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| That really feels more "on." |
God have mercy on my soul, but I went back to see if I could find The One Wrong Thing that led to the Portland Timbers' crushing and potentially fatal 1-4 loss in Canada France to Club de Foot Montreal. I blame Reddit. Reddit is to blame…
Because Bryan Acosta caught so much flaming shit, I made the decision to watch where he was throughout the periods around the four goals Montreal scored last night – which, as careful readers already know, doesn't make a lick of sense because Acosta came off before L’Impact scored goals three and four. Those flies in the ointment aside, I had a theory I wanted to test, specifically, the potentiality that the Timbers defense/midfield failed due to the fact that they manned it with three players – Evander, Santiago Moreno and, yes, lumping Acosta into that bunch – who are, at a minimum, more inclined to think about what’s ahead of them than the flailing, half-panicked defenders behind them.
Before digging into what I saw, I had a lot of arguments from other people in my head before I sat down for the replay – e.g., theories about Montreal overloading the space either Juan David Mosquera or Claudio Bravo left open by pushing both too high and naked (i.e., without cover), gripes about Portland’s failings on transition defense, or something as simple as Larrys Mabiala being to old/slow for the game-plan – and that was on top of the narc-ish craving to blame it all on trying to fit Acosta into a No. 6 shirt that simply doesn’t fit him…
...wouldn’t you know, it was simpler than all that.
To be clear, Acosta does not appear to wear the No. 6 shirt comfortably or well – and do file that away for the future – but he really was in or around the places he should be in the crucial moments. That’s to say, he may not have managed the job well, but his positioning wasn’t the problem. Moreover, 1) that wasn’t the Timbers’ biggest problem, and 2) I’d put good money on Kwadwo Opoku burning 70% of MLS’s d-mids with the turn that created the chaos that led to Montreal’s second goal. And, to circle back to problems, the way Portland’s back three got stranded on that play was their biggest defensive problems yesterday afternoon.
Because Bryan Acosta caught so much flaming shit, I made the decision to watch where he was throughout the periods around the four goals Montreal scored last night – which, as careful readers already know, doesn't make a lick of sense because Acosta came off before L’Impact scored goals three and four. Those flies in the ointment aside, I had a theory I wanted to test, specifically, the potentiality that the Timbers defense/midfield failed due to the fact that they manned it with three players – Evander, Santiago Moreno and, yes, lumping Acosta into that bunch – who are, at a minimum, more inclined to think about what’s ahead of them than the flailing, half-panicked defenders behind them.
Before digging into what I saw, I had a lot of arguments from other people in my head before I sat down for the replay – e.g., theories about Montreal overloading the space either Juan David Mosquera or Claudio Bravo left open by pushing both too high and naked (i.e., without cover), gripes about Portland’s failings on transition defense, or something as simple as Larrys Mabiala being to old/slow for the game-plan – and that was on top of the narc-ish craving to blame it all on trying to fit Acosta into a No. 6 shirt that simply doesn’t fit him…
...wouldn’t you know, it was simpler than all that.
To be clear, Acosta does not appear to wear the No. 6 shirt comfortably or well – and do file that away for the future – but he really was in or around the places he should be in the crucial moments. That’s to say, he may not have managed the job well, but his positioning wasn’t the problem. Moreover, 1) that wasn’t the Timbers’ biggest problem, and 2) I’d put good money on Kwadwo Opoku burning 70% of MLS’s d-mids with the turn that created the chaos that led to Montreal’s second goal. And, to circle back to problems, the way Portland’s back three got stranded on that play was their biggest defensive problems yesterday afternoon.
