inflated that 64 goals-for total, no question, but there’s also no real question that Cincinnati sorted out both the personnel and the plan for scoring goals this season in a way that the Timbers never did. With a strong front three leading the way – Brenner (18 goals, 6 assists); Brandon Vasquez (18 goals, 8 assists) and Luciano Acosta (10 goals, 19 assists) – they didn’t need to rely on penalties and set-pieces the way the Timbers did. Sure, Portland benefitted from a share the wealth approach – and, if you want to feel good, they have more players on solid numbers – but, they never had a go-to scoring formula in 2022 and it showed when it counted. And, no, laying down and dying at the finale didn't help, but it's not like the collective cluelessness and flailing around goal was a new thing when Portland headed down to Utah.
Bottom line, you had two teams with the same problem – a leaky defense – but only one that was able to score their way out of it. I don’t mean to knock either set-pieces or, say, Bill Tuiloma scoring set-piece bangers, so much as to argue they make a far shakier formula for success than, say, knowing how to score off the run of play. The Timbers used to have that – and Diego Valeri was a massive part of that through the 2010s – but, between his departure and the talisman falling from Sebastian Blanco’s neck since the end-run of last season, they just don’t anymore. Worse, they’re going to have to find it if they want to get anywhere last season.
I’ll loop back for a requiem on the Timbers at a later date, but I wanted it to take a different shape than yet another extended case about they never found a reliable path to goal. As laid out above, Cincinnati has and that’s the main reason they’re in the 2022 playoffs – and with some realistic hope to advance beyond the first round – while Portland is not. And even if the Timbers made the 2022 post-season, I doubt many people saw them going deep.
And that’s the thing: the thought that follows from the doubts about them going deep explains why the Timbers failed to make the 2022 playoffs. Bluntly, something is missing from Portland this season; FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, has something – i.e., the talent and game-plan to actualy WIN a game. The next time you watch your team run into one of those do-or-dies down the stretch, that’s something to keep in mind.
Going the other way, and unlike past three seasons, watching the Timbers play all season while I watched/tracked Cincy had more value than it did in the past – i.e., most of the past three seasons saw the Timbers wake up sometime in late summer and roll into the playoffs, while Cincy typically started wilting somewhere around late may and continued to the end like some overwrought Shakespearian actor counting his wounds until he rather loudly expired. There has always been a whiff of ne’er the twain shall meet about the experience, in other words, but that changed with Major League Soccer’s 2022 season.
To start with the full disclosures, yes, I really did believe that both Cincinnati and Portland would make the 2022 playoffs. That bet panned out for one team – FC Cincinnati – but not the other...whose name shall go unmentioned. Both teams needed to get something out of their final game of the season - Real Salt Lake away for Portland and DC United away for Cincy. I read both of those games as winnable, hence the whole thing about both teams making the 2022 playoffs, but I also overlooked something, arguably out of habit. The thing that makes that remarkable was how obvious it should have been in retrospect. And that goes back to something I would never expected going into 2022 – i.e., how similar Cincy and Portland would be by season’s end.
First and foremost, Portland and Cincinnati tied a lot - 13 games per team, i.e., tied for second under 2022’s undisputed masters of sharing points, Columbus Crew SC (who had 16 draws and who also missed the playoffs). Another fun fact (and unless I miscounted): Cincy and Portland had only six clean sheets all season, a detail that points to something else that’s obvious - i.e., both teams gave up goals with very real reliability. By the final tally, Cincinnati actually gave up three more goals than Portland did, 56 to 53. Moreover, just four points separated the two teams. And yet Cincy’s in while Portland’s out. And yet, that’s not even the weird part.
Both teams finished above the league average in goals for too. The bar was 50.4 goals scored, a total Cincinnati cleared it with room to spare (64 goals scored) while the Timbers...did not (just 53 goals scored), but even that merely spies the tip of the explanatory iceberg. A number of teams made the post-season with worse goal differentials than the Timbers – e.g., Minnesota United FC (-3) and Real Salt Lake (-2) – and others made it on much worse – e.g., Inter Miami CF (-9) and Orlando City SC (also, -9). The Timbers wound up even on goal differential, but the numbers papered over the problem that plagued them throughout the 2022 season: their persistent shortcomings at chance creation.
I’ve obsessed over the Timbers 7-2 win over Sporting Kansas City back in mid-May since it happened. The game struck me as an anomaly then – SKC was a mess, the Timbers ran up the score in a way that didn’t match what came before and after, etc. - and that’s what it proved to be. And that peels a goal or five off the Timbers’ 53- goal total. Next up, referees handed the Timbers the second most penalty kicks in the league this season – 11 in all, 10 of which they scored – and penalty kicks are, strictly speaking, not explicit chance creation. It’s less a question of whether or not they earned the penalties, than the fact that getting a penalty involves the two-step process of the foul happening and the ref calling it, that some penalties happen less through an immediately dangerous situation than the fact the defense committed a foul in the area. You can’t count on them, in other words, the same way you can count on creating chances from open play. And that brings the conversation to the key distinction.
Cincinnati’s total goals scored for the season got its share of boosts throughout the 2022 season – starting with two recent wins against two of the league’s weakest teams – e.g., the San Jose Earthquakes (69 goals allowed) and DC United (71 goals allowed). The 11 goals scored against those pudding-soft defenses inflated that 64 goals-for total, no question, but there’s also no real question that Cincinnati sorted out both the personnel and the plan for scoring goals this season in a way that the Timbers never did. With a strong front three leading the way – Brenner (18 goals, 6 assists); Brandon Vasquez (18 goals, 8 assists) and Luciano Acosta (10 goals, 19 assists) – they didn’t need to rely on penalties and set-pieces the way the Timbers did. Sure, Portland benefitted from a share the wealth approach – and, if you want to feel good, they have more players on solid numbers – but, they never had a go-to scoring formula in 2022 and it showed when it counted. And, no, laying down and dying at the finale didn't help, but it's not like the collective cluelessness and flailing around goal was a new thing when Portland headed down to Utah.
Bottom line, you had two teams with the same problem – a leaky defense – but only one that was able to score their way out of it. I don’t mean to knock either set-pieces or, say, Bill Tuiloma scoring set-piece bangers, so much as to argue they make a far shakier formula for success than, say, knowing how to score off the run of play. The Timbers used to have that – and Diego Valeri was a massive part of that through the 2010s – but, between his departure and the talisman falling from Sebastian Blanco’s neck since the end-run of last season, they just don’t anymore. Worse, they’re going to have to find it if they want to get anywhere last season.
I’ll loop back for a requiem on the Timbers at a later date, but I wanted it to take a different shape than yet another extended case about they never found a reliable path to goal. As laid out above, Cincinnati has and that’s the main reason they’re in the 2022 playoffs – and with some realistic hope to advance beyond the first round – while Portland is not. And even if the Timbers made the 2022 post-season, I doubt many people saw them going deep.
And that’s the thing: the thought that follows from the doubts about them going deep explains why the Timbers failed to make the 2022 playoffs. Bluntly, something is missing from Portland this season; FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, has something – i.e., the talent and game-plan to actualy WIN a game. The next time you watch your team run into one of those do-or-dies down the stretch, that’s something to keep in mind.
Watching the two teams from 2019 through your eyes, I feel that since Cincy had such an improbably bad, on-pitch start to its MLS life, the way forward could only be up. And so it has gone. Credit to them for not despairing and making the 2022 playoffs.
ReplyDeleteThe Timbers in that same time span seemed to live a precarious charmed life. Often over-achieving despite the talent assortment. Always strong in one area and woeful in another. Always riding their luck rather than methodically grinding towards a long-term vision. That theory of club management has to have the wheels come off at some point. Not surprised that the bill came due on Sunday. I just think the whole team wanted it all to be over.
On the last point....yeah, pretty sure they wanted to put the whole year behind them.
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