Portland Timbers 1-2 Seattle Sounders: When Your Tifo Game Is Your Last, Best Hope

Our shared lives....

After taking in the (condensed) Hell of the Portland Timbers’ midweek loss to Minnesota United FC, and then enduring the auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong that Portland coughing up a late 2-2 draw to the Seattle Sounders, a moment that made a mockery of a truly wonderful tifo, I have several things to say/note, or that make me wanna go fetal…

First, see the title.

Second, I want to bury this idea about “bad defending,” because I view that as a too-broad argument for a more specific phenomenon. Generally speaking, the Timbers don’t defend badly as a unit, so much as they keep making horrific, this-will-make-your-mother-hate-you mistakes in defense, and, because they follow from bad decisions in the precise/specific/defining moment, those kinds of fuck ups are harder to remedy. There, I’m talking about Jeff Attinella coming off his line on Minnesota’s third goal and taking out not one, but two defenders, or the way not one single player in Portland’s defense tracked Clint “Fucking” Dempsey wandering into the space that opened up when all three of Portland’s last-line defenders dropped off on Seattle’s equalizer…the line was immaculate, then, if distinctly Maginot in nature and quality. Basically, the problems seem based less on structure than bad decisions by individual players.

I’m not saying Portland’s defense doesn’t blow the fundamentals from time to time – see the pocket that Christian Ramirez settles in to score Minnesota’s second goal (yes, keeping a good line is fundamental) – but everyone’s in some reasonable approximation of where they should be for Minnesota’s first (Okugo just got a bad touch, and the resulting own-goal; then again, where’s the reaction to that overload?). The same goes for Joevin Jones’ opening goal on Sunday: Portland’s defenders were in decent position – and I’m not saying that a couple player didn’t react like corpses (looking at you, Alvas Powell, Lawrence Olum) – but, honestly, Jake Gleeson’s rebound went straight back into the natural progession of Jones' run, who didn’t so much follow up as found the ball rolling lazily into his stride, and that’s just the gods tickling the odds in one direction or the other. As suits their fancy, the whimsical bastards…

Bottom Line: set aside the details and Timbers fans get the same outcome: every Timbers game now amounts to an exercise in anxiously turning the crank on a Jack-in-the-Box and waiting for that fucker to pop and scare the shit out of you/ruin your day.

Columbus Crew SC 3-2 Portland Timbers: Slow Reflexes and Broken Ladders; MLS Week 4 (Hangover)

David? Darling?

True story, I failed the oft-tricky Eastern Time v. Pacific Time test this past weekend, so I missed catching the Portland Timbers v. Columbus Crew SC live. Whatever. It was a short, stupid weekend regardless, so the whole thing felt half-assed, and I’m going all over the record on this point:

MLS Week 4 is not over until at least the majority of Major League Soccer’s teams have played their 4th game of season. So, no, this was not MLS Week 4, this was farce dry-humping a charade, and I refuse to have any part of it.

Except now, when I talk about it. At some length.

By the time this post goes up, I’ll probably be, oh, an hour, maybe an hour and a half, after finally sitting through the full 90 minutes (plus stoppage) of the Timbers weird, but not crushing, 3-2 loss to Columbus. I’ll spend the balance of this post going over what I saw in that game, but I’m going to start with this weekend’s – let’s call it what it is – smattering of MLS Results during what this shite…I mean, site (hmm) has decided to officially call MLS Week 3 MLS Hangover .

The whole thing (and the backstory as to how I cocked up catching the Timbers game) kicked off with the U.S. Men’s 6-0 win over Honduras in a World Cup qualifier that brought the U.S. soccer community ten fistfuls of Rolaids worth of relief. I tweeted a couple thoughts that aren’t novel enough to repeat here, but my personal bottom line is that, if Arena…wait, hold on. Shit. OK, I have another embarrassing announcement to make: my head is so far up the ass of someone who is very, very far away from the CONCACAF qualifying schedule that I didn’t really fully realize how loosely people were apply “must-win” to the Honduras match.

The Late Tackle 01 23 2017: Portland Rounds Out Its Roster, Camp Cupcake Sprinkles and Snark for CCL Thing

The best Christmas ever.

Along with a lotta teams (e.g. Real Salt Lake, who grabbed a couple players*, and the Colorado Rapids), the Portland Timbers appear to be at what I’ll call “the plating stage” of their offseason – i.e., the team is nailing down what they can get, leaving nothing but sending it outta the kitchen.

(* I just want to note that Chad Barrett, the most MLS player in MLS, is one of these players. More on this later, if from another angle.)

Signing Chance Myers (plz. see poll a couple tweets down on my twitter feed), and re-signing Amobi Okugo and recalling back Dairon Asprilla feel less like sexy acquisitions (Sebastian Blanco/Dude-With-Similar-Talents/Profile, where are you?) than, say, getting a vacuum for Christmas: it’s important to have and all, you know you need it, but…well, it’s fucking vacuum.

With Myers being the only completely new (if familiar) player, that seems the most exciting. I figure the worst Portland gets out of that is Myers at starter, or an improved Alvas Powell. Okugo should provide respectable cover in some key positions, at least, but I’m still hope that he shows well enough to scare the people ahead of him in the rotation (even as I don’t see that happening, goes against history, etc.). With Asprilla, I guess it’s just hoping that he cleans up his game a little, figures out how to play better with others (is that a decent recap on Dairon? hmm…).

The thing I’m most geeked-up about when it comes to the Timbers was last night’s still-dawning realization that Portland’s left could be something next season – e.g., by way of the whole Vytas Andriuskevicius/Darlington Nagbe pairing. If that pairing comes good, Timbers fans simply must come up with a “Brangelina”-style nickname for the pairing. “Darling Vytas” is all I got right now…taking fresh suggestions…

The Armchair Analyst sorta sketched out how this functions by way of talking about how the Los Angeles Galaxy paired Robbie Rogers with Landon Donovan in his 3 questions write-up about the U.S. Men’s National Team’s January camp. It’s a buncha shit about formations – talking about the Y midfield stuff - but it works all right if you translate formation on mechanics.

Looking elsewhere….

Timbers Tumble in Texas...And It All Made Sense. It All Made Sense

Depressingly uncomplicated, actually.

"You see results that are head scratchers."
- Caleb Porter, Timbers head coach, post-game

I expected moments like Houston’s Raul Rodriguez biting too hard on Portland’s Darren Mattocks' run, a lunge that allowed Mattocks to follow Darlington Nagbe's leading pass into the space behind (we all know how this one ended, ball off post, Diego Valeri (of course), doing his right-place/right-time thing to tap the in Portland’s goal, no, it’s equalizer!). Or maybe when Valeri later picked the ball off (again) Rodriguez and Portland almost scored. Both of those came during a solid 20-25 spell in the second half, a time that, according to the script I’d written in my head, looked right side up. It fit the standings, after all, plus...we're the better team, right?

But was the game right side up in those moments? Was this really a “head scratcher?” That’s the thrust of Porter’s comment. It tracks my preview post, too, and a handful of tweets I put out the week prior: it tracked the assumption that, because this was Portland’s best chance for road points at this point in the season, those road points were therefore available. The logic leapt from “A-to-C,” in other words, but without any more reason than Houston’s weaknesses and/or unknowns. That’s weird because the empirical evidence points to something else, something much, much simpler.

The Portland Timbers are terrible on the road. Goddamn, clarity is refreshing. The equalizer noted above, one that I took as some kind of given, only warded off a 3-1 loss that felt inevitable by the end. The question is why I (and, I'm assuming, other Timbers fans) expected something different. I mean besides wishful thinking and blind faith. The Portland Timbers suck on the road: that's not just reality, it should be the first sentence written for every Timbers away game. "Well, obviously, the Portland Timbers suck on the road." And it'll be true. Until it isn't.

Downed by Dallas: Some Cheap Hope and a Remedy

I call it Plan P. You WILL remember!

I was able to believe that the Portland Timbers would find their way back into the game for quite a while. Until the 53rd minute, to put a number on it. That I felt like Portland had a chance against FC Dallas going in very likely had something to do with it; I mean, who doesn't want to see his/her hunches confirmed? And it's not like the Timbers didn't give people reason to hope: about five minutes after Dallas' opener a long ball from Liam Ridgewell found Lucas Melano over the top, who forced an error from Dallas 'keeper Chris Seitz, and one big enough to keep Dallas' defense dancing for a few full seconds. Even after Dallas raised the margin for victory to 2-0 at the very end of the first half, Melano meandered across the top of Dallas' attacking third, a move that, 1) threw off Dallas' defense and, 2) put him in position to later thunder a shot off the crossbar. It didn't go in, nor did Fanendo Adi's follow-up header. Still, think what drawing first blood in the second half could have meant to the contest. Or think what an answer to Dallas' first (soft) goal five minutes after it happened could have meant.

That paragraph above is loaded with a whole lotta what-might-have-been. Things felt decidedly over, sadly, once Walker "I Make 'O' Faces" Zimmerman blasted the ball over Jack Jewsbury's head and past Portland 'keeper Jake Gleeson for Dallas' third, final, and entirely sufficient goal in the ultimate 3-1 win (and with Steven Taylor clinging to Zimmerman's jersey like a damsel begging him not to leave). Zimmerman's goal launched the inquiry, basically, into what went wrong in Dallas this past Saturday.

I thought I had a pretty good narrative, one that I typed into my phone on the (long, almost interminable, really) train ride home. Those notes flagged details like a reminder of Portland's better days, back when the double pivot worked, germs of a theory on why Ridgewell and S. Taylor (goddammit, guys; sign fewer Taylors!) make for a lousy tandem, a belief that Dallas turned Diego Valeri invisible in the second half, and, finally, they argued that the Timbers have a "wing" problem. It all sounded very simple, basically.

The Portland Timbers And Their Eternal Transition. And Sporting KC.

AAUGGH! Connor Hallisey!

[Each week I (try to) watch three full, 90-minute games. And I write ‘em up. Part 2 of 3, for Major League Soccer’s Week 21.]

Why This Game? Because I watch the Portland Timbers every time they play. Sporting Kansas City just sort of tagged along...

And the reports that feature the Timbers games will wind up giving somewhat short shrift to their opposition, but I will try to give those teams at least some of their due.

On the Result

“Yeah, yeah, they almost just scored. I still think that watching Sporting KC attack is like watching a toddler paint.”
- Conifers & Citrus Official Twitter feed during the game

“what does that say about the Timbers then!?”
- ik3, some hours after the game.

Just about everything you read below weaves in, out and between of the above exchange. I honestly don’t think that much of SKC, a strappingly, stupidly stoned-on-athletics team that only hits the broad side of the barn because they run headlong and relentlessly into the people standing between them and the barn. They’re unsubtle, inaccurate and, to my mind, mostly containable...and yet, there but for the grace of Jake Gleeson, the Timbers barely contained them. Portland came very close to forcing a draw at the end – twice, too – but they owed that opportunity to Jake Gleeson, the man who parried a ten-minute shelling with everything up to and including an artless flail-slap. The game ended at 1-0 to Sporting, and it's har...rather, it's pointless to argue with that.

Even if they got an assist or two from Good Fortune – more on this in the section below on SKC –the Timbers didn’t cough up naked chances all day or anything, and the team played all right in a broad sense. I don’t mind the goal that won it: Amobi Okugo was in reasonably good position, Jacob Peterson just got the better read on the ball, and hence contact, hence goal. And Portland’s late chances were good; Jack McInerney’s attempt would have been the more satisfying finish (is that citrus?), while Fanendo Adi’s felt like the surer, if graceless, chance (no easy to find video; sad!). Lucas Melano’s brain-freeze returned, so the Timbers lost a couple promising chances, but, all in all, the team created chances and they defended all right...and I’m pleased that the Timbers held their ground against one of MLS’s more brutish teams. And there it is, an unremarkable and acceptable result in every sense except the missing points and timing. The Timbers have only eleven games left to get everything rolling on the right track (or 15 games if you view the Timbers’ upcoming CONCACAF Champions’ League games as chances at figuring their shit out as opposed to a program designed to fatigue your team’s players). That puts a pretty simple question in play: how close is Portland to getting everything rolling on the right track? I’ll get to it...first, let’s look at SKC.