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| Everything in its place. Step One. |
A kind of muddy result overall, if you ask me. The Portland Timbers created an advantage, yet struggled to exploit it; meanwhile, the San Jose Earthquakes have a decent argument that they can survive without some key starters – to be clear, that’s survive, not thrive.
A 0-0 draw by any other name, basically.
To credit a coaching staff that doesn’t often get it, Gio et. al. set up the team smartly, all the forks in the right places, and so on; to keep the credit flowing, they gambled on an approach and it paid off – handsomely, even. Given how much San Jose works up both flanks, playing four at the back made sense and starting Eric Miller, a purer defender than (the admittedly absent) Juan Davis Mosquera, neutralized Cade Cowell – at least until the ‘Quakes had him drop deeper to where he could receive the ball and attack the space in front of Miller. The gamble came with defending San Jose way up to their defensive third and, for what it’s worth, I believe Portland has a team that can do that in a way they haven’t in years. Italics in the word “defending” because I saw Portland collapse space as opposed to hunting the ball. That limited most potential over-committing, a good thing under most circumstances. One thing I want to note about that, both about tonight and going forward...
I rate Judson highly enough that I didn’t expect much falling off on seeing San Jose’s starting roster tonight versus last week's, but the sum of the game begs the question of how much Carlos Gruezo and Jamiro Monteiro make the ‘Quakes tick. A midfield three with those two and Jackson Yueill has plenty of bite, plus some good ideas about how to get forward...which points to a real question about tonight’s li’l joust.
To highlight my biggest takeaway from tonight’s game, and I noted this in tonight’s game thread, the Timbers played the best full-field team defense I’ve seen them play all season. The optimist wants to believe that happened because the Timbers collapsed space with the tidiness of an in-prime K-pop act; the pessimist wonders how different that would have looked with Gruezo and Monteiro on the field: the eternal question of cause and effect lurks somewhere in the middle of all that, therefore I don’t feel like we really got an answer to the question, have the Timbers turned a corner of, gods forfend, actually improved?
The rest of this post chases down the brainfarts bubbling around in my head, but I want to close the lede with the biggest takeaway: in the context of the 2023 season, this was a good result. San Jose typically delivers a goal-plus at home (1.4 gpg (goals per game) average) and, yeah, a couple loud rattles off the posts aside (examples in here somewhere), the Timbers defense kept the ‘Quakes too far from the board to get on it. Whether by the defensive shape or by throttling San Jose’s passing in the crib (if mostly in the first half), the Timbers sidelined Cowell and Carlos Espinoza – i.e., the effectively took off the ‘Quakes arms at the shoulder.
And, now, the disappointment...
The Timbers’ (mostly) effective defense bought the Timbers’ attack the time and space for general positive self-expression and the scoring of goals. On a pure, blank-sheet sense, they didn’t do terribly. Watching Evander fire a couple from range – and of the kind and quality to require adjustments and later review of the tape – feels like a welcome addition to an attack that gets in its own head too much, plus he had that shoulda/coulda header, then Dairon Asprilla almost conjured a brassy winner with a sneaky side-swipe shot on goal; basically, the Timbers found enough looks and good moments to turn one point into three: close but no cigar, a tale as old as time, beauty and the beast, etc.
A 0-0 draw by any other name, basically.
To credit a coaching staff that doesn’t often get it, Gio et. al. set up the team smartly, all the forks in the right places, and so on; to keep the credit flowing, they gambled on an approach and it paid off – handsomely, even. Given how much San Jose works up both flanks, playing four at the back made sense and starting Eric Miller, a purer defender than (the admittedly absent) Juan Davis Mosquera, neutralized Cade Cowell – at least until the ‘Quakes had him drop deeper to where he could receive the ball and attack the space in front of Miller. The gamble came with defending San Jose way up to their defensive third and, for what it’s worth, I believe Portland has a team that can do that in a way they haven’t in years. Italics in the word “defending” because I saw Portland collapse space as opposed to hunting the ball. That limited most potential over-committing, a good thing under most circumstances. One thing I want to note about that, both about tonight and going forward...
I rate Judson highly enough that I didn’t expect much falling off on seeing San Jose’s starting roster tonight versus last week's, but the sum of the game begs the question of how much Carlos Gruezo and Jamiro Monteiro make the ‘Quakes tick. A midfield three with those two and Jackson Yueill has plenty of bite, plus some good ideas about how to get forward...which points to a real question about tonight’s li’l joust.
To highlight my biggest takeaway from tonight’s game, and I noted this in tonight’s game thread, the Timbers played the best full-field team defense I’ve seen them play all season. The optimist wants to believe that happened because the Timbers collapsed space with the tidiness of an in-prime K-pop act; the pessimist wonders how different that would have looked with Gruezo and Monteiro on the field: the eternal question of cause and effect lurks somewhere in the middle of all that, therefore I don’t feel like we really got an answer to the question, have the Timbers turned a corner of, gods forfend, actually improved?
The rest of this post chases down the brainfarts bubbling around in my head, but I want to close the lede with the biggest takeaway: in the context of the 2023 season, this was a good result. San Jose typically delivers a goal-plus at home (1.4 gpg (goals per game) average) and, yeah, a couple loud rattles off the posts aside (examples in here somewhere), the Timbers defense kept the ‘Quakes too far from the board to get on it. Whether by the defensive shape or by throttling San Jose’s passing in the crib (if mostly in the first half), the Timbers sidelined Cowell and Carlos Espinoza – i.e., the effectively took off the ‘Quakes arms at the shoulder.
And, now, the disappointment...
The Timbers’ (mostly) effective defense bought the Timbers’ attack the time and space for general positive self-expression and the scoring of goals. On a pure, blank-sheet sense, they didn’t do terribly. Watching Evander fire a couple from range – and of the kind and quality to require adjustments and later review of the tape – feels like a welcome addition to an attack that gets in its own head too much, plus he had that shoulda/coulda header, then Dairon Asprilla almost conjured a brassy winner with a sneaky side-swipe shot on goal; basically, the Timbers found enough looks and good moments to turn one point into three: close but no cigar, a tale as old as time, beauty and the beast, etc.
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| The internet does not get the "awkward romantic touch," so... |
Did anything I watched give me a real sense of optimism? Nah. If I had to describe the Timbers attack in a sloppily rendered phrase I’d go with, it’s all glances, moments, and forever budding potential, until either fortune smiles or the final whistle blows. I, like the rest of you, am doing my level best to turn the spark I see between Evander and Franck Boli into a reliable chemical reaction, but the whole “sparks” metaphor sums it up nicely. There’s nothing reliable in Portland’s attack, no specific threat to lean into, no defense-warping gravitational entity; for the other teams it’s just, do you have your guy and that seems to be good enough.
To sum it all up in one short sentence, I feel good about the Portland Timbers, but not better. To accentuate the positive, I’m totally encouraged to see them shut down another team – and, just to note it, the defense has four clean sheets over the past six games. Of the five goals they did allow, one of those could have come off by shutting out Minnesota for two more minutes and can we treat what happened in Kansas City (or a suburb thereof) like a bad night in Vegas, where even the barbecue sucked? To accentuate the negative, the attack keeps fumbling the baton the defense hands them. Over those same six games, the Timbers have scored just twice. Two goals in six, aka, shit even with four of those games on the road. In other words, what failed tonight has been there for a while.
That takes care of the big picture. Time for....
Notes!
1) A Big Reason for the Failing Attack
A lack of coordinated, thoughtful movement, generally, but one moment from tonight stuck in my brain like honey. Half past the meridian of the second half, the Timbers launched a three-man jail break featuring Evander, Diego Chara and Jaroslaw Niezgoda. When Chara played to Evander and continued his run to the left, Evander took the space he opened inside and wound up firing high. The broadcast booth harped on the, admittedly, hasty, hopeful shot, but all I saw was what they seemed to miss – i.e., Niezgoda’s utter failure to give Evander an option by attacking the gaping hole in the middle of San Jose’s defense. Evander can totally hit that through-ball and Niezgoda had the angle...and it's just a lot of half-assed eye-fucking about who will do something first, amirite? I see that as emblematic of the bigger problem: the attack simply hasn’t figured enough of “it” out to graduate to “effective.”
2) Boli
I like him. He’s not great, so much as he’s a leveled-up Nathan Fogaca. With better/smarter service, yeah, I think he could become better...hold on..
1a) Evander
He’s just not fitting quite yet, but doesn’t that describe the general problem? Sometimes I think it’s the parts, sometimes I think it’s good parts arranged all wrong, to where they crunch into one another. Pursuant thereto, the Timbers (Paredes, if memory serves) got on the ball with time near the top of San Jose’s defensive third. That player (again, probably Paredes) had three players in front of him, all checking back to receive the ball, none of them more than five yards from the other, smack in the middle 20 yards of the field, all of them with a defender behind him, and not one of them doing a damn thing to pull the defensive shape. The only other option was Claudio Bravo wide on the left; sure, he had space and, sure, had Bravo got hold of the ball and crossed it, he would have had three or four players attacking that space...
...I don’t even remember the choice taken, I only know I saw as few options as (probably) Paredes did. And yet, Bravo still seems like the best one...
3) Cristhian Paredes Has Been Very, Very Good
For the way he covered the space that opened up when a San Jose winger (often Cowell) cut inside to attack Zone 14 alone, but the Paredes really come into his own. He hasn’t really sorted out when to make that killer run from deep, he can fire from range (but), and he rarely delivers that final back-breaking pass, but, even if he's threatening as a beagle, Paredes runs the middle of the field pretty well. How much that relies on having a league legend at his side is something that should stand as your very first given when it comes to any measure of Paredes, but, if you’ve watched his touches and interventions, I think you’ve seen a really good player. Again, sometimes it's what a coach does with the parts he has.
And...yeah, puts this one to bed. Till the next one...
To sum it all up in one short sentence, I feel good about the Portland Timbers, but not better. To accentuate the positive, I’m totally encouraged to see them shut down another team – and, just to note it, the defense has four clean sheets over the past six games. Of the five goals they did allow, one of those could have come off by shutting out Minnesota for two more minutes and can we treat what happened in Kansas City (or a suburb thereof) like a bad night in Vegas, where even the barbecue sucked? To accentuate the negative, the attack keeps fumbling the baton the defense hands them. Over those same six games, the Timbers have scored just twice. Two goals in six, aka, shit even with four of those games on the road. In other words, what failed tonight has been there for a while.
That takes care of the big picture. Time for....
Notes!
1) A Big Reason for the Failing Attack
A lack of coordinated, thoughtful movement, generally, but one moment from tonight stuck in my brain like honey. Half past the meridian of the second half, the Timbers launched a three-man jail break featuring Evander, Diego Chara and Jaroslaw Niezgoda. When Chara played to Evander and continued his run to the left, Evander took the space he opened inside and wound up firing high. The broadcast booth harped on the, admittedly, hasty, hopeful shot, but all I saw was what they seemed to miss – i.e., Niezgoda’s utter failure to give Evander an option by attacking the gaping hole in the middle of San Jose’s defense. Evander can totally hit that through-ball and Niezgoda had the angle...and it's just a lot of half-assed eye-fucking about who will do something first, amirite? I see that as emblematic of the bigger problem: the attack simply hasn’t figured enough of “it” out to graduate to “effective.”
2) Boli
I like him. He’s not great, so much as he’s a leveled-up Nathan Fogaca. With better/smarter service, yeah, I think he could become better...hold on..
1a) Evander
He’s just not fitting quite yet, but doesn’t that describe the general problem? Sometimes I think it’s the parts, sometimes I think it’s good parts arranged all wrong, to where they crunch into one another. Pursuant thereto, the Timbers (Paredes, if memory serves) got on the ball with time near the top of San Jose’s defensive third. That player (again, probably Paredes) had three players in front of him, all checking back to receive the ball, none of them more than five yards from the other, smack in the middle 20 yards of the field, all of them with a defender behind him, and not one of them doing a damn thing to pull the defensive shape. The only other option was Claudio Bravo wide on the left; sure, he had space and, sure, had Bravo got hold of the ball and crossed it, he would have had three or four players attacking that space...
...I don’t even remember the choice taken, I only know I saw as few options as (probably) Paredes did. And yet, Bravo still seems like the best one...
3) Cristhian Paredes Has Been Very, Very Good
For the way he covered the space that opened up when a San Jose winger (often Cowell) cut inside to attack Zone 14 alone, but the Paredes really come into his own. He hasn’t really sorted out when to make that killer run from deep, he can fire from range (but), and he rarely delivers that final back-breaking pass, but, even if he's threatening as a beagle, Paredes runs the middle of the field pretty well. How much that relies on having a league legend at his side is something that should stand as your very first given when it comes to any measure of Paredes, but, if you’ve watched his touches and interventions, I think you’ve seen a really good player. Again, sometimes it's what a coach does with the parts he has.
And...yeah, puts this one to bed. Till the next one...
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