Minnesota United FC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Balling with the Elite, Running from the Hoi Polloi

Mood. I think, or thereabouts.

Anyone either have a guess, or do any of you wonderful people actually know, the number of points that the Portland Timbers since they just missed out the Leagues Cup semifinals?

The answer is two. Two fucking points out of 12 available. If you take out the two Leagues Cup wins (against Liga MX’s teams cramming for the start of the Clausura), the Timbers have a thin two wins over the past ten (10!) games. Those count as rays of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy 2-5-3 run – by Jove, wasn’t that road win at Los Angeles FC fun? remember that one? wasn’t it ever so fun? – and, in some ways, it was the fucking awful road form that got one to wondering whether the floor had given out, only without all of us doe-eyed believers catching on, a la Wile E. Coyote. Between shutouts at Toronto FC (probably out of the playoffs next weekend) and FC “Almost Certainly Cooked” Dallas (give it time…I kid, I kid), and contributing to an existential threat by being the only team to hand Real Salt Lake a road win over their past 10 games (related, get a load of the opposition in their four recent home wins: v DC, v STL, v HOU, v SJ), fans should be throwing rocks at their TVs and expensive beers at the executive suites. (And, should you ever get a clear line on Merritt Paulson, throw hard, people; throw hard).

And yet, somehow, the Timbers just took the second-best team in the West to within five minutes (with stoppage!) of a loss at home. Things still seem okay!

Minnesota United FC 1-1 Portland Timbers
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
My notes have this as “chess, with the odd collapse” – by which I (think I) meant, a game mostly contained between the two teams’ back lines with the odd breakthrough. For what it’s worth, the highlights support that take better than the final stats; the latter have me wondering whether I nodded off during the Timbers better moments. Stranger things, etc.

A smarter take – and the Official Xg backs it up a bit (how does one capitalize “xG”?) – holds that both teams came close to a decisive break throughout, only to have the last line of defense snuff out the danger. For (at least) the second week running, all Timbers defenders covered balls through and over the midfield like they’d read and absorbed the job description – again, the Finn Surman/Dario Zuparic feels like the ticket I want to ride until Portland runs outta gas (and Jimer Fory is, like, the best jerrycan they’ve had in seasons; also, yes (SIGH!), hold this thought) – and that kept Minnesota off the board, if with the odd, how-did-he-miss-that(?) moment (thinking Joaquin Pereyra, with most of the the goal at his mercy just after the half). Minnesota created a steady drip of chances throughout – credit to James Pantemis for keeping out his share (PHIL, just choose a guy!) – something that has yielded them (shit!) twelve more points worth of success than the Timbers have managed.

Who knows? Maybe Minnesota’s (sometimes) five-man backline kept the Timbers from playing to their worst trait – e.g., playing the ball wide, for reasons unknown (again, see below) – maybe inviting them to push the game inside and between the channels actually helped. That became the seam Kristoffer Velde, Matias Rojas and Antony hit again and again, if only by default, and that was mostly an exercise in running into a wall. However it happened, but thank gods it did, Portland finally isolated Michael “Minnesota Chara” Boxall in a foot-race against Antony - who, you'll never guess, won the race. The ball Antony chopped across the goal bounced off Dayne St. Clair’s hand, into the unlucky path of Nicolas Romero’s covering run, and into the goal. Could Portland recreate the goal once after 20 times of trying? No, not without conscious effort and more pre-filming blocking than they have time to do. Against that, and much more importantly, winning games on garbage goals is the singularly most conspicuous benefit of defending well as a team. Once again, take a bow the Timbers back four.

Just as stunned, Steve. And a little heartbroken.

Minnesota's answer came late – fucking late, even – but if Wil Trapp doesn’t drop that ball on a dime that Robin Lod can’t triangulate his foot to the precise part that will bring it down squeaky-clean, Portland doesn’t give up the goal, their family avoids sudden death, wins the game, and moves on to Fast Money. Sadly, the Trapp/Lod combo dialed in within the margin of error, the Surman/Zuperman combo falls a step behind for (something like) the first time all night and the wily Finn pokes it home…

…which begs the question of how Minnesota fans should feel about things. Per the one Minnesota fan I polled on Bluesky, the locals feel pretty positive, both now and going forward, if with concerns about promising players getting poached and scoring by any means beyond transition. Which should sound familiar to Timbers fans. Moving on now to…

Three Thoughts on the Timbers, Here and Generally
1) A Best Case Scenario, If a Tragic One
I have no idea how long Felipe Carballo will be out, but I wish him a speedy AF recovery (not all drugs are good, kid). At the same time, and as demonstrated by how little the Timbers lost generally after he came on, Portland has ample cover at the No. 8 position (e.g,. Cristhian Paredes, Joao Ortiz, hell, even Omir Fernandez in a pinch), even if they can’t field a ready-made, knock-it-out No. 6 in the event Ayala goes down. With no disrespect intended to Mr. Carballo, and with the fact I don't know what we're missing, he’s the most replaceable of all the new guys in my book. Honestly, it could help settling down the lineup sooner, for good or ill.

2) Something I Feel More People Should Comment on, And Maybe They Have
The Timbers, a team with a history of soft set-piece defending, didn’t give Minnesota, one of the best-by-consensus set-piece teams in MLS in 2025, shit on set pieces. That feels worth emphasizing/celebrating. Also, it feels like confirming the fact that Minnesota is, in fact, one of the strongest set-piece teams in MLS should come easier than it did just now.

3) Lies and Truth
The (Dying) Mothership’s Official Line Up sees the Timbers in a 4-3-3, but I suspect they ended up playing something closer to a 4-2-3-1, given the personnel - one with Carballo and David Ayala at the “2” (even before Chara came on and made it official) and with Velde, Rojas and Antony breaking over and behind (a for all intent and purposes absent) Kevin Kelsy (it’s okay, kid; serving as a decoy is still service). Even if I’m wrong (open to this), most of what I’ve seen makes me wonder whether both Velde and Rojas do better playing behind a front runner, whether it be Kelsy, Felipe Mora or even, when the field needs stretching Antony. More than anything else, it’s entirely possible Portland’s just scratching the surface here. I’ll put “entirely” in italics if/when the time is right. Of something close to equal importance, and this picks up on something above…

Somehow, you know they don't mean it.

4) A Fool’s Default
I can’t name many teams that put as little effort into playing for crosses than Portland. I may not be able to name any. Every time the ball goes wide, count the number of Timbers players getting lined up to nod home a cross and tell me it’s higher than one – and even that one player looks more interested in recycling, nine times out of ten, than running and jumping for a cross amongst a set defense. That doesn’t mean I don’t get the value of playing it wide – i.e., pulling the defense wide is its own reward – but Portland’s choice to visibly forgo that tactical choice leaves opposing defenses free to ignore the one lonely forward running around the box to run down other threats around the perimeter.

5) Once Again, the Most Encouraging Thing
I praise Ayala’s receiving the ball in traffic and playing out of it week after week, but that kid makes recovery runs with the best of ‘em. That, together with cover from Surman/Zuperman, has helped the Timbers defense keep the game in front of them as much as anything else. Long may it hold together.

An Aside on Minnesota
If I’m being honest, I don’t think Minnesota played its best attacking game. Also, when a fan of another team tells you something, sure, trust and verify, but also accept they know better than you. When that half-anonymous Loons fan told me the team missed Tani Oluwaseyi, I nodded in agreement without knowing his transfer meant losing their leading goal-scorer (i.e., ten goals, eight assists on a team with 48 total goals, i.e. 20% of goals haul, with some hard-to-translate contributions by way of assists). After that, I expected more from Pereyra (I’ve seen that dude shine), I’m intrigued by Bongokuhle Hlongwane as a right/wing back and I wouldn’t believe all the goals Anthony Markanich has scored this season had I not seen them most of them with my own eyes. Moreover, 5-2-3 over their past 10 games (with most against crap teams, but also a 1-0 win versus Seattle!) looks quite competitive, particularly in a Western Conference that’s shaky everywhere (probably) north of San Diego.

That’s to say, Minnesota will 100% make the playoffs – they’re 13 points above the Timbers, for one – so let’s kick around where everyone else is in a…

Quick Whip Around the Western Conference
Is it possible I spent too much time on Western Conference games that barely mattered this weekend? Mmmmabye. To run at them from bottom to top…

The Colorado Rapids – still somehow just three points behind the Timbers on a 3-5-2 record over their past ten games – utterly collapsed at Sporting KC. I watched way too much of this game, because the big takeaway happened over the eight short minutes that turned the game from a 2-1 win for the Rapids into a 4-2 win for SKC. For what it’s worth, Paxten Aaronson had a stellar debut – quelle control and speed, ooh la la! – but the goal Daniel Salloi scored by a run through a double-team got Colorado’s bowels loose enough that they shit the bed twice more. A shock win at Minnesota aside (hey-oh!), the road has sucked the wind out of Colorado’s sails over the past month. Most of those have come at your Philadelphias and LAFCs, but dropping points at SKC (or the Galaxy) goes a long way toward keeping a team in eighth/Purgatory - and still three points behind the Timbers.

Based on my limited sampling (about 35 minutes bracketed around the goals), LAFC did 75% of everything required, only to choke on the biggest thing the Timbers got right – i.e., cutting off Andres Dreyer’s runs into the space behind the defense (....GOOOOoooooolllll!). That went all the way down to a visibly healthy lead on xG and Denis Bouanga flubbing a gentle re-editing of the same play that saw them pull ahead. Without either writing off LAFC or praising San Diego to the skies (also, love that the Timbers did their bit to pull them down to Earth), the Angelenos played well enough to win it…and yet, there they are, just tantalizing two points ahead of the Timbers. I, like you, see their two games in hand, but to put myself in the head of an LAFC fan, I’d feel more confident holding that gap open if it weren’t for just one win over their past six games and all the stupid dropped points (e.g., a 3-3 draw versus the Galaxy, the loss versus the Timbers, and two points dropped at both Chicago(!) and Dallas(!)). When I see runs like this – and Portland’s, for that matter – I have to ask myself whether anyone besides San Diego wants to win the Western Conference, never mind MLS Cup.

Finally (and yet, more to come!), Austin’s 3-1 home win over the San Jose Earthquakes raised that threat level high enough to make me take a longer look at that one as well. Scoring 18 of their 29 total goals on the season over their past 10 games has lifted Austin to within one point of the Timbers and carried them through a better-Bizarro-World 5-2-3 mirror of Portland’s record. More to the point, and with warm wishes for a speedy recovery, they scored 14 of those 18 goals without big-signing Brandon Vazquez. Austin scored three over varying game-states in this one, most of them with a finally-arrived Osman Bukari playing a direct role and Owen Wolff providing vital support. The overall vibe of the game tracked as loose, even precarious, but the typically sturdy Austin pushed through the chaos to pick up all three points.

That leaves just a couple strays – e.g., Houston’s 3-2 road win at St. Louis, a tragic thing that wouldn’t have happened but for a couple terrible misses by Joao Klauss and the genuinely horrific choice that handed Houston its winner – but even that was enough to get me wondering whether Houston can get enough out of their game in hand on Colorado and San Jose to lift them over one of them and into the (admittedly sad) play-in bracket. Houston does have some soft games coming up (v LAG; @ COL; v POR; @ NSH; v SD; @ SKC) and careful (or extraordinarily patient) readers have already spotted Portland’s name in there, which makes that a six-point swing of undetermined importance depending upon how the Timbers host Red Bull New York when they come to call two weeks, or thereabouts, from today.

All in all, I feel good about the Timbers’ chances, even if I can’t explain either how or why. A (whole fucking) lot will depend on what happens on September 6, when Houston hosts the Los Angeles Galaxy and, again, on September 13, when Houston visits Colorado. I’m also keeping an eye on Austin’s visit to FC Dallas, but I’ll feel lot better about hosting a stubborn, spastic Red Bull team if Houston hasn’t made up any ground…

…huh, after thinking I had the week off, it looks like I’ll need to post something about every regular season game next weekend. At least two of those matter to Portland’s immediate future. Till then…