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| Fuck it. |
May as well start where the game did – i.e., with the line-up the Portland Timbers chose to field in a, for them, semi-existential Sunday afternoon. They lined up the now-familiar back three, if with the personnel gently scrambled, and Juan Mosquera and Claudio Bravo on either side of Diego Chara and Cristhian Paredes in a four-man midfield. Mosquera and Bravo played as fully-modern fullbacks - dropping back to defend and running into the attack, as needed., etc. The slightest riff on the more of the same, in other words.
The real place of curiosity, at least for me, was the front line: Dairon Asprilla and Santiago Moreno on either side of Jaroslaw Niezgoda – or at least that’s how ESPN’s broadcast had it. Then again, I’m looking at the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey version The Mothership posted as official line-up, and who really knows at this point? Assuming I have it right – i.e., Asprilla, Niezgoda and Moreno up top – the big question going in was whether that set of players knew how to handle and/or finish shot creation. Based on what I saw online, the reaction was equal parts underwhelmed and confused; “consternation” sums it up nicely.
As for me, I greeted the line-up with...all right. The broadcast team hepped me to a couple things I didn’t know – e.g., Eryk Williamson had a compromised hamstrung – but I didn’t mind it or could at least find some kind of logic to it. That assumed, however, that Timbers head coach, Giovanni Savarese, held the same thoughts in his head – e.g., that he would play a cautious first half, then trickle in game-changers like Eryk Williamson and Sebastian Blanco to salt away the big, playoff-clinching win. In short, it all made sense to me so long as Gio did certain things at certain times. For instance, get his game-changers into the game with enough time to find it.
Back in the game that happened – i.e., the Timbers 1-2 home loss to Los Angeles FC - Savarese didn’t introduce Yimmi Chara and Williamson until the 74th minute. I can’t say that cost them the game (I don’t do counterfactuals), but that doesn’t feel like enough time for most attacking players to get hold of a game. Yimmi’s special - 90 minutes may not be enough for him - but I would have liked to see another 10 minutes or more for Eryk; it’s not like Jaroslaw Niezgoda did much outside one shining moment early in the 2nd half, after all. Moreover, Eryk strikes me as the kind of player who needs some time to figure out who’s picking up what he’s dropping; Niezgoda’s seems the same, for what it's worth, but I gave up on seeing Gio put him anywhere besides the front line months ago.
Put it all together and you have the Timbers playing a low-risk, low-reward attacking set-up for 74 minutes. Blanco didn’t even come on till the 86th minute, aka, half-past after “why bother?” Had LAFC not scored the go-ahead goal at the 51s minute, maybe none of that matters. But they did. It wasn’t egregious by any means – and credit to Kellyn Acosta for hitting Portland’s weakside when it opened, and Carlos Vela slipped in the shiv – but the damage was real and immediate. You can fault the Timbers defense for that, sure, but, if you’ve watched this team all 2022-long and you haven’t priced the Timbers allowing a goal into your game-day calculations...I got nothing for you, man. The deeper problem resides where it always has, in other words: Portland’s limitations with chance creation. I don’t know how saying that about a team with the eighth-most goals scored all season makes sense, but it does.
The real place of curiosity, at least for me, was the front line: Dairon Asprilla and Santiago Moreno on either side of Jaroslaw Niezgoda – or at least that’s how ESPN’s broadcast had it. Then again, I’m looking at the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey version The Mothership posted as official line-up, and who really knows at this point? Assuming I have it right – i.e., Asprilla, Niezgoda and Moreno up top – the big question going in was whether that set of players knew how to handle and/or finish shot creation. Based on what I saw online, the reaction was equal parts underwhelmed and confused; “consternation” sums it up nicely.
As for me, I greeted the line-up with...all right. The broadcast team hepped me to a couple things I didn’t know – e.g., Eryk Williamson had a compromised hamstrung – but I didn’t mind it or could at least find some kind of logic to it. That assumed, however, that Timbers head coach, Giovanni Savarese, held the same thoughts in his head – e.g., that he would play a cautious first half, then trickle in game-changers like Eryk Williamson and Sebastian Blanco to salt away the big, playoff-clinching win. In short, it all made sense to me so long as Gio did certain things at certain times. For instance, get his game-changers into the game with enough time to find it.
Back in the game that happened – i.e., the Timbers 1-2 home loss to Los Angeles FC - Savarese didn’t introduce Yimmi Chara and Williamson until the 74th minute. I can’t say that cost them the game (I don’t do counterfactuals), but that doesn’t feel like enough time for most attacking players to get hold of a game. Yimmi’s special - 90 minutes may not be enough for him - but I would have liked to see another 10 minutes or more for Eryk; it’s not like Jaroslaw Niezgoda did much outside one shining moment early in the 2nd half, after all. Moreover, Eryk strikes me as the kind of player who needs some time to figure out who’s picking up what he’s dropping; Niezgoda’s seems the same, for what it's worth, but I gave up on seeing Gio put him anywhere besides the front line months ago.
Put it all together and you have the Timbers playing a low-risk, low-reward attacking set-up for 74 minutes. Blanco didn’t even come on till the 86th minute, aka, half-past after “why bother?” Had LAFC not scored the go-ahead goal at the 51s minute, maybe none of that matters. But they did. It wasn’t egregious by any means – and credit to Kellyn Acosta for hitting Portland’s weakside when it opened, and Carlos Vela slipped in the shiv – but the damage was real and immediate. You can fault the Timbers defense for that, sure, but, if you’ve watched this team all 2022-long and you haven’t priced the Timbers allowing a goal into your game-day calculations...I got nothing for you, man. The deeper problem resides where it always has, in other words: Portland’s limitations with chance creation. I don’t know how saying that about a team with the eighth-most goals scored all season makes sense, but it does.
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| The car Portland is driving to the end. |
To their credit, the Timbers attack did respond. Individual players got after and onto the ball with more energy – Moreno gets the gold star here, as usual, and I’m handing Bravo the runner-up sticker on that – but that Point A struggled to find its Point B more often than not. They had a run of good chances somewhere in the mid-late 50s (e.g., this was Bravo off the crossbar and Paredes teeing up a good, close-range chance; both are probably in here somewhere), but that was fairly isolated and LAFC’s Maxime Crepeau kept out anything that got past his defense. The Timbers attack fired on two or three cylinders for most of the game, but Gio still rode that horse for 20+ minutes before trying anything or anyone different. Again, the team responded – and, here, it absolutely bears pointing out that the two Timbers who combined for the Timbers' 81st equalizer had been on from the beginning (Bravo to Asprilla) – but Gio had ample reasons to come up with a response of his own. And he yet he stood pat. No one can say getting that Williamson on the field earlier would have changed the game, but why not find out?
LAFC scored a late winner, of course, on a Denis Bouanga run up the then-abandoned Timbers’ right and that has consequences – chief among them, the fact that the Timbers will (probably) miss the 2022 playoffs if they lose in Utah next weekend. I saw some concerns about Larrys Mabiala’s recovery speed and, while that’s not some outlandish talking point, I file that under “Things That Happen When a Team Chases the Game.” He wouldn’t be up that high and his recovery speed not an issue, but for Portland throwing the kitchen sink, et. al., in the service of chasing the victory they never caught up to.
On the plus side, none of the above really changes the one mission that Portland can control, i.e., staying above Real Salt Lake. They can buy that with either a win or a tie in Salt Lake next Sunday...and I, like you, would feel a whole lot better about that if the thing about Portland reliably giving up a goal or two hadn’t take up permanent residence in the back of my mind, but those aren’t bad odds for making the post season. RSL will make them fight for it, but they didn’t wind up 8th in the West and with a -4 goal-differential, and after an insanely above-talent start, because they’re world-beaters. Overall, they’re a team that’s just a little bit less average than the Timbers – i.e., beatable or, failing that, drawable. At the end of it all, only the Timbers can make me write their obituary next weekend.
On the individual player side, the things that have worked all season – e.g., Diego Chara buying the team more time than they (literally) know what to do with, Moreno breaking lines with dribbles, Aljaz Ivacic bailing out the Timbers – continued to work. The things that didn’t – e.g.,...all the above, really – continued to fall short of best-case scenarios. The 2022 season has been a precarious one throughout and I don’t know why I expected anything different by now than the Timbers having a better view of their grave. They can walk away from it or into it next weekend.
That’s it. Just a couple talking points, but they all fall under one theme:
The Island of Mis-fit Players
In many ways, the notes above boil down to a case for acceptance. The defense is what it is, the offense's play on the insanity cliche (i.e., trying the same pointless thing over and over) isn’t going anywhere, etc. The same thing applies to players who I see getting grief after every game. In no particular order.
Claudio Bravo
He’s a lot less frustrating if you think of him as the answer to the question, “why did the Timbers switch to a back three?” It’s not like he doesn’t defend – he leads the league on tackles won (and by a good stretch) – but between taking risks and straying out of position, Bravo has precipitated his share of breakdowns. Going the other way, he’s pretty handy going forward and was one of the more effective Timbers at that today and that’s not unusual. With him, it’s a matter of working around his strengths and weaknesses. Related, but also someone to new to the team to get any grief...
Juan Mosquera
He looks all right so far, and I’ll be interested to see how the Timbers balance what their fullbacks do going forward.
Jaroslaw Niesgoda
I remain convinced he could be a very good player in the right system. Trouble is, Portland does not run that system. I’d be open to a 3-5-2 where he runs off Asprilla...but that would have knock-on effects for the heart of that midfield five I haven’t yet sorted out. Worst case, I can see the front office getting some kind of value out of him. Sadly, the same thought doesn’t seem to apply to....
Yimmi Chara
I kept hearing either Taylor Twellman, Jon Champion or both puzzle over when Gio would get Yimmi on the field. This confused me because I couldn’t figure out how he would improve on the starting attacking set-up. Going the other way, he’s like the Timbers “goals for” numbers in human form – i.e., I don’t know how they happened, but numbers don’t lie.
And that’s all she wrote. Or all I did. One game to go, and plenty to play for...now, if only I could figure out an easy way to catch the game without catching hell for it.
LAFC scored a late winner, of course, on a Denis Bouanga run up the then-abandoned Timbers’ right and that has consequences – chief among them, the fact that the Timbers will (probably) miss the 2022 playoffs if they lose in Utah next weekend. I saw some concerns about Larrys Mabiala’s recovery speed and, while that’s not some outlandish talking point, I file that under “Things That Happen When a Team Chases the Game.” He wouldn’t be up that high and his recovery speed not an issue, but for Portland throwing the kitchen sink, et. al., in the service of chasing the victory they never caught up to.
On the plus side, none of the above really changes the one mission that Portland can control, i.e., staying above Real Salt Lake. They can buy that with either a win or a tie in Salt Lake next Sunday...and I, like you, would feel a whole lot better about that if the thing about Portland reliably giving up a goal or two hadn’t take up permanent residence in the back of my mind, but those aren’t bad odds for making the post season. RSL will make them fight for it, but they didn’t wind up 8th in the West and with a -4 goal-differential, and after an insanely above-talent start, because they’re world-beaters. Overall, they’re a team that’s just a little bit less average than the Timbers – i.e., beatable or, failing that, drawable. At the end of it all, only the Timbers can make me write their obituary next weekend.
On the individual player side, the things that have worked all season – e.g., Diego Chara buying the team more time than they (literally) know what to do with, Moreno breaking lines with dribbles, Aljaz Ivacic bailing out the Timbers – continued to work. The things that didn’t – e.g.,...all the above, really – continued to fall short of best-case scenarios. The 2022 season has been a precarious one throughout and I don’t know why I expected anything different by now than the Timbers having a better view of their grave. They can walk away from it or into it next weekend.
That’s it. Just a couple talking points, but they all fall under one theme:
The Island of Mis-fit Players
In many ways, the notes above boil down to a case for acceptance. The defense is what it is, the offense's play on the insanity cliche (i.e., trying the same pointless thing over and over) isn’t going anywhere, etc. The same thing applies to players who I see getting grief after every game. In no particular order.
Claudio Bravo
He’s a lot less frustrating if you think of him as the answer to the question, “why did the Timbers switch to a back three?” It’s not like he doesn’t defend – he leads the league on tackles won (and by a good stretch) – but between taking risks and straying out of position, Bravo has precipitated his share of breakdowns. Going the other way, he’s pretty handy going forward and was one of the more effective Timbers at that today and that’s not unusual. With him, it’s a matter of working around his strengths and weaknesses. Related, but also someone to new to the team to get any grief...
Juan Mosquera
He looks all right so far, and I’ll be interested to see how the Timbers balance what their fullbacks do going forward.
Jaroslaw Niesgoda
I remain convinced he could be a very good player in the right system. Trouble is, Portland does not run that system. I’d be open to a 3-5-2 where he runs off Asprilla...but that would have knock-on effects for the heart of that midfield five I haven’t yet sorted out. Worst case, I can see the front office getting some kind of value out of him. Sadly, the same thought doesn’t seem to apply to....
Yimmi Chara
I kept hearing either Taylor Twellman, Jon Champion or both puzzle over when Gio would get Yimmi on the field. This confused me because I couldn’t figure out how he would improve on the starting attacking set-up. Going the other way, he’s like the Timbers “goals for” numbers in human form – i.e., I don’t know how they happened, but numbers don’t lie.
And that’s all she wrote. Or all I did. One game to go, and plenty to play for...now, if only I could figure out an easy way to catch the game without catching hell for it.
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