Orlando City Tops Portland Timbers at Home: A Game of Moments

Have things gone better? Absolutely, yes.

Earlier today, Orlando City SC came to Portland, Oregon, and shattered my confident predictions about old dogs pulling over a big one on a pack of young whelps. As many times as I felt a come-back coming on (just once, actually, about 65th minute), the Portland Timbers put together too few opportunities in what turned out to be a 2-0 loss, at home, to one of Major League Soccer’s (MLS) two 2015 expansion clubs.

What we have here is a dead body with many causes of death. Orlando deftly played around the high-ish press team defense that brought Portland reasonable success over the past couple of weeks. While several players had decent games, they had them in isolation from one another; in a word, cohesion was lacking. Just about every Portland Timber had moments today; trouble was, too many players had bad moments to match their good ones – especially the fullbacks, Alvas Powell and Jorge Villafana.

The funny thing is, the damage doesn't always come from the likeliest areas. For instance, Brek Shea tore up Alvas Powell and Portland's right, generally, and yet Orlando's opening goal came from Villafana's side of the field. The Timbers clawed back from the moment that first goal went in, if half-heartedly, and they had some half-chances. Sadly, half never translated to whole and, as I see it, the Timbers attack never made Orlando 'keeper, and former Timber, Donovan Ricketts, work half as hard as should have to earn that clean sheet.

It's not inaccurate to say I lost interest when Kaka knocked in his second crack at the penalty spot...yes, if I was at the stadium, I would have walked, but that also segues wonderfully to the talking points.