Columbus Crew SC 2-2 Portland Timbers: I'm Beginning to See the Light, Here it Comes, Woo-Oooh-Oooh

Here it fucking comes....

I don’t believe in moral victories, as a rule, and I’m not going to take that route for this review. To be clear, that doesn’t mean that the Portland Timbers didn’t play a damn good and wonderfully entertaining game tonight. In fact, the fact they punched even with, for all their present faults and fatigue, a consensus-best team in MLS raises Portland’s 2-2 draw at Columbus Crew SC into disappointment territory. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, etc.

Going the other way, consider how disappointed Columbus fans feel tonight and, to float a guess I may or may not confirm the The Massive subreddit tomorrow, how flaming pissed they are at everyone’s favorite ref, Ted “Drunk” Unkel. In a press conference after the Timbers’ frustrating home draw against Los Angeles FC last weekend (who's ready for the encore?), head coach Phil Neville voiced some hope that calls would break his team’s way over the run of the season. I’m not saying that process tilted toward justice tonight, I’m not saying I care, I only know Felipe Mora either had more time on the ball tonight or he got the call when he got knocked down (if by sleight of body, here and there). After that, Unkel called the usual game that only he sees through whatever contacts he’s wearing…like a goddamn random number generator with a pocket full of reds and yellows, I tell you…

Most and best of all the things about tonight’s game, yes, Roman gladiator guy, I was entertained. Both teams rewarded their fans with two top-shelf goals a piece – more on that later – the game had a lively one-team-giveth-the-other-taketh-away tension, and, typing strictly as a homer, the Timbers played their second solid game in a row. It’s not showing in the standings – hello(!), 11th in the West – and I hope to see the Timbers get all three points next week at LAFC with the desperate fervor of a 10-year-old battling against all the odds and even more doubts that the Tooth Fairy still pays a fiver-per-tooth, but I’m closer to believing the Timbers have a competitive team than I’ve been since that little flutter of hope the Timbers had during Miles Joseph’s short, interim reign. Hell, I’m willing to shout that all the way back to 2021.

To their credit, Portland exceeded the broadly conservative approach I laid out in my scouting report. Even better, they granted my wish for more robust defending over an opening 20-25 minutes that saw them go up 1-0 on top of frustrating the bejesus out of the Crew.

I’ll get to the goals (promise), but I want to dig into Portland’s generally effective defensive shape and for one specific reason: the Timbers have knocked themselves about the face and neck with defensive boners too often this season, so seeing them defend….more or less well, and against a relentlessly inventive teams while playing on the road feels like the most important corner to round on the way to a groovy 2024 regular season. It wasn’t perfect – Columbus scored their first equalizer on a toxic combination of spacing out (Evander) and ball-watching (Diego Chara and, I think Claudio Bravo) – but the overall shape was great, the Timbers defended to the halfway line, sometimes with some bite, in a way that frustrates even the most capable attacks.

Did Columbus still find an impressive number of chances? Did Cucho Hernandez have a fairly plausible shout for a penalty when Diego Chara subtly yanked his arm in the area (maybe somewhere in here)? Yes, and on both counts. Columbus hit the post…was it three times? Including once at the death, and that one time when James Pantemis almost lost a cross only to find it again, by amazing grace and all that? Did Bravo save a no-questions-asked, yep-that’s-a-goal shot that Pantemis probably didn’t even see? Yes on all those counts too.

For all that, and in the same way Bravo was exactly where he needed to be in the moment, the Timbers defense felt organized and in control in a way they so far haven’t in 2024. The 5-4-1 defensive shape they took – sometimes a diamond with Chara parked as a pure no. 6 five yards ahead of the center of defense, sometimes something closer to a 5-3-1-1 – worked generally and frustrated Columbus often. For all the shots they fired, it took their better ones to hit a post – which arguably speaks to why it took a thundering masterpiece from Steven Moreira to get their second equalizer.

To sweat, mint juleps, and burying the Lost Cause!

I started with the Timbers defense for a very particular reason: I don’t expect that Portland will face many attacking teams that combine Columbus’ impressive combination of reliability and flexibility. And, so long as that holds, that will Portland time and space to sharpen an attack that clicks louder and smarter with each passing week. You can hang a couple laurels on Portland’s early go-ahead goal – efficiency and vindicating starting Eryk Williamson among them – but, speaking solely for myself, I can’t remember the last time the Timbers scored a gorgeous, sparklingly-clean team goal that matched their second. Straight-up cooking, I tell ya, from the ball in from Jonathan Rodriguez, to Evander’s dummy, to Mora’s touch, to Evander continuing his run to receive the return, to Santiago Moreno getting a step or three inside his defender on the weak side. Things like this make you reach for Southern metaphors about butter, bacon, and sultry evenings on the veranda, and well-oiled parts.

Overall, this game was played in this fun place outside of game states. Somewhere around the 25th minute, I scribbled a phrase into my notes that feels like an apt descriptor for the game as a whole: Columbus was busy, while Portland was effective.

It’s just talking points from here. In the order they came to me (or, more likely, back to front):

1) I Didn’t Notice the Kamal Miller/Miguel Araujo CB Pairing

And that feels like a good thing.

2) Falling (Back) in Love with a Back Four

As noted above, I think it flattened into a back-five when Columbus had the ball in Portland’s half – which they did a lot – and the shape in front of that changed and flattened as dictated by the need to deny space, but both Juan David Mosquera and Bravo showed real defensive chops tonight. I lost track of the number of times Bravo lunged in hopelessly, and those moments caused problems, but both players have made a decent case over the past couple games – both of them against legitimately contending teams – that they can flex between wingback and old-school fullback. And that’s encouraging.

3) Starting Eryk and Evander Worked

Anyone who reads these posts knows how skeptical I was, and probably still am, about starting two attack-minded No. 8s with…let’s call it an insecure situation at the No. 6 position. It worked well enough tonight to where I’m thinking that the main thing Portland needs right now is a clear answer at the No. 6 position – one that goes beyond Diego Chara playing until the sun swallows the earth. Both Eryk and Evander played effective-to-good games tonight. That was a big part of the “holy shit” factor to this result.

4) Santi Is Racking Up MoTM Performances

For my money, no player was more important to neutralizing Columbus attempt to go ahead and rally after going down a goal over the first 25 minutes than Santiago Moreno. His defensive positioning cut out Columbus passing lanes to the end of the first half and beyond and his push/pull effect on Columbus’ left made him no less valuable going forward. Moreno has raised his game to credible MLS starter levels this season – which is exactly what the Timbers need to starting throwing punches where they might hit someone important.

5) A Good Outing in a Difficult Situation

I, like most people (I think), prefer Rodriguez at left wing. At the same time, I think that has as much to do with preferring Mora up top because, seriously, I don’t think anyone besides Mora has made the Timbers better all by his lonesome since Diego Valeri. To wrap up on Rodriguez, I genuinely like what I’m seeing from him so far; he’s winning me over on defensive effort alone (and he was rock-steady tonight). For all that, I don’t think Neville, Ridgewell & Sons have figured out how to get the most out of and/or weaponize “Jona.” I’m looking forward to seeing what they get out of him once they stop stranding him on the left. Till then, nothing matters more than…

6) Balance

I saw a good number of people – more than a dozen, certainly – argue that the Timbers would improve once Bravo came back. Insofar as I think that takes second place to what Mora brings to the team, Bravo’s return has brought, for lack of a better word, balance to the Timbers. Having (reasonably?) disciplined wide midfielders affords Mosquera and Bravo the flexibility to alternate between attacking and defending with Moreno and Rodriguez, respectively. And that gives opposition defenses a lot to think about, while solidifying the Timbers’ cover/shape situation at the back.

In case it didn’t come through in the above, I’m buying Timbers stock right now. I’ll be damned, but they might be getting there.

Till the next preview…which, uuuggghh, LAFC again? Ewwww?!