Portland Timbers 1-0 Austin FC: Between Happiness and Satisfaction

This is not a highlight, but that is Ted Unkel.

Yes, ma’am, my homework is late. Yes, ma’am, it’s won’t happen again.

“Grappling with the possibility that I’m watching two mediocre teams play some JV shit.”
- Me, a Bluesky game thread, the 80th minute(?)

Upon further review, that overstates the case a bit. Portland Timbers players attempted at least two (hopeful) bicycle kicks, for one. Still, if I had to offer a key thought to hold in your head as you read everything that follows, that’s up there.

About the Game
The second shortest available video review of last Saturday's game (the "snapshot" is shorter...and pointless) reminded me that Austin FC fired a few more than I remembered – also notable, they fired a few more shots than Portland – including two that forced quality saves out of James Pantemis. Those came early and late, so credit to Pantemis for staying alert even as I was…nodding off, but none of the above has lured me into the Pantemania I saw popping up in various social media threads. You do you and all that, but I can’t think of what it would take me to take sides in a goalkeeper controversy, but assume it lands somewhere between insisting he must wear his “lucky sombrero” to reach his full potential or that three saves every game must be made by the famed scorpion-kick to build his social media brand. Seeing a defense limit the opposition to shots from range will consistently make me happier than anything a goalkeeper does.

Another telling detail in that short video review: the amount of time devoted to showing yellow cards. Few things stage-whisper “dud” quite like two teams failing to produce enough chances to fill a seven- minutes highlight reel.

Austin’s new signing, Brandon Vazquez, gets my credit for the best shot of the game – which, by the transitive property (associative? distributive?) hands Pantemis the best save – but Portland’s fucking new guy David Da Costa scored the goal that counted. It came (very) late, it took a little luck, and it was one of just two shots on goal for the Timbers (out of eight total), but I’m not above dipping my hand into the proverbial unflushed toilet if it means fishing out three points in the end.

Portland Timbers 0-1 Austin FC: Resistance and Young Love

First, a confession: I pay a lot more attention to a game when I’m at home. My wife will knock around for the opening 15-25 minutes – depends on the night – but, after that, it’s just me watching the game and spitting rhetorical questions into the void.

On the rare occasions I go to real-life live games – almost always from Section 210 (shout out! REGGAETON HORNS! REGGAETON HORNS!) – distractions abound. For instance, I missed last night’s only goal (Austin’s. fuckers), reminiscing with an old friend about another old friend’s family all had “hobbit feet.” If it wasn’t that, it was the couple straight-up dry-fucking in the row immediately in front of me. Seriously, light grinding started around the 43th minute and that graduated to full-on grinding and his hand up her shirt by the 80th.

Suffice to say, I didn’t pay perfect attention to this game, and yet, these are my notes…

1) The Game Was Better Than the Result
Swear to God, I will put the minimum amount of lipstick on this…I can’t say “pig of a result” because, all three points dropped aside, the Timbers piled on the chances and in numbers that, eight times out of ten secures at least one goal, sometimes two more, and often all three points. In this case, the official stats for this game do the double work of confirming and denying reality: on the one hand, you saw all the chances; on the other, you saw precisely why they didn’t go in. If Austin excelled at anything last night, it was getting dudes in the way of almost everything Portland attempted in their defensive third. How MLS stats-hacks landed on just two blocked shots for Austin, I’ll never know.

Austin FC Scouting Report: Looking at a Mountain, Walking Up a Hill?

Keep climbing! It gets easier! (Plus extra points!)

All the games are big for the Timbers at this point. It’s weirdly invigorating, honestly, all this living on the edge of failure...but let’s talk about the opposition, Austin FC, staring with:

The Basics
6-4-5, 23 pts., 20 gf, 18 ga (+2); home 5-1-2, away 1-3-3, 5th West, 10th overall
Last 10:    WWLWWTLWWT
Venue:      AHHAAHAHHA

My GOD, I love data! For instance, if you just had Austin’s record, you’d see that 6-2-2 over their past 10 games and have every reason to brace for a hiding. If you poked around, say, the Form Guide, you’d see that Austin only loss at home came all the way back at MLS Week 1 (versus Minnesota – and who hasn’t done that this season?), that the two draws came shortly thereafter, and that’s been nothing but Ws since.

If you look a little longer, say, walk through the teams Austin have beat at home – in order, FC Dallas, San Jose, the Galaxy, Houston, then Sporting KC – or that the 15 goals for and 10 goals against over the past 10 games tighten to just six goals for and five goals over the past five games, you'd start to wonder. They still went 2-2-1 over that five-game stretch, sturdy, sure, but the hill to climb shrinks a little every time you look at it. Next thing you know you’re seeing stats pop up in broadcast – e.g., the Head to Head going into the win over Houston that showed Austin’s xG differential at -8.6. I don’t want to oversell that narrative – not least because Portland’s checks all the boxes for being the next team to stumble into Q2 Stadium (aka, Austin’s home ground) and face-plant on the field. And that 1-5-2 road record only makes you wonder just  how hard their face will hit it.

But for that horse-fly in the ointment, this one looks wide-open. With that, let’s get back to Austin.

The Team
All-time head coach/impressive-chin possessor, Josh Wolff, does not deviate from the 4-2-3-1, and Brad Stuver always starts in goal (you’ll hear “STUUUV” every time he makes a save). Moreover, Wolff sticks with most of the same players, which include: