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| THIS IS THE TRUTH! SMILE!!! |
Minnesota United FC 2-0 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
After multiple threats to skip the tick-tock of the match and just pass on a handful of broad impressions, I’m following through this time. Minnesota scored an early goal, nice finish by Tomas Chancalay (good player, bad history with injuries), but I was more disturbed by their successful targeting of Jose Caicedo for prying the ball loose – particularly one short week after declaring myself “sold” on the youngster (see Talking Point 6). Jefferson Diaz did the picking on that occasion and pulled it back for the assist, but my notes have Caicedo coughing up possession on both sides of Diaz’s mugging and, if there’s one must-have skill for a No. 6, it’s not giving up the ball in that position. It took the Loons until the second half to score their second – also around 15 minutes in, curiously – and the Timbers gave that one up by overcommitting to the attack. A great ball from (I believe) the highly-effective Joaquin Pereyra dropped from Minnesota’s right to Chancalay on Portland’s right and, with the Timbers midfield miles behind the play and the defense chasing, all he had to do once he landed the trap (with aplomb) was find a wide-open Kelvin Yeboah for a tap-in/his fifth goal of the season.
The final numbers paint a picture that Bob Ross couldn’t tidy up with a forest of happy trees, but Portland found chances, including feeds to a streaking, anxious Antony that one thinks would lift their xG higher than 1.0, but I don’t control such things. Cole Bassett – who arguably played the best game in an off-white Art Deco kit on Saturday (again, Kristoffer Velde gets my vote to make up for how often I’ve shit on him) – got a bit lucky to get a great chance about six yards out, but got unlucky by pinging his shot off the post (surely, that’s in here). Jimer Fory played a good cross to Felipe Mora that just fell a bit too low (29th minute), Brandon Bye found the ball at his feet after a good spell of pressure and played a peach of a cross that found no takers (63rd), Velde got loose on the counter a couple times in the second half only to have an errant touch push the ball out of his reach or to play a smart cross 10 yards behind a run on a long diagonal: maybe scribbling “thriving in garbage time” into my notes credits the effort too much, but this 1) wasn’t abject failure, and 2) wasn’t unexpected.
If I had to describe this game to an alien (or just a human person who asked me about the game), I’d go with Minnesota simply did everything a little better than the Timbers. They played with a sounder structure, they put players in smarter, more useful positions to do good things in the attack and, to make a subtle, perhaps meaningless distinction, their high pressure forced errors while Portland’s mostly forced turnovers. Honestly, I’m still trying to wrap my head around how comfortably the Loons scrambled Caicedo in the first half, because I put a lot of eggs in that basket. For all that, I wouldn’t call this a tough loss, but a case of what else should one expect given the sum of inputs? Which brings me to…
Big Thoughts & Notes
1) Accepting the Premise…
If one believes the Timbers have a shaky roster and it’s coached by a cliché-spitting twit, I’m not sure how many more points one could expect from Portland’s early 2026 schedule (for reference: v CLB (3-2 W); @ COL (0-2 L); v VAN (1-4 L); @ HOU (2-3 L); v LAG (1-1 D); @ VAN (2-3 L); v LAFC (2-1 W); @ MIN (0-2 L)). I don’t expect Timbers fans to celebrate seven points so much as to ask where they thought this Portland team would get more out of that run of games – particularly given how the early doors of the 2026 have shaped up. Maybe they should have pinched a point (and stole two) out of either Colorado, Houston or both, but, back on Earth 1.0, I feel like the win they got versus LAFC makes up for the two points Portland dropped versus LA’s lesser, if original team. To strain an analogy, I’ve spent my life skipping fast food restaurants for roadside diners, but I’ve never gone in expecting anything but diner food. I may be disappointed by what’s happening, but nothing about it surprises me.
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| I am confident, the word is "doors." |
If memory serves, the Timbers have a DP spot in hand if things don’t shape up according to whatever cockamamie plan Phil, Ned and Merritt have in their heads…there, I’m mostly pleased I got to use the word “cockamamie” in a post, think I can die now. If only because roster rules read like Greek to me, I don’t see any new signings coming until after the World Cup break, which means Portland’s trying to bluff its way to glory on what looks like a pair of eights, stones of steel and a totally immovable, tell-free poker-face. The Timbers’ opposition/venue to the World Cup break lays out as follows: @ SD (see below); @ RSL, v SKC, @ MTL, @ MIA, v SJ. All that together tracks as one you-better-win-this-motherfucker versus the consensus worst team in MLS (SKC), a decent shot at a point or three at a Montreal team still finding its feet, plus an undesirable amount of time on the road against teams that have started real fucking strong (RSL and SJ) and/or won MLS Cup 2025 (Miami). Without etching anything into stone, that puts Portland at a likely(?) best case of 14 points from as many games when the MLS Season hits its big amoral pause at the end of May. After away at Seattle, the Timbers get a few home games when regular season resumes in July – v FCD, v RSL…v Seattle – before Leagues Cup interrupts the schedule again…g’Lord, did a blind sadist cobble together the 2026 regular season? At any rate, that stretch of games gets the Timbers to 18 games, aka, just over halfway through the regular season.
Now, to weigh both those thoughts against brighter aspirations, a fan of any team in any sport wants to see his/her team win games they don’t expect them to, not least because that’s how winning seasons get built. Basically, until this team can start exceeding low expectations…
3) “There’s No Anticipation of the Next Move, the Next Run.”
Whatever you think of Kyndra de St. Aubin, she gave top-notch color commentary in the moment she pointed out this problem around the Timbers attack (around the 65th minute, fwiw, before the aforementioned scribble about “garbage time” noted above). While the condition is neither constant nor absolute – e.g., Kelsy "scored" a solid offside goal for Portland around (was it?) the 80th minute that featured good, predictive off-the-ball movement - the problem of waiting to see what the player on the ball does with it has plagued every iteration of Timbers teams from the Phil Neville era. If his message for the attacking third is “express yourself,” that same message needs to be communicated to the players who don't have the ball. A good run off the ball – which, in fairness, are not entirely absent – counts as a form of expression. Dammit.
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| Open to this. Even with him. |
4) Priority No. 1: Getting Antony Unfucked
His lack of confidence killed at least two of Portland’s best attacking moves. Getting the kid’s head right could go a LOOONNNNGGGG fucking way, particularly if Velde keeps finding his feet and getting to running.
4a) At Least Something Is Improving?
Velde’s last two games have been his best in Timbers off-white Art Deco. His success looked accidental early, but it looks like something different, better and useful now. If he keeps it up, Velde looks like a decent signing. $5 million isn’t crazy if/when it leads to production…ahem…
5) Is Cole Bassett > David da Costa? (And what that means.)
I’m starting this case from a firm position that, at $6 million, the Timbers overpaid for anything they’re ever going to get out of da Costa, perhaps wildly. For reference, that puts da Costa’s (reported?) transfer at $1.5 million under what Chicago pissed away on Xherdan Shaqiri (also, note the over-representation of Cincinnati and Atlanta on the short list), and, to beat a drum that probably got annoying last year, for all his dribbling ability, the man passes like an average-ass No. 8. Portland picked up Bassett for something like 3/5 of that amount and, based on early returns, I’m more excited about him than I am, or am likely to ever get, about da Costa. To be 100% clear, the purpose of this section is not to shit on da Costa - I wish the man all he best on the field and off of it, especially for as long as he wears off-white Art Deco – but to make a case for a less flashy and, if I may, calmer approach to player acquisition by the Timbers front office. Evander’s departure was significant (and perhaps fortunate; see Cincinnati, FC), but what looks more and more like a panic purchase wasn’t the solution. Somewhat related…
6) Anyone Have a Bead on Alexander Aravena Yet?
After coming on as a sub, he was involved in the offside goal mentioned above and he found a great seam for a shot at the 88th minute, but 1) does anyone have a feel for what Aravena’s best, most useful spot in the lineup and, 2) have a sense for how high his upside goes. Personally, I’ve got bupkiss.
That’s enough about the past. To quote The Hudsucker Proxy, the future is now…
San Diego, Recently, Generally
The Facts
3-3-2, 11 pts., 8 GP; 16 gf, 14 ga (+2); home 2-1-1, away 1-2-1
Past Results: WWWDDLDL
Strength/Location of Schedule
v MTL (5-0 W); v STL (2-0 W); @ SKC (1-0 W); @ FCD (3-3 D); v RSL (2-2 D); @ SJ (0-3 L); v MIN (1-2 L); @ RSL (2-4 L);
Guys. I think this one’s winnable. I get that Portland’s more St. Louis (who lost) than Minnesota (as recently demonstrated), but I’m also looking at 14 goals allowed over San Diego’s last five games – and highlights for their home draw versus RSL, the home loss versus Minnesota and last weekend’s road loss at RSL. Practical caveats aside - e.g., Portland neither looks nor plays anything like, let's face it, a pretty damn exciting RSL team at this point – the Timbers could do worse than open up the game, if only because that still feels like the default mode for Timbers better passing instincts. In an earlier league-wide post, I tagged San Diego as fragile and I’m calling that a rare prediction that has so far held up. So, big picture, I’m guessing they’re good to allow a goal or two, which makes keeping them out feel like the thing to focus on.
They’ll seek to accomplish that working out of a 4-3-3 that, allowing for players coming in and out of the lineup because [suspensions/alien abductions] looks pretty much like the one they ran versus RSL. Onni Valakari and Jeppe Tserkov give them a decent two-way midfield, but they don’t really have a destroyer component (at least one that I know of) without Anibal Godoy on the field. Wouldn’t be surprised to see him start, honestly, and I think San Diego hits their attacking peak when they have Andres Dreyer (wicked finisher), Marcus Ingvartsen (semi-classic No. 9, with 5 goals), and the reportedly recovering Amahl Pellegrino at the top of that formation. With the caveat that most of the teams I scanned (and the 0-3 loss at San Jose is in this mix) like to defend high, San Diego’s style of play doesn’t look so different from Portland’s – e.g., have a player like Pellegrino (or a fullback) run against the backline and look to pull it back to Ingvartsen or Dreyer. I’m guessing they tempt Portland into an open game and bet they can win it on those terms.
Circling back to a note made earlier, I like Portland’s chances in direct proportion to their ability to keep San Diego off the scoreboard. The 18 goals the Timbers have so far allowed hardly inspires confidence, but my little reconnaissance tells me that San Diego has coasted on some garbage goals – i.e., they’ve traded at least one dog-shit special ("somehow!") for every sublime touch that comes off Dreyer’s boot for the past couple weeks and, as any Timbers fan can tell you, it doesn’t count fer shit if you can’t do it again.
It’s all vague impressions from here – e.g., the defense doesn’t look so special, I think the ‘keeper’s a little green – so maybe the Timbers take a bunker-and-counter approach to this one, somewhat like they did with LAFC’s B-team. If you feel like I’ve made that suggestion before, you’re not alone: it’s possible that reactive crouch has animated every pre-game post I’ve ever written. And yet, between San Diego’s best version of themselves and the Timbers’ defensive record…
All right, that’s it for this one. The next post covers the 10 questions about MLS-wide play I posted to Bluesky late last week and I think the weekend after that will be normal, at least for the Timbers. So, yeah, some form of regular service will resume at that time. Till then…
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