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| Sorry. Really trying to drive home the ugly. |
I think the thing that surprised me most was the way San Jose fell off. For as far as they fell short of shaking the pillars of heaven over the opening 30 minutes, the Earthquakes found good looks on goal – e.g., a couple (super) early courtesy of Jack “The Unlucky” Shakan (he limped off early), and at least one that teed up a near-post rocket from still-favorite son, Jeremy Ebobisse. No real clear signs pointed to all that evaporating. And yet it did.
Flip to the other side of the same coin and you saw the Portland Timbers doing the soccer equivalent of chucking rotting fish carcasses on the field. Miles from the same page, unsure where to go, and by all evidence, continually surprised by every decision made by their teammates, Portland's attack STRUGGLED through the first 45 minutes. A single Timber could move the ball forward, yes, but only when San Jose’s defensive spacing fell apart to where the guy carrying it didn’t need to pass. The second he did pass it, the ‘Quakes had the ball with eyes pointed toward the Timbers’ goal.
Evander scored the opener. Just spitting that out feels good and correct because that’s how it happened on the field; it felt like one minute, Evander was firing hopeless farts toward Daniel’s goal, the next, he gave the Portland Timbers their one and only positive attacking moment of the first half - which is to say, it didn't feel like an event that closed the door on San Jose's period of dominance. This being the Leagues Cup, The Mothership’s stats page doesn’t have the xG graph, but I bet that Portland’s line nudged up 0.1 at most for that shot. It had "yeah, why not?" written all over it. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a beauty – observe and hold that thought – but I think Evander was the only person in the stadium who saw that going in as he hit it. [Ed. - The story behind why he didn't celebrate the shot makes me like him more.]
The only question from that point was whether the San Jose Earthquakes could get themselves back in the game. I hinted at what happened above, in the first paragraph, but, for lack of a better word, everything just...stopped working for the ‘Quakes. Sure, they had that penalty shout when Cade Cowell broke loose – think this was somewhere around the 70th-75h minute(?) – with Juan David Mosquera chasing him down and David Bingham rushing toward him. Cowell went down in the area, no question, and I think Mosquera might have clipped his heel (didn’t make the (fucking) highlights? seriously?), but the fact Cowell had pushed the ball far enough in front for Bingham to take it clean was good enough for me to bless the non-call. Fun fact about me: I’m a hard-ass when it comes to calling penalties and a libertine on molly when it comes to calling offside...kinky, in other words...
My apologies if that sells San Jose’s overall effort short, but that’s the only chance for them I remember, so, yeah, the game ended in a satisfying 2-0 Portland Timbers win. (Buried lede...revealed!) I haven’t looked into how tie-breakers work in Leagues Cup – I’ll go over that bridge grudgingly, and only if dragged to it – but, if it works like most tournaments, that also counts as a two-goal cushion between Portland and San Jose, i.e., the more to celebrate. And the way it happened...less the chef’s kiss, than the chef making out with tongue.
Every Timbers fan knows the flaming, injury-plagued Hell Felipe Mora has walked for so very fucking long. I’m sure that what felt like eternity for Timbers’ fans felt like eternity plus...another really long time for Mora, so seeing him score the goal that fluffed the Timbers padding counts as my personal highlight for the Timbers’ 2023 season. Better still, the way he scored it: Mora straight-up running-down Tanner Beason; I didn’t know Mora could make those little legs kick that fast till I saw him slip past Beason like the world’s shortest thoroughbred.
Flip to the other side of the same coin and you saw the Portland Timbers doing the soccer equivalent of chucking rotting fish carcasses on the field. Miles from the same page, unsure where to go, and by all evidence, continually surprised by every decision made by their teammates, Portland's attack STRUGGLED through the first 45 minutes. A single Timber could move the ball forward, yes, but only when San Jose’s defensive spacing fell apart to where the guy carrying it didn’t need to pass. The second he did pass it, the ‘Quakes had the ball with eyes pointed toward the Timbers’ goal.
Evander scored the opener. Just spitting that out feels good and correct because that’s how it happened on the field; it felt like one minute, Evander was firing hopeless farts toward Daniel’s goal, the next, he gave the Portland Timbers their one and only positive attacking moment of the first half - which is to say, it didn't feel like an event that closed the door on San Jose's period of dominance. This being the Leagues Cup, The Mothership’s stats page doesn’t have the xG graph, but I bet that Portland’s line nudged up 0.1 at most for that shot. It had "yeah, why not?" written all over it. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a beauty – observe and hold that thought – but I think Evander was the only person in the stadium who saw that going in as he hit it. [Ed. - The story behind why he didn't celebrate the shot makes me like him more.]
The only question from that point was whether the San Jose Earthquakes could get themselves back in the game. I hinted at what happened above, in the first paragraph, but, for lack of a better word, everything just...stopped working for the ‘Quakes. Sure, they had that penalty shout when Cade Cowell broke loose – think this was somewhere around the 70th-75h minute(?) – with Juan David Mosquera chasing him down and David Bingham rushing toward him. Cowell went down in the area, no question, and I think Mosquera might have clipped his heel (didn’t make the (fucking) highlights? seriously?), but the fact Cowell had pushed the ball far enough in front for Bingham to take it clean was good enough for me to bless the non-call. Fun fact about me: I’m a hard-ass when it comes to calling penalties and a libertine on molly when it comes to calling offside...kinky, in other words...
My apologies if that sells San Jose’s overall effort short, but that’s the only chance for them I remember, so, yeah, the game ended in a satisfying 2-0 Portland Timbers win. (Buried lede...revealed!) I haven’t looked into how tie-breakers work in Leagues Cup – I’ll go over that bridge grudgingly, and only if dragged to it – but, if it works like most tournaments, that also counts as a two-goal cushion between Portland and San Jose, i.e., the more to celebrate. And the way it happened...less the chef’s kiss, than the chef making out with tongue.
Every Timbers fan knows the flaming, injury-plagued Hell Felipe Mora has walked for so very fucking long. I’m sure that what felt like eternity for Timbers’ fans felt like eternity plus...another really long time for Mora, so seeing him score the goal that fluffed the Timbers padding counts as my personal highlight for the Timbers’ 2023 season. Better still, the way he scored it: Mora straight-up running-down Tanner Beason; I didn’t know Mora could make those little legs kick that fast till I saw him slip past Beason like the world’s shortest thoroughbred.
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| It's cool. It's blocked. |
The compulsion to be That Guy obliges me to point to the rickety ladder upon which the Timbers’ climb to glory was made. Going by lightly refreshed memory, I believe the path went from a Cristhian Paredes header to a half-blind swipe by Santiago Moreno to a second half-blind swipe by Marvin Loria to Mora’s-in-a-run-to-glory-and-my-god-who-has-the-rights? foot-race with Beason. On the one hand, they had the talent, poise and awareness to pull it off; on the other hand, they stretched all three all the way up the ladder. Great goal, I feel like Mora’s mom right now (so proud!), just the whole nine yards and pinch to grow on...but that’s not wildly replicable. Hold up, gotta pause the review....
...and we’re back. I just watched the opening 10 minutes of the second half – to my mind, the period that won the game for the Timbers – to take a second look at how they started the half so strong, perhaps in search of why. Apart from learning that that same period nudged Portland ahead in xG race (0.47 v 0.36), I didn’t get much. The Timbers found and fired three (maybe four) shots during that period – one capped by a slick shot off the wood-work by Paredes – but it also feels like some or all of that followed from them bopping San Jose in the nose the second they stepped out of the locker-room – i.e., this was when Jaroslaw Niezgoda nudged Yimmi Chara into a clear look that Chara skimmed...wider than he should have. Still, that and the next two (or three) shots did the trick and, between them, they lived in the back of San Jose’s heads till the end. Then there’s the alternate timeline:
“The Timbers have gotten great energy from Cristhian Paredes and Chara’s Chara; kindly keep that up and make the midfield a wholly-owned piece of property.”
That comes from the preview I posted for this game, but I could also point to the Chris Rifer tweet that speaks to how all the running Paredes does makes it possible for Evander to do his half-speed, goal-conjuring walkabouts, but the point’s the same: I may know neither where nor how San Jose lost its mojo, but I also saw Paredes all over and clean up in the spaces behind him, one that featured a rotating cast of players, some playing their parts more ably than others (e.g., my butt puckered harder when I saw Claudio Bravo’s late, and very real handball than I did during the Mosquera/Bingham sandwich on Cowell; Bravo’s getting looser, the question of why is a quietly-fascinating sub-plot). Bottom-line, I’m calling this another night where Portland’s defense bought time for the attack to get going. Seeing the attack hold up its end of the bargain genuinely satisfies, especially now that they’ve done it two games in a row.
For all the good news, vibez, and feelings, those two steps necessarily count as the first steps to achieving any meaningful kind of competitiveness – and I’m going to pick on Paredes a little bit in making this point. As much as Paredes has emerged as a midfield terrier over the past season and a half and despite still more time as an efficient, proven shuttler, he hasn’t become a reliable asset going forward: he doesn’t have a particular attacking thing he does well (e.g., late runs into the box, the killer pass or even the pass before it). I feel comfortable calling Paredes genuine MLS-starter level material, but the areas of his highest-value contributions seem to keep happening farther and farther from goal. In the context of the Timbers’ long-term needs – i.e., Diego Chara’s inevitable retirement – that’s not a bad thing. Tragically, all that upside doesn’t help the team a lot unless they fill the gap left by Paredes’ (arguable) retreat.
I don’t think that anyone disputes that Evander was brought in to do that. The question of whether he’s up to it not only remains open, it may have more than one answer; hell, it may have multiple answers. We can argue till we pass out about who’s fault this is, but the main task is solving the problem. I'm not sure what steps the team visibly took toward doing that tonight, or even why Portland doesn't regularly produce periods as lively as the first 10 minutes of the second half, but I’m going to drink in the win and focus on doing whatever rituals I need to in order to guarantee that Tigres UANL beats San Jose by more goals than they beat the Timbers tonight, or that things otherwise pan out and without reference to the Leagues Cup rules...and, my god, my socks smell like shit. Anyone know how long you can go without cleaning those things before they transform into forever chemicals? To wrap up the thought I had at the beginning of this paragraph, I saw Evander literally demand the ball early in the game – and to the point of crowding space where Bravo had set up until someone passed him the ball – and I see that as a positive development.
That’s it for this one. If you name a player, I can probably formulate an opinion on him – e.g., I thought Dairon Asprilla and Bravo had disappointing evenings, Mosquera did better than worse and Zac McGraw played like he felt the weight of the world (aka, a Canadian national team call-up) on his shoulders - so poke me if you're curious. All the same, this feels like one of those times where you take the win and work on how to get the next one
...and we’re back. I just watched the opening 10 minutes of the second half – to my mind, the period that won the game for the Timbers – to take a second look at how they started the half so strong, perhaps in search of why. Apart from learning that that same period nudged Portland ahead in xG race (0.47 v 0.36), I didn’t get much. The Timbers found and fired three (maybe four) shots during that period – one capped by a slick shot off the wood-work by Paredes – but it also feels like some or all of that followed from them bopping San Jose in the nose the second they stepped out of the locker-room – i.e., this was when Jaroslaw Niezgoda nudged Yimmi Chara into a clear look that Chara skimmed...wider than he should have. Still, that and the next two (or three) shots did the trick and, between them, they lived in the back of San Jose’s heads till the end. Then there’s the alternate timeline:
“The Timbers have gotten great energy from Cristhian Paredes and Chara’s Chara; kindly keep that up and make the midfield a wholly-owned piece of property.”
That comes from the preview I posted for this game, but I could also point to the Chris Rifer tweet that speaks to how all the running Paredes does makes it possible for Evander to do his half-speed, goal-conjuring walkabouts, but the point’s the same: I may know neither where nor how San Jose lost its mojo, but I also saw Paredes all over and clean up in the spaces behind him, one that featured a rotating cast of players, some playing their parts more ably than others (e.g., my butt puckered harder when I saw Claudio Bravo’s late, and very real handball than I did during the Mosquera/Bingham sandwich on Cowell; Bravo’s getting looser, the question of why is a quietly-fascinating sub-plot). Bottom-line, I’m calling this another night where Portland’s defense bought time for the attack to get going. Seeing the attack hold up its end of the bargain genuinely satisfies, especially now that they’ve done it two games in a row.
For all the good news, vibez, and feelings, those two steps necessarily count as the first steps to achieving any meaningful kind of competitiveness – and I’m going to pick on Paredes a little bit in making this point. As much as Paredes has emerged as a midfield terrier over the past season and a half and despite still more time as an efficient, proven shuttler, he hasn’t become a reliable asset going forward: he doesn’t have a particular attacking thing he does well (e.g., late runs into the box, the killer pass or even the pass before it). I feel comfortable calling Paredes genuine MLS-starter level material, but the areas of his highest-value contributions seem to keep happening farther and farther from goal. In the context of the Timbers’ long-term needs – i.e., Diego Chara’s inevitable retirement – that’s not a bad thing. Tragically, all that upside doesn’t help the team a lot unless they fill the gap left by Paredes’ (arguable) retreat.
I don’t think that anyone disputes that Evander was brought in to do that. The question of whether he’s up to it not only remains open, it may have more than one answer; hell, it may have multiple answers. We can argue till we pass out about who’s fault this is, but the main task is solving the problem. I'm not sure what steps the team visibly took toward doing that tonight, or even why Portland doesn't regularly produce periods as lively as the first 10 minutes of the second half, but I’m going to drink in the win and focus on doing whatever rituals I need to in order to guarantee that Tigres UANL beats San Jose by more goals than they beat the Timbers tonight, or that things otherwise pan out and without reference to the Leagues Cup rules...and, my god, my socks smell like shit. Anyone know how long you can go without cleaning those things before they transform into forever chemicals? To wrap up the thought I had at the beginning of this paragraph, I saw Evander literally demand the ball early in the game – and to the point of crowding space where Bravo had set up until someone passed him the ball – and I see that as a positive development.
That’s it for this one. If you name a player, I can probably formulate an opinion on him – e.g., I thought Dairon Asprilla and Bravo had disappointing evenings, Mosquera did better than worse and Zac McGraw played like he felt the weight of the world (aka, a Canadian national team call-up) on his shoulders - so poke me if you're curious. All the same, this feels like one of those times where you take the win and work on how to get the next one
The eerie case of Jaroslaw Niezgoda. A player so spooked by his own poor shooting that I doubt he'll score again as a Timber. On Saturday he had, maybe, three good thumps at goal where scoring was possible. My impression is that he no longer takes that extra milli-second that clinical forwards use for good placement. He's desperately trying to shoot quicker and quicker in hopes that it's a solution.
ReplyDeleteHis earlier problem - that the other Timbers seemed unable/unwilling to find him with setup passes - is less operative. I remember Jimmi feeding him a decent pass before one missed shot. But now it's psychologically too late.
For his own sanity as a pro player, he needs to get out of PDX.