Portland Timbers 1-0 Sporting Kansas City: A Result

Taking miracles, in whatever form.

I’m weighing the game I wanted, maybe even expected, against the game that I got. That’s not taking me to dark places, exactly, and for reasons I’ll lay out, or perhaps just accept, below.

Conflicted feels like the right adjective for my thoughts on the Portland Timbers' 1-0 win over – to start picking at it – (still) 12th-place Sporting Kansas City, and yet it doesn’t. With that, let’s pop this zit.

About the Game
Control of the game, so long as you use the word loosely, slipped away from the Timbers at some point in this game. The question is when – and, to be clear, only when. Despite my headful of quibbles with this or that detail or player, the thought of Portland losing never crossed my mind. Pissing away two points, on the other hand, never left the table. Even that thought leaves things to unpack.

I saw three phases in the game, each bleeding into the next. With David Da Costa (typed that as David Dad Costa, kinda liked that) and Santiago Moreno buzzing under Felipe Mora, the Timbers got off to a good start. Antony produced the first big moment for either team with a diagonal run across the box and it came after a build up that felt sustainable. Portland put all of the same things together, and more, in the build-up to the, to call it by its full name, Brilliant and Only Goal of the game at the 10th minute: they worked the ball in, they pushed it up the left, moved it right, switched it back to the left, pushing SKC back the entire time; after, oh, 15-20 passes, it took a buffet of luck, timing and inspiration for Da Costa and Moreno (respectively) to score the winner and, by that, all three points, I hereby give thanks. Thus endeth Phase 1.

You know that moment in a track-‘n’-field relay, when the runner of the next leg gets up to speed in front of the runner from the previous one to build up momentum for the handoff? That was the change between Phase 1 and Phase 2. Sporting KC started finding direct passes through Portland’s lines around the same time the space for Da Costa and Moreno dried up. Their best chance(s) – perhaps for the entire game – came at the beginning of that phase in the form of three shots on Maxime Crepeau’s goal, most by Daniel Salloi, around the 15th minute. Crepeau made those saves and more, if without the confidence I like seeing from a ‘keeper (another came around the 61st minute, see the full highlights), but that didn’t chip away at my confidence in the result as the low-key siege SKC mounted against the Timbers defense for the remainder of Phase 2. Which brings this post to the most complicated part of the game, though not yet to Phase 3.

Columbus Crew SC 2-2 Portland Timbers: I'm Beginning to See the Light, Here it Comes, Woo-Oooh-Oooh

Here it fucking comes....

I don’t believe in moral victories, as a rule, and I’m not going to take that route for this review. To be clear, that doesn’t mean that the Portland Timbers didn’t play a damn good and wonderfully entertaining game tonight. In fact, the fact they punched even with, for all their present faults and fatigue, a consensus-best team in MLS raises Portland’s 2-2 draw at Columbus Crew SC into disappointment territory. Coulda, shoulda, woulda, etc.

Going the other way, consider how disappointed Columbus fans feel tonight and, to float a guess I may or may not confirm the The Massive subreddit tomorrow, how flaming pissed they are at everyone’s favorite ref, Ted “Drunk” Unkel. In a press conference after the Timbers’ frustrating home draw against Los Angeles FC last weekend (who's ready for the encore?), head coach Phil Neville voiced some hope that calls would break his team’s way over the run of the season. I’m not saying that process tilted toward justice tonight, I’m not saying I care, I only know Felipe Mora either had more time on the ball tonight or he got the call when he got knocked down (if by sleight of body, here and there). After that, Unkel called the usual game that only he sees through whatever contacts he’s wearing…like a goddamn random number generator with a pocket full of reds and yellows, I tell you…

Most and best of all the things about tonight’s game, yes, Roman gladiator guy, I was entertained. Both teams rewarded their fans with two top-shelf goals a piece – more on that later – the game had a lively one-team-giveth-the-other-taketh-away tension, and, typing strictly as a homer, the Timbers played their second solid game in a row. It’s not showing in the standings – hello(!), 11th in the West – and I hope to see the Timbers get all three points next week at LAFC with the desperate fervor of a 10-year-old battling against all the odds and even more doubts that the Tooth Fairy still pays a fiver-per-tooth, but I’m closer to believing the Timbers have a competitive team than I’ve been since that little flutter of hope the Timbers had during Miles Joseph’s short, interim reign. Hell, I’m willing to shout that all the way back to 2021.

To their credit, Portland exceeded the broadly conservative approach I laid out in my scouting report. Even better, they granted my wish for more robust defending over an opening 20-25 minutes that saw them go up 1-0 on top of frustrating the bejesus out of the Crew.

Portland Timbers 2-2 Los Angeles FC: A Meditation on Cherry-Flavored Cough Syrup

This image was called "cuddling a cow," also, yes!

Thus endeth another case study in what might have been. The game turned on a justified red card to Portland Timbers goalkeeper, Maxime Crepeau (it sure looked like Claudio Bravo kept Los Angeles FC’s Denis Bouanga onside; more on him later), and all it took from there was Mateusz Bogusz’s 51st (damn good) minute free-kick to lead to Solomon splitting the baby at one point a piece. Not much happened between there and the final whistle, if with one exception.

The Timbers got lucky to escape with the 2-2 draw because Nathan Ordaz committed no crime ahead of what looked like a last-gasp winner for LAFC. I’m a good partisan and, as such, I don’t blow air into the cow’s nose when it doesn’t shit in my living room, or however that saying goes. To put that another way, Portland may have got lucky on that one call, but they made their luck otherwise and that feels like an improvement over several of the games I’ve seen so far this season. Also, who invited the fucking cow?

If I had to name the most maddening element of the Timbers 2024 season, it follows from the fact that every result comes loaded with too many caveats to make sense of where things stand with them. Today, it was the red card, but it has been playing from a hole measured by one to three goals in earlier outings. This game provided the usual divide of positives and negatives – and I’ll get to some of them (jetlagged AF, honestly) – but my biggest personal positive comes from the Timbers going up, first, 1-0, then 2-1 on two…respectable goals from open play. I’m shading both of those, and for reasons I’ll get into, but, all in all, today’s draw might have been the Timbers most complete game of 2024.

If you’re with me, let’s run over this hill screaming! Aaaauugggghhhhh!!

Portland Timbers 2023 Post-Mortem, aka, I Was Strolling Through the Roster One Day...

Perhaps the greatest team player.

With this post, I intend to put the Portland Timbers’ whimper of a 2023 season to bed. My gods, where to begin…

For starters, I could dismiss the desperate optimism that percolated into the final preview post of the regular season: no matter what I and gods know how many others thought or hoped, 2023 was a hopeless, wet turd. Even had the Timbers backed into the playoffs, it wouldn’t have given any of us, be it fan, player, coach, or the guy that washes team’s laundry, anything more than the chance to say, “well, at least we had that.” If some parallel timeline exists where the Timbers lifted MLS Cup at the end of a mind-bending playoff run, many, many threads separate that loin-stirring paradise timeline from...well, this. Even if they started healthy and stayed that way all season, I’d put the Timbers’ meaningful chances of winning any trophy on the same level as a tiny snowball’s chance of rolling through a vast, flaming Hell without sweating off even one drop.

Changes are coming, of course. I believe we’ve all the seen reports that Portland will name the new head coach sometime in the next week and, for what it’s worth, I’m weirdly excited about this and completely willing to give whoever they hire a full, 17-game grace period, i.e., half of what I expect next season will be (surely, they can’t push that higher). That’s less to say I can't be disappointed by the announcement, than I can’t conceptualize the universe where they name someone so what-the-fuck (think Lincoln High’s soccer coach, and by slipping him a greasy $100) that I won’t give the new coach time to prove himself or herself. (I don’t believe any women have been named, but a woman wouldn’t count as a what-the-fuck hire for me.)

I don’t think I’ve made any secret of my belief that the general malaise and inadequacy starts with the roster – one that, to my mind, falls short individually, collectively, perhaps even interpersonally. No matter how much sense various snippets of reddit chatter make to me, I’ll leave that last one alone, and on the grounds that I don’t know how many hands it passed through before I read it, but my money’s on fourth-hand, once removed at best.

Club de Foot Montreal 1-4 Portland Timbers: A List of Things Not to Do in Future Sporting Events

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.

Portland Timbers 2-0 Los Angeles FC: A Step (Over What May Be a Corpse) in the Right Direction

Night, night, gram-gram.

Because this game wasn’t that complicated, and because I’m about to check out until the end of September, I’ll keep the game summary for the Portland Timbers comfy-cozy 2-0 win over Los Angeles FC short.

It opened with a long, barren period – see the xG graph because it gets things mostly right – which left the game open for one of those pivotal moments. LAFC’s ‘keeper, John McCarthy, delivered with a swing and a miss at an Evander corner. His bobble bounced in front of the goal until Larry Mabiala did the simple thing of running toward it and heading it into the goal. Gods only knew what would happen from there, but it looked like a long stretch of nothing at that point.

I saw some chatter about LAFC getting back into the game during the latter half of the first one, but the only evidence I saw was an intermittently effective press and a couple smart shots from the left channel to the right post. All that didn’t amount to much – and I’m not the only one to think that; the on-screen halftime stats had the Timbers up 1.6 to 0.09 on xG (no typo on that zero behind the decimal).

The game ended according to everything but the final whistle fairly early in the first half. Portland scored an insurance goal so nice they insured it twice (seriously, watch it again for Santiago Moreno’s tulle-soft back-heel to Claudio Bravo alone) and LAFC only got worse from there. The Timbers had at least two more chances to dig them a deeper hole – and that’s on top of three more where a team that needed to make something happen would have pushed harder to make it so – and the game just kind of petered out from there. I mean that in the best way, honestly: there are few things I appreciate more in soccer than watching a team kill off a game softly, and the Timbers did that tonight. On a physical level, it didn’t take much more than a soap opera villain seeing that ill-gotten inheritance by leaning a little harder into the pillow smothering grandma’s face.

Seattle Sounders 2-2 Portland Timbers: We'll Always Have the Laugh

[DRAMATIC MUSIC!]

I’m going to start this post with two observations brought to mind by too much time on social media and too many years of staring at some version of the same thing one week after another.

Fans should appreciate perfection when they see it, as opposed to expecting it from any player. Because that’s just the world/humanity works, we’re none of us, etc. This mind-set is one of several reasons why I can’t coach. (“Hey, sometimes you just fuck up. No biggie. Love you, man.”)

Once (most) people make up their mind on a given player, he/she is either the shit or total shit. Once they think he/she is bad, all they see are the mistakes and once they think he/she is good, it’s nothing but the good stuff. It’s damn closer to binary. Swear to God.

As for the game, the high-comedic 2-2 draw between the Seattle Sounders and the Portland Timbers up in the frosty climes of the Puget Sound, I have more questions than I have answers, by which I mean I have only one real answer: I’d say about 75% of the success the Sounders had over the first half followed from the way they nipped at Portland’s collective heels over 2/3 of the field. Once they lost that, courtesy of a second yellow to Seattle’s Leo Chu, all you had left was two teams a year or two removed from their best days fighting over scraps. Hyenas versus vultures, basically.

To acknowledge something, Seattle got screwed hard by that sending off. Chu picked up his first yellow for one of the most randomly puritanical rules of the modern game – e.g., the shirtless goal celebration (WHY IS THIS A THING?) – and his second for, I shit you not, getting the worst of running headlong into Portland’s Zac McGraw. It takes so, so very much for me to agree that a referee’s decision decided a game, but Jon Freemon (a referee I do not know) cut off Seattle’s clearest path to success with an excessively legalistic reading of the rules and....just a bad call.

Don't get me wrong: knowing how pissy and bewildered Seattle fans are this morning is just the best. And that is what will have to pass for satisfaction on a night when the Timbers more or less stalled in their attempt to make the 2023 playoffs. Now, some more detail...

Portland Timbers 3-1 Vancouver Whitecaps: They Wore Green and Gold (Yes!)...And It Was Good

If you know, you know.

Forgive me Father, Mother Mary Full of Grace (full of grace! full of grace!), the bless’d angels and the Holy Spirit, I turned off my late, late viewing of the Portland Timbers 3-1 win over the Vancouver Whitecaps at the 85th minute.

And yet I’ll argue that made decent sense.

To start with something I saw in a tweet – and by no means am I shitting on the original tweeter (and I couldn’t tell you who it was, gun to my head) – I saw this described as (paraphrasing) “the Timbers making a pretty good Vancouver side look pedestrian.” I want to dig into that from two directions.

First, how good are the Whitecaps, really? My best description: better than the av-e-rage team, but only just. That’s on a high-level, nuts ‘n’ bolts level – e.g., their goals for (15) and goals against (12) against the league average (14.24) – but I have a couple thoughts in my head that push back against the “but numbers love them” argument.

Eight of those 15 goals came in two games – the recent 3-2 win versus Minnesota United FC and the earlier 5-0 drubbing of Club de Foot Montreal (aka, Simon Becher's debutante ball) three weeks before the latter got their groove on. Yeah, yeah, the ‘Caps beat the Timbers at BC Place some weeks ago – a game that...did not go well for Portland (though I did search for silver linings with a magnifying glass and tweezers) – but I also just ticked through Vancouver’s every win of 2023 and none of those teams rolled into the foot of the Canadian Rockies as their best selves (though the Timbers were one game from the/some shit straightening). In a lot of ways, and to lift up a cliche that answers “but the numbers” cliche, The ‘Caps are exactly what their record says they are: a middle-table team. But that’s just starts the answer...

I’ve watched all or large portions of five Vancouver games this season and...well, they’ve never “wowed” me. As I said in the last preview, I see them as a team that goes about the business in a very business-like way; those of you who watched at home might have heard Ross Smith’s digression about “no outstanding players” and that’s just a big “yep.” The phrase “collective spirit” stands in for “no one really spectacular to see” not so much nicely as appropriately, soccer players making soccer plays, etc.

Portland Timbers 2-2 Austin FC: A Test of Character (& Budgeting)

The Portland Timbers’ 2-2 home draw versus Austin FC gored at least one theory, but otherwise felt like weights falling on both sides of the scale. To be clear, I hated seeing the damn thing balance as much as any Timbers fan...like I said at the top of last night’s game thread, this was an occasion where the Timbers didn’t want to do anything they wouldn’t later regret. And then they went ahead and started Larrys Mabiala....I kid, I kid.

I’ll get to something like a match report in the next – sorry, no, one two three paragraphs after - paragraph, but I want to linger on Larrys for a bit (note: that’s a good adult film title, right?). For all their faults – and this is literally one of them – the Portland Timbers have brought me to an understanding of the true nature of defending. Those “[___] Days Since our Last Accident/Accidental Decapitation” signs at your local light-industry warehouse offers the perfect metaphor: the whole thing is about avoiding the next mistake for as long as possible, only all while knowing the mistake will come. Typing as someone who got dumped into the defense far more often than made sense (I sucked at defending), I wholly, fully and unashamedly embrace the argument that defenses get faulted for their failure to never fail in a way that the attacking side of any team rarely does...good Lord, these things are getting confessional.

Anyhoo, and to finally get back to Larrys, his game last night had a familiar pattern: he was fine for large stretches of the game – he even cleaned up a mess than Juan David Mosquera handed to him on a steaming, stinking platter – and then, nothing like out of the blue, Austin’s Owen “Coach’s Son” Wolff finds a bunch of space on Portland’s left late in the game (but not for the first time) and curls a cross into the heart of the defense. Now, I want to ask everyone reading this post to stop here and look at the Austin equalizer that yanked two points from the Timbers’ grasping hands. The video geeks did well with it, for what it’s worth, giving you plenty of time to see that Mabiala kept pretty fair track of Austin’s Will Bruin, he knew where he was and all that, only to somehow get separated in the decisive moment. Bruin almost certainly bumped him, but Larrys just played that whole thing wrong – if in a way I visible in 20/20 hindsight. Still, one lapse equals one goal allowed too often to count and the Timbers still lost two points on one brain fart...or two, if you want to count the fact that either Wolff and Ethan Finlay had time to whip in that cross.

Portland Timbers 2022 Review, aka, The Malaise Post

Aren't we all her? Only with beer?

I’m going to front-load the scandals that stalked the Portland Timbers/Thorns organization until it forced them to make the same choice they should have made half a decade prior. Nice as it felt to see Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub get their long-overdue comeuppance for years worth of cowardice and asshole-ism (respectively?), the muleheaded determination to let the wounds fester until something like the third investigation called sepsis by its name did what those things do: kill the host. Honestly, to persist in something that willfully destructive boggles the mind.

Fucking morons...

Now, had things worked out on the field for the Timbers the same way they did for, say, the Thorns, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this cardigan gearing up to bum you out. But, goddamn, if light brown and mustard yellow aren’t my colors...

Bluntly, I am excited about exactly one player on the Portland Timbers current roster: Santiago Moreno. That doesn’t mean I neither rate nor like anyone else: for all its issues, I don’t see a need to burn it all down and start from scratch (which wouldn’t work in any case); moreover, I’m open to the argument they under-performed this year. Going the other way, I lean toward thinking they didn’t – or, perhaps more accurately, they played to the level of available personnel. Staying healthy matters to any team, obviously, but the Timbers have operated on a late-stage Jenga level for longer than I like. And if losing one piece, or even two, means the whole thing comes down? Well, that’s when you know you’re doing something wrong.

The key missing piece was Felipe Mora. Portland’s transition game relied on his implausible knack (because fucker’s short) for receiving the first pass into the opposition’s defensive third and finding a good, and ideally unsettling, pass before defenses could clutter up the space. The Timbers attack could rarely break down a compacted defense even with Mora on the field, but the ball movement in the attacking third mingled buck-passing (take. or. take. a. fucking. shot. god. dammit.) with a sensation not unlike despair for much of 2022. A guy who pops into the twitter feed with the occasional comment argues that Gio Savarese organizes the attack to work for tap-ins. I think he’s sold me on that argument at this point. Even if he hasn’t sold me on his particular solution – i.e., build the team around speed – agreeing that something ain’t working is the first step to doing something different. Which, here, means anything.

Portland Timbers 1-2 Los Angeles FC: Acceptance

Fuck it.

May as well start where the game did – i.e., with the line-up the Portland Timbers chose to field in a, for them, semi-existential Sunday afternoon. They lined up the now-familiar back three, if with the personnel gently scrambled, and Juan Mosquera and Claudio Bravo on either side of Diego Chara and Cristhian Paredes in a four-man midfield. Mosquera and Bravo played as fully-modern fullbacks - dropping back to defend and running into the attack, as needed., etc. The slightest riff on the more of the same, in other words.

The real place of curiosity, at least for me, was the front line: Dairon Asprilla and Santiago Moreno on either side of Jaroslaw Niezgoda – or at least that’s how ESPN’s broadcast had it. Then again, I’m looking at the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey version The Mothership posted as official line-up, and who really knows at this point? Assuming I have it right – i.e., Asprilla, Niezgoda and Moreno up top – the big question going in was whether that set of players knew how to handle and/or finish shot creation. Based on what I saw online, the reaction was equal parts underwhelmed and confused; “consternation” sums it up nicely.

As for me, I greeted the line-up with...all right. The broadcast team hepped me to a couple things I didn’t know – e.g., Eryk Williamson had a compromised hamstrung – but I didn’t mind it or could at least find some kind of logic to it. That assumed, however, that Timbers head coach, Giovanni Savarese, held the same thoughts in his head – e.g., that he would play a cautious first half, then trickle in game-changers like Eryk Williamson and Sebastian Blanco to salt away the big, playoff-clinching win. In short, it all made sense to me so long as Gio did certain things at certain times. For instance, get his game-changers into the game with enough time to find it.

Back in the game that happened – i.e., the Timbers 1-2 home loss to Los Angeles FC - Savarese didn’t introduce Yimmi Chara and Williamson until the 74th minute. I can’t say that cost them the game (I don’t do counterfactuals), but that doesn’t feel like enough time for most attacking players to get hold of a game. Yimmi’s special - 90 minutes may not be enough for him - but I would have liked to see another 10 minutes or more for Eryk; it’s not like Jaroslaw Niezgoda did much outside one shining moment early in the 2nd half, after all. Moreover, Eryk strikes me as the kind of player who needs some time to figure out who’s picking up what he’s dropping; Niezgoda’s seems the same, for what it's worth, but I gave up on seeing Gio put him anywhere besides the front line months ago.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Vancouver Whitecaps: Plan Fucking A, Forever and Always

Portland's attacking tactics, a visual.

I’ll start with two thoughts. First, the fan-base grumpiness about this result, if just in my corner of twitter, is top-notch. Second, I’ve typed some version of “this won’t take long” 400+ times, but I’m pretty damn confident that the sum of what I just watched will help me deliver on that promise.

The Portland Timbers 1-1 home draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps fulfilled every expectation/failure laid out in my preview, if with the lonely exception that Vancouver pressed a bit around the 20th minute of the first half. Otherwise, that now-cursed thing functioned as a script, only absent the inspiration. Vancouver lined up the way I expected them to, they mostly defended as expected, they got a goal off a cross to the back-post (if the opposite of the one I expected; also, the failure was decidedly complex); the Timbers attack, meanwhile, did everything I hoped they wouldn’t, as in they literally checked every goddamn box. And that, ladies and gents, is the alpha, the omega, and the answer to every question except why this game didn’t end 1-0 in Vancouver’s favor.

To stick up for the kids who get a gold star for today, I thought Santiago Moreno, Larrys Mabiala, Aljaz Ivacic, and Claudio Bravo all had decent games – if mainly on the attacking side in Bravo’s case, and the man clearly has a day-job to which he does not always attend. I’m willing to give honorable mention to Dario Zuparic and Diego Chara generally, Cristhian Paredes here and there, and Yimmi Chara early in the game, but, collectively, that was 90-minutes of muscles twitching to pulses of electricity delivered with all the subtlety of a 12-year-old mashing buttons on Mortal Combat. Both teams made chances out of their moments of coherence – and, loathe as I am to say it, though the stats do back it up a bit (see shots on goal), Vancouver managed more than the Timbers – but that game delivered a bounty of bad soccer on all sides of those moments. Felt like watching MLS in the 2000s, and in all the wrong ways.

To his credit, Ivacic cleaned up most of the messes Portland’s defense left him – most critically, his two early saves in the first half – but the Timbers defense had a generally respectable night. For the...how many games have the Timbers played so far? 21? – call it the 11th time this season (this includes every game the Timbers allowed one or fewer goals), Portland’s defense did enough. And so, for the...huh, 13th time this season, I’ll close this very short post with a rant about the Timbers “attack.”

Nashville SC v Portland Timbers Preview: A Hall of Mirrors in Another House

Makes me wanna puke, too.

The Portland Timbers road form (1-4-4) lends a real "but for Providence Park" vibe to the Timbers 2022 season. On the plus side, they’re playing a team that has struggled to get all three points at home – yes, even lately. First, their numbers:

Nashville SC
Record/Basics: 7-5-5, 26 points, 2-1-3 home, 5-4-2 road; 22 gf, 19 ga, +3
Last 10: TLWLWTWTLW (4-3-3; 2-1-2 home; middling, but last 5 were pretty soft)
Oppo: @ SJ, @ LAG, v RSL, @ HOU, v MTL, v ATL, @ COL, v SJ, v SKC, @ DC

What We Know About Them
I have a misconception that Nashville’s struggling stuck in the back of my mind, but that probably looks at their 2022 through the refracted lens of their home games – more on that later. When most people think Nashville, they probably think Walker Zimmerman at the back, Dax McCarty (somehow still) steering traffic through the middle, and Hany Muhktar running loose up top/off that old war horse C. J. Sapong. And, yes, both have done well in 2022 (8 goals, 5 assists for Hany, 5 goals, 3 assists for Sapong; funny side note on Sapong, he’s still an every other year player). Other words that may come to mind: combative and counter-attacking.

All that has largely held up lately, if with a little less Zimmerman (see, qualifying, World Cup).

Notes on Recent Form
I haven’t seen a ton of Nashville this season – and this’ll be my first full 90 with them – so I’ll have to stretch the numbers a bit. That said, I’m expecting the way they create chances to have a fair resemblance to what they tried – and with some real success against Orlando City SC in their midweek U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal (here’s the MLS in 15 for your edification). Nashville came within three stoppage time minutes of winning that game and had a fair argument for the better team, but that was also another road game; their last two wins both came on the road (at Colorado Rapids and at DC United). When I look at their last three home games – against Atlanta, San Jose and SKC – I’d expect at least five-six points out them, and yet they managed just two. More to the point, they rarely see more of the ball, even at home, and they played arguably their worst game when they attempted possession – the home loss to SKC.

To flesh out the general profile, Nashville doesn’t create a ton of chances – they probably averaged 11 shots/game in their last 5-6 games – but they get a useful number of shots on goal out of it (e.g., around six). And they probably get away with it because they rarely let the opposition get to, never mind much over, a 1.0 xG.

Portland Timbers Preview: A Trip to the Pastel Kingdom

More menacing than previously...fwiw.

I don’t have any great insights into Inter Miami CF’s system, how they line up, etc. I have, however, watched them a couple times over the past couple weeks – a goal-less road draw at the Philadelphia Union and a 2-0 home win over Red Bull New York – and my main thought after both results is this: Miami probably isn’t as bad as you think, Portland Timbers fans, so I wouldn’t take three points as a given. In fact, if I had to put money on anything, it’d be a draw.

Chalk my lukewarm take on the Timbers’ chances down to Miami’s improved defensive record – i.e., after allowing 15 goals over their first six games, they’ve allowed just six since then and in sufficiently challenging settings (v ATL, @ NE, @ CLT, v DC, @ PHI, v RBNY; their record through that went WLLTTW, fwiw) to make me trust it. On the one hand, sure, it bears acknowledging that neither Red Bull nor Philly rank among the league’s attacking powerhouses, but I also doubt anyone had Miami picking up four points from those two games, and yet here we are. It also bears noting that the Timbers have scored as many goals in 2022 as the Red Bulls and two more than Philly, so that’s one more data point to run past your opinion of the Timbers attack (I know where mine is, but you do you).

Because I don’t really know what The Underlying Numbers say (and I’m not even sure where to look at this point) and I keep forgetting to look at the power rankings (eh), I don’t know whether the cognoscenti see Miami is under- or overachieving. All I have is their present record – 4-6-3 overall, with a middling 3-2-2 at home – plus those past two games to judge them. And what I saw there was a sturdy, organized defense – more significantly, one that managed both RBNY’s and Philly’s generally energetic approaches to defense. Moreover, the box score matches my eye-test for the Red Bull game: Miami looked the more rugged defensive team, something you don’t see a lot against RBNY. That Miami played through the pressure well in both games makes me lean toward discounting Portland’s chances to frazzle them.

On the brighter side, playing away should give the Timbers several chances to play in the only way their attack actually seems to function – i.e., in transition - and that’s nice, beats the alternative we’ve collectively endured in all venues and against all teams outside of Sporting KC at home, and so on…but what would surprise you more at this point: the Timbers running up the score (which, here, means three or more goals) or the Timbers not scoring at all?

Porltand Timbers 0-0 Real Salt Lake: A Stat That Screamed Volumes

Look, just hear me out...

For once, I can honestly say this won’t take long.

Second, the facts: the Portland Timbers drew Real Salt Lake 0-0 at Providence Park last night. Neither team deserved more than one point, though, all things considered, RSL had the two best looks at goal and therefore the better claim on all three points. (Also, it really says something when the video secton of the game summary includes no individual highlights.)That said, after enduring this game, I feel like I could make the beginning of a case that some draws should see both teams awarded zero points; maybe leave it to a panel of international judges to decide, as in Olympic ice skating, only screen them to make sure real-world political alliances don’t slip any mischief into the final analysis.

To linger in that alternate universe, if I had to argue the Timbers’ right to one point to those judges, the case I made would go something like this: they posted decent numbers and put enough shots on frame to meet some bare standard for competence; moreover, a (reportedly) dodgy hip forced them to play without their lucky rabbit’s foot, aka, Diego Chara. Finally, and this is a personal note, they did one thing I asked of them in my preview for this match [Ed. - that’ll be the last one I post this season; those are fucking up the writing schedule.]: multiple Timbers shot the ball from range, with Cristhian Paredes taking the two best cracks, with honorable mention to Bill Tuiloma.

Now…if I was the prosecutor…

To start, the fact that Paredes (a box-to-box midfielder) and Tuiloma (a central defender) fired Portland’s best shots means a whole bunch of dudes didn’t show up for their shift last night. Santiago Moreno cut inside and clipped a decent shot toward Zac MacMath’s goal, but that one, like nearly all the rest, looked something a teammate would fire at him in warm-ups. Too many players - to name names, Dairon Asprilla, Eryk Williamson, Yimmi Chara, and, yes, Sebastian Blanco - continue to look rusty, something that simply won't do one-quarter into the regular season. The defense did all right, collectively, but Claudio Bravo will miss next week’s game at the Colorado Rapids due to a stupid, yet very on-brand tackle in the (fucking) corner of the field (the dark side of eagerness), and…just…for why Josecarlos Van Rankin? The argument that the Timbers can’t do better in that position just depresses me at this point. I mean, have the Timbers tried walking through the stands to ask for volunteers, because random, solicited tryouts stopped feeling irrational at the beginning of April. Related, I going to need some rose-colored glasses and a couple cocktails laced with ecstasy to make me feel good about the fullback situation next week.

Portland Timbers Preview: Versus RSL, Desperation & Despondency

The elephant calling bullshit on the image...

First, I’m going to my first Portland Timbers game since that God-forsaken game against Minnesota United FC at the height of last summer’s heatwave, which, taking everything together, it felt like watching a game on fucking Mars. At any rate…

…wait, one more thing. FC Cincinnati plays Los Angeles FC this week and, because LAFC is a Western Conference team, I came in and out of thinking Portland plays LAFC this weekend and Cincy played…shit, I don’t know? Cleveland? Memphis? By that I mean another team in the league, obviously(?), but that still kicked my brain brain from one thought process to another as I mapped out the what ifs. It got a little multi-versey, honestly…

Real Salt Lake. Portland hosts RSL tomorrow. And I’m going…fuck, how does the SeatGeek app work? Now, seriously, the game…

Between recent results - e.g., New York City FC handed them their heads, asses, and everything in between last weekend, then they tripped over the North Colorado Hailstorm in the U.S. Open Cup at midweek - and their late form (grimace along at home), I expect them to come into Providence Park in some place in between despondency and desperation. And I suspect that how they approach Saturday’s game will turn on where they fall on that spectrum.

Based on their approach to the first several games of 2022, particularly their early successes, I expect desperation will be the dominant mode and, therefore, expect RSL to play an aggressive game, if not a very aggressive game - e.g., they’ll hunt the ball, challenge everything that comes at them, 90 minutes on the front-foot, and so on; basically, I expect them to play according to the Gospel of Mastroeni. Their hot start cooled off - they haven’t won in four and have just two points from 12 - and that rhymes with the broad theory that they played over their heads and/or teams embroiled in CONCACAF Champions’ League campaigns early in the season and have since crashed back down to Earth. Moreover, the road game at Portland kicks off a tough stretch, or, rather, continues it, seeing as they played away to New York City FC last weekend. About which…

I tuned in just after the 20th minute, which amounted to two goals too late. New York piled on chances, then goals, and the final score looked like a teeter-totter with an elephant on one side and a mouse on the other…only/, unlike in the cartoons, the elephant didn’t remotely mind the mouse. It ended 6-0 and, in certain moments, 10-0 didn’t seem out of the question.

Portland Timbers Preview: Big Fish, Minnows and Goalz

Confident he thinks soccer is for communists, but still...

I had the pleasure of sitting through all of Houston Dynamo FC’s 4-3 win over the San Jose Earthquakes. And I mean that: that was a fun game, plus I got to see Jeremy Ebobisse score apretty brace (miss you, sir; door’s open for me). Sadly, I’m not sure how much anything I saw there helps me know what to expect during the Portland Timbers’ visit to the (not yet) muggy flatlands of East Texas.

To start, I can assure whatever pain you believe the Timbers' defense has caused you personally, it pales next to what San Jose fans endured at Houston (and generally, from what I gather). Neither team played the cleanest game - in fact, they both gave it away like they didn't want it - but San Jose got so turned in circles that they handed Houston chance after chance - probably a multiple of total goals they scored, even if a low one. The Timbers defense commits the odd gaffe - and, hear me out, what if they don’t do that Saturday? - so Houston should have to work harder for this one. Also, hold that thought…

Acknowledging the above doesn’t get the Timbers off scot-free, obviously, not with the way Houston plays. I, like you, do not like the idea of Fafa Picault running at any of Justin Rasmussen (because, rookie), Pablo Bonilla (because destructive puppy; also, done with his suspension, yeah?) or Josecarlos Van Rankin (because, let me count the ways); and that whole situation only gets worse when you fold a marauding Adam Lundqvist into the equation. Houston’s Tyler Pasher could cause some problems as well, but I have more faith in Claudio Bravo and less in Pasher and that helps me feel a little safer about Portland’s left. I still expect to see some amount of clean-up from whoever starts at center-back (more below), but that’s never not true, so…

To lay all my cards on the table, and this brushes past a recent history of struggles in Texas (ft. The Worst Governor in America), I see this as a game a good Timbers team should win. Still, that's the question isn't: are the Timbers a good team in 2022? That remains open in my mind, sadly, and will remain so until the full roster is 100% online, and that’s the thought that rubs against said open question. What can be established (provided you don't think about all the flaws in the theory) is that Portland is a better team than Houston and, by the associative property (transitive?), better than San Jose. Think of it as striving to be the big fish among the minnows.

I don’t have to tell any Timbers fan that, two games excepted (Week 1 v NE, and last weekend at VAN), Portland’s offense hasn’t scored more than one goal per game. Here’s why that matters…

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-3 Portland Timbers: No, Thank You. No, Really.

Happy to have it, disturbed I needed it.

Sweet Jesus. Feels like you need a chart with an interpretive guide with an addendum to read that one. On the plus side, the Portland Timbers picked up their second handful of three points in 2022 with a 3-2 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps. On the down side, Vancouver looks as shitty as their record - i.e., 1-4-1, but for the San Jose Earthquakes, etc. To nudge the cold, hard facts back toward a positive direction, Portland grabbed those three points on the road, never a bad thing. But let’s dig deeper

First and foremost, I’d argue Portland looked the better team throughout - can I get a “thank God” on that, HA-llelujah! - and I’d be stunned if the numbers don’t back that up. Checking………okeh, let’s take a step back and define “better,” because maybe there’s a language barrier here, or maybe I’m just not vibing with the data-dorks at MLSSoccer.com, but they’re saying most of differently, so maybe it’s time to take another step back to look at all this from a greater distance.

What went right for the Whitecaps today?

I thought Ryan Gauld looked all right, or he looked like what I remembered at least - e.g., hyper-active (in a good way), eager to combine and make things happen. He kept Timbers defenders and midfielders chasing all over the place, drew one penalty and came close to drawing a couple others - something I can’t stress that enough given Silvio Petrescu’s beer-googled evening of refereeing (i.e., the VAR was busy). I also thought Russell Teibert played a strong game, too, and in the same kind of omni-present way. Finally, above and beyond terrorizing Josecarlos Van Rankin for most of the night, Cristian Dajome scored a peach of a goal off a collective mental slip by Portland’s left side. Still, I’m not sure I’d call what I watched a two-goal performance by Vancouver; they scored their second goal on their second penalty kick - and on a call I wouldn't have made, fwiw - and it’s hard not to score one when you get two free cracks from 12 yards out. Petrescu/the Timbers D handed them some padding, in other words. Now, about the Timbers' performance...

It left me more happy than frustrated, for one, but it’s complicated from there. Marvin Loria found space down the left for as long as he played and, sure, give the man credit for the cutting inside to create the penalty kick that put Portland ahead (and on one helluva kick by Dairon Asprilla), but I’d also argue Loria killed more plays than he helped along over the course. And I think that makes Loria the perfect talisman for this win. Only a couple Timbers played a solid 90 (or less, depending) - fwiw, I’d put Bill Tuiloma, Diego Chara, Cristhian Paredes and, at long last, Aljaz Ivacic in that group - but just about every player had a moment or two when he did something a little better than. For instance, Asprilla didn't have a bad night - e.g., he stretched the field nicely and did some stout hold-up work - but it didn't add up to much besides a lot of running around. Until, that is, his moment when it arrived (aka, the penalty kick). He capped it off with a lovely gesture to a grieving Zac McGraw…just, all the emojis, guys, except maybe the poo and the fruit teenagers use as innuendos, and those moments exonerated whatever flaws marred Asprilla’s (et. al.’s) game and that gets to how the Timbers got a good result against a team that, so far, looks like it’s going to through some things instead of go anywhere in 2022.

Portland Timbers 1-3 Los Angeles Galaxy: Notes on a Parade of Elephants

I, like you, see more than one problem...

Never has a final whistle sounded more like a choir of angels. With that, let us pick the corn out of that piece of shit.

I’d like to begin by thanking the people involved for the few highlights. First up, Bill Tuiloma for delivering the Portland Timbers their one and literally only highlight with an elegant free-kick early in the second half. Second, let’s have a big round of applause for Madison Shanley, who (from what I gather) sang the national anthem while wearing a very red t-shirt with the equally relevant words, “YOU KNEW” in bold black across the front. Way to use the platform and keep on shining you crazy diamond.

Up next, yes, I think the Timbers had two very reasonable shouts for penalty kicks for which, as I see it, PRO Referees should have to answer for not calling - much as they did for a blown call in New York City FC's loss to Toronto FC. The first came when Yimmi Chara got cut down in the area…somewhere after the 73rd minute (I only know because, according to the chronology of my notes, it happened after Eryk Williamson came on for Sebastian Blanco), and, yes, I’d really like to hear the basis for not making that call. The other came later when…again, I apologize, but I’d lost interest at this point and I don’t recall which Timber had made the run, but the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Nick DePuy’s arm, again, very visibly made contact with and/or stopped the progress of a cross, and from an unnatural position. So, yeah, that would have been two penalty kicks to the Portland Timbers and a well-better-than-average chance of seeing an afternoon of mud-wrestling end in a draw. Keep racking up the "significant officiating errors," PRO referees! Really adding value out there. Sadly, I’ve got bigger fish to fry and duller axes to grind…deep breath…

I don’t give a shit about the blown penalty calls because the Timbers got the result they deserved. They lost 1-3 today, in Portland, against a Galaxy team that looked smarter, sharper and that executed better down to the last man; 1-5 wouldn’t have been remotely unfair. The Timbers, meanwhile, were fucking terrible, and uninspired besides - and I very much mean that down to the last man. Nothing can redeem that performance but better ones in future games and, by all the gods in all known religions, that had better fucking start with a change in the game-plan. Happily, I cataloged the myriad failings in a twitter thread, so I can focus on the damning and persistent issues that have led to what I’d like to think even the most hopeful Timbers fan can agree has been a bad start to the season.

Portland Timbers (Lucky) 1-1 Orlando City SC: Thoughts on a Visit from a Gift Horse

Once again, a portrait of the author. (Call me.)

I’ve decided not to feel any particular thing about the 1-1 draw that could have easily been a loss for the Portland Timbers today. The darker side of me - and that’s the fellow I’ll be chatting with for most of my comments tonight - thought Portland was running out of ideas, options and time right around the time Orlando City SC’s Andres Perea tripped Cristhian Paredes at the top of their 18. That mistake handed the Timbers a shot at redemption, as well as a plausible hold on a narrative that says they have a fair shot at getting better as time, familiarity and the return of fresh, healthy faces has time to show up in the starting XI.

And, for what it’s worth, that feels like an important narrative to maintain somewhere between the foreseeable future and the if/when it falls apart. To be clear, I’m pulling for the “if” scenario - i.e., the one in which things don’t necessarily fall apart - even if I believe 2022 has already posed some tricky questions for the Timbers.

Speaking of questions (and I’ll have more below), the big one I had after today’s game: how much did what happened today followed from Portland doing it to themselves versus Orlando doing it to them? Best-case scenario, the Timbers befouled a good game plan with poor execution - i.e., all you need to fix the problem is better execution. I saw Gio Savarese frame this as a “lack of urgency” in the attack, and I more or less accept that, if with a couple re-writes - e.g., maybe favoring early crosses that give attacking players space to run into, instead of tapping and dancing for the perfect cross against an organized defense…and I type that acknowledging that Portland found one of its better chances when Josecarlos “The Maddening” Van Rankin clipped a cross to the back post that Paredes could have buried and put the Timbers up a vital goal. That’s just one example; another could reduce all the way to something blunt and simple as pulling trigger on a half-chance instead of playing for the sitter. All that’s to say, the Timbers have a nagging habit of overelaborating in the final third, and it very much hurt them today…until Perea rescued Paredes’ visibly doomed run across the top of Orlando’s 18…get my mints, Stella, I’m going to French kiss that gift horse for…hold on, brb, and don't mind the tattered clothing…

To turn over to the bright side of things, and as much as the aesthetics favored Orlando, this was a cagey, tactical game. Portland gave them as little as the xG indicates for most of the game, but Orlando made the most of the one vivid breakdown when Alexandre Pato picked out Junior Urso’s run-from-the-depths and the latter calmly poked home the shot (though, on further review, Pato fairly clearly chopped blindly into space that found Urso, so how concscious was it?). And, sure, you could call the (more or less) free header that Benji Michel headed toward a goal in some alternate universe the moment when Orlando could have put the game away, but this was a decent performance for Portland on the defensive side. Diego Chara put in the usual heroic shift and Zac McGraw has given the Timbers good positioning with a side of aerial dominance that should have the people calling the shots thinking, if not second-guessing (and, if the theory holds, more competition should equal a better back-line). After that, Claudio Bravo achieved his usual balance of bad-'n'-ballsy, while Van Rankin played one of his better games of 2022, if only to about 10 minutes before his incredibly pointless self-sending off…again, I’m Team Bonilla/Bravo, risks be damned. Still, the defense more or less did its job, if against a team that plays like Victorian authors write, so, yeah, I’m more concerned about what the offense isn’t doing right than what the defense is doing wrong.