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| [DRAMATIC MUSIC!] |
I’m going to start this post with two observations brought to mind by too much time on social media and too many years of staring at some version of the same thing one week after another.
Fans should appreciate perfection when they see it, as opposed to expecting it from any player. Because that’s just the world/humanity works, we’re none of us, etc. This mind-set is one of several reasons why I can’t coach. (“Hey, sometimes you just fuck up. No biggie. Love you, man.”)
Once (most) people make up their mind on a given player, he/she is either the shit or total shit. Once they think he/she is bad, all they see are the mistakes and once they think he/she is good, it’s nothing but the good stuff. It’s damn closer to binary. Swear to God.
As for the game, the high-comedic 2-2 draw between the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers up in the frosty climes of the Puget Sound, I have more questions than I have answers, by which I mean I have only one real answer: I’d say about 75% of the success the Sounders had over the first half followed from the way they nipped at Portland’s collective heels over 2/3 of the field. Once they lost that, courtesy of a second yellow to Seattle’s Leo Chu, all you had left was two teams a year or two removed from their best days fighting over scraps. Hyenas versus vultures, basically.
To acknowledge something, Seattle got screwed hard by that sending off. Chu picked up his first yellow for one of the most randomly puritanical rules of the modern game – e.g., the shirtless goal celebration (WHY IS THIS A THING?) – and his second for, I shit you not, getting the worst of running headlong into Portland’s Zac McGraw. It takes so, so very much for me to agree that a referee’s decision decided a game, but Jon Freemon (a referee I do not know) cut off Seattle’s clearest path to success with an excessively legalistic reading of the rules and....just a bad call.
Don't get me wrong: knowing how pissy and bewildered Seattle fans are this morning is just the best. And that is what will have to pass for satisfaction on a night when the Timbers more or less stalled in their attempt to make the 2023 playoffs. Now, some more detail...
Fans should appreciate perfection when they see it, as opposed to expecting it from any player. Because that’s just the world/humanity works, we’re none of us, etc. This mind-set is one of several reasons why I can’t coach. (“Hey, sometimes you just fuck up. No biggie. Love you, man.”)
Once (most) people make up their mind on a given player, he/she is either the shit or total shit. Once they think he/she is bad, all they see are the mistakes and once they think he/she is good, it’s nothing but the good stuff. It’s damn closer to binary. Swear to God.
As for the game, the high-comedic 2-2 draw between the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers up in the frosty climes of the Puget Sound, I have more questions than I have answers, by which I mean I have only one real answer: I’d say about 75% of the success the Sounders had over the first half followed from the way they nipped at Portland’s collective heels over 2/3 of the field. Once they lost that, courtesy of a second yellow to Seattle’s Leo Chu, all you had left was two teams a year or two removed from their best days fighting over scraps. Hyenas versus vultures, basically.
To acknowledge something, Seattle got screwed hard by that sending off. Chu picked up his first yellow for one of the most randomly puritanical rules of the modern game – e.g., the shirtless goal celebration (WHY IS THIS A THING?) – and his second for, I shit you not, getting the worst of running headlong into Portland’s Zac McGraw. It takes so, so very much for me to agree that a referee’s decision decided a game, but Jon Freemon (a referee I do not know) cut off Seattle’s clearest path to success with an excessively legalistic reading of the rules and....just a bad call.
Don't get me wrong: knowing how pissy and bewildered Seattle fans are this morning is just the best. And that is what will have to pass for satisfaction on a night when the Timbers more or less stalled in their attempt to make the 2023 playoffs. Now, some more detail...
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| The best we had. |
To flag another delight of the Sounders failure to take all three points tonight, the Timbers played a terrible, borderline helpless opening half. Despite a furious, slap-fight flurry on the Sounders’ goal in the 40th minute, the only good and right thing to do with that first half is bury it somewhere in the burn the map. The Timbers played into one dead-end after another and got caught lingering on the ball; key players – and I’m very much looking at Evander here, but also Yimmi Chara – couldn’t see one another, never mind, connect, and starting Eric Miller meant foregoing the option of playing up the left. Thus, once the right failed to produce like it did over the past game or two...just when I thought the Santi Moreno/Juan David Mosquera connection had gone live...
This site has made a lot of believing in the defense this season – and it’s taken fucking blinders to sustain that, rose-tinted lenses be damned – and the first goal the Timbers hacked up came very much in that vein. I blamed Eric Miller for this one in the game thread, but I think McGraw’s decision to go all-in on attacking the ball had more to do with Raul Ruidiaz getting a standing header from the six than Miller’s late, semi-impossible failure to recover. Seattle’s second goal, the one that came from picking Cristhian Paredes clean near the center-stripe, followed from their Plan A: Seattle thrived so long as they combined cutting off lanes and hunting the ball. And then Chu’s second yellow turned red. That happened in the 53rd minute, by the way. Just to note it, I had a bit of time-slip around that whole thing.
To give the Portland’s OG starting XI their due, they started the work of turning the game: Miles Joseph didn’t call in the subs until the 67 minute, at which point I was already chafing – and more than usual and in more places. Still, as demonstrated (or propagandized?) by the official stats, specifically, the possession bars and (to a lesser extent) the xG, Portland turned the tide like Superman turning back time and/or the rotation of the Earth in the old Chris Reeves joints; suddenly, it was the Sounders who couldn’t complete a pass, suddenly, it was Joao Paolo making a rugby tackle to cut off a Timbers counter at the pass. (To his incredible credit, Sebastian Blanco would later do the same, just for funsies; he had a pretty wasted night, honestly, but we’ll always have that.)
The xG graph tells another story, i.e., the one about why the Timbers failed to win tonight. Happy as I am that Portland rescued a point, particularly after that tongue-tied first half, they didn’t generate a ton of great chances. Sure, sure, they scored two goals, but one came off a long throw/knock on to Dairon Asprilla (do yourself a solid and watch all the moving around on that goal). The other, well, that one’s worth contemplating a while. For one, Seattle had found a fair amount of success by stuffing the space in the wide areas, both to clog the close passing lanes and to force turnovers. Making that same (sensible) choice in that moment, left leaving Evander all the way open at the top of Zone 14 and, for all the things that man does wrong (legion and counting) he strikes a spanking-clean ball now and again. And he fully fucked up “The Dread” Stefan Frei on that shot. And, while you’re rewatching that one, why not enjoy Asprilla slamming the ball home a second time, aka, a “fuck you” with a postage stamp.
The grand point lurking in all the above is this: both of these teams are wading through varying depths of shit at the moment. More bluntly, Cascadia no longer rules the West. They’re just a cluster of teams from the same general region trying to figure out how to manage a transition from the glory seasons of the second half of the 2010s. If there’s a silver lining in any of that, it’s the fact that Portland operates in the deeper crisis, a state of mind that gives them more clarity, or at least it should. We’ll see how all that goes going forward, one team at a time.
This site has made a lot of believing in the defense this season – and it’s taken fucking blinders to sustain that, rose-tinted lenses be damned – and the first goal the Timbers hacked up came very much in that vein. I blamed Eric Miller for this one in the game thread, but I think McGraw’s decision to go all-in on attacking the ball had more to do with Raul Ruidiaz getting a standing header from the six than Miller’s late, semi-impossible failure to recover. Seattle’s second goal, the one that came from picking Cristhian Paredes clean near the center-stripe, followed from their Plan A: Seattle thrived so long as they combined cutting off lanes and hunting the ball. And then Chu’s second yellow turned red. That happened in the 53rd minute, by the way. Just to note it, I had a bit of time-slip around that whole thing.
To give the Portland’s OG starting XI their due, they started the work of turning the game: Miles Joseph didn’t call in the subs until the 67 minute, at which point I was already chafing – and more than usual and in more places. Still, as demonstrated (or propagandized?) by the official stats, specifically, the possession bars and (to a lesser extent) the xG, Portland turned the tide like Superman turning back time and/or the rotation of the Earth in the old Chris Reeves joints; suddenly, it was the Sounders who couldn’t complete a pass, suddenly, it was Joao Paolo making a rugby tackle to cut off a Timbers counter at the pass. (To his incredible credit, Sebastian Blanco would later do the same, just for funsies; he had a pretty wasted night, honestly, but we’ll always have that.)
The xG graph tells another story, i.e., the one about why the Timbers failed to win tonight. Happy as I am that Portland rescued a point, particularly after that tongue-tied first half, they didn’t generate a ton of great chances. Sure, sure, they scored two goals, but one came off a long throw/knock on to Dairon Asprilla (do yourself a solid and watch all the moving around on that goal). The other, well, that one’s worth contemplating a while. For one, Seattle had found a fair amount of success by stuffing the space in the wide areas, both to clog the close passing lanes and to force turnovers. Making that same (sensible) choice in that moment, left leaving Evander all the way open at the top of Zone 14 and, for all the things that man does wrong (legion and counting) he strikes a spanking-clean ball now and again. And he fully fucked up “The Dread” Stefan Frei on that shot. And, while you’re rewatching that one, why not enjoy Asprilla slamming the ball home a second time, aka, a “fuck you” with a postage stamp.
The grand point lurking in all the above is this: both of these teams are wading through varying depths of shit at the moment. More bluntly, Cascadia no longer rules the West. They’re just a cluster of teams from the same general region trying to figure out how to manage a transition from the glory seasons of the second half of the 2010s. If there’s a silver lining in any of that, it’s the fact that Portland operates in the deeper crisis, a state of mind that gives them more clarity, or at least it should. We’ll see how all that goes going forward, one team at a time.
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| Real thing. Fer real. |
That’s all I have on the game. Time to pillage the brainfarts in the notes...
1) A Dip Back to the Second Observation Above
The thought about people making up their mind on a player very much came to me giving up on Yimmi Chara – i.e., he’s posted good enough numbers in seasons prior to keep me from fully standing up the argument that he’s a bust, and yet all I see are his limitations (general) and mistakes (e.g., the moment in the first half, where he pinged a ball off his foot, into his chest and out of bounds). The (or, rather, a) flipside of that: I saw people shit all over David Bingham in the socials, complaints about footwork, and so on, but I thought he had a good game. Hell, he saved two more than the five real saves he had; sure, those happened on one play ultimately called offside and then another that only happened thanks to a Ruidiaz shove, but both impressed.
1a) The battle between Ruidiaz and Bingham was the pitcher/catcher battle of this game...which I mean in the baseball sense of the word, strictly. Keep it clean, people...
2) Farms and Gay Paree
Do you think Portland effectively gave up on doing anything up the left when they decided to start Eric Miller over Claudio Bravo? For me, Miller was a bit clumsy, but without being completely terrible. Whatever Bravo gives up defensively, he makes up by operating as the same kind of outlet that Mosquera does when building out of the back and, for better or worse, making that final pass. So, for those not tracking the header, there’s this old song, “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Gay Paree),” and Bravo is the Gay Paree in this scenario. The guy doesn’t produce much for shots and assists, but Bravo creates a free radical kind of chaos whenever he's out there, and on both sides of the ball. I think the Timbers missed that as an option tonight.
3) Boli v Mora
This one’s pretty simple: which player would you default to starting first between now and Decision Day? I’m Team Boli, personally, and not necessarily because I think he’s better. The calculus here is more about energy, here, a specific (imagined) difference between positive and negative energy. Boli’s decent at receiving the ball, holding it, even dribbling it, but his greatest upside is the fact that he runs; he’ll chase, he’ll harass and, once he has the ball, he’ll try shit, basically. Mora, meanwhile, excels at pulling defenses apart – i.e., he moves to receive the ball, and forces to defenders and midfielders, and defenders and fullbacks, to figure out how to pass him off, aka, the work of stressing and draining a defense until they get flustered. Two different approaches to the same goal, in other words, stressing out a defense.
To pitch in my own vote, I’d default to starting Boli. A player that forces mistakes in and among the backline when the team doesn’t have possession strikes me as a more valuable asset/approach in a struggling team (like Portland). Mora’s biggest upside comes when the Timbers have possession, and he’s more subtle in any case. To convert the argument to boxing terms, think of Boli as a barrage of jabs to loosen up the other spaces, and Mora as the upper cut for delivering the coup de grace.
1) A Dip Back to the Second Observation Above
The thought about people making up their mind on a player very much came to me giving up on Yimmi Chara – i.e., he’s posted good enough numbers in seasons prior to keep me from fully standing up the argument that he’s a bust, and yet all I see are his limitations (general) and mistakes (e.g., the moment in the first half, where he pinged a ball off his foot, into his chest and out of bounds). The (or, rather, a) flipside of that: I saw people shit all over David Bingham in the socials, complaints about footwork, and so on, but I thought he had a good game. Hell, he saved two more than the five real saves he had; sure, those happened on one play ultimately called offside and then another that only happened thanks to a Ruidiaz shove, but both impressed.
1a) The battle between Ruidiaz and Bingham was the pitcher/catcher battle of this game...which I mean in the baseball sense of the word, strictly. Keep it clean, people...
2) Farms and Gay Paree
Do you think Portland effectively gave up on doing anything up the left when they decided to start Eric Miller over Claudio Bravo? For me, Miller was a bit clumsy, but without being completely terrible. Whatever Bravo gives up defensively, he makes up by operating as the same kind of outlet that Mosquera does when building out of the back and, for better or worse, making that final pass. So, for those not tracking the header, there’s this old song, “How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down on the Farm (After They’ve Seen Gay Paree),” and Bravo is the Gay Paree in this scenario. The guy doesn’t produce much for shots and assists, but Bravo creates a free radical kind of chaos whenever he's out there, and on both sides of the ball. I think the Timbers missed that as an option tonight.
3) Boli v Mora
This one’s pretty simple: which player would you default to starting first between now and Decision Day? I’m Team Boli, personally, and not necessarily because I think he’s better. The calculus here is more about energy, here, a specific (imagined) difference between positive and negative energy. Boli’s decent at receiving the ball, holding it, even dribbling it, but his greatest upside is the fact that he runs; he’ll chase, he’ll harass and, once he has the ball, he’ll try shit, basically. Mora, meanwhile, excels at pulling defenses apart – i.e., he moves to receive the ball, and forces to defenders and midfielders, and defenders and fullbacks, to figure out how to pass him off, aka, the work of stressing and draining a defense until they get flustered. Two different approaches to the same goal, in other words, stressing out a defense.
To pitch in my own vote, I’d default to starting Boli. A player that forces mistakes in and among the backline when the team doesn’t have possession strikes me as a more valuable asset/approach in a struggling team (like Portland). Mora’s biggest upside comes when the Timbers have possession, and he’s more subtle in any case. To convert the argument to boxing terms, think of Boli as a barrage of jabs to loosen up the other spaces, and Mora as the upper cut for delivering the coup de grace.
That’s all for this one. Just to note it, I’m off until September 30. Traveling and looking forward. Weeeee!
Curmudgeonly take on one thing- Did Seattle go, 'Whah?' Pulling out their MLS Rules handbooks, looking frantically at arcane shirtless celebration rules for the first time? Silly rule? - of course. Hidden from the players? - no. Poking the referee's officious nature to see if it's there? Well, it's your high-risk choice.
ReplyDeleteDoes the game prove anything more than, most times, 11 Timbers can over match 10 Sounders in our 2023 Cascadia Tablescraps games? Our tying it up was terrific, but no deep meaning seems evident.
Evander and Bravo- luxury add-ons to somebody's already-good team. But maddening pieces on an ill-constructed, seeing-out-the-season Timbers club.
I've vented; go enjoy your September break!
Solid phrasing on the MLS Rules handbook thing and, YES (UGH!), you're right, they should know better. The things a player can easily do so as to not hurt the team, and yet they do. That rule, though...stuff like that just hit one of my bigger buttons. Like holding a ruler between a young couple to keep 'em from dancin' sinful...
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on the game too. Nothing to be learned beyond Dairon doing Dairon things and remembering that Evander has more technique than (apparent) motivation. As for Bravo, I can only admit I'm weird about that player. He's like the son I spoil but don't have.
And thanks for the well wishes on the September break!