Portland Timbers 2023 Preview: In the Eye of the Moshpit

One of my several sides...

The Portland Timbers...did not have the greatest 2022 season, as evidenced by last year's final standings:

1. Los Angeles FC (67 pts., 21-9-4, 68 gf, 38 ga, +28)
2. Austin FC (56 pts. (16-10-8, 65 gf, 49 ga, +16)
3. FC Dallas (53 pts., 14-9-11, 48 gf, 37 ga, +11)
4. Los Angeles Galaxy (50 pts., 14-12-8, 58 gf, 51 ga, +7)
5. Nashville SC (50 pts., 13-10-11, 52 gf, 41 ga, +11)
6. Minnesota United FC (48 pts., 14-14-6, 48 gf, 51 ga, -3)
7. Real Salt Lake (47 pts., 12-11-11, 43 gf, 45 ga, -2)
PLAYOFF LINE_________________________________
8. Portland Timbers (46 pts., 11-10-13, 53 gf, 53 ga, 0)
9. Vancouver Whitecaps (43 pts., 12-15-7, 40 gf, 57 ga, -17)
10. Colorado Rapids (43 pts., 11-13-10, 46 g, f, 57 ga, -11)
11. Seattle Sounders (41 pts., 12-17-5, 47 gf, 46 ga, +1)
12. Sporting Kansas City* (40 pts., 11-16-7, 42 gf, 54 ga, -12)
13. Houston Dynamo FC (36 pts., 10-18-6, 43 gf, 56 ga, -13)
14. San Jose Earthquakes (35 pts., 8-15-11, 52 gf, 69 ga, -17)

(* Can the people at MLSSoccer.com kindly decide where this team fits in the alphabet?)

So...how’s 2023 looking so far?

There's a whiff of a hospital ward, for one, courtesy of an injury list that reads too much like Tinkers to Evers to Chance. To recap: Dairon Asprilla will miss the first month, month and a half (knee; maybe knock it off with the backflips?); current back-up d-mid David Ayala will miss the first two months; Felipe Mora likely won’t make a starting eleven until the July and we still don’t know how much Sebastian Blanco the team will get when all's said and done. There’s probably more (there is more, isn’t there?), but, in brighter news (even if I don’t think this view counts as universal), Claudio Bravo will only miss the first couple weeks of the season. Brighter still, with the exception of Asprilla, that list and those timelines started counting from February 3, so Timbers fans could be closer to hail, hail the gang’s all here than they know...but is the gang enough?

None of that feels great, obviously, but nothing set the doubts in my head a-wailin’ as the news that Portland had traded Bill Tuiloma to Charlotte FC for a big pile of MLS Funny Money (GAM? TAM? Oompa Loompa Buckz? Does it matter?). I’ve been anxiously eyeing the Timbers backline since 2022 wrapped up early hoping, praying and wishing that the front office would do something besides cover up for abusers (sorry; too easy), and then what do they go and do besides yank another plank out of the teetering Jenga tower?

Not all accomplishments are equal...

The offseason wasn’t just an endless parade of bad news, fortunately, and the Timbers’ biggest swing – Evander – looks to have connected so far. I saw clips of him score a couple smart goals in the Coachella Valley Invitational – i.e., both opportunistic half-gimmes that followed from him knowing where to be – and the good news doesn’t stop there: the Timbers went undefeated over preseason, posting a 3-0-1 record. The bad cop in me can’t help but point out that, in MLS terms, Portland played the preseason equivalent of Monday crosswords (i.e., Toronto FC remains a work-in-progress, New York City FC tore down its roster and has yet to put it back together again and the Los Angeles Galaxy’s fans are pissed at their team to the point of boycott), but the good cop comes back with a ready answer and a reassuring smile: they won all those games, didn’t they?

To switch to meteorological metaphors, I’d call the outlook mostly cloudy – and with rain not at all out of the question. And yet I find myself unusually excited about Portland’s 2023 season. Why?

Because I have no fucking idea what’s going to happen. Oh yes, indeed, it's fun time.

As anyone who has followed MLS for any amount of time knows, a mid-summer addition or two can do wonders for a middling team – provided they can keep within touching distance of the playoff line before that player/those players arrive – and that line of thinking rhymes with front office chatter about signing a young DP forward at some point this season. I also have to imagine that Bill’s exit and resultant funds opens up the possibility of (please and thank you) signing a starting-caliber center back to fill the hole he left on the field (though never in my heart). I don’t know a damn thing about roster construction and don’t care to educate myself, but if the front office hasn’t mapped out of good and wise path, fuck it, that’s on them...but surely they’ve done that...right?

At any rate, and sticking with the weather metaphors (because who wants to be a cop?), it’s possible Timbers fans will see the sun again at the end of the 2023 season. And now the pivot:

The remainder of this post looks at the rest of the Western Conference and from the particular perspective of identifying the teams that have a better than average chance of boxing the Timbers out of the 2023 playoffs (in whichever shape they may take...and can we get on with it, MLS HQ?). If you think of the whole thing as a trip to the beach, the teams I’m looking to identify are the assholes who will hoist their umbrella between the Timbers and the bright, shining sunlight they (may or may not) deserve to bask in.

I’m going to start by getting a couple teams out of the way. First and foremost, the league bumped Nashville SC to the Eastern Conference for this season, which should spare Portland from a pair of goal-less and/or low-scoring draws. MLS did that to make room for league newbies St. Louis CITY FC, of course, but I’ll do you the favor of not pretending I know anything about them. As with every team mentioned in this post, I did a little poking around on them and, despite its age, have decided to use this sentence from Matt Doyle’s Western Conference depth-chart post to sum them up:

“Anyway, St. Louis got themselves a DP No. 9 (good) and a DP goalkeeper (erm…), a bunch of veterans at center back (I like that), some talented kids to develop on the wings (that’s good), one workmanlike mid-20s central midfielder, two workmanlike mid-20s fullbacks and a few open questions.”

In a separate post, where Doyle posited one question for every team in the Western Conference, he directed his at St. Louis’ goalkeeper, Roman Burki, and seeing the player of literal last resort flagged as the most significant piece on the field is rarely a good sign for any team. So, that’s one team out of the playoff picture (prove me wrong, St. Louis, prove me wrong). Which leaves 12 teams to go...

I got a little carried away in my Eastern Conference/FC Cincinnati preview and hope to tighten this one up a bit and in more ways the one. If nothing else, I hope to be more confident in declaring this or that team a threat. With that, let’s get into it and see how it goes. And, again, don’t read anything into the order, as this is organized solely from the perspective of tiers.

Teams That Worry Me, aka, Playoff Bound
Los Angeles FC: The Rich Get Richer, Because America
Over the offseason, fans across the league watched in horror and disbelief as LAFC added one sturdy (e.g., Aaron (fucking) Long) or promising (e.g., Denil Maldonado and Stipe Biuk) after another. There was a little subtraction, of course – letting go of the ever-reliable Latif Blessing couldn’t have been easy and I’m still wondering why they didn’t press harder to keep Cristian Arango – but last year’s double winners (Cup and Shield) look like a damnably solid bet to make the 2023 playoffs...which is all they need to do to swipe one of the available spots.

Austin FC: Room to Underperform
I hereby declare all the jabs about how much this team over-performed in 2022 the greatest running gag of season. Also, I’m mindful of that as I place them in the rarefied air of teams that will make the 2023 playoffs. Even if one accepts they won’t score as many goals this season as they did last, Austin didn’t lose much in the offseason (e.g., the largely unused Danny Hoesen and, was he ever used(?) Tomas Pochettino) and they added players on both ends of the field – e.g., Gyasi Zardes on one end and Leo Vaisanen and Amro Tarek on the other - who should give them a punter's chance at keeping the goal differential both positive and wide. They didn’t have a “wow” preseason – i.e., they went 2-2-1, with both losses coming against MLS teams and padded their record by beating up on USL teams – but they kept a good foundation.

FC Dallas: Steady as She Goes
To repeat something I’ve said many times, I don’t think people fully appreciate how reliably Dallas makes the post-season (they’ve missed just twice since 2014). A lot of last year’s success followed from having the 2nd-best defense in MLS (only Philly did better and they were literally insane) and, yes, they did lose Matt Hedges and I’m not wholly convinced they’ve replaced him. And yet they returned enough of the core – at least for me – to convince me they’ll keep just as close to the top in 2023...and that was before they sent Brandon Servania (a good player) to Toronto in exchange for Jesus Jimenez. From what little I’ve seen of the latter, he should provide an upgrade for the (rightly) departed Franco Jara. If this team can increase it’s scoring, I figure they’ve got...call it eight goals they could give away over the season without doing real damage to the cause.

So, that’s three spots of...seven(? eight?) playoff spots gone. Moving on...

Portland’s Peers(?)
Seattle Sounders: Standing Pat on a Bluff?
This one’s a bit impulsive, but I’m basing this on the theory that the Sounders might held on to some players for too long, thereby aging out of their prime seasons. Going the other way, I’m a big fan of/fretter over Joao Paulo and feel like he’s enough to make Seattle’s roster work on his own (For new readers: I fixate on defensive midfield.) And, sure, doubting the Sounders is the MLS equivalent of starting a land war in Asia, but they’re thin at the back (and Matt Doyle raised the possibility they’ll lose Xavier Arreaga), the whole setup feels, for lack of a better word, stale, and I’m not sure Heber makes up a cavalry all on his lonesome (and, yes, I’m a total hardass on homegrown players...except FC Dallas’). Because they got thrown into the Club World Cup (and did okay), they didn’t have a real preseason, but Seattle still strikes me as a team with a couple things to figure out.

Real Salt Lake, The Bad Penny
I can hear the gasps out there, but hear me out. First, RSL has an impressive track record when it comes to making the post season. Thus endeth my case for them. I kid, I kid. They shipped at least one key piece when they sent Aaron Herrera to Club de Foot Montreal and there’s an open question as to whether and/or how much of Damir Kreilach they’ll get back for 2023. They’ll almost certainly be better if Kreilach returns, especially with Jefferson Savarino firing crosses in from one side and new record signing Carlos Andres Gomez doing it from the other, but if anything bears noting in this conversation, it’s the fact that they made the 2022 playoffs without Kreilach. Sure, it took Portland violently choking on the final day of the season to get them in, but I’ve developed a habit of not counting RSL out.

Vancouver Whitecaps: Completing the Eternal Rebuild
I’ve seen people call the Whitecaps roster some version of the word “stuffed” for what feels like 20 seasons now, but I can’t help but notice they’ve only made the playoffs once over the past five seasons. They also cleaned house for what feels like the 20th time, getting rid of mainstays like Lucas Cavallini and Jake Nerwinski, and even once-hyped players like Caio Alexandre, Leonard Owusu, and Toisant Ricketts. On the positive side, they completed a pair of big moves over the past week, picking Sergio Cordova’s rights from RSL and landing Yohei Takaoka, aka, “the Nick Rimando of the J-League,” and they held onto solid pieces like Julian Gressel, Andres Cubas (great when healthy) and Ryan Gauld (tho he regressed a patch in 2022). Scoring more would have been...good in 2022 (they were among league-worst), but that probably didn’t hurt them nearly as badly as ranking among the worst defenses in MLS. They’ll succeed in 2023 to extent they can push against last season’s -17 goal differential from both sides – i.e., Cordova on one end and Takaoka, with an assist from young, yet experienced Uruguayan center back Mathias Laborda on the other.

Mystery Meat
San Jose Earthquakes: Was It All Self-Sabotage?
Based on what little I’ve seen, few teams have drawn hype quite like San Jose. That’s a bit surprising, if only because they haven’t done all that much – i.e., a known quantity here in Vancouver’s Michael Baldisimo and big(ger) splash there by bringing back d-mid Carlos Gruezo – but it feels a like a good chunk of the hype follows from a belief that they’ll leave the self-sabotage of the Matias Almeyda years behind them. They do have good speed up the wings between Cristian Espinoza and Cade Cowell (tho the latter still needs some polish) and adding to the midfield built around Jamiro Monteiro and Jackson Yueill should make them hell to beat. I, like all Timbers fans, love Jeremy Ebobisse, but they’re probably still one forward away from genuinely competitive. All in all, if new (to them) coach Luchi Gonzalez can restore coherence to this roster, they could become a real problem.

Los Angeles Galaxy: Their Own (and Their Fans') Worst Enemy
Of all the teams that made the playoffs out of the Western Conference last season, the Galaxy strikes me as the most likely to fall out (so that’s one space freed up!). For all the very real talent on the roster – e.g., Chicharito (who wilted las season), Raheem Edwards, and Riqui Puig – the latter, in particular, follows LA’s peculiar pattern of post-glory days roster construction, i.e., surrounding one big-name player with something between averageness and mediocrity. The boiled-over frustration among Galaxy supporters’ groups tells me I’m not the only one seeing this. As such, I wouldn’t hold their stock too closely.

Colorado Rapids: Over My Skis. Again.
To start with a warning: I have a history of getting weird around this team and/or overrating them. You’d think their fairly dismal 2022 would knock me out of that, but...nope. They addressed last season’s biggest problem – the defense – with the signing of Andreas Maxso, or they attempted to at least, and they added Irish midfielder Connor Ronan to give talismanic midfielder Jack Price some support in midfield. If nothing else, last season’s defensive shit-show moved them to get crazy-deep at every position back there, except goalkeeper. Even as I don’t know how much they’re going to get out of Diego Rubio, and even with Doyle questioning how much they’ll get out of their new wingers – e.g., Calvin Harris from Cincinnati (who has never really impressed me) and Kevin Cabral (the butt of almost as many jabs as Austin FC) – getting their defense squared strikes me as the right move. I’d call them another team to keep an eye on...and those are adding up, yeah?

Houston Dynamo FC: They Can't Go Much Bigger
Texas’ orangest team went a little nuts in the trade/transfer market over the offseason, adding what comes perilously close to an entirely new team. Some faces are familiar – e.g., capable right back Brad Smith (from...lost track; he’s moved around) and Artur (from Columbus) – while some are not – e.g., Moroccan (sometime?) international winger Amine Bassi – but at least one of the big questions is how much new, and even more familiar head coach Ben Olsen can get out of them (and will he suck all the fun out of the experience, as he is wont to do?). Houston shipped some very key players – e.g., veteran center back Tim Parker, Darwin Ceren and Matias Vera – while keeping enough players to maintain reasonable continuity. Some large part of how they do will turn on how much Hector Herrera can add in his first full season and, as much as I like some parts (e.g., Adelberto Carrasquilla) Houston has a lot of bad history and the work of fitting it all together to overcome. Call these guys a dark horse...maybe even the darkest of horses.

Minnesota United FC: One Big, Inescapable Question
Minnesota is a fairly dull and plodding team with Emmaneul Reynoso, but that’s a fair patch better than they are without – as it appears they could be at this point. Few teams in MLS have the same question hanging over them, and yet here they are. I expect them to remain a pain in the ass even if Reynoso carries on with the sulking in his tent, but it’ll take a lot – up to and including a signing to somehow replace Reynoso – for them to actively compete.

Sporting Kansas City: Can We Agree Mistakes Were Made?
I don’t know how a fully professional sports organization allows itself to get as thin in central defense as SKC did over the offseason, but, with Kortne Ford down for the 2023 season, they literally have just two center backs, Andreu Fountas and German youngster, Robert Voloder. For all the justified excitement around last season’s late additions, Erik Thommy (midfielder) and William Agada (forward), I see too much age (e.g., Graham Zusi and Roger Espinoza) and inconsistency (e.g., Daniel Salloi and Johnny Russell) for this team to present as competitive. And, no, I won’t be surpirsed at all if I’m eating these words after Portland's season opener.

That should be everybody. Put it all together and that’s six teams that I see as having a better than average chance of making the 2023 playoffs. To state the obvious, that doesn’t leave a lot of room for my Portland Timbers – and that math only gets worse if teams like San Jose, Colorado, or, to get real crazy, Houston bestirs themselves into something dangerous. Long story short, I expect to see Portland in the thick of things for most of 2023, and not in a good way. And I’m oddly here for that....