New York City FC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Notes on a Palm Springs Scuffle

The Timbers ran the gauntlet today. And survived.

Just some quick notes on the Portland Timbers 1-1 draw versus New York City FC to pass on. It’s only preseason and there’s still the regular season slog to get through after all.

First, I have no actual complaints. The performance walked a line closer to fine than good, but it cast some glances in a brighter direction and left me with nothing more than quibbles to enter into meeting minutes. The Timbers gave NYC a hand on the ball (hey-oh!), and they got broken down all the way 10-15 minutes later (left two guys wide open at the back post, Santiago Rodriguez and Malachi Jones), but unless I missed something else in the first ten minutes of the second half (shower ran long), that’s pretty much everything from Les Pigeons.

The Timbers, meanwhile, regrouped nicely after going down a goal. Better, they calmed down some problems before they turned into issues (see 1b) below). After a first half where they could only find forward momentum in wide areas and struggled a touch with getting started out of the back, Portland came out settled for the second half and got to where they could throw some weight around. When their goal came – roughly 47 minutes after NYCFC’s opener – it was more opportunistic than constructed, but, again, preseason. Stuff like that only rises to an issue if it persists...and isn’t that the worry? Still, glad Santiago Moreno made the most of his defender’s slip and god bless the NYC defense for losing Felipe Mora at the back post. Seeing the Timbers send a little more menace the opposing goal would have felt better, but it is what it is, which is one point.

That takes care of the overview. Now, to tick through some details…

1) Midfield, Arrangement

So, that was probably something like a 4-2-3-1, right? Maybe a 3-4-2-1? What I picked up (generally) was Zac McGraw, Kamal and Eric Miller holding down defense, Jaden Jones-Riley in a fairly back-to-front role on the right, Eryk Williamson and Diego Chara sitting deeper in midfield, with Moreno and Antony on either side of Evander a little ahead of them, and all that with Mora up top? Even if they lined up a little different, I didn’t mind it. I like Moreno more advanced, generally, and Antony looked more comfortable to me than he did last season. Seeing the latter did the heart good because, call me crazy, but I’d like to see the Timbers up the fear factor in opposing defenses.

1a) Midfield, Function

New York had control of the middle of the pitch for most of the first half – one thing I’d worry about with starring that midfield – to where you barely saw Evander and Williamson in the first half. The Timbers found some success up the right, at least when they could pull NYC to the opposite side, whether it was Moreno or Antony combining with Jones-Riley. They didn’t get anything out of it today, but it got the ball to a place where Portland could figure out how to finish the move. As noted above, things improved in the second half – mostly because Portland figured out how to move the ball forward centrally – and that did the soul good, too.

1b) Midfield, One Potential Issue

This mainly came up in the first half, so it's possible Phil Neville, et al, saw the problem and adjusted to address it - which would be good! What wasn't good: the whole of Portland's midfield sometimes pushed too high when NYC was on the ball and that allowed New York to find space behind it and room to go straight at Portland's back three-to-four (it was four, more often as not; even if he didn't make every tackle, the young Jones-Riley covered the ground he had to to stay in position). No harm in this one, but that's not a habit Portland's midfield should get into - and I wonder if the choice of starters made that more likely.  

2) Choices, Choices

I’ve gotten so used to seeing Cristhian Paredes start that I forgot he played on the team when he didn’t. I remembered David Ayala, but I’m used to seeing him not start. Then you’ve got Dario Zuparic in defense and Dairon Asprilla further up the field. I get that Asprilla has a history of coming in and out of the starting XI, but Zup's name was all but inked on the starting roster in 2023. At this point, I’m just really interested to see how the Timbers’ starting eleven evolves this season. It just feels like there’s a number of ways to put any eleven Timbers on the field; related, and better yet, all those viable options make me believe that most players face real competition for holding down a starting gig going into 2024. That beats the hell out of Giovanni Savarese being forced to get the most out of what he had available to start the last two to three seasons (right? something like that?).

3) Defense

It was fine. If Maxime Crepeau had to make a save, never mind stretch for one, I either didn’t see it or it didn’t stick with me.

4) Mora

I don’t think he has competition for his position and, as much as I love Mora (which, here, means I dig what he does and root for him as hard as any player), I believe he needs it. More to the point, I’d like to see the Timbers have different looks/options to throw at opposing defenses.

That’s it for this one on this channel. Here’s to hoping some benevolent soul lines up streams for the next two preseason games (February 14 v San Jose Earthquakes and February 17 v Chicago Fire FC). Till the next broadcast….