FC Dallas 2-0 Portland Timbers: Another Bad Thing Happened in Texas

My personal wingman broods...

The vibes have been good around the Portland Timbers’ over the past few weeks. The dance between player and ball looked more natural and the defense tightened into a none (or few) shall pass knot. It felt real enough, but the idea that some of that improvement came from playing rusty Liga MX teams bubbled under every Leagues Cup broadcast.

In other words, I was looking forward to seeing Portland get back to the MLS regular season. I really was.

FC Dallas 2-0 Portland Timbers
The Game, Still More Briefly
Portland gave up two shit goals – though the first was worst of the two by far(, Mr. Crepeau…has even one of his haters thought to call him "Maximum Crapeau”?) – and didn’t do shit on the attacking end. To be clear, I could end this section right here and still have everything pretty much covered, but, to continue…

Pointing to what went wrong on the defensive side is easy as Pin the Tail on the Donkey without the blindfold, but untangling why every Timber appeared to get the vapors on entering the attacking third takes a little picking. Despite the reported (fucking crazy) heat, Portland’s players shifted around more than usual when they had the ball, not necessarily a well-oiled machine, but at least it moved. Dallas countered by either or both ceding possession (to the tune of 40/60) or/and dropping the defensive line deep enough that it always had the game in front of it. On a better day, maybe Portland finds one another and, from there, some decent openings; on Saturday, too many players looked like they wanted to take back every pass immediately after making it. Their best moments came when Antony broke from the depths to the surface, but that only happened (I think) twice, and David Da Costa taking a crack at finishing off one of those, then firing a strong shot from a fair distance (both probably made the highlight reel, but I'm way, way behind; also, a clip of the second goal; just terrible marking, see?).

That pretty well covers the attack Dallas had to “survive” and they just had to make the most of their shots from there. Without claiming expertise on the subject, this struck me as a typical FC Dallas performance – i.e., they don’t create a lot of chances and rely on their defense to see that the opposition doesn’t get many more. Last night’s three points lifts them closer to the play-in spots, but that hasn’t served them so good in 2025; 11th in still 11th. They do have some real quality pieces – e.g., Petar Musa’s a damn good forward (and would thrive on a better team) and Sebastien Ibeagha has aged well – and Logan Farrington, who I’ve seen play well, made a strong argument for The Man Behind The Man of the Match (The Vice-Man of the Match? The Wingman of the Match?), but they don’t have the same quality of player in every position and, as follows, feel incomplete as a team.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Queretaro FC: The Joy of Feeling Things & Other Notes

Leagues Cup, in human form.

I don’t know much about Love Island, but I am familiar with the thing where the show throws a bunch of hot new singles into the mix.

That approximates my annual experience with Leagues Cup: a bunch of strangers dropping in to the familiar, interpretable world of the MLS regular season, thereby detouring into some wacky side quest. And it only means something to the team/couple that walks away with the trophy, whether in metal or human form.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Queretaro FC
About the Game
When halftime rolled around and the broadcast got to showing the first half highlights, they started with a wildly overcooked cross that capped one of the rare competent attacking sequences managed by either team. They had a goal to show, of course – a bumbler scored by Cristhian Paredes through a thicket of flailing legs and falling bodies (and that link may or may not take you to it) – but the final stats speak to how little happened before and after. Jonathan Perlaza got sent off for a foul and a fit just before the halftime whistle and that left nothing but the struggle to stay awake through the second half.

Near as I can tell, Queretaro came to defend and without any form of an actionable Plan B. The 0.3 xG awarded to them in the official line matches the eye test…wish I could say the same about the 1.6 they handed Portland, because that would have hit like Red Bull and Everclear compared to what I watched.

That’s all I have on the game and I’ve already exhausted my knowledge of Queretaro. Now, to entertain some, but not all of the thoughts I had as I watched. [Ed. – The Plan is to pare the thoughts down to five for all future posts – and the length of the posts along with ‘em.]

10 Thoughts I Had While Watching the Timbers Slip One Past LAFC

First image for "schadenfreude"

Massive damn win for the Portland Timbers last night. You don’t have to love and/or celebrate every facet of the game to accept that…I said to the imaginary person I saw complaining about it. [Ed. - It’s me! He lives in my head and he’s kind of a dick!]

Let’s get to it, speed-round style…

Los Angeles FC 0-1 Portland Timbers FC SC SP Heroes
The Game, Still More Briefly
More back and forth than the final stats suggest, though the majority of the game played out in the middle space between both teams’ defensive thirds and it wasn’t always inspiring. You’ll see good chances in the full highlights – I’ll touch on a couple below – and, with admission to a two-fold bias (I’m a Timbers fan who likes seeing LAFC fail), I thought the Timbers got the better of them (e.g., David Ayala at the end of the first half, David Da Costa in the early middle of the 2nd half (best shot of the game, probs) and a better build-up/decent shot by Ian Smith late in the 2nd). I have many questions about the state of LAFC after watching – at least two appear below – and those inevitably color how much I trust this result as a step toward progress.

Related, Portland didn’t win the game on their best chances. They won on a set piece, scored by Cristhian Paredes, a four-time starter who has played just under a third of all available minutes in 2025 (aka, 595 minutes of 1980, sans stoppage). Rookie Ian Smith served the cross, a player with a mere 29 minutes more played (if with two more starts) than Paredes. Served and server aside, it’s possible the Timbers benefitted from LAFC going with zonal marking on the corner; in any event, no one came within a yard of Paredes until it was too late.

With the state of LAFC duly stipulated into the record, the Timbers played a genuinely impressive defensive game – and I’d call that worth two uncomplicated cheers. I have more on this below, but on a big picture level, whether full-field, whether pressing, whether covering the space behind, the Timbers defense did their homework, got the math right, and walked into the LA night deserved winners. Almost certainly related, this result pushes the Timbers’ defense further to the right side of average in terms of goals allowed in 2025.

Orlando City SC 1-0 Portland Timbers: Hitting a Speedbump, Hitting a Speedbump, Hitting a Spee...

A celebration of a great, perhaps useless design.

Neither a lot to get excited about, nor much to fret over. The Portland Timbers traveled to Orlando City SC and lost a slow, sweaty, tired affair 1-0, a result that, for me, differed from expectations by only a goal or two in Orlando’s favor. To be clear, that was my sense going in. Let’s move on to what actually happened.

About the Game
Orlando got on Portland early and Timbers players did their part to pile pressure on themselves with loose giveaways. The weight of it didn’t translate into much more than a few shots from range, with the best falling to (fortunately) left back David Brekalo and (less so), Luis Muriel. Santiago Moreno fired Portland’s best, early-ish shot with a Short Olimpico (i.e., it knuckled to near-post) and Kevin Kelsy crowned their first half attacking effort with a shot that was more wise than good (46th minute, came closer to the top row than Pedro Gallese’s goal mouth). Sadly, those efforts came on either side of Orlando’s one and only goal of the game, scored by Duncan McGuire off a slick Eduard Atuesta slip pass. Portland’s defenders shared the burden of that goal fairly equally – e.g., who’s to blame more between the three-to-four dudes stepping to Atuesta while (the theretofore great) and Jimer Fory and Finn Surman leaving a wide lane for McGuire between them – and that left Portland’s attack the burden of finding the equalizer. Or at least that’s one way this game could have played out…

Per the official stats, Orlando topped the Timbers by 2-to-1 on the basic attacking stats and (somehow) tripled them for xG…but they never looked much like adding a second goal. I just reviewed the full highlights to see whether there was some great chance or moment I forgot, but the Lions never found much better than aspirational over the second half and they didn’t even find that often. Sadly, the Timbers never really found third gear either – David Da Costa might have had their best chance of their seven (that's 7) total on the night, but that amounted to 2/3 a chance, at best. Unfun reminder, that leaves Portland on just 12 shots over their past two games.

To give them some credit, Portland had the better of play over the second 45 minutes. By the 60th minute, Orlando shipped them as many turnovers as the Timbers sent the other way over the opening 30 minutes of the first half. Portland held the ball better, even if they didn’t always know how to get more out of holding onto it, and they managed to pin Orlando into their own half, it a little further from goal. They even had a reasonable shout for a penalty when 2nd-half sub, Ariel Lassiter, got around Brekalo, but the referee waved it away after seeing the tip of the defender’s toenail catch the ball after passing through Lassiter. As with the game, that “missed call” tracked as neither a lot to get excited about, nor much to fret over. I’ll get to the bigger fish to fry after…

Colorado Rapids Scouting Report: Of Mirages & Mobility

Oasis or thirst-induced madness?

They did slip a bit last season, but that’s so 2024. It’s time to talk about this season and the…

Colorado Rapids
2-0-2, 8 pts., 6 gf, 4 ga (+2); home 0-0-1, away 2-0-1
Last Results: DDWW
Strength/Location of Schedule
@ STL (0-0 D); v FCD (3-3 D); @ ATX (1-0); @ SJ (2-1)

Big Picture
Tricky to frame, honestly. The Rapids’ results have improved (see above) but the highlights tell me that they needed every inch of Zac Steffen to earn even a draw last weekend at the San Jose Earthquakes – and he made a minimum of three implausible saves, so here’s to hoping Steffen’s drowning his sorrows with the rest of the U.S. Men’s National Team’s after that choke versus Panama (karma, motherfuckers). I didn’t watch a ton of Colorado in real-time – just the San Jose highlights and about 50 minutes of their weird ‘n’ wild 3-3 home draw versus FC Dallas a couple weeks back – but I saw the Rapids defending to the opposition defensive third, even in the snippets against the ‘Quakes, and aggressively all over the field. Working those young legs, apparently, and those have carried them to a solid run of results, fourth in the Western Conference and seventh overall. Something else I noticed: Colorado leaves a fair amount (read: a lot) of vertical space between that skirmishing front line and the back four (arguably led to this Dallas goal). That hasn’t caused them to bleed goals so far – even with that draw versus Dallas, they average just one goal against/game – and I’ll pick at reasons not named Zac Steffen below. Against that, they needed all of Dallas’ flaws to get that home draw and I’d call them damned lucky to win at San Jose (could easily have lost by the looks of it). I wouldn’t go so far as to call their record a mirage, not yet, but the Rapids are factually picking points off direct rivals in their climb up the table.

Charlotte FC 2-0 Portland Timbers: About the Thing That Happened and the Thing to Happen

Evander II is dead, long live [Evander II.]

Over the opening six to eight minutes of today’s final preseason game, the Portland Timbers played some of the finest soccer I’ve seen from them since the salad days of mid-June to mid-July 2024. The defensive lines pressed high and disrupted 90% of what Charlotte FC tried to do and Diego Chara sat deep, playing balls long wide to Jimer Fory on the right and…Eric Miller on the left.

Treat the words after the ellipses as a short way of saying that the lineup that Portland started today – a 3-5-2 (probably?) with Felipe Mora and Kevin Kelsy up top, Fory and E. Miller on either side of a midfield block built around Chara, Joao Ortiz, and David Ayala, a back three of Dario Zuparic, Zac McGraw, and Kamal Miller, and Maxime Crepeau in goal – was not and, ideally, will not, could not, and cannot be Phil Neville’s Plan A for the 2025 campaign. I have no insight into how long regular starters like Santiago Moreno, Jonathan Rodriguez, Juan David Mosquera and [New Evander] will get back on the field. I can only hope that start trickling in soon enough to take advantage of one of the softer opening stretches the Timbers have seen for gods know how long. Between First Kick and mid-April, Portland has four home games, three of them winnable and one against a dismantled and limping Los Angeles Galaxy team, and even if Nashville SC has improved (rumors of a flawless preseason have reached this monitoring station), I’ve seen tougher road games. That’s 24 points up for grabs, the balance of them for the taking. Gods know a strong start would do this team good.

Getting back to today’s 0-2 loss to Charlotte, the remaining 72 to 74 didn’t go so good. Even when the game was somewhat even – aka, the first half – Charlotte managed to turn possession into chances before Portland could. Worse, the Timbers faded out of the game, both gradually and quickly (neat trick, btw), and to a point where forcing a draw looked like the best possible outcome for a generally impotent Timbers team. That possibility went “poof” when Charlotte opened the scoring at the 65th minute by working the ball up Portland’s left and finishing the play by findin Kerwin Vargas in a half-space, in the channel (with the butcher knife). From there, there was nothing left to do but let the clock run out…but then new guy, Joao Ortiz, squared the ball one step away from Tyger Smalls (great name, no notes) and he literally lumbered out the field and finished off one of the clumsiest goals I’ve ever seen scored by a professional (which you can relive through the link above, if you so choose). In a world where Portland looked like they’d ever score, that might have a hurt a little. On this one, it just felt like finishing a thought.

Mild Dread & the Preseason So Far

"Mild dread" is very literal on today's internet.

To get preliminaries out of the way, it’s the preseason, nothing matters, not just in the Portland Timbers extended universe, but generally, and I’m not taking much of anything, or even anything at all, from either today’s 0-0 draw against Chicago Fire FC or Wednesday’s 2-1 win over the San Jose Earthquakes. With that in mind…

Broadly
The Timbers looked sharper against San Jose than they did against Chicago, but I didn’t see much for fluid attacking movement in either game – Portland scored two goals against San Jose, one a set-piece, the other one half-trash – so opportunism looks to continue its long reign over well-oiled attacking machinery. Chicago provided stiffer competition – more on that shortly – but I don’t see the point of reading too much into any of that beyond filing away the possibility that the Fire may be further along in its rebuild than San Jose is in theirs. Based on what I saw, Portland’s 2025 Preseason First Team has some capacity to press – with the caveat that starting Felipe Mora disarms that a bit – and that gave them a good half against San Jose and a strong opening 10 minutes against Chicago. Related, I don’t expect much pressing to continue once Evander and Jonathan Rodriguez get back into the fold, but who knows?

Also, four points in two games would look a lot better if it hadn’t come against two of MLS’s most-plagued franchises (seriously, I’ve done the math, both teams are cursed). Still, Portland cleared the bar on the (meaningless) results side…woo-hooooooo.

I multi-tasked through the San Jose game (because working), so the notes below come more from what I saw against Chicago today…but I’m noting them because I believe they still (unfortunately) pertain generally.

The Lingering Issue
The Timbers continue to present as a combination of rushed and disconnected when they get on the ball. The symptoms get worse anytime they play teams that press, or even mark man-to-man, but this feels ominous against a scrolling backdrop of Portland struggling with passing and/or composure on the ball for some seasons now. A few overlapping pathologies either create or play into this problem. Because I just burned a half hour failing to wrestle this into bullet-points, and my bastard brain refused to tap-out, please consider this stream-of-consciousness up-chuck my first draft at examining the problem:

Thoughts from the Meat in a Seattle and Vancouver Sandwich, aka, a Portland Timbers Review/Preview

The state of play, in blues legend form.

I think of the Portland Timbers 1-1 road draw at the Seattle Sounders in terms of finding the proper balance between love and hate. Some markers are obvious – e.g., they gave up the inevitable soft goal (this one came with a pillow-top); against that they got a bold, dare I say spicy, goal from a source (Antony) that wasn’t the big three (Evander, Felipe Mora, and Jonathan Rodriguez).

All kinds of things fall into the space between those two poles, including the way Seattle took all the game the Timbers gave them (a lot), all the shots that resulted therefrom (could have been 1-2, even 1-4 against Portland), but for Portland’s James Pantemis rising to every occasion save the one. Moreover, the draw extended the Timbers’ lease in Seattle’s collective heads. The latter might not matter at all in the big picture, but it is really, really funny in the smaller one.

The rest of this post comes in two parts, the first looking back to the Saturday’s _______ game (still working on the adjective that fits it best), the second looking ahead to Wednesday’s big, big play-in against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Courtesy of motorsports, the lingering effects of Major League Soccer’s second-tier status in the North American landscape, the Timbers get to host that one despite the ninth-place seed. I think every Timbers fan knows that by now, but the thought still brightens my face with a mirthful smile two days later.

Sorry for the delay on this going up to anyone who noticed, but I had a family reunion this weekend and it was welcome and very nice.

The Rope-a-Dope That Ropes the Dope Every Time
I’ll start by reading some more old news into the record: Portland drawing Seattle – again, this is in Seattle – resulted in the Sounders dropping to fourth place (which puts them into a playoff series against Houston Dynamo FC…but is that actually better than facing Minnesota United FC?), missing an automatic berth in to the CONACAF Champions’ League, handing the Cascadia Cup to the Timbers in their own house, and losing Obed Vargas for the first game of their three-game series against Houston. Honestly, I don’t know how Timbers fans continue to breathe through all the laughter...

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-1 Portland Timbers: I Accept This Result, I Love This Result

This can't be anything but disorienting.

The Portland Timbers rolled out of Vancouver with a point after last night’s 1-1 draw at BC Place. Based on a quick little spin around the Timbers subreddit, I liked this result more than others, maybe even more than I should. I’ll defend that choice between now and the end, but first…

The Very Basics
The Vancouver Whitecaps went up 1-0 with the opening whistle still echoing around the stadium (c’mon, roll with it). If the Timbers had hoped to ease their way into the game, the shock of Brian White’s ever-so-early (and unnervingly easy) goal hit them like a bucket of ice water waking them from sleep. The shock of it carried over the opening 15-20 minutes of the game: no Portland player seemed to know where he should be and where he should go from there. The “shock” metaphor seems especially apt because once the Timbers woke all the way up, they took hold of the game and, but for one “this fucking game” moment (Andres Cubas pinging Maxime Crepeau’s left post in second half stoppage), they never let go of it. Portland’s confidence grew side-by-side with the quality of their chance creation – i.e., Antony’s solo-run/desperate flail from the right to Juan David Mosquera firing from a seam up the middle to Santiago Moreno forcing Yohei Takaoka to save off a freekick - until Rodriguez crowned the recovery on his second bite of the apple with a deflected equalizer (his first bite was offside, sadly). The second half was all Timbers (the official stats can go to Hell), with Portland turning 50/50s into 70/30s all over the field and cutting off 90% of the paths out of Vancouver’s half. Had Takaoka’s left post not kept out Felipe Mora’s picture-perfect header, I’d bet my left leg (the bad one, fwiw) that the Timbers would be in 7th this morning.

What’s to Love
To anyone feeling blue about two points (arguably) slipping away, I’d respond with this: which team do you think feels better about not just last night’s result, but last night’s game? Sure, Vancouver punched their ticket to the post-season, but would you rather be the team ruing a slow start and 20 wasted minutes or the team trying to figure out 60+ minutes of getting played off your own pitch – and with three more crucial home games to go? The larger context only makes it worse for the 'Caps: the Timbers have defeated playoff-competitive teams since the Leagues Cup break, while the ‘Caps haven’t beat one since early July (Minnesota, on the road), or even June (Colorado, at home; Minnesota was flailing under the playoff line when the ‘Caps beat them in July). Even if you lean into the argument that Portland can only win at home, last night’s draw with the wild road draw at RSL behind it shows the Timbers getting results that, by the grace of penalty kicks, can become playoff wins. Finally, Portland has the comfort of knowing how they measure up against playoff-bound teams: both Portland and Vancouver have gone 4-3-3 over their past ten games, but the Timbers have played seven playoff-bound teams versus just four for Vancouver. That script will flip over the next two games for Portland and the next three for Vancouver – the Timbers play Austin then Dallas, while Vancouver hosts Seattle, Minnesota and LAFC – and that makes the two points separating them look at little smaller. And yet, neither team had all hands on deck…

Real Salt Lake 3-3 Portland Timbers: A Tale of One and a Half

The boy who cried wolf as an angsty teenager.

Portland Timbers fans have been invited to a transcendentally ridiculous party this season. What can we do but accept the invitation?

Very much related, the Timbers’ wild 3-3 draw at Real Salt Lake defies rational explanation. It was what it was and is what it is. It was necessary to endure the first half, experientially, in order to understand the full import of the second, it is always darkest before the dawn, and on every bloody morning after, one tin soldier will ride away.

Game Notes
The Timbers were very bad in one half, and just good enough in the second to smuggle one point out of Utah. Call it a Tale of One and a Half. I’m sure RSL fans feel aggrieved at the result, for a variety of reasons, but I’d peg one key moment as a shorthand for how/when the game went off the rails for them.

You could see RSL’s ‘keeper, Gavin Beavers (great name, no notes), scrambling to get his defense organized ahead of the corner kick that led to the Timbers’ first and fairly shitty goal. It recalled the boy who cried wolf barking at the villagers when shit got real, at long last, and it went just as well. The cross came in, Eric Miller nicked it more than he met it, but chaos ensued, and the ball rolled to Antony and he, for lack of a better verb, bumbled the ball into the net. At that exact moment, “the most dangerous lead in soccer” went to high alert.

The punchline to the whole thing: RSL had every reason to ignore that boy crying wolf. Their defensive shape and movement had Portland flustered to where they couldn’t connect more than two passes that didn’t go backwards. The Timbers midfield, in particular, didn’t seem to trust one another on either side of the ball; support failed to arrive on the attacking side, leading to wingers getting isolated and Felipe Mora operating in a void, and no one had a clear grasp on how to pass off players and rotate into cover on the defensive side. Between a defense as disarrayed as the Democrats and an offense that barely got off the couch (the Timbers’ official xG in the first half: 0.09), Portland looked doomed to a blowout.

Portland Timbers 4-1 Nashville SC: Maybe We Can Have Nice Things?!

IYKYK

Just not hat tricks. Hey-OH!

Jonathan Rodriguez’s failure to top the brace he’d built through the middle of the first half with a hat trick turned to slapstick by the end of the game. Fuck it. So long as the Portland Timbers win enough games without them, I can lay down for my final rest with nothing left to check in that particular box.

For those who didn’t watch, the Timbers straight-up ran over Nashville SC tonight with a 4-0 win at Providence Park. If I had to name a defining moment for the night, I’d go with the “HOLY SHIT” huddle Nashville ‘keeper Joe Willis called after Portland’s fourth goal went into the (or his) bottom left corner for the second time.

The only real question to ask about tonight: at what precise moment did the point of analyzing this game leave the building? After the third goal? The fourth? The (holy shit, justified!) red card? (Which is in here somewhere, or better be.) If there’s a story besides the game slipping away from Nashville five three-to-four minutes at a time between the game’s 18th and 35th minutes, I couldn’t name it.

It was fun and all – which was genuinely nice, not to mention fresh – but, no, the only thing to talk about is how hard Nashville fell on their faces. To wit…

Portland scored its first goal on a turnover and by capitalizing on a literal 4-v-2.

Daniel Lovitz/Nashville gambled everything on cutting off Juan David Mosquera’s escape and, failing at that, the Timbers scored their second goal in a 4-v-3 with Eryk Williamson with all of time and space to command from the right.

Portland Timbers 2-2 Houston Dynamo FC: A Word Search

At least they got a poem out of theirs...

The Portland Timbers…what is the verb here? Held on? Stumbled? Rallied? What verb best describes what the Timbers did or failed to do last night in their 2-2 draw against Houston Dynamo FC?

Portland crafted two gilded chances to take all three points late – and crafted matters here because neither Evander’s looping shot from range nor Nathan Fogaca’s second glorious header of the night came easy (relive the agony at the end of the full highlights) – but Houston also had a good goal rightly called back for offside just four or five minutes earlier. Kamal Miller even had a second bite after Fogaca’s header. All that after the 80th minute. Chances abounded at the end, but none became the goal to decide it.

Happily (because I hate cliches), this was no tale of two halves. The game pitted Houston’s steady, if imperfect game-plan against Portland’s opportunism. That some how translated into a freewheeling, swinging arms and legs affair – and I was delighted to have it – and read as two teams taking part in a game they sincerely believed they could win. Personally, I find that equal parts satisfying and disturbing*, but the one true thing I know: the points keep slipping out of the Timbers’ hands – and, ye GODS, how the Timbers needed two more points from this one – and 2024 has left bloody stubs where my fingernails used to be.

* Here’s why: I’d argue the way Houston came out to start the game makes a pretty strong case that Ben Olsen approached Portland as a team his could break. Sebastian Kowalczyk’s early opener supported the theory – and the fact this guy came within an offside flag of scoring a brace speaks to the chaos ball on the pitch. Fast, loose and open as the game got, it never achieved true Wild-West shoot-out status. Houston’s total number of shots comes close to reflecting the number of times they put a good attack together. As for Portland…was this even a moral victory?

Philadelphia Union Scouting Report: A Tale of Fatigue, Potential Underperformance & Absences

Union fans, from what I gather and despite everything.

The Philadelphia Union limps into Providence Park this Saturday, mostly likely with a goal of playing for another draw or just not collectively expiring outright at the 64th minute, if not prior. Early as it is in 2024, the Union have got already around. And the experience has not always been pleasant (see, "violently ejected" below).

Some Basics

Were it not for the abandoned match versus the Seattle Sounders a couple weeks back, this would have been the ninth game of Philly’s season. Trips to San Juan de Tibas, Costa Rica and Pachuca, Mexico in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup (CCC) (and Kansas City and Austin) padded their frequent-flyer miles but all that flying and shitty airplane air takes its toll. For good or ill – here, it depends on whether they value getting a little rest over their self-esteem - Pachuca violently ejected them from the CCC just over a week ago, giving the Union its first full week’s rest since February 20.

Meanwhile, back in MLS’s regular season, Philly have played three games and finished in as many draws, all against teams that barely impress their own fans, aka, Chicago Fire FC at home and Sporting Kansas City and Austin FC away. Because all those games struck me as non-events, I skipped ‘em. As such, last night was my first long look at the Union this season. I didn’t go in blind, mind you: a quick tour through the (mildly authoritarian) Philly subreddit provided some context. To parse the sum of two threads (here's the other thread), the blowout at Pachuca magnified some anxieties – mostly about the defense, if with a dash of pining for Leo Flach* – but a lot of commenters have embraced a long-view/Zen philosophy to their team’s sputtering start.

The Review

I heard rumors (here) about Austin ditching the possession-heavy approach of seasons past and drifting toward more of a transition model. That made the Union’s 2-2 draw at Austin last weekend feel like a good model for how Philly might play the Timbers. With that, lights, camera…replay!

Austin v Philadelphia, in General

The Timbers can go a long way toward making things easier this Saturday night by being clean on the ball – and, to be clear, Austin fucked up with and without pressure from Philly.

Portland Timbers 4-1 Colorado Rapids: Yes, with a Great Big (Twerking) But(t)

A conversation taking place.

I’ve got an angel on one shoulder fretting about getting carried away and a devil merrily twerking on the other whispering about giving all the way in and to every temptation. The angel’s going to win this round, and for a number of reasons, but mostly because I know too much about getting ahead of myself. That doesn’t mean the Portland Timbers 4-1 stroll over the Colorado Rapids didn’t feel great and soothing (like a good heating pad…I’m using one now). It just means taking a couple considerations seriously – and starting with a big one.

The Rapids fell apart before they got started in that first half. There, I’m talking less about Portland’s first goal (which I’ll come back to) than the second. All the credit in the world to Cristhian Paredes for finding Antony isolated a step behind of the penalty spot against Colorado’s Keegan Rosenberry, but you’re not going to see a captain go down with the ship the way Rosenberry did last night outside of your more chilling maritime disasters. Even allowing for the possibility that Antony’s stronger than he looks (and after last night, that’s a yes), I don’t know how a defender with Rosenberry’s experience lets the young winger get in front of him on that play.

To circle back to the maritime metaphor, who was around him when Antony scored his second goal of the night (Portland's third)? Rosenberry. And when Antony cut across the ball that bounced of the Rapids’ Sam Vines and into the net for a collective, soul-crushing own-goal (and Portland's fourth)? Yep, Rosenberry again.

That gets to the first big caveat the damn angel has sold me on: unless he ate 1,000 bowls of Wheaties and chased it with a course of high-grade steroids over the off-season, I doubt you’re going to see Antony run over, around a through a player like he did Rosenberry. Don’t get me wrong: I really loved what I saw from Antony yesterday – his defensive work as much as the three goal contributions (and can we call that a hat trick, so long as we take the asterisk with it) - but the caveat in re Keegan Rosenberry, aka, the captain to Colorado’s Titanic, feels like a sub-caveat to a larger one. To wit: for all the changes they made to their 2023 roster, the Colorado Rapids still have some road to walk before they arrive at capable and, if Chris Armas hasn’t improved drastically as a head coach since the last time I watched him a work, Colorado’s walk will be uphill both ways and through three feet of snow.

New York City FC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Notes on a Palm Springs Scuffle

The Timbers ran the gauntlet today. And survived.

Just some quick notes on the Portland Timbers 1-1 draw versus New York City FC to pass on. It’s only preseason and there’s still the regular season slog to get through after all.

First, I have no actual complaints. The performance walked a line closer to fine than good, but it cast some glances in a brighter direction and left me with nothing more than quibbles to enter into meeting minutes. The Timbers gave NYC a hand on the ball (hey-oh!), and they got broken down all the way 10-15 minutes later (left two guys wide open at the back post, Santiago Rodriguez and Malachi Jones), but unless I missed something else in the first ten minutes of the second half (shower ran long), that’s pretty much everything from Les Pigeons.

The Timbers, meanwhile, regrouped nicely after going down a goal. Better, they calmed down some problems before they turned into issues (see 1b) below). After a first half where they could only find forward momentum in wide areas and struggled a touch with getting started out of the back, Portland came out settled for the second half and got to where they could throw some weight around. When their goal came – roughly 47 minutes after NYCFC’s opener – it was more opportunistic than constructed, but, again, preseason. Stuff like that only rises to an issue if it persists...and isn’t that the worry? Still, glad Santiago Moreno made the most of his defender’s slip and god bless the NYC defense for losing Felipe Mora at the back post. Seeing the Timbers send a little more menace the opposing goal would have felt better, but it is what it is, which is one point.

That takes care of the overview. Now, to tick through some details…

1) Midfield, Arrangement

So, that was probably something like a 4-2-3-1, right? Maybe a 3-4-2-1? What I picked up (generally) was Zac McGraw, Kamal and Eric Miller holding down defense, Jaden Jones-Riley in a fairly back-to-front role on the right, Eryk Williamson and Diego Chara sitting deeper in midfield, with Moreno and Antony on either side of Evander a little ahead of them, and all that with Mora up top? Even if they lined up a little different, I didn’t mind it. I like Moreno more advanced, generally, and Antony looked more comfortable to me than he did last season. Seeing the latter did the heart good because, call me crazy, but I’d like to see the Timbers up the fear factor in opposing defenses.

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.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3-3 Portland Timbers: Bringing Home the Scraps

Not as fresh as you'd like, but still edible.

They could have curled up and passed out, but the Portland Timbers rallied on both the field and the scoreboard to tie the Los Angeles Galaxy 3-3 down in Carson last night. That said, I doubt any Timbers fan thought, “job well done,” on hearing the final whistle.

It has been a minute since I could drink in a full 90 (the win over Los Angeles FC back on September 9), so it’s possible I missed some disjointed, hesitant performances, but those words – disjointed and hesitant – paint the right picture. To their credit, the Timbers did put together the match’s first coherent moment – Felipe Mora chest-trapping a cross and pinging it into the yawning gap between LA’s Raheem Edwards and their centerbacks for Dairon Asprilla to run into; an open cutback found Santiago Moreno the doorstep for the game’s first goal (neat-o!) – but the Galaxy would equalize on a standing(!) header by Eric Zavaleta and settle into their game from there until...quite a ways into the game. They had the ball zipping to and fro by the 30th minute. Portland, not so much.

Missing a couple regulars likely played a role – e.g., Evander was out with an ankle(?) knock and neither Diego Chara nor his appendix could start – so maybe call the incoherence a testament to Evander’s growing influence on the team. Losing Cristhian Paredes at the mid-30s hardly helped (also, pulling for the guy to recover in time for his turn in the international spotlight), but the sort of global awkwardness had taken hold long before then. The usual sins followed from a team playing uptight – stray passes, disconnected movement, etc. – but those deficits can be redeemed (hallelujah!) when the team gives the proverbial 110%. Instead, the game’s long middle passage saw the Galaxy beat Portland to every 50/50 and the Timbers regularly at least one step behind.

And yet Portland still took the lead in the 38th minute when a...reasonably-worked, set-of-their-flaming-trousers move up the middle ended with a last-gasp cross bouncing off Zavaleta’s chest and into LA’s goal. Put a pin this moment because it pretty much defined both game and result.

Portland Timbers 2-3 Vancouver Whitecaps: We Have to Talk About Evander

A song for the situation...

On the one hand, the final 20 minutes of effort couldn’t rescue the prior 70 minutes of not-good-enough. On the other, it was good to see the Portland Timbers play with some level of professional pride. To float an idea I’ve never really formulated before, maybe every team plays 50% harder after the coach gets fired so they can prove it really was him and not them?

I can list all the not-good-enough from tonight’s game, but I’m leaning against doing it for two reasons: 1) it continued the same wretched trends from the season so far, and 2) change takes time. Hell, it’ll probably take a new coach. I mean, who’s thinking of the Miles Joseph era as anything but the bridge to the team’s real future? Hell, the man doesn’t even bark at the fourth official like a proper head coach. (Is that a 400-level course or more disposition, nurture v nature, and so?)

The game happened as it did – the Timbers defense dropped on the first swing, going down on a back-post goal by the Vancouver Whitecaps’ Ryan Gaul in the 13th minute; then went down one goal further when the ‘Caps broke through their ramshackle press; honestly, the game was probably over at that point – but every lecture starts with a thesis, so here’s mine: Evander lost this game for the Timbers. And not for the first time either.

Again, this is the man brought in to win games for the Timbers.

The crucial moment came when Evander stumbled through Richie Laryea – a player moving away from goal – inside the penalty area. Right before that happened, the Timbers had just pulled back one of the two goals mentioned above. I’ll get to Portland’s first goal down below, but the complete and utter dipshittery (sp?) of committing that foul on a retreating player inside the area and giving up a penalty kick? That is elite stupidity. Fuck it, maybe file this under a karmic punchline to everyone’s complaint about Evander not trying hard enough. At any rate, the Timbers probably ran out of road after the genuinely impressive Ryan Gauld (one man, two goals, one assist) buried the ensuing penalty kick (and for why a 0:47 highlight showing a penalty kick, but not one damn clip about the foul that caused it? Rummage, worms!) and once Vancouver went up 3-1. The game ended 3-2 in Vancouver’s favor and there it is: another game older and deeper in debt.

Houston Dynamo FC 5-0 Portland Timbers: A Game That Felt Like a Curse

Simple, basic. What was missing.

There is nothing to take from that but total failure. The Portland Timbers' 0-5 loss at Houston Dynamo FC was the eternal audition for the not-ready-for-prime-time players, only without the happy ending. It is not worthy of anything but derision and talking points.

Screed the Firste
Portland’s midfield spent the entire damn night behind the ball. Problems abounded all over the field – the Timbers arrived late to every challenge and played a step behind every pass Houston played, which very likely followed from the fact that damn near every Timber spent all night looking like nobody pointed to their marks (hold that thought, close) – but Houston got players behind the Portland’s midfield all goddamn night. It. Was. A. Disaster.

Screed the Seconde
Cristhian Paredes played high for the first 60+ second of the game and...just why? What requirement did that respond to? What was he doing up there besides wandering around like a child lost at a Target. Had he moved around with the purpose of a kid scoring free samples at a Costco, maybe. But that?

Excuse the Firste
Growing pains. I get it. My voice cracked in ridiculous and embarrassing ways too.

The Timbers had new players in key positions, and it showed. I’m talking like underwear affected by black light under a sheer white bathrobe (picture this on a man. C’mon, this is a family blog; and, shockingly, there's no google image for this). I don’t believe I ever grokked the actual formation (ehhh, mabye?) beyond thinking “why is Paredes way up there,” but new-kid Bryan Acosta looked somewhere near as lost with regard to his special purpose on the field tonight as Miguel Araujo did – i.e., fucking miles into the woods, with neither food, water nor compass, and a total aversion to roughing it a la Bear Grylles (sp? fuck it).

Portland Timbers 1-2 Tigres UANL: Three Team Round Robins Are Kinda Dumb

Possible metaphor for capitalism...

I’m going to let the game thread handle the play-by-play for the Portland Timbers...yeah, I’m going to call it disappointing 1-2 home loss to Tigres UANL. I’ve started 100 posts with “I’ll keep this short” only to delete it after I’ve run over by a mile and a thousand meters, but, seriously, this result doesn’t tie into anything besides the present (current?) tournament, there’s no question left but whether the Timbers make the first round and...hold on, I have some breaking news...

The Timbers have, in fact, already qualified for the second round. And, yeah, that makes sense: With Portland still on a +1 goal differential, a Tigres win would kill San Jose’s chances of topping that and vice versa, and San Jose can’t pass them on points even if they won a penalty shoot-out...wow, a three-team round-robin set-up is kinda dumb. Tidy, but dumb.

To briefly summarize the game (again, please also consult the game thread for additional material/insights), the game started with some light groping, only then the Timbers got into a rhythm – seriously, they countered in a way that gave me whiffs of nostalgia – and, before you knew it – POW! (ZOWEEE!) – they went up 1-0 on a cracking free-kick by Evander (c’mon, a non-celebration celebration is still a celebration). Not content to be the hero of the play, Evander made the fool decision to pantomime a swing that grazed the top of a Tigres player’s head, which right got him sent off for a second yellow, two yellows make a red, etc.

Won’t lie, didn’t love what followed – see below – but, the Timbers dodging two fairly reasonable penalty calls aside (don't think either made the highlights, so...), Portland handled playing a man down...let’s go with capably. You don’t have to love what you don’t hate and, honestly, it held together until it didn’t. The decisive moment came when Juan David Mosquera let Jesus Angulo bolt past his shoulder at the back post with the goal yawning wide before him. Tigres scored and the game effectively ended. If memory serves and the numbers add up, Portland managed just one more shot on goal after that and, in my mind...I guess I’d say they did some things I wouldn’t have.