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| And on and on until you (or the Timbers) die. |
Like a car peeling off one tire after the other over 90 slow, aching minutes. As if a car could do a strip-tease before catching fire and careening into literally the nearest ditch.
The Portland Timbers utterly surrendered against Minnesota United FC tonight, and in the finest literary tradition: slowly, then all at once. The game ended 1-4 and, for all we know, started there in the right cosmological universe. All I know is that, once the game took a turn around the 35th minute, it kept driving in the same direction as if no barriers, be they natural or man-made, stood to stop it. Like every left turn in the Dakotas and every bit as God-forsaken.
To make one thing clear from the start, the Timbers never looked like winning this game. Tripping their aimless, collective way to a tie, maybe, but winning it? A team can’t score a goal until it can move the ball in some general direction thereto – a shared activity miles beyond the capacities of this forced experiment of a Timbers line-up. And I’ll pick that apart later...
It was possible to believe in that knees-knockin’ tie until sometime shortly after the 35th minute. After as many minutes of probing what they perceived as Portland’s weaknesses – a lot of it through Bongokuhle Hlongwane and toward Larrys Mabiala - Minnesota started pressing in earnest, throwing numbers forward and putting the Timbers defense under sustained pressure. To echo the popular cliche, Minnesota’s first goal was coming before well Portland’s Diego Chara clipped it into the net at the 43rd minute. Both my brain and heart checked out (so that’s...the Scarecrow and the Tin Man) after Emanuel Reynoso slipped what will go down as one of the more disputed olimpicos you will ever see at the (first half) 49th minute. And, to lay my cards on the table, I am Team Olimpico. The ball was curling in before Aljaz Ivacic punched it into the goal instead of away from it.
That was 0-2 to Portland going into the half and, whatever you were doing (you crazy ding-dong), I gave up by then.
To prove I’m no heartless bastard, yeah, the Timbers clawed back at least one goal. As much as anything else, Franck Boli proved he can score a goal if someone can tee him up right; this goal looked like Boli’s other best, cleanest shot of the season, one that came on the other side, and I don’t think that’s a mistake...and I’ll pick this apart later as well. At any rate, and whether you love it or dismiss it, Portland showed enough fight to bring the game to 1-2 and whispered “I’m not dead yet” loudly enough for the world to hear.
To prove that I just might be a heartless bastard, the decisive collapse came in a couplet of goals that rhymed as closely as Minnesota’s first two. On the first (Minnesota's third; 74th minute), Aljaz Ivacic should have dashed from his line like a snarling animal to chew into Hlongwane’s angle – or, better still, fully freak him out – but he did not. As for the second (circa 77the minute)....all I can say is really take your time with that one, if only to see the many pages of the Timbers defense scattered to the four winds. The game was over after that fourth goal, but watch that one enough times and you will see a chorus of low lights that will make you wish you can’t see – e.g., the defense tracking Hassani Dotson’s very direct and simple run far too late, Chara making his second fatal mistake of the game by playing the pass to Hlongwane that Dotson wanted to, the Timbers defense leaving a six-lane freeway’s worth of space at the back post. And etc., probably.
The box score does a decent job with the rest of the story, but this game was as uncomplicated as the rest of the Timbers 2023 season. They’re coping with multiple failures and all over the field, the team looks a couple steps past frustrated and uncertain – demoralized, in other words – and I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home....Traffic, right?
That’s already more than this game deserves. I’m going to wrap it with a [ed. - more than a] couple talking points – and you may note a wrinkle in how they’re organized.
(Tragic) Talking Points
1) A Theory Based on Tonight, aka, Why Portland Is (or Might Be) Fucked
For as long as it took them to get rolling, Minnesota played like a team that struggled to finish a thought. The Timbers played like a team that doesn’t have thoughts at all. What I mean by that is that Minnesota had a reliable first pass to start just about every possession; between spacing and understanding, most of their players knew where to play the ball when they got it. With Portland...shit, it might have taken them till after the first subs to take that first step. To give a concrete example (is that Murakami?), I clocked two instances where Claudio Bravo made a great defensive play...and then found nothing when he looked up. He made the most of it in both cases, he even tickled the tantalizing underbelly of escape velocity, but Minnesota had the ball within a pass or two and the Timbers had, once again, gone nowhere.
The Portland Timbers utterly surrendered against Minnesota United FC tonight, and in the finest literary tradition: slowly, then all at once. The game ended 1-4 and, for all we know, started there in the right cosmological universe. All I know is that, once the game took a turn around the 35th minute, it kept driving in the same direction as if no barriers, be they natural or man-made, stood to stop it. Like every left turn in the Dakotas and every bit as God-forsaken.
To make one thing clear from the start, the Timbers never looked like winning this game. Tripping their aimless, collective way to a tie, maybe, but winning it? A team can’t score a goal until it can move the ball in some general direction thereto – a shared activity miles beyond the capacities of this forced experiment of a Timbers line-up. And I’ll pick that apart later...
It was possible to believe in that knees-knockin’ tie until sometime shortly after the 35th minute. After as many minutes of probing what they perceived as Portland’s weaknesses – a lot of it through Bongokuhle Hlongwane and toward Larrys Mabiala - Minnesota started pressing in earnest, throwing numbers forward and putting the Timbers defense under sustained pressure. To echo the popular cliche, Minnesota’s first goal was coming before well Portland’s Diego Chara clipped it into the net at the 43rd minute. Both my brain and heart checked out (so that’s...the Scarecrow and the Tin Man) after Emanuel Reynoso slipped what will go down as one of the more disputed olimpicos you will ever see at the (first half) 49th minute. And, to lay my cards on the table, I am Team Olimpico. The ball was curling in before Aljaz Ivacic punched it into the goal instead of away from it.
That was 0-2 to Portland going into the half and, whatever you were doing (you crazy ding-dong), I gave up by then.
To prove I’m no heartless bastard, yeah, the Timbers clawed back at least one goal. As much as anything else, Franck Boli proved he can score a goal if someone can tee him up right; this goal looked like Boli’s other best, cleanest shot of the season, one that came on the other side, and I don’t think that’s a mistake...and I’ll pick this apart later as well. At any rate, and whether you love it or dismiss it, Portland showed enough fight to bring the game to 1-2 and whispered “I’m not dead yet” loudly enough for the world to hear.
To prove that I just might be a heartless bastard, the decisive collapse came in a couplet of goals that rhymed as closely as Minnesota’s first two. On the first (Minnesota's third; 74th minute), Aljaz Ivacic should have dashed from his line like a snarling animal to chew into Hlongwane’s angle – or, better still, fully freak him out – but he did not. As for the second (circa 77the minute)....all I can say is really take your time with that one, if only to see the many pages of the Timbers defense scattered to the four winds. The game was over after that fourth goal, but watch that one enough times and you will see a chorus of low lights that will make you wish you can’t see – e.g., the defense tracking Hassani Dotson’s very direct and simple run far too late, Chara making his second fatal mistake of the game by playing the pass to Hlongwane that Dotson wanted to, the Timbers defense leaving a six-lane freeway’s worth of space at the back post. And etc., probably.
The box score does a decent job with the rest of the story, but this game was as uncomplicated as the rest of the Timbers 2023 season. They’re coping with multiple failures and all over the field, the team looks a couple steps past frustrated and uncertain – demoralized, in other words – and I’m wasted and I can’t find my way home....Traffic, right?
That’s already more than this game deserves. I’m going to wrap it with a [ed. - more than a] couple talking points – and you may note a wrinkle in how they’re organized.
(Tragic) Talking Points
1) A Theory Based on Tonight, aka, Why Portland Is (or Might Be) Fucked
For as long as it took them to get rolling, Minnesota played like a team that struggled to finish a thought. The Timbers played like a team that doesn’t have thoughts at all. What I mean by that is that Minnesota had a reliable first pass to start just about every possession; between spacing and understanding, most of their players knew where to play the ball when they got it. With Portland...shit, it might have taken them till after the first subs to take that first step. To give a concrete example (is that Murakami?), I clocked two instances where Claudio Bravo made a great defensive play...and then found nothing when he looked up. He made the most of it in both cases, he even tickled the tantalizing underbelly of escape velocity, but Minnesota had the ball within a pass or two and the Timbers had, once again, gone nowhere.
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| Conditions matter, whatever they may be. |
2) Walking Into a Room with a Low Ceiling
Barring a fluke goal that only a blind mother could love, that starting XI never had a win in it. Never. Marvin Loria showed what he’s all about when he gave himself a bloody nose off Michael Boxall’s heel, for all their upsides, Chara and Noel Caliskan probably have to get by on one creative bone (fyi, the normal human body contains 204 bones), and Santiago Moreno can create off the dribble and...yeah, pretty sure that’s the entire list. Pencil in Eric Miller at right back and you’ve got an attack built to score about once every fifth game. So maybe I should thank the gods for tonight’s little miracles, yes?
3) A Bright Spot
I noted Boli’s goal above and, don’t know about you, but I would fucking love to see what that guy could do with decent service. Based on what I’ve seen from him, he can beat a player often enough, and he can squeeze an opening past a second in his better moments; given that, think of what he could do if he could get on the ball in a place where he didn’t have to get past three or four of them. Sadly, Boli has had to wander all over just to find the ball over the past two, three games – wandering that takes him farther from goal and puts more defenders between him and it.
4) A Doomed Soul
Wholly fucking related, Jaroslaw Niezgoda absolutely requires service; unlike Boli, he’s actually useless if the can't get it. Not somewhat, just totally fucking useless. I can think of only one Timber who got the best out of Niezgoda: Diego Valeri. Like Boli, he’s better running toward goal; unlike Boli, he can’t beat even one player. I don’t think Evander’s ever figured out how to play with Niezgoda; worse, based on where Evander prefers to play, I don’t think he ever will.
5) Noel Caliskan’s Follow-Up Interview
I like him, if only for his willingness to get stuck in. His game looks a little too much like Cristhian Paredes for him to standout (maybe make ‘em shuttlers in a midfield four diamond?) and, as much as I want players to shoot from range...just, tap the brakes, son. He’s got “work-in-progress” stamped all over, but I like him.
6) Chara Watch
On the one hand, yes, he made two glaring, if rare, defensive mistakes tonight, but Chara also had twice as many immaculate defensive plays. As such, I fault him for tonight’s loss in the same way you’d fault the last domino in a collapsing chain of them. He also doesn’t dominated midfield like he used to and he’s a virtual null-set on the creative side. Chara will exit the team eventually; I just think it’s wise for all concerned – and the coaching staff most of all – to think about how they want him to go out.
7) Zuparic Is More Right After Tonight Than Ever
The Timbers defended in a low, 4-4-2 block over the opening 30 minutes and that was fine. It eventually succumbed, but it wasn’t crazy conceptually. What I didn’t like was seeing the Timbers continue operating in that same passive vein after they’d gone down two goals. On just about every level, this team has spent 2023 driving in second gear. Portland simply doesn’t possess a game-changing strength that they can lean into as they wait for the other parts of the system to come online...
...all of which only made watching Dario Zuparic clean up one mess after the other – a fucking lot of them down Bravo’s side – that little more depressing. Nothing pushes in the other direction, and that means everything falls on the backline. If Zuparic wasn’t my man of the match tonight, he’s up there, if only for doing all that with just a slim net behind him.
That’s it for this one. Just to note it, I won’t be able to post a plug to twitter until tomorrow morning. As such, this will be the first time I post anything with very thin promotion. We’ll see how it goes. I’m starting to poke around Reddit, but they’ve got all kinds of rules about self-promotion, some of which I finally get. Still, I can see a future where everything I do runs around Timbers and MLS generally runs through Reddit.
For anyone interested in joining, my handle over there is Conifers-n-Citrus. There’s a small refugee community over there, one that includes some names I recognize from twitter, and it could use fresh numbers.
Till the next one...for as long as they last.
Barring a fluke goal that only a blind mother could love, that starting XI never had a win in it. Never. Marvin Loria showed what he’s all about when he gave himself a bloody nose off Michael Boxall’s heel, for all their upsides, Chara and Noel Caliskan probably have to get by on one creative bone (fyi, the normal human body contains 204 bones), and Santiago Moreno can create off the dribble and...yeah, pretty sure that’s the entire list. Pencil in Eric Miller at right back and you’ve got an attack built to score about once every fifth game. So maybe I should thank the gods for tonight’s little miracles, yes?
3) A Bright Spot
I noted Boli’s goal above and, don’t know about you, but I would fucking love to see what that guy could do with decent service. Based on what I’ve seen from him, he can beat a player often enough, and he can squeeze an opening past a second in his better moments; given that, think of what he could do if he could get on the ball in a place where he didn’t have to get past three or four of them. Sadly, Boli has had to wander all over just to find the ball over the past two, three games – wandering that takes him farther from goal and puts more defenders between him and it.
4) A Doomed Soul
Wholly fucking related, Jaroslaw Niezgoda absolutely requires service; unlike Boli, he’s actually useless if the can't get it. Not somewhat, just totally fucking useless. I can think of only one Timber who got the best out of Niezgoda: Diego Valeri. Like Boli, he’s better running toward goal; unlike Boli, he can’t beat even one player. I don’t think Evander’s ever figured out how to play with Niezgoda; worse, based on where Evander prefers to play, I don’t think he ever will.
5) Noel Caliskan’s Follow-Up Interview
I like him, if only for his willingness to get stuck in. His game looks a little too much like Cristhian Paredes for him to standout (maybe make ‘em shuttlers in a midfield four diamond?) and, as much as I want players to shoot from range...just, tap the brakes, son. He’s got “work-in-progress” stamped all over, but I like him.
6) Chara Watch
On the one hand, yes, he made two glaring, if rare, defensive mistakes tonight, but Chara also had twice as many immaculate defensive plays. As such, I fault him for tonight’s loss in the same way you’d fault the last domino in a collapsing chain of them. He also doesn’t dominated midfield like he used to and he’s a virtual null-set on the creative side. Chara will exit the team eventually; I just think it’s wise for all concerned – and the coaching staff most of all – to think about how they want him to go out.
7) Zuparic Is More Right After Tonight Than Ever
The Timbers defended in a low, 4-4-2 block over the opening 30 minutes and that was fine. It eventually succumbed, but it wasn’t crazy conceptually. What I didn’t like was seeing the Timbers continue operating in that same passive vein after they’d gone down two goals. On just about every level, this team has spent 2023 driving in second gear. Portland simply doesn’t possess a game-changing strength that they can lean into as they wait for the other parts of the system to come online...
...all of which only made watching Dario Zuparic clean up one mess after the other – a fucking lot of them down Bravo’s side – that little more depressing. Nothing pushes in the other direction, and that means everything falls on the backline. If Zuparic wasn’t my man of the match tonight, he’s up there, if only for doing all that with just a slim net behind him.
That’s it for this one. Just to note it, I won’t be able to post a plug to twitter until tomorrow morning. As such, this will be the first time I post anything with very thin promotion. We’ll see how it goes. I’m starting to poke around Reddit, but they’ve got all kinds of rules about self-promotion, some of which I finally get. Still, I can see a future where everything I do runs around Timbers and MLS generally runs through Reddit.
For anyone interested in joining, my handle over there is Conifers-n-Citrus. There’s a small refugee community over there, one that includes some names I recognize from twitter, and it could use fresh numbers.
Till the next one...for as long as they last.
"His game looks a little too much like Cristhian Paredes for him to standout (maybe make ‘em shuttlers in a midfield four diamond?) and, as much as I want players to shoot from range...just, tap the brakes, son."
ReplyDeleteIs having a true 6, holding, defensive, midfielder anachronistic?
I get that Diego Chara isn't good enough as an 8 to play above a proper 6 but he's not enough of a 6 that we can have 8s that don't defend well enough. Our roster is full of such 8s. Paredes probably leans more 6 than 8, and Williamson more 10 than 8, much less 6, but they've improved on both sides of the ball.
What I wonder is, once Chara retires, do we get a real freaking 6 or is that just not the state of the modern game? Is Ayala supposed to be that? He also seems like more of an 8.
Even Evander says he's naturally an 8 and most comfortable there, but we marketed him as a 10 and nominally play him at CAM while really expecting him to play like a second striker.
Frankly, it's infuriating how much we spend on players only to field them out of position. We take boys who won't shoot and don't have the instinct, touch, or training, and slot them in at forward or expect them to score from the wings.
And we keep signing freaking poacher forwards, then starve them for service. Or try to convert them into target, hold-up, forwards.
My paltry kingdom for a striker who can beat more than one player on the dribble and actually get a shot on target.