Portland Timbers 2019 Season Review: A Requiem on a Season...Ahead of a Complicated Season

In the top 20 for "end of an era" and it's exactly as shapeless as I want it to be.

“I’m not expecting glory, but I’m also not bracing for disgrace. The goal Portland scored tonight shouted loudly back to the team that punched five, ten feet over its weight through the 2018 post-season. This team at its best really is something – and it has been for years. The concern is that it’s been too many of them.”
- Notes from a 2-1 loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy in LA, and 4h game of the season.

“As I see it, Portland Timbers 2019 never turned into a team to get excited about; it’s a team to support in the hopes of giving guys like Diego Chara, Diego Valeri, and, sure, Sebastian Blanco, and maybe even Jorge Villafana another happy memory before they check out.”
- Notes from the 2-2 road draw at Sporting Kansas City in the 2nd to last game of 2019.

A lot of games came, went and exhilarated or disappointed in the space between those two quotes, and the specifics about each of those games probably undercut whatever point I’m about to make, but it makes sense to me, so I’m rolling with it. The first quote above comes out of a match review of the third game in a five-game losing streak, one that happened at the very start of the season. The second quote comes out of notes on a third draw in three games of the not-doing-nearly-enough that typified the end of the Portland Timbers’ 2019 regular season. The first quote reflected a sort of conventional wisdom that the Timbers, a 2018 MLS Cup team with most of the same starters returning, would find their feet in the middle of a, frankly, awful fucking start to the 2019 season, and so everyone waited and, crucially, believed. The second quote came from the second-to-last game of the 2019 season, which gets at how long it took for people (including me) to accept that the Portland Timbers 2019 would not end in glory. Sebastian Blanco turned in one of his better performances of the latter half of 2019 in that game – all the regular performers did - but the Timbers as a whole couldn’t bring it home. They fell short at a time when they should have been doing the exact opposite.

If you put your money on the Portland Timbers to win MLS Cup (or even reach the semifinals) at any point after mid-September of this season, you’re the author of your own emotional damage; the writing was on the wall by then, and damned lurid. By which I mean, it was so obvious at that point that the only open question was when the Timbers would check out, not if.

New York City FC 0-1 Portland Timbers: The Ballad of Andres Flores

There was this guy named Andres Flores, WHOA-oh-oh!

I mean, I get the thought process behind the way that New York City FC lined up on this game’s decisive set-piece – i.e., set the offside line as far away from your goal as possible, because why wouldn’t you? – but that doesn’t mean I understand how that madness made it from the training ground to a game with points on the line. With all that space between that flat, high line and the goal (again, that was by design), it would take nothing more than a good ball over the top, one player slipping, and that’s an attacking player in clear en route to your goal. By my count, a coaching staff should only have to line that up one time before saying, “Oh, shit. Right. What was I thinking?”

That stupidly soft goal provided the separation, but the Portland Timbers owe their 1-0 road win in the Rumble at the Rhombus (ht: @iamseanspencer) to everything that happened around it. Certain players deserve a little more credit/love for delivering a, frankly, contextually massive win: Sebastian Blanco tops the list, and for reasons both obvious and less than, but the players who deserve the most credit are the people who filled in for the players that even most fans agree Portland can’t do without. If I had to choose between them, I’d give Andres Flores the more vigorous nod, but Renzo Zambrano keeps erasing whatever doubts I have about him one start at a time. Those guys, along with Claude Dielna, got thrown into the deep end, with “show us you can win a tough game” ringing in their ears. The stakes were lower for Dairon Asprilla, and on the grounds that he had less responsibility for proving that Portland can win without Diego Chara on the field. And, unless I misheard, winning without Chara is something that hadn’t happened since July 5,…2015 (wha?).

I’ll be damned if Flores, especially, didn’t do his best Chara impression out there tonight. To carry over a thought from last weekend, just about every player channeled their inner Chara tonight, few more so than Dielna and Larrys Mabiala. Stressful as it was to see both of those players as high and wide as I saw them tonight, the Timbers have found real success pushing against the other team’s attack lately.

At the same time, I think the box score gives a truer read on this game than what you’ll see in the super-condensed highlights. Portland had a pair of great chances – and, holy shit, does Diego Valeri still have it (which he proved on multiple occasions tonight) – but NYCFC had more chances and better ones too. The best ones fell to Valentin Castellanos (here’s one), but Portland by and large succeeded in keeping them away from danger zones. And that’s where the box score goes wrong: the Timbers rarely broke a sweat in this game; whatever the numbers say (ungood things), the Timbers never looked uncomfortable tonight.

Philadelphia Union 1-3 Portland Timbers: The Day the Road Trip Ended Well

I just feel really good about tonight. Get over it.

After a first half that saw the Portland Timbers two goals up and playing pretty soccer, nothing short of an injury and/or electro-shock therapy could have made me call tonight’s game a bad result. That the Philadelphia Union playing pretty goddamn well has a lot to do with that. After pulling back a truly one-of-those-nights-weird goal at the very start of the second half, Philly piled on 15-20 minutes’ worth of relentless pressure, picking the ball off Timbers’ toes and swallowing up everything that got inside their half. That only leaves me more impressed with how Portland handled the so very many things that Philly threw at them all night. The game ended 3-1 after a Diego Valeri goal of Platonic simplicity put the stuffing back into Portland’s two-goal cushion.

Even if Portland stole two, or even all three, goals tonight, they stole some gems: Andy Polo’s cross on the first demands “exquisite” as a qualifier; 80% of what happened on Portland’s go-ahead goal* was perfect; and, after surviving the soccer equivalent of Leningrad, Valeri scored that glorious, sling-shot of a winner. And all this happened against a good team, playing well, and at home. Tonight’s win over Philly confirms the eye test of the past 5-6 games: Portland, 1) still has viable (healthy) talent, and 2) has its shit figured out. At this point, the Timbers sure as hell look like they’ve got another genuinely competitive season in them, and can I get a huzzah?! (* I just have to note that Diego Chara's touch was long; he didn't "draw out" Andre Blake, but he did hear Fernandez charging over his shoulder, thank God).

Because the rest of this post will probably swim with turns of phrase that will have people saying “jesus, get a room,” I want to close out my thoughts on the Union up top. Based on everything I’ve seen, this is a very good team that got, first, beat by a great cross, then undone by having to chase too much of the game. The teams largely traded blows in the first half, the only difference was Portland landed theirs; Philly threw the more promising punches and dozens more of them. The adjustments the Union made in the second half should send shake the spines of every Eastern Conference team; between Ilsinho coming on and twisting the Timbers’ defensive left into knots and, so far as I’m concerned, Haris Medunjanin forever having too much time for dissection, and too many Union players finding openings, the Union pried at gaps in the defense. It took a series of interventions and straight-up heroics from Steve Clark to let Portland hang on.

And, on that glass-shattering high note, Portland’s 12-game road-trip comes to an end. Assuming I got the math right in last week’s FormGuide ULTRA, they collected 14 points over 12 road games. As someone I watched with tonight pointed out, that’s over a point per game as an average, and I guess he pointed that out because it’s good thing, I do not know. What I do know is that Portland has played well for a while, they seem strangely impervious to meaningful injury (who’s Cristhian Paredes? I’m kidding!), and I’m more concerned with that than a 4-6-2 record, or 14 points. The fact they’re now 4-1-1 over the last six games, and that’s all on the road, all against credible teams (e.g., Toronto, Real Salt Lake, and…Columbus Crew SC, and now, Philly tonight), well, that gives a man leave for a couple huzzahs.

Seattle Sounders 3(2)-3(4) Portland Timbers: Love Hangover

It's on me, guys. @ me.

I can’t remember whether I wrote it or tweeted it – and I’m not about to find it - but sometime in the very recent past I said that I never needed to see Dairon Asprilla in a Timbers uniform again. Yes, that sentiment resides at the intersection of harsh and ruthless, and you can go ahead and call me a bastard for it, but, obviously, 1,000 erotic poets banging away on 1,000 typewriters and stoned on “molly” could not express my appreciation for the man and his works in last night’s absolutely fucking glorious victory over the Seattle Sounders. In Seattle. Just…savor it. I re-watched the highlights just now and I want a gif of the little dance Asprilla did after slamming the winning penalty kick past “The Dread” Stefan Frei for Christmas.

While I’m in the business of giving shout-outs to Timbers I’ve recently crapped on, I want to single out/salute Andy Polo for setting the tone at “never-say-die-motherfucker” over the match’s opening 20 minutes. Until Jair Marrufo pulled him aside for a little chat, Polo played like he wanted to fight not just the Sounders starting eleven, but every last one of the 40,000 Sounders fans in attendance.

I’ll close out the introductions with a nod to Marrufo, who let both teams play in a way that was brave, even gutsy, and fair. No quarter was asked, and no quarter was given between the teams and credit to Marrufo for toeing what could have been a damned precarious line.

Getting into the usual (or sometimes?) fine-tooth combing over tactics, goals, or game states feels misplaced, like talking about the brush strokes of a beautiful painting instead of stepping back to appreciate the whole thing. Another factor: with all the goals came late in the match, I couldn’t remember half of them (aka, around the time “the root kicked in”); factually, I couldn’t remember even one of Seattle’s goals this morning* and, given my understanding of how trauma works, that’s something. Asprilla’s headed goal, on the other hand, somehow set up permanent, immovable residency in my mind, like one of those “core memories” in Inside Out.

(* Having now relived them – this one and this one, in particular – God bless the root and keep it holy. The intensity of…just everything swallowed up the sheer awfulness of the mistakes involved. Holy shit, how’d the Timbers get out of there alive?)

Diana Ross recorded a song called “Love Hangover” back when, and that’s very much part of my personal hangover collection this morning. Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer called this “the most painful loss of my career.” Coming at the experience from the opposite side, this goes down as my favorite all-time Timbers victory. Yes, even more than winning MLS Cup in 2015.

This morning, I am sloppy with happiness.

There were moments of doubt last night – none more sticky and ominous than the goal Raul Ruidiaz scored that would have put the Sounders through to the Western Conference finals. I worried that the Timbers had spent too much time absorbing waves of Sounders attacks; I wasn’t sure the team could re-orient to punching back, not just on the road and in that particular stadium. As they did when they went down a goal in the first leg, the Timbers clapped back just 10 minutes later. The gloom and anxiety never had time to settle.

Along the same lines, the way Portland opened the game made little room for doubt. They back four defended lustily, winning just about every battle they were called on to fight; I’ll admit that Alvas Powell scared the holy living shit out of me here and there, but he held up, Jorge Villafana put out at least two fires that threatened to rage, and both Liam Ridgewell and Larrys Mabiala won a little place in my heart forever. Every Timbers player on the field dusted himself off every time he got knocked down and was back in the fight seconds later. I’m fully aware of how over-the-top all this reads, but this is as good an occasion for hyperbole as any I’ve experienced. Just freaking incredible.

In one my preview tweets yesterday, I wrote something about how the Timbers wouldn’t be where they are without the players who held the team together when the starters were down. And that’s why I want to close this mash-note with Andres Flores. I don’t think any player on the field played as many shitty passes as Flores did; in the attacking third, especially, “wayward” charitably describes the worst of his passes. All the same, Flores is a dude one season out of the NASL and last night he played in one of the biggest games in the Timbers’ MLS history, and with 40,000 people watching and willing him to fuck up. (In a moment of clarity last night, I finally understood why the crowd really matters; took me 40+ years; I’m slow.) Flores held it together. The whole damn team did, and that’s magical.

The Portland Timbers needed every player on its roster last night, just as they did all season long. I know I’ll be back to calling out players and putting sharp questions to their personal livelihoods. And, yeah, that makes me a bit of a bastard. This morning, though, I want to buy every man on the team a drink, one of those big colorful fancy ones with garnishes and novelty umbrellas, the whole damn nine-yards. Hit me up, guys. There’s room on my credit card.

Portland Timbers 0-0 Sporting Kansas City: Touching the Ceiling

Welcome back, guys!

“Unbeaten in Nine”

Look, I’m happy about last night - if the performance more than the result - but I’m not having that shit. I pulled that from the official Portland Timbers webpage, so I get that Pravda-esque cheering comes natural, but “Unbeaten” isn’t good enough, not when it leaves two points on the table in consecutive home games. Basically, aim low enough and you risk shooting your damn foot. OK, enough of that.

Because I said “yes” to something I should have said “no” to, this review will necessarily be a little impressionistic. It’s not all a blur: for instance, I remember seeing “No. 32” for the Portland Timbers charge up the gut and asking the people around me at the bar, “Who is that? Is that Cascante?” only to see it was Marco Farfan ranging forward (from a more natural fullback position) and nearly stabbing home a goal. I also remember the name of the dude I introduced myself to after the game - for regular readers, this is the person I conversationally ambushed about a penalty kick last week. That thing where you repeat a name over and over until it sticks really does wonders for sufferers of CRS (that’s “Can’t Remember Shit”).

Farfan’s Foray (TM) didn’t make the highlights (I mean, what the fuck’s up with that? the kid had a moment), but the rest of them rang a bell when I saw them again (for the record, I have modified CRS; my memory works just fine if prompted correctly), and all the other prompts I have in front of me now confirm the same thing: the Timbers played pretty solid soccer in last night’s 0-0 draw at home against Sporting Kansas City. The game played out about the way you’d expect from two good, defensively-stout teams. Both sides found their chances, but they definitely had to look for them, and both sides contained the other’s biggest threats…again, take a bow, Marco Farfan (and welcome to the party, Modou Jadama).

I don’t have much to add about the game itself, but was instead going to move on to chatting about Portland’s game. That said, I just read the comments to the official recap, and I’m kind of glad I did, because it runs into the teeth of those comments. Loose suggestions of a “reorganized defense” come in and out of those (along with this question, which I very much second: “Are you really not considering Valentin a starter at this point?), and I guess I don’t get the premise. “Reorganized” from what?

To back up a little, seeing Lawrence Olum set a couple pre-game butterflies fluttering. He is, without question, a down-grade from Diego Chara (no offense intended, Larry), but Olum can play a role so long as you assign him a role he can play. That is, you’ll never get Chara’s manic herding dog dynamism from Olum, but he can clog the center and manage safe-not-spectacular distribution; playing him means resigning yourself to losing a little something on the attacking side, but, when you’ve got no choice…only the team does have a choice, and his name is Eryk Williamson, and I guess I’ll just leave it there. I don’t watch Timbers2 enough (or ever, I suppose) to make a case that Williamson should start over Olum, but that’ll remain an open question in this space till we get the real-world data to resolve it.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: The Plans to Our Personal Death Star

And, if it's been this easy all along...?

“The Timbers run unbeaten streak to seven, draw 1-1 with LA”

Ah, the pointless urge to euphemism. That's the text the Portland Timbers' website put over the Recap/Highlights for last night's home draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy. I don't bring up the euphemistic phrasing from a place of disappointment, either, because the Portland Timbers were bound to drop points at some point, and losing a game is inevitable, even at home. The educated guesswork I put into Friday’s tweet-storm preview titled me against the Los Angeles Galaxy as the team to stall Portland’s winning streak, but they did. Time, now, for the post-accident ritual of checking the vehicle for dents.

I can name one right away (warning: this is bullshit): I’d got it in my head that yesterday’s game was Portland’s the last game before Major League Soccer takes its World Cup Breather. It is not. I’m less surprised about me boning a detail than I am that people didn't take the time to point it out the error and/or ridicule me for it (which leads to deeper questions like, does anyone read this stuff? Eh, barely matters. I think of this site and others as my own Zork-level The Truman Show (a carefully crafted reality of my very own!), but, to drag this conversation back on track, the Timbers do have one more game to go (two, if you count the U.S. Open Cup, and do I count the U.S. Open Cup?), and that’s against Sporting Kansas City, in Kansas City, next Saturday, and hopefully at a more reasonable hour. [UPDATE/Correction: Calling all scientists: I've developed a really screwy reading block that causes me to read "at" where I should read versus. The game against SKC next weekend is in Portland, I have no excuse, and thanks to a guy named Justin, who reminded me that I need to correct my stupid. Corrections always appreciated, honestly, especially with such a simple fact. Please read the rest knowing I know that now.]

SKC at their place will be a tough game, and now this becomes a question about the size of a letdown. Dropping two points in the final game before the break didn’t seem like much - think stubbing a toe at the end of, say, the ski run of a lifetime. The team would have a couple, three weeks to screw their heads back into the straight position, and they’d still have six reasons for optimism in their back pocket for encouragement. What if the Timbers close out First Season 2018 (e.g., the one that ends with the World Cup break, because Apertura is taken), with just that one point taken at home, when three points looked well within reason? If you’d read this site at all, this gets back into a favorite game of “blip” versus “pattern.” Time to keep checking for dents…

Here’s my big takeaway on yesterday: the reason that Portland stumbled yesterday resides somewhere between their consistent failure to anticipate where the ball would go better than LA and, crucially, the reason for that. This showed up early - e.g., with the catch-in-yer-throat moment when LA’s Chris Pontius slipped ahead of Larrys Mabiala to toe one off the post. That about being the runner-up too often became the norm by the end of the game.. The Timbers still found their spaces on the field - and even set players loose in wide-open pastures behind the LA defense (especially down LA’s right) - but LA also had a really solid afternoon of cutting out passes to Timbers players who waited for the ball to come all the way to them. They also started gobbling up the outlet passes Portland has relied on to start the counters the team has feasted on throughout the, ahem, six game winning streak*. The question is why?