Portland Timbers 2-0 Vancouver Whitecaps: Is This Progress?

Glad to be back home.

Five wins in the last eight games, suddenly 6th in the West sure as Brooke Shields was Suddenly Susan in a sitcom I neither watched nor fully understood in terms of concept and timing. The Portland Timbers won walking away (also) 2-0 against the Vancouver Whitecaps tonight, thereby keeping their Cascadia Cup Dreams primed for the filling and suddenly looking like they’ve learned how to put one foot in front of the other (hold that thought). Better still, JPants picked up his/the Portland Timbers' 3rd clean sheet of 2024 – which makes one wonder (hold that thought, also) – and, better than all that, the entire game played out comfy as a well-worn pair of PJs.

Hold on…

Is it new format time? Yes, it’s new format time. Also, welcome back to the old gym. Hope it smells like memories! Right, back to the new format…

If I Had to Summarize This Game for Someone
Tonight’s game started as so many have: with the Timbers laboring to play the ball out of the back and ceding both possession and control. Vancouver’s Sebastian Berhalter teed up a few solid chances over the opening 20 minutes or so and that inject a little “what could have been” into this game if, say, Fafa Picault or Alessandro Schopf (probably?) could head the ball fer shit. The Timbers snatched after floor scrapings throughout that period, with the choicest pickings coming from Jonathan Rodriguez poking a couple (feeble) shots toward goal from the back-post.

Then suddenly, some light supernatural meddling met the yips for Vancouver and, three lucky bounces and one cool finish later, Portland went up on a cool-as-you-like finish by Rodriguez. And that goal changed the game, at least in my mind. Twenty-six-plus minutes would pass before Schopf got sent off for his second stupid yellow card (gotta be in here somewhere, surely), but Vancouver was, at most, marginally better before his red card than they were after it. Felipe Mora delivered an insurance goal that made me feel as good about the assist as I did about the goal (another thought to hold), but the ‘Caps had 52+ minutes to rack up some shots and they only managed seven, with just one on goal. Vancouver barely showed up tonight, carrying forward a run of form that has seen them slip down the standings like a water buffalo struggling in quicksand.

Is that it? Yes, that’s it. Moving on to…

Five Things I’d Tell People About This Game
1) “The Pass” and, Perhaps a Need to Warm Up?
To start with the defined term, “The Pass” is a ball played from the defense into the center of midfield to start a given team's attempt at an attack. While I’m open to interpretation on the specific form it takes, I hold firm in the belief that a team can’t get hold of any given game until they play some version of that pass. It shakes off a press, lays a foundation, and gets things headed in a promising direction. Like a really smart appetizer. It often takes a while for the Timbers to start looking for that pass, never mind attempt it, but I’m starting to wonder if that’s not a choice the Timbers have opted to play toward somewhere after they’ve confirmed that they’ve got the defensive shape stacked right behind it.

Help me, David Ayala, no one else moves.

When the Timbers opened the game unable to play into the midfield, I had the oh-so-familiar Han Solo moment (i.e., “I got a bad feeling about this”) and I only had David Ayala for my Obiwan Kenobi. But as the game went on – and this happened more after Santiago Moreno’s assist to Mora cleaved a seam straight through Vancouver’s guts – that pass opened up…and, hold on, I suddenly noticed that my notes show the Timbers having their best moments around that from minute 50-65. So, yeah, maybe that second yellow did matter. Fuck it, why got lost in the whys and wherefores of how well the Timbers carved up the ‘Caps in the second half? They actually looked like they could play and that's something to celebrate. At any rate, it's possible that Phil has made a conscious choice to start games carefully and I'm on whatever works, man.

2) A Captain Stepped Up
I barely rate Diego Chara as a passer, but all that buzzing around by Ayala opened up space for Chara to receive the ball directly from the defenders, often deep and sometimes with a ‘Caps player nipping at his heels, but with plenty of space and angles in front of him. Chara made the most of that by playing some of the best-weighted and smartest passes I’ve seen him make all season. The Timbers front line, and Evander, in particular, pissed away a couple of his better leading passes (I have at least twice in my head), but that's not on Chara: he didn’t do anything elaborate, but he also didn’t need to, and his passing was better for it. I don’t often get a lot out of the possession bar graph on the Mothership’s stats page, but this one does a fair job of mapping the game’s actual trajectory: the Timbers went for the jugular from the 50-65th minute, but then (largely) retreated into the old bunker/counter comfort-zone from there (because I see the same blip you do). That said, I can name one factor that made that possible…

3) Laborda Was a Disaster
I’m pretty sure Matias Laborda plays as a defender more often than not, but I feel highly confident arguing that he played a high-sweeper-style role like someone who has zero concept of how to defend in midfield. Over the opening minutes – i.e., Vancouver’s best ones – he stepped high enough to chase after Chara to get me positively fantasizing about the space he left open behind him. Those over-aggressive, shape-bending choices announced Laborda’s approach to the game: an absence of positional discipline. Whether chasing player or ball, he got pulled all over and left a void in the heart of the ‘Caps defense that Pedro Vite could only fill on the attacking side (seriously, Vite played a good one). I bring this up mainly to suggest that Portland's success up the middle may owe something to a substitute teacher running Vancouver's classroom.

Spill your rays on me, oh, Sun!

4) Is It Crap Attacking Teams, or Is It JPants?
As I think even a half-attentive Timbers fan could tell you, Portland has had exactly three clean sheets all season and that James Pantemis has started in the nets for all three. The opposition/venue in those three games were as follows: at Austin FC, at St. Louis CITY FC, and, tonight, v Vancouver. None of those teams strike me as great attacking sides, so…discuss.

5) Is This Progress?
For all my diminishment of the opposition over the past month and/or eight games – and, to be clear, I meant most of it – the Portland Timbers have taken care of business over that stretch. There are caveats all over not just that run, but tonight’s result that should make you wonder about whether the Timbers are getting luck or making it, but 17 points from 24 is a good run for any team, so I’m just going to bask in the soma of it.

That’s all I’ve got for this one. For what it’s worth, I’m rethinking the approach globally and hope I’m on to something. (But aren’t I always?) Till the MLS wrap-up post I’ve got queued up – and in this space, where I shall die with my boots on.