Portland Timbers 4-1 Colorado Rapids: Yes, with a Great Big (Twerking) But(t)

A conversation taking place.

I’ve got an angel on one shoulder fretting about getting carried away and a devil merrily twerking on the other whispering about giving all the way in and to every temptation. The angel’s going to win this round, and for a number of reasons, but mostly because I know too much about getting ahead of myself. That doesn’t mean the Portland Timbers 4-1 stroll over the Colorado Rapids didn’t feel great and soothing (like a good heating pad…I’m using one now). It just means taking a couple considerations seriously – and starting with a big one.

The Rapids fell apart before they got started in that first half. There, I’m talking less about Portland’s first goal (which I’ll come back to) than the second. All the credit in the world to Cristhian Paredes for finding Antony isolated a step behind of the penalty spot against Colorado’s Keegan Rosenberry, but you’re not going to see a captain go down with the ship the way Rosenberry did last night outside of your more chilling maritime disasters. Even allowing for the possibility that Antony’s stronger than he looks (and after last night, that’s a yes), I don’t know how a defender with Rosenberry’s experience lets the young winger get in front of him on that play.

To circle back to the maritime metaphor, who was around him when Antony scored his second goal of the night (Portland's third)? Rosenberry. And when Antony cut across the ball that bounced of the Rapids’ Sam Vines and into the net for a collective, soul-crushing own-goal (and Portland's fourth)? Yep, Rosenberry again.

That gets to the first big caveat the damn angel has sold me on: unless he ate 1,000 bowls of Wheaties and chased it with a course of high-grade steroids over the off-season, I doubt you’re going to see Antony run over, around a through a player like he did Rosenberry. Don’t get me wrong: I really loved what I saw from Antony yesterday – his defensive work as much as the three goal contributions (and can we call that a hat trick, so long as we take the asterisk with it) - but the caveat in re Keegan Rosenberry, aka, the captain to Colorado’s Titanic, feels like a sub-caveat to a larger one. To wit: for all the changes they made to their 2023 roster, the Colorado Rapids still have some road to walk before they arrive at capable and, if Chris Armas hasn’t improved drastically as a head coach since the last time I watched him a work, Colorado’s walk will be uphill both ways and through three feet of snow.

More lifeboats needed. And a better boat.

For all the chatter that surrounded their rebuild, you only need to know a couple of names to see that in Colorado’s starting line-up last night. However highly you personally rate Djordje Mihailovic (he’s a solid B for me), he can’t do it all on his own. All it takes from there is checking the names around him and seeing players like Calvin Harris, Cole Bassett and the Rapids’ young DP forward, Rafael Navarro. Harris I knew from his on-off time with FC Cincinnati and Bassett has waited for his breakout season since 2019; Navarro, meanwhile, hasn’t posted even young DP numbers since joining the Rapids last season (in fairness, he played just 10 games for the Rapids in 2023); the trend continues with substitutions like Jonathan Lewis and Omir Fernandez, both decent players but, along with the rest of the players noted above, none of the strong enough to throw the team on his back and run for glory: by my math, all that plus Mihailovic equals more work for the Rapids’ F.O. before it equals a season of glory.

All that brings the discussion to the caveat lurking behind the primary caveat of “Colorado isn’t good.” The official stats be damned, Colorado should have had two goals yesterday and a third wouldn’t have been unreasonable. Both Bassett and Lewis got free headers in the heart of Portland’s 18 in the second half and with a lot of goal facing them. I know Lewis can miss anything and Bassett doesn’t hit much more, but if all this negging self-flagellation has a point it’s that: the (allegedly) lowly Rapids set up the kinds of clear-cut chances that better teams and better players will bury so deep it’s possible they’ll never be recovered. Moreover, better teams won’t spot the Timbers four first half goals and a better coach would make an in-game adjustment to keep his captain/starting right from getting repeatedly isolated in scenarios that keep ending with the ball in the back the net.

Right, enough with the fretting. It’s time to twerk, people…

Faced with a weak/evolving team, the Timbers delivered exactly what fans want from their local team yesterday. Portland knocked the Rapids off-balance from the start and didn’t let them find it again until what was admittedly a second half to forget. They moved the ball quickly when they had it, sometimes just to get in rhythm, but they did it to push the game just as often. This is where Portland’s first goal comes in. The meat of that play started inside the middle of Colorado’s half and it took a lot of moving and scrapping to get a hold of the ball and keep the play alive. By the time the ball moved out to a right-sided overload between Juan David Mosquera and Santiago Moreno, all that work up the middle had Colorado’s defense over-committed all over the place and a little dazed. That left Williamson all alone when the ball rolled across the Rapids’ penalty area to a baldly exposed weak side. He still had to finish, and it wasn’t easy as he made it look, but that’s what Williamson can do when he’s at his best.

MOAR, PLZ

As anyone who watched last night knows, Williamson played as big a role as Antony in running up the score while the Timbers had Colorado on the ropes (the weight on those leading passes to Antony had the tender attentiveness of good foreplay) and I loved that as much as anything I saw. The way Williamson pounded the ad boards and kissed the crest after his goal told you what it meant to him and I really, really hope he’s whole, well and gets the run in the team that he deserves because the man has been through it.

Paredes also deserves a towering dollop of praise. Without knowing the who, what and where of what Phil Neville sees as his ideal starting XI, I’m left taking the one he used most in preseason as the best available approximation of it for now. And, so long as he has Evander, Williamson and Chara available, that seemed to squeeze out Paredes. Well, Evander went down and Paredes stepped up and to, in my opinion, very good effect. Good enough, certainly, to make one wonder how one (named Phil Neville) would go about constructing the Timbers’ best available starting midfield. And I respect the hell out of Paredes for his professionalism and commitment to the team. My biggest pitch for starting Paredes starts with the question: would Portland have been able to dominate the midfield in the first half had they started Evander over Paredes? I have my answer and it just leads to some tricky questions.

That’s it for this one. I have some further concerns – e.g., the defense didn’t get tested all that much, it didn’t always shine when it did, you can’t hand the opposition free crosses if you’re going to lose marks like that, they gave up another set-piece goal, etc. – but I’ve also left some good things unmentioned – e.g., James Pantemis is our first back-up and he did a lot of things well (flapping on Colorado’s goal, not among them) – and I found myself sincerely and repeatedly impressed with Kamal’s comfort on the ball. The Timbers got off to a dream start, without question, even if they let up more than I’d like to start the second half. Then again, isn’t the way it makes it hard to know what’s real the trouble with dream logic? Till the next one…