Portland Timbers 3-0 Real Salt Lake: Superior Kung Fu

Cat v. Spider-Monkey style?

Well. I’ll be…

The Portland Timbers went wire-to-wire in last night’s 3-0 win over a visiting (and leggy?) Real Salt Lake team that, at the time of first kicking, 10 more points than the Timbers. This win, more than any of the five(!) that came before it over the past six games, felt like a real announcement, a throwing down of the gauntlet, and a warning to the once-betters that used to have to look a ways down the table to see the Portland…

…just to note it, but the Seattle Sounders are on a streak one-point hotter than Portland’s and the Vancouver Whitecaps kicked the shit out of St. Louis CITY FC, leaving those teams one and two points behind the Timbers, respectively. Celebrate the win, by all means, but do keep a close eye on the rearview.

A Summary
I’d barely formed an opinion on the tifo (good one, guys!) when a very much in-form Santiago Moreno wrecked the left side of RSL’s defense by spinning around a double team and behind the defense. That left him with plenty of traffic ahead, but Felipe Mora cut through it with a run in front of Brayan Vera and beat Zac McMath at the near-post. The game went into management mode for the rest of the first half – which, here, means RSL working the ball around the filed; capably; again, this is a good team who does that well – and Portland punching back in transition. A couple shots excepted – going with a break that almost broke through for RSL and a back-post chance Jonathan Rodriguez should have hit better – it boiled down to one team’s kung fu against another’s.

For what feels like the…let’s go with tenth time this season, the Timbers came out of the halftime locker room swinging (whatever you’re doing in there, Phil, whether it’s motivational speaking, a drum circle, a special kind of incense, bumps of blow, keep doing it, man!). At the very beginning of the second half, they knocked once before barging through the door with a second goal of the night, one that rode the ragged line between elaborate and absurdist. It’s a goal for Timbers fans to celebrate because they finally scored one through one of their patented three-to-four-extra-touches specials.

The game reverted to management mode from there, if with the twist of RSL firing some dangerous shots, most semi-indirect loopers that almost snuck in over James Pantemis’ head. The visitors also had a not-fucking-around header from (Cristian) Chicho Arango go off the far post. Watching from the other end of the field, I didn’t clock how close that went in real time and, who knows what that would have done to the stretch-run. Why LAFC let that guy go, I’ll never know…

Speaking of Arango, things got a lot heated somewhere in the middle of the first half (Arango did something dicky), but I’m sticking with the dueling styles of kung fu analogy to frame this game. Portland won it in a knockout with Evander putting a sweet cherry on top (is this a maraschino?) after Neville finally called on the subs. Knock him all you want, but the Timbers don’t have many players who can stretch the field vertically like Antony and, arguably, Juan David Mosquera (though using him entails risks). And that brings me to the first of the…

Five Things I’d Tell People About This Game (That I Already Haven’t)
1) Things Jonathan Rodriguez Can and Cannot Do
He is not fast, though he can be quick at times. You’ll never get much playing him into space – it borders on a fool’s errand, honestly - but having a great line to watch him work over the second half raised my appreciation for the man’s touch and close control. He can receive a booming diagonal to the back-post like he’s catching a cotton ball and the ball sticks tight enough to his feet to make the quickness he has pay off by opening passing lanes and looks on goal. Put a strong aerial game on top of that pile and you’ve got yourself a good player – as Portland has. They just need to play to his considerable strengths.

2) Revisiting “The Pass”
After the win over Vancouver in late June, I complained about Portland’s either inability or unwillingness to play what I call “the Pass.” From the post:

“’The Pass’ is a ball played from the defense into the center of midfield. 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 rattles a press, lays a foundation, and gets things headed in a promising direction.”

Whether to Eryk Williamson, Diego Chara or Santiago Moreno (or even Evander), the Timbers hit The Pass all night long - for the second week running, no less - and some of the best passing of the season radiated from that starting point. Every Timber seemed to have a good option for every occasion and you could hear things clicking from the stands. I have to believe some of that followed from gaps in RSL’s midfield shape, but the speed of thought and play went a long way too. I’m tempted to give David Ayala credit for showing the rest of the team that it is indeed possible to play through the middle of the field; even if that’s overselling it (a bit? a lot?), I’m a little surprised the Timbers managed it as well as they did without him in the starting XI.

Inner children - UNLEASHED!

3) Playing for Fun
There was a moment – this had to be the second half, because I got a great look at it – when Evander received a ball on the left with the goal at about his nine (i.e., hands of a clock “nine”). The highlights don’t have it (which pisses me off a touch), but he pulled the ball back and, what started as a straight backheel became a flick of the heel that played an overlap to…well, if I could find the damn video I’d tell you. The point is – and this follows from No. 2 – rhythm is a wonderful thing when a team gets it going. Better, it promotes the confidence among the players so that it’s not just Evander making that pass, it’s the players around him believing that making those kinds of runs will (or just could) pay off.

4) The Best Thing About That Clean Sheet
While bouncing around and trying to find that pass, I bumped into MLS Content, specifically this piece about whether the Timbers are in the conversation for MLS Cup. I’m not too bothered by it, not even the bit where Calen Carr has LAFC, the Los Angeles Galaxy and RSL as a locked-down Top 3 in the West after last night’s game, but, if RSL is that team, what does that say about the way the Timbers’ defense – i.e., the centerpiece of the panel’s doubts about them – shut them out? Because they leave that question hanging, here’s my answer: Portland won this game in midfield, specifically, they won it in that space on the defensive side. They won it by shutting down RSL's passing lanes and playing a very strong two-way game. The three shots RSL put on goal feel like a good indicator for the quality of chances they generated (Arango, notably, had two of them) and the way Portland kept them away from their backline had a lot to do with that. If you told me they’d pull off that midfield performance against RSL and with Chara and Williamson starting, I would have told you you’re crazy. There are few things that impress me more than a game won in midfield. More, please…and yet…

5) My Most Heartening Moment of the Night
It was the “break that almost broke through for RSL” noted above. Fortunately, this one did make the highlights – start watching around 2:50 (actually, if you start at 2:40, you can see “go penis” in the closed captioning; “Pantemis” really fucks with the captioning team, apparently) – but it kicks off with RSL’s Emeka Eneli launching a counter by finding Andres Gomez in a seam up Portland's left. That gets the defense scrambling…and a big thing happened in that little sliver of time: Portland managed some of its best emergency defending of the season, with all concerned in good places and nicely connected. Miguel Araujo catches the cross with his heel, Pantemis lays down in front of the follow-up, and an outstanding Dario Zuparic swoops onto the scene to clear it out. If the Timbers can replicate how they defended through midfield and back it up with a little more of this, they can kill the argument that keeps that panel from giving them a shout.

That’s it for this one. The big takeaway: the Timbers controlled a game against a team that just about everyone watching rates. That’s a big one in any book. On to the next one!