Portland Timbers 1-2 Austin FC: Outbelieved

Garfunkel, forever lingering behind...

I forgot the last time I thought xG was more or less made up, but when I look at the final stats…

Neither team needs a pat on the head that bad. Cringing over here...

I called this a must win on the usual grounds: any team with the beginning of a dream needs to take all three points from a home game against a shit road team on short rest. About that…

Portland Timbers 1-2 Austin FC
What Passes for a Match Report
I feel comfortable saying, and with minor exaggeration, that saying Austin looked better, both globally and marginally, over the first 87-ish minutes of that game covers the basics. They played the livelier game, used the ball to manage it, and held a defensive shape over 2/3 of the field that picked all the ideas out of Portland's back pockets (Paula Pomegranate Pumpernickel Penelope Paparazzi Putnam) before the Timbers could finish them. If I had to phrase the Timbers attacking posture in one word, I’d go with perplexed. A lot of nibbling at the edges for 87 minutes, basically.

Which made a problem of the fact Austin scored in the 25th minute. ‘Twas a lonely chance, an even lonelier goal, at least until the others came long, but Joseph Rosales give to Facundo Torres’ go did the trick, and Portland chased the game from there. And to the final whistle, if we’re being honest.

The Timbers equalized when Antony flicked the ball into (probably) Brendan Hines-Ike’s hand and subsequently received honors for taking the penalty (the penalty call should be somewhere in here, if not, RIOT!). I liked handing Antony the penalty kick, for what it’s worth, because why not show confidence in him so that he can regain the confidence he lost? Who doesn't love a redemption arc? Antony buried it – smartly, I might add – and Portland drew level at 1-1. Whenever the foul happened, the penalty was scored at the 89th minute. There I was, fat-thumbing my way through a clever summation of the game’s events…

…then Austin scored at the 94th minute, taking away the trash off of trash. A clean put-back on a desperate header, a fatal slip by Portland, hello, 11th place, darkness my old friend, etc.

Nothing about what I watched or in their metrics tells me Austin was that much better than the Timbers. Everything about that game pointed toward the better defensive team winning it and that ridiculous “Momentum” bar graph aside (see stats), it pointed toward Austin for 70-80% of that game. So let’s talk about what made Austin better on the night…

Notoriously un-fun.

An Aside on Austin FC
First, I refuse to approach this from a position of total agency for the Timbers. Credit should rightly flow to Davy Arnaud/Austin for setting up a shape Portland rarely figured out. Executing well took care of the rest, whether by winning the balance of the 50/50s in the open field, or having one defender cover another any time any Timber beat an Austin defender by a half-step. Shit happens in cricket more often than it happened between Austin and Portland and, as noted in tonight’s game thread, Portland never really pushed Austin to that sweet, sweet release when bend breaks. Four Austin players deserve the most credit for that: Mikkel Desler, who locked Portland’s best attacking outlet, the right/Velde 90% down, if not more; Rosales for routing the Timbers left thoroughly enough to make it the Republic of Austin, Besard Sabovic for tone-setting and Guilherme Biro for ratfuckery. A game this tight turns on which team gets more players to take hold of the game and Austin won all those margins. As noted in the broadcast, Austin has claimed the Pacific Northwest for Texas. Nothing to do now but return the favor at the earliest opportunity…which happens to be Decision Day…

…keep your enemies close, Timbers, keep them close…

As implied by the game thread, it happens. Austin came with a game plan that stifled whatever version of the Timbers played tonight. Regular readers know the weight I put on how two teams fit together and Austin probably gambled on not much threat coming up Portland’s right (because Eric Miller equal Brandon Bye) and worked to gum up the Timbers right, seeing as (per tonight’s broadcast) 58/3% of Portland’s attack drives up that road. The lack of ideas throttles the optimism a little and here’s to hoping Austin didn’t sketch a blueprint for others to find and flesh out.

Stray Thoughts, Such as I Have Them
1) A team can have an off night. It’s when they accumulate you worry. Portland's last three seasons taught Timbers fans that lesson. Yes, yes, tik tok, motherfucker, and all that, but this could be a one-off, Austin could be a bogey team, and Portland didn’t lose a ton of ground tonight. Dust it off and look to the horizon, young men.

2) David Da Costa probably had the best clean shot at goal – he did well with it, too – and Eric Miller and (think it was )Velde found the best positions for Portland’s easy chances on the night, but it was a nuthin’ doing kinda night. Seeing Da Costa find openings from range, and looking like he has ideas when he fires, counts as the biggest positive in my mind. That's happening more and more.

More, please, X 2

3) Gage Guerra wasn’t great tonight (though I did rather like the little heel pass he played to get out getting too deep in the right channel late in the half (creative!)), but he was nothing like the problem. Not a lot clicked today, it was frustrating to watch, and one can’t help but wonder what things looked like with Kevin Kelsy still in the lineup or Vincent Jansson not suspended. The Timbers grasped at straws this week. Here’s to hoping they grab a few or a handful next weekend.

4) A lot of what I’m watching for right now tracks who’s sticking in the starting eleven, which players get subbed earlier or later, who replaces them and how do they do, etc. I think Cifuentes likes Ariel Lassiter, prefers Jose Caicedo as Replacement Chara, sees upside in Antony, but only off the bench, and he seems open to giving Joao Ortiz meaningful late minutes, and I’m okay with all of that. I’m also still watching how it works. Doesn’t seem wholly obvious at the moment, but the diamonds aren't exactly rising out of the rough.

5) The Kamal Miller Renaissance is uplifting. He might have been the last defender to chase Torres’ opener, and maybe he’s slow to recognize the danger (or maybe his teammates forced him to cheat to his left by ignoring the pile up of Austin players up their right), but Kamal has been a rock since coming back into the starting eleven. And good for him.

And…that’s it. These were stupid points to drop, that grazed a warning shot by confidence’s balls, and a penalty call probably counts as Portland’s man of the match. Fuck it. We’ll see what happens next week.