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| That's the best image I could find for "curse." Infrastructure? |
The Portland Timbers have scored just 1.0 goal per game in their past 10 games. They just crossed over into playing sub-.500 ball (4-5-1), the excuse they were playing tough teams at home dried up with games against DC United (a loss) and the New York Red Bulls (a loss), and it continued today against Minnesota United FC, even if the excuse was better. They haven’t scored at home in three whole goddamn games, and that makes the following question the only game in town: are the Timbers cursed or are they just not good enough in 2019?
Today’s goal-less/soul-less draw at home against MinnesotaUnited FC gave state’s evidence for cursed. Portland created real chances (shit, more than I thought too) and, to be clear, most of their best chances were not among the 11 shots on goal, if for no better reason than Cristhian Paredes’ header off the post doesn’t count as a shot on goal, also, make your subjective metrics better, dammit. To reframe the issue, and properly: Portland created chances and opportunities just fine; they just don’t put them way. Also, yes, the issue of making bad decisions, or piss away a half decade before making a bad decision (see, Polo, Andy) plays into the whoa-whoa-woes the Timbers have to wrestle to ground down the short neck of 2019.
And, to circle back to the question/issue left hanging at the end of the first paragraph, Portland has played every one of the past 10 games at home, except the loss on the road to this same Minnesota team at the beginning of that 10-game stretch. So, that’s four points of six to Minnesota to bookend the beginning of Portland’s demise(?), and that makes a case that Portland has found its natural habitat at the fringes of the red velvet rope that divides teams in and out of the MLS playoffs…which, again, is the opposite of exclusive. More teams still make it into the MLS playoffs than don’t, and that's the real-world measure of how badly you have to be doing things – and globally – to miss out. The bar is low and the Timbers’ chances of failing to clear it get higher with every result that falls short of three points.
Today’s goal-less/soul-less draw at home against MinnesotaUnited FC gave state’s evidence for cursed. Portland created real chances (shit, more than I thought too) and, to be clear, most of their best chances were not among the 11 shots on goal, if for no better reason than Cristhian Paredes’ header off the post doesn’t count as a shot on goal, also, make your subjective metrics better, dammit. To reframe the issue, and properly: Portland created chances and opportunities just fine; they just don’t put them way. Also, yes, the issue of making bad decisions, or piss away a half decade before making a bad decision (see, Polo, Andy) plays into the whoa-whoa-woes the Timbers have to wrestle to ground down the short neck of 2019.
And, to circle back to the question/issue left hanging at the end of the first paragraph, Portland has played every one of the past 10 games at home, except the loss on the road to this same Minnesota team at the beginning of that 10-game stretch. So, that’s four points of six to Minnesota to bookend the beginning of Portland’s demise(?), and that makes a case that Portland has found its natural habitat at the fringes of the red velvet rope that divides teams in and out of the MLS playoffs…which, again, is the opposite of exclusive. More teams still make it into the MLS playoffs than don’t, and that's the real-world measure of how badly you have to be doing things – and globally – to miss out. The bar is low and the Timbers’ chances of failing to clear it get higher with every result that falls short of three points.
