Summertime Sadness, aka, The Thing That's Wrong with the Timbers

Mood, man.

When was the last time the Portland Timbers actually excited you?

That answer varies based on your own experiences and personal predilections, naturally, and encompasses everything from how pissed you are about front office malfeasance to how The Product plays on the field. I’ve got my gripes with the front office – and gods know I’ve aired them – but this post deals strictly with The Product.

I’m going to start with last Sunday’s home win over FC Dallas, but won’t burn a lot of time on it, you saw it or you didn’t, etc. Portland played all right: they made Dallas ‘keeper Martin Paes work (and barely allowed Dallas a shot); they scored a smart goal, Evander lofted his cross just so into the seam where Franck Boli made his run – and that run opened up a lot of the goal for the finish, good high-percentage stuff in other words. [Ed. - I have no damn idea how The Mothership measures xG, but am quickly becoming obsessed with it.] Going the other way, Dallas played like tired shit – that’s against the clean win they picked up at home midweek over St. Louis CITY FC They played through St. Louis’ pressure, which can come at G-force, and took three points on the back of two good goals. All in all, I wouldn’t get too deep into how much Portland limited Dallas’ shots, they don’t generate a ton (even in a win), and so on. I don’t mean to imply it wasn’t a good result – in context, it tickles the belly of “fabu” because they looked nothing like guaranteed going in and I’ve seen players like Alan Velasco and Jesus Ferreira fuck a defense up. It’s the context around it where...I have concerns.

Sure, Portland ended the game over the line, and in something crazy like 8th place, but they share that lowly podium with (literally) four other teams and, as I see it, the broad arc of the Timbers’ season bends toward where they started the week, i.e., below the playoff line. And that brings me to the grand thesis:

There ain’t a lot to get excited about on this roster. I’d go so far as to argue that the Portland Timbers are in the midst of a “transition year” that has somehow lasted for two seasons.

Cast your pearls before the swine of your choosing - e.g., Gavin Wilkinson for building the roster (and, I see it, falling behind the times) or Giovanni Savarese and his brain-trust for failing to what Portland has to its optimal use – but even with the Timbers roster whole and wholly available, I don’t see a championship team. And before anyone opens up a tall can of “what might have been” if this or that player wasn’t injured, and to use a particularly painful example, Eryk Williamson’s knees are part of his total package. Injuries are real, people; the great season your local team would have if they never happened is the counterfactual. Hell, at this point, Felipe Mora’s better months with the team feels like it happened in a totally different timeline.

Never forget, never surrender.

That doesn’t mean there are no bright spots, “new” ones even. Diego Chara’s evergreen to the point of myth by now, but both Zac McGraw and Cristhian Paredes have earned a bow. They also contain useful multitudes. McGraw started/played more than I realized in 2022, but he arrived as a player in the literal nick of time – i.e., exactly when the torch had to leave Larrys Mabiala’s hand. He’s developed into a solid, aggressive and mobile (sometimes too mobile) defender, one who provides an aerial presence in the heart of the defense that I’m not sure the Timbers have ever really had in their MLS history. Paredes, meanwhile, leveled up over the past two seasons in a way you couldn’t have sold “past me” on, not even with a highlight reel from the future (or just tape of Sunday’s game) and a sweet-spot dose of ecstasy. More than anything else, Paredes appears to have absorbed Diego Chara’s conception of his role – i.e., the omnipresence that nips at the heels of any player who strays into the middle of the field with razor-sharp teeth and boundless energy...

...and yet the development arc for both players speak to Portland’s late struggles with finding “right now” talent. Paredes signed with the Timbers in 2018(!) and it took him...calling in conservatively, 6,000 minutes before he made a loud enough argument to ink his name into the starting XI. I’m content to call this McGraw’s third year with the Timbers (I won’t count 2020 if you don’t, sir), but the thing I’m highlighting here is the lag. The Timbers tend to sign project players that mature at the speed and upward momentum of interest on your savings account...and don’t get me started on Marvin Loria.

That rather distinct formula – and I’d apply it broadly to signings like David Ayala, Pablo Bonilla, Claudio Bravo, and even Santiago Moreno – has defined the way the Timbers have acquired young players since the late 2010s at least. To outside eyes, or maybe just mine, they seem like half-blind swings on unfamiliar players, nearly all of whom develop as players while navigating a new culture. (Aside: to the very real credit of the Timbers organization writ large, I have a general sense they do the acclimation stuff pretty well.) Call it a slow process with an inconsistent payoff, a haphazard, maybe even half-assed, shortcut around developing players through an in-house academy. To posit a counterfactual of my own, it just feels like Portland would get better results, and earlier in a given player’s career (i.e., McGraw’s 26, Paredes 25), if they developed and (crucially) held onto their academy players. And, to answer the obvious question, no, I don’t watch nearly enough T2 games, so do treat this as my gut expounding loudly and with unearned confidence. And yet....

Found. Wanting.

How much better have things gone when Portland went big with an acquisition – to be clear, several of whom joined the team as successors to what I’ll call the Valeri generation? Players like Yimmi Chara, Jaroslaw Niezgoda, and, obviously, Evander fall into the category that demands (but doesn’t always deliver) production, i.e., the designated player. No matter how I feel about the early returns (....eh), I’m giving Evander until next season before I run him against the big-boy ruler, but Niezgoda and Yimmi have both been around long enough to stand back-to-back with the thing and...both fall short of that aspirational mark scratched into the ol’ door jam. Each has his respective justification – e.g., Niezgoda is a great finisher, while Yimmi puts in tons of work and scores the odd spectacular goal – but each comes with a ready rebuttal – e.g., it takes needle-in-a-haystack scale labor to tee up a shot for Niezgoda, while Yimmi labors more than he succeeds and I’d rather see Yimmi find 10 regular chances than see him hop on his bike to score one beauty.

And all the above ends with a player who I feel typifies what passes for Portland’s player acquisition strategy since they hit the jackpot with Chara, Diego Valeri and...a handful of others: Dairon Asprilla. He joined the team way back in 2015(?!), which lumps him in with the slow-boil method of player selection and development. Yeah, yeah, the “Mr. October” thing – aka, playoff Dairon – that’s cool, but it also feels like the answer to a trivia question. It took Asprilla six years to become a reliable starter, basically (that said, feel free to argue he should have got his shot earlier), and that leads to the other point. I fully appreciate, and rather admire, the way a certain segment of Timbers fans love Asprilla, but I also don’t see him hitting a higher level than his 2021/2022 seasons. Don’t get me wrong: he gave solid contributions in both seasons and full respect to the man’s intangibles...but Asprilla will never carry a team to a trophy. Score a goal that wins it, sure, but being The Guy who gets a team to where they have a one-game shot at that trophy? Nah, that ain’t Asprilla.

And that’s the grand point: the current Timbers roster is full of Asprilla-level players. Whether it’s a question of waiting for them to bloom, an expression of a given player’s permanent level, or even a last hurrah sustained to operatic lengths, this current Portland Timbers team is, much like their goals for (20) and goals against (24) measured against the league average (22), just on the wrong side of average. Worse, they’re not fun to watch.

I suppose that’s the thing about fandom, however you work it. Speaking for myself, I tune in because that’s what I do. Moreover, some part of me wants to see what the Timbers do each week, even when it’s disappointing or, god forbid, dull – and dull is my personal struggle...sometimes, watching them flail in the attacking third...I’ve looked away, swear to God. At any rate, I watch it because I like it. It’s just something I picked up, not unlike the compulsion to write about what I see.

When will the Timbers be good again – or just fun? No idea. Still, I hope people keep showing up to cheer them on. And I hope the community that is the Timbers Army keeps showing up and even grows, even if only to celebrate that community. Yeah, yeah, I’ve never really participated in that and, honestly, I suspect that’s my loss. There’s a big idea in that too, one I think got lost in the battles against the front office: management has nothing to do with that community. So hold onto that and kick Merrit Paulson off the curb inside your mind.

Till the next one...