Getting Reacquainted with the Portland Timbers, My Burden, My Boo

Ah, memories.

For obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015, but it receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Now that I’ve posted mini-histories for every other team in Major League Soccer (may not be better than a Wikipedia post, but definitely shorter), I was struck by how steadily the Timbers pieced together a competitive team, and how early it came in their MLS history. When Portland graduated from the USL to MLS in 2011, they came in with a roster typical of that time (MLS…2.5?): it started with a few players who came up from the USL team – e.g., Futty Danso, Steve Purdy, Bright Dike, and Kalif Alhassan – which was then beefed up with players typical of every Expansion Draft, i.e., fixer-uppers with a good season or two behind them – e.g., Eric Brunner, Eric Alexander, Kenny Cooper – and capped with the player who was born a cagey vet and who would captain through (most of?) their first several seasons, “Captain” Jack Jewsbury. The key additions from outside the domestic professional ranks included a hot college draft pick named Darlington Nagbe and a Colombian midfielder named Diego Chara, who was sold to expectant fans as an “attacking midfielder.” The front office hired a cliché, aka, a “fiery Scotsman,” aka, John Spencer to coach them, and off they went. The Timbers did reasonably well in that expansion season, missing the playoffs by an AI-generated handful, but they fell headlong into a sophomore slump in Year 2. Despite spotting the right weakness – the attack – and upgrading with a couple Colombians (Sebastian Rincon and Jose Adolfo Valencia, who I barely remember), another reclamation project (Danny Mwanga), and spending on a DP forward (Kris Boyd), all that tinkering didn’t lead to anything good and Boyd, in particular, didn't match the hype.  2012 might have been the Timbers’ worst all-time season (and big shout to Chivas USA and Toronto FC for sparing them the blushes!) - haven’t run the numbers, don’t see the point – but the building blocks started falling in place fairly quickly thereafter. First the front office plucked Caleb Porter from the college ranks (University of Akron) before the end of 2012. The players came next, starting with the Flying Johnsons, Will and Ryan (also, no one called them that), Pa Modou Kah (why not?) came over from the Dutch top-flight, by way of Saudi Arabia – Portland even got a little jiggy when they signed former Manchester United stand-out Mikael Silvestre (who broke quickly) – and, of course, the crown jewel of the 2013 renovation, Diego Valeri. He joined on loan, but made it official (I think) before the year was over and would become a fixture/face-of-the-franchise for the next nine seasons (right? because you count both 2013 and 2021?). The result was an about-face from 2012, and an appetizer for the peak seasons to come: 2013 was arguably the Timbers’ best-ever season, if only on paper: the team was balanced, going well over the average for goals scored, while keeping out well below the average; their post-season ended in the semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs against what was probably the last, best season for Real Salt Lake’s golden-generation. Portland suffered a…senior slump(?) in the 2014 season, missing the playoffs…and this is where the way I remember 2015 comes up.

Getting Reacquainted with the New England Revolution, MLS's Maids of Honor

To the queen in blue: you are seen, you are beautiful.

Thumbnail History
I moved to Boson in 1998, the same season I consciously uncoupled from DC United (successful teams don’t challenge you enough as a fan) and embraced the New England Revolution. The Wooden Spoon stung their bums for the one and only time in their history at the end of that very season. Fortunately, for both me and them, New England became one of the first teams to crack the post-contraction code and that made them the Second Most Menacing Team in MLS for pretty much every season between 2002 and 2007. To be clear, not all of those MLS Cup runs were created equal: with Taylor Twellman and MLS iron-man/assist-king Steve Ralston in the starting XI, the 2002 roster had the beginnings of the Revs’ real glory seasons, but it took additions like Matt Reis in goal, Michael Parkhurst and Jay Heaps leading the back line, plus Shalrie Joseph dominating midfield to transform the Revolution into a team that could win any given game. Throwing a team like that into the playoffs season after season (e.g., from 2002-2009) gave them plenty of chances to win it all. Which, again, they did not. To get a little personal, none of those losses kicked me like the 2006 final and, firmly as believe that spectator sports cannot deliver trauma worth even five minutes of therapy, I do consider that loss formative to how I “enjoy” soccer to this day (i.e., never get too close). The Revs’ history tells a familiar tale from there – you know the drill, players leaving the team one by one, new players coming in who don’t fill all of the hole left by the guys before them, a once-reliable coach sticking around past his sell-by date, etc. Several rough seasons followed, before the 2014 season rolled around. New England had made the playoffs the season before, sure, but they fielded not just a young team, but one that had mainly proved itself IN MLS. It started with Andrew Farrell in defense, but continued up the spine with Scott Caldwell in central midfield and Kelyn Rowe and Lee Nguyen running the midfield. That basic line-up got a boost of nitrous in the person and personality of U.S. Men’s National Team adoptee, Jermaine Jones, who came in as a late-season addition and girded every loin he could bark into shape. And all of those budding youngsters promised a brighter future…until they very abruptly didn’t. The Revolution sulked back into the wilderness for fives seasons after 2014 – I mean, they didn’t do shit – but caught up to the new way of doing things by 2021. Part of that relied on calling in new designated players – the (cliché alert) mercurial Gustavo Bou and one of MLS’s latter-day greats, Carles Gil – but the other half relied on spotting some of the best North American talent of the current generation – e.g., Matt Turner (goalkeeper) and Tajon Buchanan (full/wingback) lead that bunch, but Henry Kessler and DeJuan Jones are nothing to sniff at. That team benefitted from the wisdom of MLS Svengali, Bruce Arena, and leaned on a spine of some old-guard regulars – i.e., Farrell and long-time MLS-above-averager, Matt Polster, but it took a second generation of budding talent to lift the 2021 Revolution team to the then-best-ever regular season in MLS history. And, yes, that record was broken just three years later by an Inter Miami CF team that rode a smash-and-grab reunion to even greater heights. Only to run into the same dead-end that never stopped haunting the Revs. They didn’t even make the semifinals. Ha.

Columbus Crew SC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Comedy Gold

My birthday came early this year!

Did the Portland Timbers deserve their late, late equalizer? No, they did not. But that also feels like the wrong question for the moment. So, try this:

Was it funny? Yes, yes it was. I’d sit through a three-hour insurance seminar with an hour devoted to "team-building" and a bologna sandwich and Kool-Aid for a lunch if you told me I could see sad Caleb Porter at the end of it.

Still, smart shot by Santiago Moreno. And, oh, the whimsy of the assist coming off Bill Tuiloma’s head! As for Columbus Crew SC: I’d pity them under literally every other circumstance, but when your team needs a point (and FC Cincinnati needs someone to trip up there rival) you harden your heart and point and laugh....still, you gotta wonder which god Columbus pissed off...

As I said when I sat down to a frog in a tray way back in junior high, there’s so little to dissect here. Columbus played the better game, just slower than they needed to. Despite what the calendar says, the game as a whole had a mid-August vibe. With few exceptions – and those will be noted below – the Timbers played the first half as if they didn’t even want the points and they didn’t raise their game all that much in the second. A great feed to an increasingly anonymous Yimmi Chara and a flurry of corner kicks aside (all around the 58th minute), Portland rarely got close enough to see Columbus’ goal, never mind threaten it.

In their defense, Columbus didn’t do much better. They came within a stray shoulder of scoring an insurance goal, of course, and Cucho Hernandez got loose a couple times, but, apart from "that magic moment" when Kevin Molino put them ahead, I think the xG does a swell job of translating that sleeper of a game into numbers. Again, that felt like nothing so much as sitting through a long, pointless movie that slips in a great joke right before the credits rolled.

And, because I don’t think we learned much of anything today, let’s just do talking points and get on with our day.

MLS Off-Season Weeky (01 25 2020): Welcome to the Weird Season! (Plus Some Moves)

Preseason.

Ah, preseason, the heady days when teams across MLS can nurse delusions of grandeur – whether Real Salt Lake claiming they’re “not that far from competing for the title” or Dax McCarty pretending new kids Nashville SC won't do the soccer equivalent of a flex-arm hang from the playoff line in its inaugural season.

The Chicago Fire (the rebrand didn’t run off with their OG name, right?), meanwhile, stung by a lost decade, takes the sober course: “I can guarantee them that we will work hard every day.”

We will try, the city of Chicago, they say. That’s really all any team can say ahead of any given season. To flip the script, Los Angeles FC can talk about a title all they want, but no promise can stop them from another stumble in the playoffs. At any rate, what will be will be. And some teams have already taken their first steps toward their 2020 fate.

Preseason, MFs!
I’ll clock some playa moves below, as well as what’s going on with the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati, but I wanted to start things off with actual preseason play.

Does it matter that (weird) Atlanta United FC beat the (weird) New York Red Bulls 2-1 in hot MLS-on-MLS action yesterday, or that the (weird) Seattle Sounders dropped their first preseason game to Uruguayan giants, Penarol? Nah. Everyone’s knocking off the rust (no matter what the copy says about Josef Martinez) and the regulars knock off after the first 30 minutes, and a bunch of randos come on to replace them: the silly season continues, but welcome to the “weird” season. (Related: I’ll be placing “(weird)” in front of every team’s name until either real games come around or when a given team plays some version of its expected first team in the late-stage preseason.)

Late Tackle 01 19 2017: Questions for the Timbers, Chicago's Rebuild, and 10 Other Things (or Players) Who Excite Me

Dream big, Fire fans...could be your bandwagon...

In keeping with this site’s practice of starting local…

The Oregonian posted one of their damn slideshows (sorry, hate the things, because they feel more about the ads; yes, I’m aware of the state of the news industry) that framed the issues facing the Portland Timbers in the form of 11 questions, some more pointed than others. To quibble with the premise a little, I’d argue that, if you can come up with 11 questions – if you get that granular – you probably have 20+ questions. To hit that from the other side, with the way personnel overlaps and cross-pollinates, I think the Timbers have between three and five questions to answer in 2017.

I’ll come up with those later (tomorrow, maybe; or Monday), but, for now, the best question of The Oregonian's 11 was the last (paraphrasing): are the Timbers good enough to make the 2017 playoffs?

And they flagged the one major detail that slips my mind every time I think about the Portland Timbers: how large-scale erratic they’ve been. Or that’s just another way of admitting that the flukiness of the 2015 Run to Glory still somehow doesn’t sit right with me. At any rate, that whole “erratic” theme is something head coach Caleb Porter has to answer for.

Moving on to other pastures…

The Late Tackle 01 18 2017: On Deploying Porter's Boys, Hot Teams and a Hot Prospect

You'll get there, tiger!

In case anyone hasn’t spotted it yet, I want to draw attention to a little something to the left of MLSSoccer.com’s home page. See it? Portland v. NY Red Bulls, January 27, 2017, Preseason. That’s just over a week away. Next Friday, in fact. Bastards better at least stream that one, because jonesin’.

Of which, with an eye to cutting down on bar costs (he told his wife), I picked up the cord-cutters version of cable, Sling TV. I’ll let interested parties know how I feel about it.

Back to that first preseason game, I’m just now thinking about the kind of team I want to see Caleb Porter field for that preseason opener, and I find myself torn. As much as I want new/younger players and the T2 call-ups (e.g., Rennico Clarke…and there’s no “e” at the end, right?) to get real tryouts during the preseason – especially in defense, and especially if Portland hasn’t added new personnel by then – but I think I’d rather see Porter at least start what he envisions as his starting eleven for this first game, to just sort establish an average for the season (as in bowling) and to figure out how to beat it later. I’ll be providing input all season long…even if it goes unheeded…pearls of wisdom, spurn’d and unclaim’d.

That’s the “first time” for the 2017 season, but the U.S. Men’s National Team’s friendlies against Serbia and Jamaica follow shortly thereafter, too, and I’m actually interested in the friendlies this year, feel like they’ll be building toward something less irritating than under Jurgen Klinsmann, etc. Then fer-reals real preseason starts with the month of February. We’re sliding into home, people, the regular season that, at times, seems like it’ll never end, even as it feels like it started years ago.

Eminently-mockable as MLS’s regular season is, it’s precisely the length of the thing that makes it feel like “normal.” By that I mean I feel a little antsy, even weird, during the off-season.

On to other things of note…

The Late Tackle 01 17 2017: Youth/Player Movements

Caleb! Yo, Caleb! I found one!

Don’t know of any news from PTFC-Land (wait, no; the team picked up another but I did find an interesting little nugget of thought in Four Four Two’s fly-on-the-wall write-up for the Superdraft (now, is it “Superdraft” or “SuperDraft?” Don’t make me like this up). Here’s that:

“The reality is because we’ve had now four years to build and get experience, for me it was the time to start to move some young players in. We have enough experience now. So, it was a decision, myself, (Portland general manager) Gavin (Wilkinson) and (team owner) Merritt (Paulson), to make that youth movement. We felt we couldn’t lose getting any of the players in the top four, so that’s why we wanted to get into the top four. And we did, and we thought we got pretty good value.”

That’s Caleb Porter talking. Encouraging? Not encouraging? Delusional? Looks like the opposite of what they’re doing? You decide. Getting younger does sound good, though.

Looking elsewhere...

Timbers Update: Begging for Scraps (and Dreaming of LA)

Argentina...Argentina...shit, did I leave the map behind?

Starved for Portland Timbers news? Well, don’t count on the hunger pangs going away any time soon (also, how long did you think “hunger pangs” was actually “hunger pains”?). The best post I’ve read since the Timbers’ season died an untimely death came with just awesome speculation that Instagram photos of Alvas Powell’s apartment, shots that showed boxes and bare walls, indicated that the Timbers’ right back du jour could be moving on…

I’m not even sort of being sarcastic, either. That’s semi-investigative journalism at least. And Instagram-stalking at worst. And who doesn’t do that? (Me. Can’t really sort out Instagram.)

Going the other way, barring something absolutely monstrous – and, here, imagination fails me (but, all the same, inviting a challenge from @GusRachels) – I couldn’t care less about what the Timbers wear when they take the field (still, guys? Too green. Can we slip some rainbows into that shit, or something?). The new stuff looks fine, based on the “glimpse” we’ve all been given (marketing, guys, that’s just knowing who you’re talkin’ to), but the Timbers could be clowns dressed in business casual and I’d still be fine with everything so long as they win enough games and in more style than the way they’re dressed…

…that’s a good rule for going forward, actually: the Timbers should always play above the quality/aesthetics of their kits, because, yes, broadly speaking, the team does good kits (shut up). If anyone has access to the team bylaws, kindly slip that in. Might have a salutary effect.

The point is, all the news is speculative just now and that’s…just how it is. There’s still MLS Cup to play (next Saturday) and that’s a helluva shadow. The Timbers announced their preseason training camp and schedule, plus where they’ll play their earliest preseason games, and that’s a kind of real news.

The Late Tackle, 12 01 2016 - MLS Cup Finalists Finalized (Plus Everyone Else's Crappy Consolation Prize)

Like that, only with a couple consolation goals...

MLS Cup: Conference Champions...Revealed!

I never heard what Greg Vanney had to say just after halftime.

The 20-minute mini-game cut off the highlights right as Vanney, Toronto FC’s coach, was about to reveal his secrets – e.g. maybe that they’d channeled demons into Jozy Altidore (for he did play possessed), or that someone finally explained to Nick Hagglund, at long last, that he enjoys the freedom to score goals, as well as keep them out (or maybe that he was much bigger and faster than the Montreal Impact’s Marco Donadel). Vanney’s words could have explained everything, or nothing. What was clear from the start, though, was that Toronto hit the field turned up to 11 (shit, used a cliché). Nothing made that apparent quite like Michael Bradley’s slashing/manically-determined run into Montreal’s penalty area inside the first minute. (NOTE: Due to where and when I post, I only have the capacity to link to the match highlights; sorry for the inconvenience!)

Toronto simply never let up; if they ran over the Impact, they did it slowly. Or, rather than ran them over during the game, then backed over them in extra time. Count me among those shocked by Montreal’s set-piece defending (assuming such population exists). Hagglund got crazy-free twice (at least) and those lapses led to a panic/assist on (was it?) Toronto’s first, cleaned up by Armando Cooper (if memory serves), and the goal that forced extra time. At least Montreal had an excuse when it came to Hagglund – no one saw him coming – but, because they were warned about Altidore (see?), one has to ask just what the goofy fuck Montreal was thinking by letting Altidore run completely unmarked right before half; that was one hell of a tricky goal, but Jozy was good for it (again, possibly due to possession; there was no other word for how he approached the game all day, other than “surging”).

Montreal didn’t so much lie down, as protect its vitals for as long as it could while slipping in a couple pokes with a shiv. Dominic Oduro – who quietly put in a very credible year, as well as a rock-solid playoff run, which breaks his famous every-other-year pattern (congrats, kid!) – set himself up for the goal that could have won the series (against anything but a freight train) with the kind of touch he pulls off once every cycle of the moon. Piatti stuck in another one when he wrestled Montreal’s second goal over the goal-line. It was a brave performance, but Toronto was in what some folks call “a mood.”

Timbers Crack Philadelphia's Bell; PLUS, MLS Week (Probably) 29, the Results That Mattered

The only, ONLY setting where I'd take a Mattocks MVP pick.

The Portland Timbers picked up a required (2-1) win over the Philadelphia Union this past Saturday (this is per a twitter poll, in which 49% of 65 voters deemed this a 100%-must-win game, and with 35% of those same number sticking it at a still-high 85% must-win). Yes, it was a good win, Portland put up a lot of chances (Philly did all right, too), the usual suspects for Portland had their usual good nights, but, honestly, raise your hand (even if I’m calling you a fucking liar before I even get to the meat of the sentence) if you saw Darren Mattocks having the game of his life in Timbers green last Saturday night.

And, to people in the Philly area, give Keegan Rosenberry a hug if you see him. For Darren Mattocks did have a most indecent way with the promising rookie.

I’ll go deep on that later (what? No, not the Rosenberry thing? A joke!!), but, in a twist, I’m going to slip my usual “Results that Mattered” in Major League Soccer’s Week...29(?) into this post before diving deep into the Portland Timbers (like any good, or even aspiring business, I’m consolidating, streamlining produc...I mean, content. Of course I mean content). And, so...

The Results That Mattered, MLS Week (Probably) 29 (in one/two paragraph(s)):
In spite of my perception that they sometimes looked better than their hosts, the Seattle Sounders’ 1-0 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps quite likely put an end to the latter’s playoff dreams, but, I gotta say, Kasey Keller is wrong in slipping in the loose notion of “putting the ball into a dangerous area," because Seattle’s one, thin goal came from patience and smart player movement; if the Montreal Impact were anything but hide-yer-eyes shit at home (ask their fans! they’ll tell you (see the deluge of “boos!” at half-time and the final whistle), I’d rate New England’s trio of (nice) goals (in the 3-1 win), and their comparative quality a little higher, but Montreal is in something close to total collapse…I mean, Ignacio Piatti missed a sure goal (no video, dammit), and is that Famine I see trotting down the hill?; I’m less impressed by Columbus Crew SC’s 4-1 blowout win over Orlando City SC than I am wondering how anything but immaturity doesn’t make a team shift away from defending that badly/high; meanwhile, in the Rockies, Real Salt Lake and Houston put on an affair so desperately boring (and yet so suggestive of a fairly real slowdown in Utah) that Alex Lima’s lone pickpocket goal against a clearly-bewildered Jonathan Stertzer (who had company) felt like poking a corpse with a stick - and that's a bad sign for an RSL team who played scared and confused when they need to be swinging smartly; shifting eastward a little, wouldn’t you know it, but that beautiful bastard Landon Donovan not only scored a slick, meaningful equalizer to make a 2-2 road draw against Sporting Kansas City, he made the approach play that lead to it fluid (shit!); finally, the New York Red Bulls reminded the league that they, and Bradley Wright-Phillips can score at goddamn will...all while proving that they give up goals in something painfully close to the same spirit.

The deeper story of Week...this past week is this: Major League Soccer’s top teams, the very best, firing-on-all-cylinders crowd (e.g. FC Dallas, New York City FC, Toronto and the Red Bulls; UPDATE: throwing the LA Galaxy into this mix...think I'm done...yeah), punch close to even and put on fantastically entertaining games. All this gives me high hopes for the finals. And now, to turn the conversation elsewhere, here are the rest of the results, the ones that so predictable, so irrelevant, that no one but their truest fans would give a cold, wet shit to hear even one word more about them.

Portland Beat (the Crap) Out of LA: The Bearable Lightness of a Mystery Solved

Portrait of the author after Tuesday's ETR...

Last night, I decided to break my oft-stated vow to never watch a game a second time. That’s the space-time altering power of last Sunday’s win over the Los Angeles Galaxy. As all Timbers fans know, the game broke sharply in the Portland Timbers’ favor, and that’s a hard thing for long-time, occasionally-suffering Timbers fans to wrap their heads around mentally, psychically, even emotionally. Oft-punchless Portland dropping a five-spot? That’s freakin’ unheard of (this year). And contentment? That’s for people from places where clouds don’t blot out the sun. And happiness. Clearly, this situation recommended a little investigation into how chickens and eggs lined up, because repeatability is a goal when it comes to that kind of thing.

When I took in the mini-game on a midnight dreary (or blurry or hazy; or just Sunday night), I got the spirit all wrong: I took in the game the same way I’d enjoy a favorite movie – i.e. waiting for my favorite lines, so I could parrot that back to the screen and laugh like an idiot. Because I was watching soccer instead, I just smiled like a dork at each goal and whispered to myself, “just the best, right?” (Because my family hates soccer; hell, Judy barely cares and I haven’t seen Randall in weeks.)

That said, a devil in the details didn’t escape notice: 1) how was Dan Gargan left alone to block Fanendo Adi (that was Portland’s second)? 2) just where was Omar Gonzalez going when Nagbe hit LA with La Disjoncteur de Retour (Portland’s 4th; ht: google translate – that’s “back breaker” in French, a phrase I hereby introduce and hope to use often)? 3) you gotta sleep late and do something dumb to make Jorge (Villafana) look like Lionel (Messi) (the set up the Timbers’ fifth goal). Subtle, what-the-fuck qualities touched on even the “good” goals - e.g. 4) was Lucas Melano’s pass actually intended for Adi on the first goal; and 5) did Steven Gerrard miss Diego Chara’s run because he looked right over the wee Colombian’s head?

I don’t bring all the above up to sow seeds of doubt; I am not a fun-sucker (sun-fucker? maybe). Having now re-watched (as much of) the game (as I am willing to, e.g. the second half…but, hey, all of it; huh, who knew the vow would hold up), I can address all the above questions/statements as follows: 1) Omar Gonzalez had to step to Melano, thereby stranding “Sleepy” Dan Gargan; 2) off night for Omar all ‘round, really; 3) Leonardo’s flailing non-intervention played the parts of “late” and “dumb” to the hilt; 4) still think no (but helluva a job by Adi to corral it), and 5) nah, Gerrard just plain switched off.

Defensive mistakes are meant to be exploited, so the Timbers did nothing less than recognize the gift horse(s) and ride it (them) to a thrashing. Still, the Timbers did plenty right, starting with burying the kind of tricky chance they haven’t all season (thinking Adi’s first here). Moreover, Portland came back into the game like with the calm intent of a slasher movie villain who walks after his quarry, safe in the knowledge he’ll eventually run him/her down. Liam Ridgewell fired a pair of warning shots before the dam burst and it all came together in a slow, satisfying constriction that built pressure on LA until their weak spots (e.g. Leonadro) split at the seams and everything came undone.

Portland's Drunk-Strewn Path to the After Party: On Faith and Its Opposites

Cherished. Pointless.

I posted a piece a couple nights ago about how Darlington Nagbe presents as the most likely savior for this manic-depressive (if medication-modulated) 2015 season (reference to meds acknowledges that the highs haven't been that high, nor the lows that low – more later). The argument for this is messy and, as it turns out, large. Real, real large. To put that another way, nothing that comes below will clear the tangles cited in the title.

Nagbe played a good game this past Saturday. The dead-end dribbles made their usual cameo, but Nagbe put a pair of thoroughly respectable shots on goal; that's on top of playing in Lucas Melano for the Portland Timbers' best attacking sequence on the night, a good shift for anyone. And yet, as all Timbers fans know, none of those three efforts, or any of the others, went in.  As noted in that same post, this is the sum of Portland's season. With Nagbe, specifically, impressive moments, even relevant statistics, don't matter against the broadly well-justified, oft-repeated knock on Nagbe: what good is all that game-changing talent if it fails to actually change the game?

I've carried image at right (and above) in my mind for about a month. I have a collector friend or two, the kind of guys who buy their favorite toys twice, one to play with and the other to save in pristine, packaged condition for a presumed later payoff. The investment piece pans out sometimes, but, other times, it ends with nothing but a grown man carting around kid's toys embarrassingly deep into adulthood. Even with his reputation taking hits (like this one!), Portland still possesses one of the most coveted toys in all Major League Soccer. Nagbe had one visibly great season (see 2013), one that had Timbers fans dreaming/drooling about future seasons. What we got instead were the past two seasons, which shifted the whole goddamn mess back to potential. It's as if some shady collector stuffed our Darlington back in the original packaging and shoved him back on the shelf for everyone to admire for...I dunno. By which I mean, I just don't know. What I do know is that I was always the kind of kid who ripped that toy straight out of the packaging because, honestly, the fuck's the point of a toy if you don’t play with it?

That same image was to top one of the most vicious hit-pieces to ever percolate up from the fetid sink of doubt and worry that bubbles in the depths of my body. The plan was to tick through each position on the Timbers line up and list the players from around the league – that is, just within MLS – that I rate higher than each player on Portland's roster. Look, I love these players and absolutely want them to succeed, but only two struck me as hard to shift in the end – Diego Chara and Nat Borchers. So, yeah, ugly post borne of ugly thoughts and, yep, Nagbe inspired it. And yet I can still call him Portland's likeliest savior. When it comes to questions of faith and certainty, Hamlet has nothing on me...

MLS and How It's Made for Jurgen Klinsmann. And Experimentation.

Hold on...almost have it. Just another 15 minutes...

I have fallen down, considerably, when it comes to posting regular weekly reviews on Major League Soccer (MLS). I won't bore you with the details (WAIT, no! Listen! The format's SHIT! He doesn't know what he's doing! It's a three-ring circus of wounded elephants and drunken clowns, people! RUN!), but, bottom line, it's a problem with settling on a consistent, brief format that gives the average, or un-average, reader a reason to spend the time on this site. (HELP: this is 100% a hostage situation! Signed: Randall. Mom? Mom?! HELP!!)

That said, we are where we are in the MLS by now? An entire goddamn 30 (+ for some) weeks has yet to settle anything all that meaningful for all but, by my count, four MLS clubs (here, I'm going with the New York Red Bulls (who made the playoffs), the Colorado Rapids, the Chicago Fire, and the Philadelphia Union (all of whom will not (sorry, Philly, but you'll need all 9 remaining points just to catch Montreal). Every other team has some general sense of their fate, but each has to pass through a thicket of results and other details before they know how they're going into the playoffs – e.g. strutting or falling over the velvet rope. And there's seeding after that...

Given how little sorting gets accomplished in all this – think the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter spending half an hour on each student before declaiming - the question of why the MLS regular season drags on for so many months has dogged the league since its inception. The answers to such questions touch too closely on the big questions of life to come easily, but there are answers (see, when one investor loves another investor very, very much, they create beautiful little tax vehicles and build stadiums where they can compete in a way that protects their feelings while maximizing revenue. And, stork). I've pissed and moaned about this state of affairs as often as I could without turning into a boor, or a poor house-guest.

Today, though, I'd like to present the MLS regular season in what I hope will be a new light. Think of this post as a guest who arrived a little late to the party, and with a fresh bottle of bourbon. The good stuff, too, like I reached up to grab it instead of doing the ol' bear-crawl across the bottom shelves. OK, pouring you a drink? Do you take ice? Rocks or neat? Excellent. OK, ready?

Lucas Melano, and Why He's Wrong for MLS and the Timbers

Yes, Number 175. No, just Number 175.

Thought I'd try something different today; I mean as opposed to retching out every last thought I have on some aspect of the Portland Timbers' strengths, weaknesses, limitations, or awful goddamn haircuts (hey, at least we're better than the New England Revolution – e.g. Major League Soccer's #1 coiffurial shit-show), until I'm on the floor dry-heaving, I thought I'd try a genuinely single-subject(-ish) observation. I have dreams of going brief and more frequent, but that requires listening to the little boy who lives in my mouth (Randall*) when he tells me that, yes, I really can leave out that sentence I just fell in love with, or that paragraph that, for whatever reason, I that I think is the skeleton key that unlocks the Rosetta Stone (NOTE: not how that happened at all).

(*There's Judy, too, obviously. I'm just not sure who she is yet, or where she lives.)

At any rate, exploring a single topic today – e.g., how signing a player Lucas Melano doesn't make sense under the MLS salary model.

While this has been kicking around my head for a week or so, I'd like to begin by giving credit to this week’s Portland Timbros' podcast for refining the argument. The relevant part came with the discussion of how the presence designated player shapes, or even outright warps, the game-day roster. That part of the argument only hits my point on Melano sideways, but, y'know, credit where it's due.

I'd also like to make clear that nothing predictive, condemnatory (well, I'll be, that is a word) on Melano as a player informs this position. One of the first unwritten rules of MLS is that All Players Will Require Time to Adjust to MLS, for one, but there's the fact that he's young to boot (and eager and fine, like a two-year-old thoroughbred rattling the gates at the Breeders' Cup). I never expected greatness from Melano from the first touch (though, to be clear, I do appreciate the eagerness).

To disclose my honest opinion, yeah, in my book, Melano has underwhelmed. Kid looks choked up out there, uptight; he plays the game like he's got to take a shit for the full 90. Even so, I think he'll come good fairly early in 2016. This assumes he comes good at all. He better come good, goddammit; in MLS terms, $5 million is pre-market-bust-level leverage. And, yet, it's not just the money. I'm thrilled to see the Timbers spend big (and let the record show that I just stifled a metaphor). If not that, then what?

Timbers Lose to the Red Bulls: A Feel-Piece in Response

Yes, part of me thinks it's this easy.

Tonight's 2-0 loss was really, painfully simple. The Portland Timbers got outplayed by a better team. Period. So, what makes the New York Red Bulls a better team? That's the pisser. It's not that hard.

O.G. New York (my fan-boy name for that club) knows what they're doing when they have ball. They play out of trouble more effectively, and no matter where they are on the field; Red Bulls players provide better support; they create those useful little triangles by reflex, as opposed to any (apparent) design that allow their players to reliably move the ball out of danger, and get it going the other way, time and again. It didn't hurt that they beat the Timbers to damn near every piece of slop that shook loose, managed to get the requisite number of bodies behind the ball damn near every time, etc. etc. etc. But it was that piece of knowing what to do with the ball that mattered most tonight. Sure, sure, both of New York's goals relied on some form of lax defending, but New York made those chances by doing the right thing more often than not.

Unrelated, but significant, can Timbers fans please retire the "dodgy 'keeper" chant, or at least apply exclusively to those 'keepers it has a snowball's chance in Hell of rattling? Luis Robles, Jr. is not that guy. I speak for myself here, but I'd trade Adam Kwarasey, plus whoever serves as our back-up 'keeper these days for Robles. The guy is U.S. Men's National Team material, and has been for years; only Jurgen Klinsmann's profound, persistent asshole-ism/Brad Guzan keeps him out (well, yes, and his age). Need evidence? You got it.

Even without Robles pulling miracles out of his ass, Portland simply labored to get a shot on New York's goal. Too many shots came from a lack of ideas – i.e. a Timber would shoot out of a dearth of visible, or observed (as in, didn't see 'em), options. Darlington Nagbe wound up at least twice only to pummel the ball into the one or two New York defenders between him and the goal; same with Lucas Melano, Rodney Wallace, Diego Valeri...Will Johnson at least skied one off the bar, but I'm pretty sure he banged one into a red and white wall right along with the rest of 'em. It's a great idea, shooting from distance, and one I'm in favor of generally...just not when a trio of defensive players loiters in the way.

With all the above in mind, "intention" provides the theme for tonight – i.e. the sense that, unlike the Timbers, New York has a plan and some sense of how to execute it. That one goes deep, if only in my head. Why?

Portland Timbers Draw Sporting KC: A Study on a Work in Progress

Sacrificed my smallest finger. What have you done, Timbers?

I have to admit it. The Portland Timbers goal-less draw against Sporting Kansas City left me feeling...feelings.

As the Twitter-verse pointed out, and against the general way of the drinking world, can we all agree that we're all better off forgetting that first half and holding onto the bright memories of the second? The second half presented the Timbers Army, and affiliated fans, with a great big doozy of expectations. My right hand still bears the reddened evidence from all the times my fist hit a barroom table. (Consider that an offering: if I break my hand on the table after the miss that inspired it, can I parlay that brief moment of pain for a Timbers goal at their next attempt? If not, why not? Trade makes the world go 'round, allows the wheels of commerce to turn, etc.)

Getting back to the first half, however, that played out pretty much as expected. Kansas City plays to make the game ugly; they're a classic high-press, disruption-first kind of team; they set out to make it hard to play just about anywhere on the field (which makes them an excellent primer for the Timbers' next opponent, New York Red Bulls). Something shifted at the half that gave the Timbers the moxie and space to attack – and I hereby raise my hand to confess that I have no idea what that would be – but would humbly submit that maybe it was nothing more than that little bit more moxie that created the space...these are the mysteries of soccer, especially when one sits down to try to write the first, second draft of history (in this modern era, the first draft always goes to Twitter).

Whatever happened, Portland piled on the chances in the second half – and in a manner reminiscent of last week's loss to Seattle Sounders FC – only to find themselves "Melia'd" at every turn (and, sweet Jesus, is there some kind of passing of the torch going here, wherein KC's Tim Melia becomes the heir-apparent for fucking over the Timbers, a la Nick Rimando?). As a very smart man I watch games with suggested, does Portland just bring out the best in opposition goalkeepers? I mean, is this our club's fate?

The pisser comes with the fact that that little edge – e.g. a standing-on-head performance from a 'keeper – is all any given team needs to take a gigantic shit on a basically acceptable night for the Timbers. Being the sociable type, I didn't catch every single minute of tonight's game - there will people to meet, etc. - but I damn-skippy caught Graham Zusi's shot off Adam Kwarasey's left post (as well as a couple headed shots off set pieces that rather kindly landed at or near Kwarasey to make for comfortable saves). KC wasn't good tonight, really, but any team with enough talent, or even just a reliable trick up their sleeve – can steal any game against the Timbers on a night when they don't score...

...suffice to say that the second half of tonight's game made up for the first half, excitment-wise. Heart-in-throat stuff. And that's why we tune in, isn't it? Is that enough random junk in the  (long) lede? Let's review...

The Great Rio Tinto Smash-'n'-Grab (A Template for the Rest of the Year)

Think this is where the Timbers are. I'm OK with it.

Well, that one left me...confused.

For me, the defining moment came in the second half when (I'm working without notes; forgive the vagueness), Diego Valeri received the ball from _______ (blank intentional) and broke toward Real Salt Lake's goal with Darlington Nagbe on the opposite side of the field. The two Portland Timbers had just one RSL defender at their mercy – I'm going with Aaron Maund as the junior partner (though, let’s face it, Jamison Olave is on the wrong side of pretty much every metric), but that's not important – when Valeri, a man normally so bright and bold and proactive, took a few steps inside RSL's half, squared the ball to Nagbe, who was still 45+ yards from goal. The implied message of that pass was, "Here ya go, kid. Hope you got ideas, because I got nothin'."

That play didn't end the game. Credit for the Timbers 1-0 win over RSL goes to Nat Borchers, who, tonight, proved that Third Time's a Charm is a thing when he knocked his third header inside RSL's area past Nick "Portland Kryptonite" Rimando for the game winner and his third of the year at the death-rattling death of the match. Let's see...that’s two run-on sentences now...

What leaves me so confused about everything that happened tonight is how precisely I feel like I understand what's going on, the general trends. And yet I'm not entirely sure I'm right. How's that for an Alice in Wonderland lede?

Tonight was rife with paradox. For one, Portland organized in the simplest of defensive shapes...which, as it turned out, resulted in RSL playing all kinds of crazy, tight passing stuff against, and through, the Timbers. Going the other way, Portland managed only a few, a happy few, attacking sequences that really threatened RSL's goal. Outside those moments, just about everything about the Timbers attack (one sequence aside) looked like pin the tail on the donkey. In all honesty, I thought we looked a little bit like grab-astic shit all over the field going forward tonight – more on that later – but I...think....maybe, that all that was by design.

Gregg Berhalter and the (Minor?) Penalties of Vanity

I will tie you to that goddamn thing, if I have to. Again!

"You're going to see us playing positive, attacking soccer."
- Something  every new coach said at least once, 1999-2010.

The quote's a paraphrase and the attribution made up, but it frames a concept nicely – e.g., a hell of a lot of coaches come into their jobs with a head full of ideas, most of them being based on ideals. This used to really annoy me – hence the range of years in the attribution – but, once you cotton to the idea that a coach is just another freelancer whose very reliant on self-promotion, it's easier to cut the guy some slack.

At the same time, some coaches believe it, or at least enough parts of it to get dangerous ideas. Or useless ones. Hitching their star to a formation – 4-4-2? With a diamond or without one? The Christmas Tree, you want the Christmas Tree? What about the 4-2-3-1, the kids, man, the kids! – or an approach – e.g. your high-pressure clubs or their counter-attacking opposites – they ride that magic carpet so far past its use that, when they finally land, it's wise to put down fairly close to the local unemployment line. Other times, though, a coach will cling to some tactical tendency...say, a firm insistence for playing the ball out of the back, on the ground, thank you. It doesn't do defining harm or anything. But it is silly.

That last little wrinkle has become the calling card for Gregg Berhalter's Columbus Crew SC. Though not a major topic of conversation, broadcast booth talking heads have noted Columbus' insistence on playing out of the back throughout 2015 and pundits have weighed its risks; more importantly, no small number of the other Major League Soccer clubs have attacked it. Under that light dusting of chatter, Columbus keeps right on doing it. Now, personally, I like the concept. And there's a pretty cogent argument in its favor: a player worth his contract will learn how do something better if he does it over and over again, so why not make working on it part of his day-to-day? Call it the piano-lesson theory of coaching.

Having tracked the chatter and watched a fair amount of Columbus this year (7 times, plus all the 20-minute mini-games), I'll put this opinion in the fairest possible terms for Mr. Gregg: if the Portland Timbers did all this half-pointless dicking at the back, I'd lose at least two-thirds (2/3) of my shit. After watching the Crew (hold on...goddammit! Can I please stop typing "Screw" when I try to type "Crew"??) struggle to tick this basically pointless box time and again against the widely-acknowledged mess that is (are?) the Colorado Rapids, it's time to call this practice by name: a tedious little exercise in vanity. So, yeah, knock it off, Gregg.

Portland Timbers' Win Over Seattle Sounders: The Tale of the Hydra

(In your best "Keanu," say) "What do you do? What do you do?"

Do I feel elation?

It's closer to contentment, which is better. Elation implies "surprise" on some level – as in, you're so goddamned excited, at least in part, because you didn't see the good thing coming. The cards set up pretty favorably for the Portland Timbers tonight.  They took down the Seattle Sounders 4-1 in Portland, but that was hardly a surprise with Seattle limping in with half the line-up missing (more on that later). The Timbers fielded a team (sorry!) One and a Half Men short of the best (Liam Ridgewell and, for some, uptight dickholes, (e.g., me), Maximiliano Urruti on the bench accounts for the other missing half) and that was more than OK. The Timbers first team, well...it's pretty goddamn good lately. The basic math works pretty simply: Portland(2) > Seattle (0.5). So, no, I'm not elated. Content? Yes, and all kinds of.

With the way this set up, the Timbers had to win this game. Blowing out Seattle complemented the evening elegantly (?) as a shot backs a beer, but a win, any win, was all Portland needed to back up the argument that the Timbers' own blowout loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy was an anomaly, the soccer equivalent of putting in overtime on a bad night at the office, sucking the rust off a trailer hitch, etc. etc.

All that's great (and gross), but the greatest thing slips sweetly into the talking points:

Timbers v. Los Angeles: A Collapse in Five Parts

I fear nothing! At least once!

The Portland Timbers dared the Los Angeles Galaxy the punch them in the stomach hard as they can! So, LA did. Five times, in fact. For all intents and purposes, though, the Timbers dropped after the second goal. It might have been after the first goal, really.

OK, no, that’s not really what happened. The Timbers didn’t strut down to LA all cocky and certain. Caleb Porter, for one, said all the right things, talked about club’s recent streak with due humility, etc. And yet, Portland was due. First of all, four-game winning streaks are damn rare in Major League Soccer; as we’ve all heard ad infinitum and beyond, Portland has only managed two-game streaks since joining MLS. The point is, one doesn’t have to watch MLS for all that long before one sees the whole “parity” thing intervene. Clubs rarely win for very long. When long streaks do happen in MLS, they generally hit/victimize clubs in the form of nightmarishly long losing streaks.

In that context, each win after the second straight one tempts the Fates to give your team a little kick in the teeth. And, thus, MLS nips hubris in the bud.

That said, was there any reason for the inevitable loss to be so damn brutal, so unbalanced? Did anything in the past four wins come with an assist from luck, or did something sniff of too much hype and Timbers fans seeing what they wanted to see? Maybe the Timbers beat either shitty clubs (the Colorado Rapids; who doubled-down on their incompetence just tonight), or clubs on a distinct downswing (e.g. the New England Revolution, who doubled-down on their incompetence just tonight). Maybe it’s simply that Western Conference clubs (e.g. the Timbers) are better than Eastern Conference clubs (e.g. DC United and New England) and everyone’s better than the Colorado Rapids (except FC Dallas). Or maybe it’s simpler still: LA is back to their best and Portland just picked a bad time for a visit.

LA sure as hell looks back to their best. By combinations of passes and movement that look so simple and straightforward in action, the Galaxy finds attacking players in two yards of space (see LA’s opening goal, in particular) – and all that begs the question, what was better; the pass or the run? Either way, it all ends with the opposition’s ‘keeper sitting on his ass in the dirt while one of his stunned defenders picks the ball out of the net behind him. The Timbers had a couple of those moments tonight. And that, for the most part, was that.