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| My personal wingman broods... |
In other words, I was looking forward to seeing Portland get back to the MLS regular season. I really was.
FC Dallas 2-0 Portland Timbers
The Game, Still More Briefly
Portland gave up two shit goals – though the first was worst of the two by far(, Mr. Crepeau…has even one of his haters thought to call him "Maximum Crapeau”?) – and didn’t do shit on the attacking end. To be clear, I could end this section right here and still have everything pretty much covered, but, to continue…
Pointing to what went wrong on the defensive side is easy as Pin the Tail on the Donkey without the blindfold, but untangling why every Timber appeared to get the vapors on entering the attacking third takes a little picking. Despite the reported (fucking crazy) heat, Portland’s players shifted around more than usual when they had the ball, not necessarily a well-oiled machine, but at least it moved. Dallas countered by either or both ceding possession (to the tune of 40/60) or/and dropping the defensive line deep enough that it always had the game in front of it. On a better day, maybe Portland finds one another and, from there, some decent openings; on Saturday, too many players looked like they wanted to take back every pass immediately after making it. Their best moments came when Antony broke from the depths to the surface, but that only happened (I think) twice, and David Da Costa taking a crack at finishing off one of those, then firing a strong shot from a fair distance (both probably made the highlight reel, but I'm way, way behind; also, a clip of the second goal; just terrible marking, see?).
That pretty well covers the attack Dallas had to “survive” and they just had to make the most of their shots from there. Without claiming expertise on the subject, this struck me as a typical FC Dallas performance – i.e., they don’t create a lot of chances and rely on their defense to see that the opposition doesn’t get many more. Last night’s three points lifts them closer to the play-in spots, but that hasn’t served them so good in 2025; 11th in still 11th. They do have some real quality pieces – e.g., Petar Musa’s a damn good forward (and would thrive on a better team) and Sebastien Ibeagha has aged well – and Logan Farrington, who I’ve seen play well, made a strong argument for The Man Behind The Man of the Match (The Vice-Man of the Match? The Wingman of the Match?), but they don’t have the same quality of player in every position and, as follows, feel incomplete as a team.
At time of typing, I’ve elected to take this match in stride – i.e., to not treat it as proof that Portland’s late, great (or at least good!) run of form was a Leagues Cup mirage. Both goals followed from fuckups that can only fixed by doing the opposite (i.e., by not fucking up) and, with the exception of 2024, the Timbers offense has been more fitfully effective than good for long enough to feel like something to accept as normal.
Anyway, that’s the big picture. This feels like a post that would have read better had I stitched the points below into the notes above, but I hit “go” about four paragraphs ago and this train don’t turn around, so…
Five Thoughts, As I Watched
1) What (and Why?) Was the Formation?
The only thing I know is that the official line has it very wrong. With something like….65% confidence, I’d say it played like the 3-4-2-1 that Phil Neville seems into right now. As noted above, that has worked out all right and I like a couple features – e.g., it frees either/or Juan David Mosquera and Ian Smith (or "other") to push high and puts a big enough backstop behind David Ayala (who did this delightful, open-field turn out of pressure, like, three times yesterday) to allow him to receive the ball centrally without much risk. I think it plays to Da Costa’s strengths too, to the extent he's a “playmaker,” by keeping him high, while still allowing him to operate from midfield…but it doesn’t suit Antony. I like to see him higher, forcing the backline to keep an eye, if not an eye-and-a-half, on the space behind them. The depth of Dallas’ backline didn’t help, but the fact both of Antony’s best runs required him to 80 yards before he reached seemed like the wrong choice.
2) And Is There a Plan?
Faced with Dallas’ deep back-line, Portland resorted to crosses into a lone dude – Felipe Mora, often as not (also and sadly, not his best season) – that counted as early in that the defense had no reason to expect them, but also late in that Dallas had at least two defenders and around that lone player; sadly, these were the final passes Timbers played with the most certainty. I had money on Portland playing more than 20 crosses, but the official stats (referenced a couple times above, fwiw) say they chucked in two fewer. Which was probably related to how rarely the Timbers reached the final third.
Portland have found good, repeatable patterns of play to score goals over their years in MLS, but only here and there – “give the ball to Valeri” did a lot of lifting for a while – but, when forced to unlock a deep, dense defense, the operating theory really does seem to be “go out there and express yourselves.” Crosses can be good, but only if it's something a team works on; I don't see much evidence Portland does.
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| There can be only one. Srsly. Take her head off. |
With some of Portland’s best chances coming from range lately – thanks, Mr. Da Costa, your efforts have been noted - the Timbers seem bizarrely hesitant to embrace creating and playing to shooting lanes as a path through a compact defense, go-to or otherwise. If Portland could walk the ball into the goal every time, sure, I wouldn’t even begin to suggest such a low-percentage, low-T option…but, hey, beats hopefully hopeless crosses to Mora. Yes, yes, people have beat this drum hard and loud for years...
4) First Chair Battles Heating Up
The broadcast booth told me David Ayala’s name goes first into Phil Neville’s starting roster and I have no reason to doubt them. The question of who starts beside him feels like one of the bigger choices Neville will take this season. The now-departed, lightly-mourned Santiago Moreno got a lot of minutes in the space between defensive midfield and attack – which make that half-a-role to fill in either direction, i.e., how to replace an attacking player that (often) held central and also defended that same space? On top of that, Portland has a new winger coming in (maybe?), plus another central midfielder (maybe?), so how do those new pieces click into place in a midfield that functions, but clearly needs improvement, if not coherence? Does that mean starting either Joao Ortiz or Cristhian Paredes beside Ayala to free a new winger (and Antony!) to push against the backline? On paper (or maybe just in my head), that frees Da Costa to focus on playmaking…or shots from range…or…I dunno, just kinda running around, taking a couple of touches and passing the ball. Whatever you call that. I like the guy, I really do. It’s just…
5) To Pick a Favorite
I’m officially Team Ortiz. Neville gave Paredes some interesting things to do Saturday – e.g., the way he pulled right to provide an outlet for Ayala (or a CB) to get out of the back – but this felt like a good, long audition for him and I didn’t see anything that made me want to hand him the part. To be clear, Paredes does things Ortiz can’t, at least so far, but I’d prefer to see Phil gamble on what I’ve seen from Ortiz over the past few months than what I’ve seen from Paredes for some seasons now.
Very much related, I hope to see an Ayala/Ortiz double-pivot as the fulcrum for this team.
We’ll see if Phil goes for it (CALL ME!), but that’s it for this one. Big game next weekend – which just makes dropping all three points bite a little harder. Till the next one…
Them’s all the words. With Leagues Cup kicking off Wednesday, I’ll hold off on peeking ahead. Especially seeing that I know dick about Liga MX…
Till the next one.
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