Portland Timbers 2-1 Los Angeles FC & MLS Week 7: re Asking the Right Questions

MLS Week 7 felt like a good week for defenses to let a player run from the midfield stripe to goal. And that’s watching just one game over half of them.

As hinted at on Bluesky (not sure how many people who find this site are on there, but it feels like most), I’ve tweaked the formula for these posts…yet again, so we’ll see where this goes. Per the Next Five-Year Plan, there will be:

1) a post about the Portland Timbers game, plus the round-up of MLS action for the relevant week, six games will be covered, if more contextually than specifically; and

2) a preview post for the Timbers opponent for the MLS Match Day to come.

Social obligations have put this post a couple hours further behind deadline, so I’m cutting off the preamble there, whatever doesn’t make sense shall become apparent, the first shall be last, the meek will get the best seats at the opera and dolphins shall walk the Earth, moving on to this week’s main event, which had a sweet, sweet chaser…

Portland Timbers 2-1 Los Angeles FC
What Passes for a Match Report
Regular readers of my preview posts know that the real payoff is all the shit I get wrong. After making a firm, reasonably empirical case that LAFC wouldn’t rotate their roster much, they rolled in with most of their regular starters except Denis Bouanga and Nkoski Tafari resting on the bench, it looks like Son Heung-min didn’t even travel, and so on. That set this up as Portland versus LAFC’s Youth Academy, bench players and the two aforementioned starters, which kicked the game off with an opportunity for the fully-loaded Timbers and plausible deniability for LAFC.

Watching this game live…and a little fuzzy reminded me how different the field looks absent the telescoped bird’s-eye from the sideline one gets from most broadcasts, something that goes double when you’re watching from middle of 210. I never fully adjust, honestly, and the expanded scope of what I’m taking in makes it harder to track individual players – e.g., I forgot Cole Bassett played at all until I circled back to the highlights yesterday. He did all right, but there also somethings you can only experience in the stadium – e.g., my wife barking profanely at Thomas Hasal to nut up and play the full minute before he left the game never to return. When she shows up, she shows up...

Not a "surprise party." Someone tell the internet. 

Not much of the game played out as I expected. I saw a lot of playing between the lines, with the odd jailbreak – e.g., think Bouanga getting loose on LA’s right and bulling his way toward goal for a close shot early in the game. As such, when Kristoffer Velde broke containment, carried his run around LAFC’s right (assisted by Artem Smolyakov, aka, the guy who barreled over Hasal), and kicked home the opening goal, it landed like a surprise party. I flag some things I loved about that play below, but it took a tackle that missed by a foot and a half-accidental step outside by Bassett for that baby to birth. A more remarkable moment came around the 41st minute when the Timbers produced an actual flurry of chances – again, with Bassett involved and with a big role for Brandon Bye – and LAFC responding with nothing memorable.

They did pull a goal back early in the second half – a smart little bugger capped off by a genuinely great finish by Jude Terry at the 49th minute…which I missed in real time, either by pissing or buying fuel for the same (aka, beer; I need to get back into the swing of live events, clearly, or give them up forever).

Don't like it. Don't know why.

Now, by the time I’d arrived at the stadium and digested the starting lineups, I’d convinced myself that this game would end 1-1. Everything I saw between LAFC’s equalizer and the 83rd minute, when I left with a hangry wife pulling on one arm, told me that would hold up, so we checked out, found out police activity held up the MAX, etc. Through our entire debate over what to do next, cheers kept erupting from the stadium and, having circled back, I know the meaning of all of those sounds – e.g., James Pantemis’ massive save on Mark Delgado’s shot from range (got that right in the preview, at least), Ryan Porteus scoring what looked like LAFC’s winner (almost certainly in here, somewhere), which elicited a short growl; Porteus’ goal being disallowed (dubiously, I’ve heard, but that was messy and the “when” of the offside call wasn’t immediately obvious), greeted by a long, sustained roar; and then, of all the unlikely things, Velde lofts a half-blind cross to Bye at the back-post, who heads it toward goal, where it finds the heretofore goal-less Kevin Kelsy, who nods home Portland's winner within spitting distance of the goal line. Just like that, they win the damn game. 

Now, here’s where I lose people…

Three Big Thoughts & Notes
1) Looking at This with Doe-Eyed Objectivity
When the season starts, fans look at the calendar, tick through the games and mentally tally up where they think their team will get or drop points. Everything about…just the Timbers said that getting all three points out of LAFC at Week 7 would be both tough and good to get. The Timbers got those points. Analyze the problems all you want – gods know it’ll pass plenty of time – but do yourself a solid and start that process by taking “yes” for an answer. Speaking solely for myself, I’ve seen improvements in the way the Timbers have played over the past couple weeks. The loss at Vancouver was particularly encouraging, despite the loss, and this result tracks in that context. Especially when one adds…more context!!

2) Asking the Right Question
Carrying forward the first thought above, accepting that your team has a tough early schedule should mean accepting results with some commensurate measure of grace. Tough starts are tough starts and, at some point, that's all you see, hard schedule be damned. People react to this with some personalized combination of frustration, despair, and actual rage (varies by the fan, obviously). The Timbers have started badly, no argument, but maybe the results pick up when they hit a soft patch? This is an argument designed to alienate fans, but I think it holds the same kind of truth as accepting that your daughter won’t dominate Yale Law School and become a generationally-significant appellate court judge. If there’s anyone who thinks Portland has a snowball’s chance of lifting a trophy this season, I’ve neither seen nor heard their argument. Removing that expectation doesn’t feel great, but it does help you accept the team/child in front of you and that’s how I’m watching Portland in 2026. If they make me more happy than less with this roster and this coach, I’m good. If they can sell me that making the playoffs – which I still genuinely think this current team, YES(!), this one can do – gives them even an outside shot at lifting a trophy, I’ll believe that lottery ticket’s a winner until they call the numbers. Now, the real fun one…

3) Name the Problem Player
I can name a couple candidates, and will do so on command, but I can’t name one player on the Timbers’ starting eleven on Saturday that falls seriously short on MLS-competent talent. It’s easy to blame Phil Neville, but something about that tracks as a dodge when I see enough people look at this roster, seem to both rate and like most of the individual players, but still land somewhere very close to, “the roster isn’t good enough.” Hell, I do that. I suppose that begs the question: do you believe a top-tier coach with a super-sympathetic temperament could lead that starting XI to glory? If not, how much of this is Phil’s fault? To be clear, I don’t type that as a fan of Phil’s, but it still feels like a fair point.

That’s the big picture stuff. Let’s close out with…

A Couple Strays
3) The First Attacking Concept of 2026
Both David Da Costa and Velde found Bye at the back post from the left (duh) and it came close and caused chaos both times. That feels like a good play to run. Bye’s decent in the air, he’s got the size and I trust. This feels like progress.

4) Velde
I didn’t catch how much the broadcast booth glossed Velde during the game until I watched it. “Carry them where” popped into my head over and over until I put a little more thought into it. If that wasn’t Velde’s best game as a Timber, I don’t recall the counterargument. The goal and (tertiary?) assist catch the eye, but Velde coughed up possession at less than half his usual rate, I saw him battling everywhere from the Timbers endline through midfield and to LAFC’s endline. Glib as it sounds, maybe they’re not far wrong. He played well, the Timbers looked better. Not a paper law, never mind an iron one, but something to look for.

5) Defining the Attack
If one accepts, as I do, that the middle three of Portland’s 4-3-3 – Bassett, Da Costa and Caicedo – all count as No. 6s and No. 8s, that would make Portland’s attacking concept feeding a pair of wingers, who either try to cross to the striker (e.g., Felipe Mora or Kevin Kelsy), or pull the ball back to one of the middle three. The day you accept that’s the case – and, to be clear, I’m not saying it is – the fact Portland struggles to score outside transition makes a lot more sense.

6) Sold.
I really like Caicedo. The composed passing is nice, the amount of ground he covers (passively, almost imperceptibly) is gratifying, but the thing I really like so far: that dude loves bossing other players around. There’s a great example of this in the highlights, but I’m hoping you can see it in the highlights for Portland’s first goal. In that particularly clip, he’s pushing Jimer Fory higher up the sideline. It worked in that case, but he does this a lot, a lot. And long may it continue. This team needs “I’m the loud captain” energy and I think Caicedo has that. If that holds, use Velde as the “loose cannon” and leave Caicedo free to direct.

Wow, that Timbers section really went on. Bottom line, I think I’m really here for the mid-table-level experience I believe this team can deliver and, if they exceed those expectations, so much the better. For what it’s worth, I think some form of the system designed in No. 5 is real. And limited. Fuck it.

All right, let’s wrap up this goddamn week!

Toronto FC 1-1 FC Cincinnati
Why This Game?
So see whether Toronto could keep it going (“it” being a two-game winning streak, and not a bad one (v CLB, v COL) against Cincinnati team that plays like it hates itself.
What Passes for a Match Report
Though down a Djordje Mihailovic and a(n aging) Walker Zimmerman, but up one Josh Sargent, that looked close enough to the best Toronto can field right now, and it was barely good enough for a draw against that psychologically-shaky, equally(?) cobbled-together Cincy team – in Toronto no less. Cincinnati arguably had the better of them, but neither team fired more than ten shots neither cracked the “elusive” 1.0 xG barrier. A pair of meltdowns by Kevin Denkey put Cincinnati down a man at the 71st minute, but it still took a rookie mistake/own-goal from youngest Gilberto Flores to get Toronto’s nose ahead. Keeping with the heretofore implied theory about their biggest stars letting them down, Cincinnati scored its late, late (92nd minute) equalizer when Ayoub Jabbari fed Kenji Mboma Dem for the first (quite good!) goal in his career. Two heartbreaking points dropped by Toronto and more questions for Cincinnati, who will miss Denkey next week…but will they?
Present Read on TFC
I doubt this is far off the best team Toronto can field between injuries and its present roster and, based on that, seventh in the East ain’t so bad. A theme of everything’s serviceable, nothing is outstanding runs through the 2026 project – e.g., I’ve seen Josh Sargent miss more goals than I’ve seen him score (in an admittedly small sample), but he and Daniel Salloi seem to have a decent, potentially useful, understanding with one another. Some stray memory tells me to not expect Mihailovic back until after the World Cup break, and maybe that (plus some signings?) might give them another gear. This feels like a team who is where they should be, I’ll probably ignore for a while.
Present Read on Cincy
That starting lineup, very much up to and including starting Tom Barlow over Jabbari makes me think Pat Noonan has built his attack around Ender Echenique and Bryan Ramirez spreading the field to cross into Denkey and Barlow and having Evander operate in the space opened up by playing wide. Just a theory, mind you. Samuel Gidi played the ball that fed Jabbari for his assist, but I still don’t trust a midfield built around him and Pavel Bucha on either side of the ever-feckless Evander. In the immortal words of NoMeansNo, it’s catching up…

For people who like fast music. 

Austin FC 1-2 Los Angeles Galaxy
Why This Game?
Mostly trying to get both teams’ measure as a threat to the Timbers’ access into the post-playoff picture.
What Passes for a Match Report
Both the final score and the highlights gave the game to the Galaxy, but the stats called it closer to a draw. Saying Austin let too much of the game slip away before doing anything probably gets closer to the truth of it. You could see the impatience pulsing from Myrto Uzuni’s face after he returned to the center stripe after scoring their (quite lovely) consolation goal, not least because it took the hosts 85 minutes to score it. Austin allowed two soft fucking goals – one could sink never to be seen again into the softness of the second (g’Lord, what was Oleksandr Svatok thinking on this one?) – and that formed a hill too high for a goal-shy Austin team to climb.
Present Read on Austin
Facundo Torres started this game, but I’m not sure I ever saw him, or even heard his name in the broadcast. If he’s not the solution to Austin’s creative woes, I don’t know who is. They fired more shots than LA and forced as many saves out of JC Marcinkowski as the Galaxy forced out of Brad Stuver, but Austin so far looks like a team heading toward its destiny.
Present Read on the Galaxy
Forget Riqui Puig, there is no Riqui Puig, there never was a Riqui Puig. The point of that movie/TV reference I can’t place: the only saviors I see on the Galaxy’s current roster are Joao Klauss, who didn’t start (but still produced a hopeful shot after a spring I didn’t know he could make), and Joseph Painstil, who’s going through some things (injuries, I mean; I believe his career, family, personal reputation are fine, not starting rumors, etc). That’s enough to lift them one point above the Timbers, aka, into 10th place for now. In keeping with the “say yes” point with the Timbers, this counts as a decent and useful win for them. I think seventh and eighth in the West will be there all season for the teams that can take it.

Charlotte FC 1-2 Nashville SC
Why This Game?
I wondered how Nashville would rebound from that loss at Chicago last week and thought Charlotte might complicate that.
What Passes for a Match Report
The first thing to know: Nashville rotated its lineup as much, if not more, than LAFC – i.e., I see them down at least four regular starters here and think it’s actually five. This repeats theme, but the highlights made heroes of Nashville in a way the final stats did not – they produced a piddling 0.9 xG, despite winning. Then again, maybe that had something to do with Eddi Tagseth scoring a goal-of-the-week banger and Patrick Yazbek being left run Kristoffer-Velde levels of free around Charlotte’s left to score the match winner and literally all of Charlotte’s xG coming from the two (justified) penalty kicks they picked up. Per the final result, they scored only the late, late one of those through Archie Goodwin. This felt like a statement game and Charlotte failed to speak up.
Present Read on Charlotte
With nine of their 13 goals scored between two games (6-1 v RBNY, 3-1 v Austin), I’m keeping an eye on the consistency of their scoring. That’s not an immediate problem – Charlotte’s fifth in the East and just five points south of Nashville (in the standings) - but a couple things put a wobble into this result: 1) Charlotte, who are not a strong road team historically, have played five of their first seven games at home; and 2) any given team’s shot at playing for silverware evaporates in direct correlation with the number of games they lose against heavily-rotated iterations of the teams with which they hope to hang. [Side note: do I end a sentence with a preposition or sound like douche by avoiding it?] With how little heat I’m getting out of the East so far, I doubt this hurts Charlotte for now, but this still floats questions better not asked.
Present Read on Nashville
[Pending: this fucker's going up once I get the links in; I'll update this tomorrow. The short version: they're doing great!]

Inter Miami CF 2-2 Red Bull New York
Why This Game?
Mostly checking in on Miami, though I was curious how a Red Bull team I rate at their precise current position – i.e., 7th in a crowded-‘n’-clumsy early Eastern Conference scrum – pulled it off.
What Passes for a Match Report
Miami/German Berterame probably missed a couple they/he shouldn’t, but the pink team should worry more about how much Red Bull got out of literal handful of chances they got in this one. I’m not sure whether Maximiliano Falcon could have recovered on the space left open for Jorge Ruvalcaba’s opening goal had he not stopped after closing down Julian Hall, but that sure made it easier. Hall capped another solid game by (half-blindly) teeing up Adri Mehmeti’s late, second equalizer/debut goal(?), but those were just two shots in the five total Red Bull fired on goal. As noted above, Berterame spurned a couple, but he scored off a smart dish from Messi to make up for two he missed earlier and I did not know Rodrigo De Paul could cross a ball like that, or that he drifted wide to serve them; Mateo Silvetti profited regardless. It both wasn’t enough and still noteworthy on both sides.
Present Read on Miami
They could very well be the best team in MLS at muscling/poking turnovers out of the opposition and turning them into great chances, but I was also struck at how exposed they got before God and everybody when New Jersey cracked the armor. The same narrative dogged them through this same part of the season in 2025 and they cleaned it up enough to win MLS Cup. As such, this is mostly about…
Present Read on Red Bull
No less murky than what I have above. Broadly speaking, I see talent in the roster and more maturity than I’d expect, while also thinking the four-way tie for fourth in the East (includes, NYCFC, Charlotte, Toronto and Red Bull, all on 11 points) tells me as much about the comparative strength of this team than anything I’ve seen from them so far. That’s not much, admittedly, but reading the East in 2026 feels like trying to take measurements when no one has agreed on units of measurement.

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-0 New York City FC
Why This Game?
This another audible (i.e., I broke the script I floated on Bluesky last…Friday?), but I couldn’t very well rate NYCFC without seeing how Vancouver beat them.
What Passes for a Match Report
Badly, for starters. The fat lady was warming up by the time Brian White finally scored his first goal, but I’m confident that he topped NYC’s combined xG all on his lonesome on Saturday. As it happened, Matias Laborda scored the ‘Caps first, but that came after an onslaught of pressure and chances – a reality supported both visually and statistically. Right before the whistle blew to start the second half, the color commentator (not looking it up) described NYC as “under siege” and, while it wasn’t something to make the Washington Generals smile, nothing I saw made me think they’d get a point from this game, never mind three. Back to White, he scored Vancouver’s unneeded insurance goal in the most Brian White way possible, but put a pin in Bruno Caicedo’s assist and the run that made it, because early signs point to the possibility he can beat anyone the same way he beat Trayvon Gray. Who is no slouch.
Present Read on Vancouver
For the Timbers fans, seeing what Vancouver did to NYC will make you feel better. This team keeps rolling, players like White and Sebastian Berhalter shine like diamonds in the rough every week, and the ‘Caps continue to play like a team one expects to win any game they play. That won’t happen automatically, of course – plenty of season left, anything can happen, etc. – but this team continues to impress me, anyway.
Present Read on NYCFC
I hadn’t seen them much going into this game and…I still feel like I haven’t seen this team. Between the “object” role they played in this game (aka, “the thing acted upon”) and how little I felt I needed to watch them, I don’t have much on this team. I can, however, say that head coach Pascal Jansen played the same team in this loss at Vancouver that he played in the home win over Colorado (about whom I have thoughts below…shit, still sounds douchey), and, while NYC looks good and fine, they top that tight race for fourth in the East, etc., they haven’t won since that game versus Colorado. A team that isn’t good on the road, fwiw. That stretch includes a 2-3 home loss versus Miami, a 1-1 home draw versus St. Louis and now a road loss at…yes, the best team in MLS right now, but that’s still three games winless and at least two points fewer than a pessimist would expect.

Colorado Rapids 6-2 Houston Dynamo FC
Why This Game?
First and foremost, I’m obsessed with Colorado in a way that I can’t explain, but I didn’t think ‘d see Houston give up six goals in a game this season. And Colorado? Seriously?
What Passes for a Match Report
Not as desperate as the final score suggests. Houston had a few-to-a-handful of chances to pull it to 1-2 before the halftime whistle – and before debutante (right?) Kossi Thompson scored his second goal (his first was much better) to put the Rapids up by three - and the game looked that close by the numbers. Great result for the Rapids, regardless, if only because they found multiple ways to spin Houston in the blender – e.g., a press (see the Snapshot, because they didn't post a stand-alone) or letting new(ish) signing Georgi Minoungou terrorize poor Duane Holmes (who, for the record, hit one off the post, among other things) to tee up a striker's goal for Rafael Navarro. This wasn’t the runaway it looks like, at least based on what I watched, so maybe Houston walks away with that?
Present Read on Colorado
Results like this and seeing them at sixth in a heretofore tough early Western Conference sprint get to my Rapids obsession. They’re like werewolves, only on cycles that run four to five seasons instead of as many months. The sometimes-doubted Dante Sealy had a great game, Thompson a solid debut, and Minoungou looks like a super-sub who could crossover. Road games look like their kryptonite so far, but even those come with caveats – e.g., how many teams don’t lose to Seattle and NYCFC at home?
Present Read on Houston
I’ve sold myself on the “solidity” of this team at some point in every season since the mid-2000s and I have no answers for that. I can rate Guilherme and Mateusz Bogusz all day, but that doesn’t change Houston’s lowly spot of 12th place. Not unlike the Timbers, the schedule has been tough and they’re handling it about as well. Had they lost this game in something less than a blowout, they’d have a break-even goal differential and I think they’ll revert (or rise) to that over the season. Still, when Houston beat Portland in Week 3, I worried they’d fight Portland for one of the playoff places. They’re a point lower and that feels good, maybe even better than it should, but keep an eye on Houston. They’re a peer team for the Timbers. Which closes this nicely, I think.