Portland Timbers 6-0 Sporting KC: Love & Trust, Plus a Club du Foot Montreal Scouting Report

Kindly turn your attention to the little red dot...

In last week’s post, I recommended that Portland Timbers fans memory-hole the hopeless, whistle-to-whistle loss at Real Salt Lake. At the risk of pissing off, OH, everyone, I recommend that people memory-hole Portland’s Sunday-best 6-0 demolition of Sporting Kansas City. The argument for treating the SKC win like someone else’s bestest birthday ever actually makes more sense because, which of these things feels most likely to happen again: 1) Portland getting outplayed at every position but goalkeeper, or 2) the Timbers kicking rainbow sparkles out of some hapless team going for all-time Wooden Spoon?

If the Timbers roll up to Montreal on Wednesday and we see bright shimmering lights in the eastern skies, we’ll know it’s not the Aurora Borealis. It’s our boys kicking rainbow sparkles out of Club du Foot Montreal.

Needless to say, I don’t like our chances up north. I also don’t need Portland to keep this great thing rolling. All I need from them in Montreal is something between recognizable competence and three points. Per the title, this post will close with a wee Montreal Scouting Report. Before that, let’s relive the glorious thing I’m charging you all with forgetting…swear this is for your own protection.

Portland Timbers 6-0 Sporting Kansas City
What Passes for a Match Report
Even after Kristoffer Velde banged in a 6th-minute goal that was somehow equal parts unlikely and entirely on-brand, I still had no goddamn idea which way the game would ultimately goal. Speaking solely for myself, all doubts evaporated by the 26th-minute own-goal scored by that poor bastard Jacob Davis (who, just to note it, is one of several Jacobs/Jasons in SKC’s defense that I’ve seen mortally mortify himself over the first third of 2026). That one had some dark magic in it. Like a monkey’s paw curling just to give you the finger for some sin you may never have committed.

Some great things happened between that first and (gasp!) fourth goal (by the 26th fucking minute, PEOPLE!) – most notably, Kevin Kelsy chasing the ball, one (surely shellshocked) goalkeeper and a couple defenders the width of the defensive third before receiving a pass, playing it in, continuing his run to receive a sublime back-heel from David Da Costa to score the Timbers’ second. This runs against the theme of forgetting a bit, but that’s a strong candidate for the Mazatlan Restaurant & Cantina Moment of the Year for 2026. No shade on Cole Bassett’s third goal for Portland mere minutes later (we’re still at the 22nd minute, folks), but SKC defense put more thought into pushing up field than to tracking runners like Bassett and that brings me to the meat of the argument.

No, really. It was worse.

Sporting Kansas City has received a depressing number of early nominations for Worst Team in MLS History over the opening weeks of the season. I was skeptical on that, if for no better reason than lotta season left. That position softened a bit after seeing some of the goals they’ve given up in recent weeks (some linked to in last week’s Scouting Report) and, after watching the Timbers (the Timbers?!) dismantle them last Saturday, that skepticism has softened to “a little time in the microwave.” Between those earlier goals and the Six Fucking Goals they allowed at Portland, I can’t put the All-Time Wooden Spoon out of reach for them…which I feel should look like one of those Welsh love spoons, so as to soften the blow.

Portland scored a couple more goals, of course – e.g., Ari Lassiter’s banging free kick – and whatever signs of life SKC showed never had a flicker of a glimmer of a dream of a hope of reviving the patient, so, yes, this game was exactly what it looked like, an unconscionable rout. That said, I spent most of the second half trying to find something in the game to explain the collective hopelessness that, swear to God, every SKC player wears under his kit. I can’t place it in time (because I suck at notes), but that moment arrived somewhere between Portland’s subs coming on (61st minute) and Lassiter’s goal (71st). In the hope of getting literally anything out of the game, SKC tried a little pressing. Portland didn’t just break the press, they insulted its mom. Every pass a Timber played found a player in a good position to make not just a pass, but a good one, maybe even the best possible one. They played through them like they had an invitation to do it.

To close this section with a little thought experiment, when’s the last time you saw the Timbers look that fluid in possession? When was the last time they sent players rushing into the opposition’s 18 like katanas slicing through a variety of juicy and delicious melons? If you need reminding about how Portland has looked in recent weeks, social media will provide in abundance. They’ve been bad. Like pitchforks and sackings mad.

Less a metaphor for SKC's season so far than a live visual.

I hope every Timbers fan smiled their way from the 16th minute to the final whistle. I hope they smiled once more before they fell asleep and/or passed out thinking about one of the above-mentioned goals or just having the first night of 2026 when it looked like their local team could beat anybody. Just consider that the team they beat has received early nominations for worst team in MLS history. Max Bretos spent the last 50 minutes of the broadcast stuffing SKC in the locker, fer Crissakes. After seeing them do it at least a half dozen times, you could probably convince me that SKC chooses a defensive posture of surrounding an attacking player for the sole purpose of seeing what he does next. Fans ball-watch less than SKC’s defenders. Throw in the fact that nothing about their offense that isn’t named Dejan Joveljic works and the stone you just dropped gets a little closer to the bottom of the well. That doesn’t mean it hit it, not yet, but yeah. This team sucks globally in a way I haven’t seen since FC Cincy’s first two, three seasons in MLS.

Given everything written above, talking points make a whole lotta sense. Knowing Lassiter has that in his back pocket slaps and I like what Aravena did in the open field (his work on Portland’s sixth goal, especially, but I liked the rest as well), but anything I write has “yeah, but that was against SKC” hanging after like some cursed asterisk. Turning, now, to a game that might not pick up that curse…

Club du Foot Montreal, Rapport de Reconnaissance
4-7-0, 12 pts., 11 GP; 16 gf, 23 ga (-7); home 3-1-0, away 1-6-0
Past 10 Results: LWLLLLWWLW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ CHI (0-3 L); @ RBNY (3-0 W); @ ORL (1-2 L); @ CIN (3-4 L); @ NE (0-3 L); v PHI (1-2 L); v RBNY (4-1 W); v NYC (1-0 W); @ ATL (1-3 L); v ORL (2-0 W)

2026 hasn’t been great for Montreal, but they had also played just over half their games on the road going into last weekend. That doesn’t exonerate every one of their six losses, because some dipped at least the big toe in dogshit (see the italicized results), but the revival of their chances (11th is right after 10th!) did coincide with getting some home games. Portland will catch them at their best, in other words, whatever that is…

Full disclosure, the review included watching the highlights from all of Montreal’s home games - e.g., the loss to Philly, the blowout versus Red Bull and an early squeaking win over NYCFC, plus the second half of last weekend’s 2-0 win over still-struggling Orlando (Dagur Dan does not give a shit about Orlando) – i.e., I make no claims to expertise. Based on my glimpse at the file, the offense looks like a work in progress the team may never complete. The fact Montreal scored nearly half their 16 goals over two games (loss at Cincy, win versus Red Bull) matched what I saw during the video review. With a nice big/strong/fast profile, Prince Owusu provides a good focal point for the offense, even he's more runner than a back-to-goal guy, and he has the technical ability to play a pass like this; his numbers (6g, 4a) are great for his team/present circumstances, but he didn’t get much help in the games I watched. Wiki Carmona, meanwhile, has the technical ability, but (so far) lacks the capacity for bringing the best out of his teammates. That’s the big picture, I’ll pick through some more details below.

Though worse on paper, Montreal’s defense presented as their greater strength at the moment, if allowing for the fact they haven’t faced a potent attack since…gawd, New England six weeks ago? (Yeah, yeah, Atlanta fucked ‘em up, but how often does that happen?). While they press a bit, I found myself most impressed by what I’d call Montreal’s rear-guard defensive approach – i.e., they harass both ball and player as they retreat into their final defensive shape and it worked pretty well in the video I watched. The midfield trio of Matty Longstaff, Samuel Piette and Victor Loturi do most of that harassing and the fact I barely recognize their central defenders hints at how well that works – against, Orlando, mind you (who, fwiw, look better on the ball player-for-player than Portland).

Even after the April 12, 2026 sacking of Marco Donadel, interim head coach Philippe Eullafroy has reliably set up Montreal in a 4-3-3 (reasonable example). Piette, still surprisingly effective in what I watched, stays home while Longstaff and, more so, Loturi play up the channels. Both Luca Petrasso and Dawid Bugaj (boo-guy) do the typical marauding up the flanks, but the whole model looked more careful than carefree, even versus Orlando. Probably related, that game was something of a statistical outlier in that Montreal piled on shots in a way they typically don’t. Under 10 looks closer to the norm with five-to-six going on goal. Owusu poses the biggest threat, both by the eye test and on paper, while Carmona feels like the guy most likely to pull off that thing he’s been dying to try. Ivan Jaime’s tricky in that you’ll see him do some twinkle-toes shit that’ll make you sweat, but more of that fizzles out that lights a spark. Both Longstaff and Loturi chew up a lot of ground and Piette provides smart, consistent late support versus Orlando (another key pointer: don’t be Orlando), but, like, a lot of Montreal’s 25 shots had a snowball’s chance of going in.

So, What Does Portland Do With That?
Wait it out, mostly. Keep a lid on Owusu, don’t give Carmona and Jaime a free hand (or foot), and stay organized through midfield and defense; make them beat you, basically, and – this is crucial – on the theory that they can’t. I liked last Saturday’s line up enough to play it back, if with Aravena starting over Antony (seriously, why the fuck not?). Bottom line, this feels like the most takeable three points between today and the World Cup break, so start by not fucking it up and get to the taking!

We’ll see how it goes Wednesday. Or, in my case, Thursday. I’m not sure I’ll be able to write this one up, honestly, but regular service will resume at some point and in some form. Hugs, kisses, reptiles, good night.