Portland Timbers 0-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: How Hell Works

Marvin did that again? And again? And again? And again?

There was this band in Pullman, Washington way back when called Ignatius, who had a song titled “Waxing Pathetic.” Wish I could find that one right now...

FC Cincinnati played profoundly unwatchable soccer for three solid years. Just head-up-your-ass aimless stuff that made you wonder why they bothered.. I bring that up to explain this tweet:

“My spectator-sports life has come full circle: watching Portland feels like watching FC Cincy used to and vice versa.”

Maybe someone with a gambler’s personality/pathology could look at the last 10 minutes of the Portland Timbers’ exhausting and goal-less home draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy and talk himself into believing they’re due for something better. After 80 minutes of material that, frankly, insulted the concept of nothing, the Timbers finally located the goal and tried to put the ball in it – something long-time fans might recognize as the prime directive of the beautiful game. The increasingly maligned Jaroslaw Niezgoda fired his first shot – and the Timbers’ only shot on goal – at the 89th minute; that’s almost certainly the closest Portland ever came and Niezgoda would slice a header wide just minutes later. Justin Rasmussen fired a good, if tricky look into the stands some time later: and, yeah, that covers close to everything the Timbers did in the attack today.

Nearly everything outside of that fell somewhere between useless and dispiriting. A couple isolated moments aside, Portland hasn’t had an attack worthy of the name all seaosn. I’ll tease out a couple reasons why below – forgive me if I’ve made the same notes before, but also blame the Timbers for doing the same flailing shit over and over again – but I’d call that the second most disturbing thing about what has been a god-awful start to the 2023 season. The first thing: a genuine, thoroughgoing and baffling inability to either hold onto the ball or do something with it – and over stretches of the game that somehow feel longer than the game. I’m pretty sure that’s how Hell works, by the way...

The Galaxy, meanwhile, have some light ruing of their own to do. They never dominated the game, but they did enough to push 50/50 to 60/40 in their favor for most of the first half. They pinged two shots off Portland’s post – one by forward Preston Judd in the first half, and another by the lively Memo Rodriguez on a free-kick (I think) in the second – Gaston Brugman came within a couple fingertips of lobbing David Bingham somewhere in the first five minutes, and they had a couple other good looks besides. The Galaxy moved the ball pretty well, too, or at least they seemed to know where to look for the next pass more often than not (and literally doubled the Timbers on number of passes); if Portland can claim a win on defense, it was forcing Riqui Puig to get on the ball at the base of LA’s attack and thus endeth the list.

Didn't say it was a good pod.

For all that, I doubt LA fans are crowing too loud after this one. They remain winless, for one, and there doesn't seem to be a team they can beat. Worse, their defenders risked the game by teeing up Portland’s best chances with late-game bobbles; had they handled those cleanly they would have kept the Timbers off the board entirely. And yet, when all’s said and done, how much really separates Portland from LA? Both teams have started...not well and they both feel some combination of hostility and disappointment toward their respective front offices. Peas in a pod, basically, even on the scoreboard.

I’m dedicating the rest of this post to excoriating just about everything about the Timbers, so feel free to tap out. Finding new and engaging ways to say things ain’t going well doesn’t come easy and there’s very little doubt that I’ll repeat myself.

Before beginning, I hereby exempt several players from the criticism that comes below – or most of it anyway. It takes a village to suck this bad and the Timbers have built that village, but I didn’t find much to fault in either the performances or energy of Nathan Fogaca, Claudio Bravo, Dario Zuparic and Zac McGraw. And of all those players, I’d argue that only McGraw looked actually good; Fogaca caused problems, which I appreciate, particularly in context, but I also suspect you can see him bump against his ceiling out there.

Now, let’s get in the digs.

Wish-Casting v Passing
I don’t know how many times a Timbers player tried to play a ball over the top, but they neither got sick of it nor deterred by the number of times it failed to produce anything but a turnover. Did they think the player they passed to was two times as fast or 10 yards further up the field when they hit it? Who’s to say? Did it come from a lack of confidence in playing the ball up-field? If so, is that better than a deliberate tactical choice?

I don’t know the answer to these questions and many others. I only know I want it to stop. Very much related to, those hopeful up-field passes came off every now and then. Sadly, they fell to...

Unplug Marvin
If only to keep the threads of my fandom together, I have to believe the Timbers can do better than Marvin Loria for a starter. Between his touch, his decision-making and speed of thought, this is a man clearly out of his depth and no closer to the surface than he has ever been. It’s time to pull the plug. And did my eyes (and the official line-up) deceive me, or did Santiago Moreno really play deeper than that guy? Fucking mysterious, honestly. Now, for less mysterious things...

What’s Really Breaking My Brain
If you can pull your attention away from all the nothing that’s happening on the ball, turn it toward the goings-on off the ball often as you can, because that's where the real action, or lack of it, is. To pick up on the theme of last week’s post on the loss to Atlanta – and hopefully clarify the argument – the Timbers’ attacking players show no signs of knowing what to do any time a teammate gets on the ball. To throw Loria a life-jacket, those long hopeful passes often isolated him on the right; as much as he struggled to stay on the ball (often, sometimes suddenly), the rest of the team did very little to support him. Sadly, that general, brain-stuck malaise happens all over the field. I’m seeing too few players show for the ball, and virtually no players making runs to open space for....well, anything. It’s not unlike ball-watching, only on the attacking side: too many players stay where they are and watch the player on the ball and with, at most, vague interest. They don't seem to understand that being on the field and wearing the same jersey means they have some role to play in moving things along and making them better.

As noted multiple times now, this is absolutely killing the Timbers’ attack. To be clear, I don’t expect players to run their legs off with constant movement – and not just because I’m waiting for the next hammy to pop – but there simply has to be some movement to make the attack work. Whether trotting toward the player on the ball to pick up a pass and open up a fresh angle, a darting diagonal sprint to give a defender something to think about, or even ghosting behind a defender’s shoulder, professional soccer players should know to do those things – and the good ones should appreciate that everyone doing the same thing at once poses its own problems. At this point, I’m just flabbergasted at how very little the Timbers do in the attack. You know who’s doing even worse?

Come Back, Juan David!
Pablo Bonilla helped LA’s defense more than Portland’s attack today. My God, all those half-blind crosses to nowhere. Juan David Mosquera can’t get back soon enough.

Hold on: One More Positive
Eric Miller didn’t play long, but he looked smart and composed while he did. Again, I’m a fan of a back-three and would love to see Miller get a shot in there with Zup and McGraw. That way, when Mosquera comes back, Portland can try to push he and Bravo higher knowing they have at least some cover. Now, back to the negatives...

Gio Out?
Yeah, I’m officially there. The Aljaz Ivacic quotes aside – which, for the record, seem to disturb me less than most – I don’t know what to call what I’m seeing but rot. I’ve seen enough bad soccer to know when things have slipped to something even worse and everything about the Timbers feels about a year and a half into a funk (I’m counting from the 2021 MLS Playoffs to today). Yeah, yeah, the injuries, the lack of new blood, but everything about Portland feels stale, like something you only consume out of duty. Things haven’t been fun, never mind exciting, for some time.

Moreover, now feels like a good time to get a new coach involved. The Timbers feel like they’re on the cusp of a new era, so why not have someone new come in and introduce some new ideas along with some new players?

Penso & Penalties
I buried the missed penalty call all the way down here for a reason – and was that Martin Caceres who tackled Fogaca in the first half? The reason isn’t complicated either: a successful penalty kick and a win built into that performance wouldn’t have changed my opinion of what I saw from Portland today. It’s possible they’ll miss those three points later, but nothing I’ve seen so far tells me they’ll matter.

That’s it. All I can say is I’m glad it’s over. Till the next fiasco...