Montreal Impact 0-1 FC Cincinnati: Taking Care of (Super-Belated) Business

Elvis would be super-belatedly proud.

I won’t pretend that was enjoyable. My phone became infinitely more interesting around the 20th minute, but I more or less hung in there (hanged in there?), with allowances for prep-cooking and my cat doing something vaguely interesting. FC Cincinnati was reasonably good for its 1-0 win over the Montreal Impact. In Montreal, too. I’m not sure that matters, because neither of these teams has a future that extends beyond October 6.

When Allan Cruz stabbed that lucky bounce home about halfway through the first minute, the only relevant question became whether Cincy could hold out for the 90+ minutes ahead (also, against pretty much anyone). Cincinnati answered by clogging the middle with a low-block, which L’Impact got worse at figuring it out as the minutes ticked higher. They found Orji Okwonwko on the weak-side a couple times in the first half, but he was offside or sloppy in the defining moment, and things generally descended into hope-and-a-prayer crosses by the end of the game, Ignacio Piatti looking about a month too early (for him) and too late (for Montreal), and a lot of aimless possession by Saphir Taider and Samuel Piette. Montreal never looked particularly threatening, so…yay, Cincinnati!

Cincinnati ground out this game and, based on the attack last night, and recent games generally, that looks more or less like the entire tool-kit. They don’t have an attacking upside to save them. Even with most of the season gone, you still see Cincy players make runs to the same space (Darren Mattocks is freakin’ awful about crowding the left), and don’t even get me started about transition – e.g., at least two breaks forward, and with numbers in Cincinnati’s favor. In both those moments (and maybe a couple others), the runs came straight out of a family Thanksgiving Day “Turkey Bowl” after “first dinner” and the first fifth of whiskey, and the final pass referenced neither run, so, no, I wouldn’t call transition Cincy’s long suit either.

They scored first, though, and that’s all that mattered last night. Well, that and Przemyslaw Tyton pawing away a rare, truly clean shot on goal by Montreal. Had that gone in – or even had Joe Gyau’s stumble into Bacary Sagna been called as a PK (I would have called it) – Cincinnati could have drawn, or, god forbid, lost this game.

FC Cincinnati 1-2 Vancouver Whitecaps: Life at the Bottom of the Barrel

Call it a figure 3 1/2.

FC Cincinnati lost 2-0 to the Vancouver Whitecaps at home last night in a game in which they did everything right and everything wrong in the same 90 minutes. They dictated the direction of traffic most of the night and produced twenty of chances (literally), only to get burned by a couple randos going the wrong way up a one way. The second goal they coughed up – i.e., the one that put the break into the bend – followed from the kind of failures an overload forces by design. When Ali Adnan (Jr.; hope that’s right) ran into the channel, he begged the question that FC Cincy failed to answer: who marks the fullback when he runs into the channel between the fullback and the centerback?

I suppose “random” better applies to Vancouver’s first goal, a long-range knock-back from a player (Hwang In-Beom) scoring just his second in Vancouver white. The real pisser is that Cincinnati fired plenty of credible shots toward the Canadians’ goal – e.g., Justin Hoyte’s corker in the opening couple minutes, Emmanuel Ledesma’s near-post sneaker, another one from Ledesma around the 57th (note how the name repeats), Mathieu Deplagne’s one-time attempt at a lob (off the crossbar), and even Leonardo Bertone’s late free kick that kissed the outside of the post – but it’s also worth noting that, of all those shots, at least three of them weren’t at actual risk of going in. If one wanted to explain this game by numbers alone, that 20/3 split between shots and shots on goal for FC Cincinnati finishes the thought that started with the possession/passes/passing percentage number. If there’s some alternate timeline where FC Cincinnati ran up the score on those chances, Darren Mattocks didn’t start in it.

And to think it all started so promisingly. In a preview twitter thread, I singled out Allan Cruz as a potential key to the game and underlined the general importance of Cincy being the first team to score. Cruz delivered as early as the first 5-6 minutes (fine, it was six; five just has a certain ring to it) by capping off a…reasonably well-executed goal (per the cliché, they all count). Cruz almost did it again at the start of the first half, but Maxime Crepeau made the save, and thus ended two promising starts to as many halves. Sadly, as just as some guy whose name I don’t remember and who I’m not about to dig deep enough to find (also, if you read this, claim it!), the tweet that argued that Cincinnati struggles to close out halves. Based on last night alone he (pretty sure) wasn’t wrong.

Orlando City SC 5-1 FC Cincinnati: On Showing Up to Work Drunk

Just gimme till noon (or Colorado). I'll rally....

Shit got dark in a hurry in that one, didn’t it? FC Cincinnati managed to play Orlando City SC even in a first half that offended at least three of the senses (but which three?); the low quality aside, that’s 45 minutes’ worth of earning a point on the road. There’s no denying that Darren Mattocks pulled Cincinnati’s one bright moment from some as yet uncharted hole of his ass, but the teams went into the locker rooms tied a 1-1.

It took less than a third as much time for Orlando to rack up three more goals, only one of them not built at least partially from garbage, and they game arguably ended with that, the Lions’ third goal. The hits (to the groin) kept coming, sadly, and FC Cincinnati walked out Orlando City Stadium with the biggest loss in its short MLS history. I’m not sure how a team goes about exorcising such a low-rent demon – e.g., would beating Orlando by the same spread in Nippert Stadium do it, or will it take getting beat just as badly by a better team? (do witch doctors charge hourly?) – but, when FC Cincy fans swap horror stories, I expect this one will come up now and again. Or until the mists of time swallow it and eclipse its memory…

On a personal level, I need to acknowledge the few blind-spots I had coming into the game. While I would not have known that a family emergency would take Roland Lamah back to the Ivory Coast (and I join everyone in hoping that ends well), I definitely slept more than I should have on injuries to Allan Cruz, Leonardo Bertone, and Fatai Alashe. Bad as that was (especially, Bertone, a player I rate in line up), it should have been clear that someone connected to FC Cincy had done something unholy when Greg Garza pulled up gimpy at the fifth (fucking) minute; two of those things happening is bad luck, but all three is clearly a curse, and I can only hope that a rigorous investigation and eventual spiritual purging will follow, because things simply cannot go on like this without some unacceptable number of seals breaking.

So, no, the “dodgy-sausage” line-up didn’t help, but even that leads to my first question about what really happened out there – and bear with me a little as I talk this out. As happened last weekend in Cincinnati against Montreal, Orlando looked just fucking awful out there. To pick on just one guy, Sebastian Mendez looked borderline incompetent every time he touched the ball; Cristian Higuita, a player I’ve seen dominate games, coughed up the ball over and over again. With these two games as a sample, I’m left wondering to what extent Cincinnati makes teams bad. If that’s what’s happening, that’s a good thing, if only in a practical sense (aesthetically, on the other hand, it is death). Honestly, the two teams involved (e.g., Orlando and Montreal (who drew New England in Montreal yesterday) muddle the sample by way of being terrible, but if teams keep looking awful against Cincinnati, that would be something at least. Thus endeth the silver lining.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Montreal Impact: Happiness Versus Excitement

Best goddamn scene in the entire DC Extended Universe. (I'll fight you.)

Those not watching on the TV might not have picked up on this, but FC Cincinnati came into today’s (far too early) game with a shot at a record looming. Their long scoreless streak had landed them at the foot of Top 5 (or so) for the longest stretch without a goal. When Allan Cruz scored (very) early, he reset Cincy’s timer on that. Cincinnati even scored a second time at the 62nd minute to make sure the sneaky little shit of a clock didn’t get any ideas. You gotta watch ‘em, man, time’s non-linear, etc.

In the first game of the post-Alan-Koch era, FC Cincinnati wound up beating the Montreal Impact at home by a final score of 2-1. (Is anyone else picturing Koch in some bar in Kentucky getting slowly, yet absolutely shit-faced and telling anyone who will listen that he got fucked over, or do those kinds of trips only happen in my head?) I’m not inclined to read much into that, personally, but I did approve on one thing Cincinnati tried this morning, the decision/dedication to pass the ball out of the back. It got them in a little trouble during the game’s earliest moments, but, once they broke through L’Impact’s weirdly uneven high press (more on that later), it worked pretty well for them. For what it’s worth, I read that choice as an attempt to get the team connected and into a rhythm from which they could dictate the rhythm of the game. More to the point, I think that’s something you can credit to Yoann Damet…there’s also the decision to start (the…experienced) Justin Hoyte at centerback over Nick Hagglund, and that’s another decision with a reasonable rate of return.

I also think people will get into trouble if they treat this result as finding a new leaf, never mind turning one over (is anyone doing that? paging a strawman). It’s just one game, for starters, plus there’s also a couple “paper advantages” to consider – i.e., Cincinnati returned home after playing four of its last five games at home, and they were playing a Montreal team traveling on short rest. The way the game played out stacked Cincinnati’s advantages even higher. I noted the press earlier, but it’s accurate to call it half-hearted, and it gave way to a full retreat into a defensive shell too readily. On the individual level, Montreal’s players didn’t stick into their tackles until around the 55-60 mark and the passing – Jesus Christ, the passing – Cincinnati organized the defense thick and well, but, time and again, Montreal took care of forcing their own errors, and pretty much from every position. (Just note it, I tweeted during the game that I’d be shocked if Montreal went over 80% on passing accuracy; they just cleared that low bar with a B- (81%); that said, Cincy’s 83% accuracy doesn’t give them much room for gloating).

And I haven't even mentioned that Montreal had what I would have counted as a goal called back for offside. I am looser than most on the offside rule (seriously, don't even bother arguing with me), and had Montreal scored at that point, it would have constituted an act of minor violence against the run of play at a minimum.

Philadelphia Union 2-0 FC Cincinnati: Line-Breaking Passes Break Teams

At last! I have whipped a metaphor to stiffness!

If you’re looking for good news, FC Cincinnati lost 0-2 to the Philadelphia Union Wednesday night, and the result didn’t really flatter anyone. Going the other way, if you’re going to call a lot of what FC Cincy put up "shots," you are the patron saint of generosity. Too many of them looked about as threatening as Darren Mattocks’ 29th minute attempt. It was fairly early in the game when “PHI really good at blocking shots” went into my notes, and that didn’t really change till late in the game. I’ll get to that later, but the big takeaway for this game is that Philly deserved the win. Now, the details…

FC Cincinnati fans had all of – what? – five minutes to ask whether it would have mattered or not had Kacper “Sh-Bilko” Przybylko was offside on the go-head goal (wha…? 7 minutes? No shit?). I don’t know how psychic recovery time works, for a variety of reasons, but I hope no one treats the question of whether “Sh-Bilko” (yes, I’ll stop; it just helps me remember the pronunciation) was offside on the Union’s opening goal as the whole damn problem tonight, because it mattered to the same rough extent that the assassination of Franz Ferdinand “caused” World War I – i.e., it was merely the first act in a particularly painful drama (only scaled to 1 versus, oh, 30,000,000 or so, not counting the Spanish Flu, as in, and the "1" is spectator sports suffering, which isn't actual suffering).

FC Cincinnati had a low-block as dense as plywood, one that alternated from suffocation (4-1-4-1) to outright strangulation (5-4-1; rare sightings on that one). The Philadelphia Union had more talent in every position, familiarity, tactical understanding, etc. etc. etc. It took them an entire half, plus a halftime of (presumably) planning and/or screaming to figure out how to breakdown that low-block, but they did it. And once the tide turned, low-tide didn’t return until late in the game, when Cincy substitute, Fatai Alashe, lined up the most unobstructed shot of the game for Cincinnati. They came too late, obviously, but I want to linger on that idea of unobstructed shots, because it’s a biggie.

From what I saw, Cincinnati’s low-block only kicked in when it’s press failed – and that press discombobulated the holy shit out of Philly for the first 45 minutes of the game. Throw the possession stats all the way out the door, because a lot of Philly’s involved pushing the ball across the backline until something actually easy opened up. The Union alternated between isolating players on farthest fringes of the low-block, or trying to play a ball over the top to Fafa Picault, or to Kacper Przybylko. None of that worked: FC Cincy kept Philly’s players too far away from one another to do any damage, and that threatened to spell a decidedly uninspiring phrasing of “success,” but I also think most FC Cincy fans would have eaten 20 crickets in exchange for a draw tonight. If that doesn’t make sense, I’m arguing that just about any draw would have worked for me tonight – and I’m guessing that applies to most fans of FC Cincinnati.

Los Angeles FC 2-0 FC Cincinnati: A Muted Announcement of Intentions

Of course it involves a chess metaphor...

When you support a team that isn’t competitive (e.g., the Portland Timbers), it sharpens both what you see in, and your appreciation about, another team you follow. Even though they lost 0-2 to Los Angeles FC, FC Cincinnati kept their chances…more or less alive in the game (or on life support), all the way to where you could hear the echo of the final whistle. And, in the context of “already presumed world champion” versus “guileless expansion team,” that’s a decent result for Cincinnati.

More to the point, it was a decent game for FC Cincy. They might not have made so many chances outside the only one I bothered to note (in…my notes), but they had chances. Sure, they got out-played on the math side of things, but, more importantly, they managed to play the game in the middle of the field for the most part, or at least that’s where their press showed up, and that worked for (literally) most of the night. At the same time, I think there’s an issue: if the rest of the league studies where defenders are when that midfield pressure breaks, Cincy might have at least a handful of slack-jaw goals in their future. LAFC’s late, back-breaking goal gives a glimpse of what I’m talking about, but, in my darkest visions, I’m talking about driving around the Maginot Line.

To yank that thought out of my history books, think Cincinnati’s line of engagement has worked for them for most of the season. I believe it works pretty well against teams without a lot of talent at the forward position – e.g., the Portland Timbers – but, against LAFC and Carlos Vela/Diego Rossi, it plays out differently. For instance, Vela can go shoulder-to-shoulder with quality defenders (in this case, an impressively-sized Kendall Waston; for video, see "late, back-breaking"), and Rossi can pull them apart (even if he mostly did not last night), and that’s the difference between LAFC and Portland, and a lot of teams in MLS. Also, Cincinnati did not put up a ton of shots, and that tells you that LAFC didn’t give up a ton on the defensive side either (and now I'm really freaked about my first team (Portland) falling behind). In just about any way you can think of, this was FC Cincinnati against the best team in Major League Soccer, and on the road. And Cincy kept the game within one thin fuck up, or one quality opportunity, of sharing the points until the very end of the game. I’d call that not bad, not bad at all.

At the same time, the approach taken by Cincinnati isn’t exactly sophisticated. I recalled them (or rather summoned up from my notes) relying too much on long diagonals to generate attacking momentum, and I don’t recall it working nearly often enough. By around the 70th minute, I scribbled that they looked like a team that can fight your team all day, only without necessarily winning the game. In that specific sense, the preseason knock on FC Cincinnati came true: they can defend (even if further upfield than the original theory held), but they’re going to scrap for goals against any teams they can't boss around in midfield, glass jaws, please apply, etc.. At the same time, why not interpret last night’s result as a way of placing FC Cincy into it proper spot within MLS? What if, for the time being, it makes perfect sense to call them the team that’s hell to play, but that won’t often win the game?

FC Cincinnati 1-1 Sporting Kansas City: The Car Is Running All Right, But Where Is It Going?

I mean, what does this dog actually look like?

Just to mention it, ESPN’s broadcast of the game played roughly two minutes behind real-time. That allowed me to catch wind of two of FC Cincinnati’s bigger moments – the penalty call that gave them their first goal, and Nick Hagglund’s late offside goal (um, how is that not in the goddamn highlights? Are you motherfuckers Billy Barring me?) – and now I know that knowing events two minutes in the future would improve nothing in my life. It washes out as existing in a state of suspended animation, really, which I don’t recommend.

As it happens, that’s a pretty good short-hand for the state of FC Cincinnati as a team. Every game they’ve played so far bore some kind of wrinkle. When they played both of 2018’s MLS Cup finalists, they faced shadows of last year’s editions – something that’s only become more apparent since. When they hosted the Philadelphia Union, the rain pouring on the field seemed to weigh on their shoulders just as much. Today’s 1-1 draw against Sporting Kansas City, meanwhile, was lousy with wrinkles. To begin, SKC started a clear second choice team, ignoring general, well-intentioned advice to “focus on the league” after eating five fist-fulls of shit in Mexico mid-week. (Watching SKC’s Johnny Russell at the end of the game, who went the full 90 in Monterrey, makes a solid case that Peter Vermes took the correct approach; poor bastard was gassed.)

The real wrinkles broke into the skin with the unfolding of the match itself; by the end, the oldest, saggiest human being on Earth would have looked at that and thought, “goddamn, get some Oil of Olay up in this thing, stat!”

Where to begin? Players for both teams pissed away perfect chances – Kelyn Rowe for SKC, Kekuta Manneh for Cincy – and on opposite ends of the game. Just….terrible goalkeeping gaffes led to both goals – a bout of confusion by Adrian Zendejas early in the first half (link above), then Spencer Richey reprised something terrifyingly similar early in the second (also, I’m not sure that Greg Garza didn’t poke the ball past Richey when he fell down). With the exception of FC Cincinnati’s first goal – which, as I saw it, came during a time when SKC had recovered from Cincinnati’s strong opening - game-states generally loosely tracked those events. The same goes for Hagglund’s unfortunately offside winner, which capped a late (again, you must release the video), ultimately futile rally by FC Cincy, and that leaves what might have been gasping for life on this game’s cutting room floor.

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Portland Timbers: On Watching Your Favorite Child Fail

Fuck it. You sort out who is who.

Don't pretend. You love one kid more than the other(s). You have the sense not to announce it to the world, never mind the kid, but it shows in the way you enroll both kids in all the expected programs, but you really only push the one kid. It’s nothing personal: he/she is just a little more special, smarter maybe, or just kissed with god-given talent that you’re sure you see. Oh, and your other kid(s) knows this to the core of their his/her being and through the next 20 years of therapy.

I’m sure most people can track where this is going. The Portland Timbers are, of course, the special child in this scenario, the team just two goals short of a dark-horse shot at a title last season, the squad of mighty streaks, etc. FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, is the one people have to remind you to talk about now and again.

It was possible to keep up the pretense, probably as deep as 60 minutes into yesterday’s game between the two. Sure, Cincinnati scored the first goal (and that celebration is delightful; let your heart of stone break), but Portland rallied at the end of the first, even managed a little flurry of more or less wild attempts on goal. Somewhere during the next time the game-state rolled Portland’s way, surely they’d equalize.

Yeah, that fell all the fucking way apart when Allan Cruz back-heeled home FC Cincy’s second goal (turns out the game winner already happened). I don’t remember how many times the Timbers defense chased back to their goal like children running from the waves before that goal went in, but, in that precise moment, Junior dunked on Chad. There go your present assumptions about which kid would really benefit from piano lessons. (You will chained to that fucking piano, Chad, till you make me proud, rich or both.) As I was winding down Sunday night, I happened on a tweet from the Portland Timbers' official twitter feed that shouted a big "are you ready for the big leagues?" at Cincinnati like the slowest, most helpless pitch over the middle of the plate in human history. Junior dunks on Chad again, assist by Chad.

Just to throw it out there, save that shit for a present when you haven't allowed seven goals over two games - now 10 goals over three...hey, brought the average down from 3.5 goals/game to 3.0 goals/game. You really cherish the small victories, when they’re all you have.

FC Cincinnati, And the Fall Into MLS 2019

Hopes/dreams.

This preview as an expanded part of the larger project of offering my current best opinion/narrative on every team in Major League Soccer at the beginning of the 2019 regular season. That post will go up tomorrow (probably), and with much shorter entries for each of those teams – because I know less about them than I do FC Cincinnati, the subject of this post.

At the same time, I don’t have a deep, rich history with Ohio’s newest team. I only started watching them June 10, 2018 and, until just this past weekend, I had never seen them lose a game. Like nature in Jurassic Park, they always found a way…until they didn’t…

Preseason (domestic results only, and games that I watched): 1-1-0 

Even if I digested FC Cincinnati’s win over the Charleston Battery with a little more insouciance than justified, the fairly large part of me that hates being wrong larded that post with caveats. “It’ll get harder,” “Chicago is basically a USL team”: those are classic dodges, and I love them for it, but not even all of those psychically and emotionally-protective qualifiers prepared me for the full-eclipse darkness of what Columbus Crew SC…did to FC Cincinnati [a woman screams] in its final preseason game of its MLS existence (and I didn’t even get cool glasses).

As argued in the write-up, I interpreted Cincinnati’s win over Charleston as a reasonable result of having better individual players. To take two steps forward, I went into the game against Columbus with a headful of whispers that FC Cincy died over the first 70 minutes in the prior game against Chicago, but with more of a make-shift line-up (also, checks out). The team came back, I was told, on the strength of a rush of first-teamers and a wonder goal by Roland “Huzzah!” Lamah (look, just run with it, someone?). When the game against Columbus didn’t start so good, it all tracked as, “Columbus is better than Chicago, so this is expected, but, look! Lamah made a play! Green shoots!”

Trouble is, it never stopped looking not so good, and the green shoot got sent off for a two-footed tackle from behind. Cincinnati looked helpless before that, and utterly lost after it. Had Columbus played that game (and that game alone) for the kill, God help us. Or them. By which I mean FC Cincinnati. Here’s why:

Portland Timbers 2-1 Vancouver Whitecaps: A Quick Rummage Through Our Back Pocket

Because not all back pockets are created equal...

Because I’ve basically stopped reading about soccer and can only make it through about 20 minutes of any soccer podcast, I got a little blindsided by yesterday’s starting line-up for the Portland Timbers. And I have the pre-game tweets to prove it. Just thankful I didn’t cough up something like, “Fanendo Adi’s contribution will define this game; nothing else matters” or “The Timbers need Jake Gleeson in goal or the entire goddamn house will come down.”

For fans, the cost/benefit break for these kinds of things doesn’t actually matter (con: you’re more likely to go home unhappy; pro: hey, now you have something to talk about before and after the game), because they’re gonna play the game regardless and, in that sense, the line-up is what it is. What can players and coaches do except play the hand dealt them by The Fates, The Furies, the referees – aka, the delegation from the Cosmos sent to every game.

Even with regular starters like Fanendo Adi out for suspension, and regular starters like Jake Gleeson and Sebastian Blanco missing through injury (the latter, only mostly missing), the Timbers knocked off the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 yesterday at Providence Park. That’s good as a stand-alone fact, obviously, and the Timbers played all right, the depth stepped up smartly enough, etc. The specifics of yesterday matter most in the sense of knowing what the team has in its back pocket (“what does it have in his pocketssss?”), at least when it comes to the subs, but, still, let’s mash all that together for a bit and see what the lump looks like when I’m done. I’ll start with Vancouver, sort of draw an outline of the shape of the challenge.

If you go back and look at those preview tweets, you’ll notice I flubbed pieces of the ‘Caps line-up as well. Their biggest changes came with sitting Alphonso Davies and pulling Christian Bolanos from the center of midfield to play at the midfield left in a 4-1-4-1 (dammit; I hate when the TV splits from the website on formation, but I think the 4-1-4-1 is more accurate). Presumably, Vancouver coach Carl Robinson did that so he could bulk up the midfield by starting Andrew Jacobson and Tony Tchani in front of Matias Laba – i.e., putting all that muscle in the middle, so that the Timbers couldn’t play through it. I won’t pretend to know whether having Davies’ moxie and talents on the field would have pulled back at least a point for Vancouver and, even as both of the breakdowns that lead to Portland goals originated from (essentially) central areas, the ‘Caps midfield gave their opposites a game. For me, the biggest open question comes with what Vancouver lost by having Jacobson play the role that Bolanos has been playing – and I’m flagging Jacobson here instead of Tchani, because when it came to late runs into the area, it was the former who most often made them. The ‘Caps did their best coming inside from the wings and they got a decent share of chances – two or three of them quite good, too. To take the next step, and not to knock the win overly, but if Jacobson knocks in Cristian Techera’s cross (he had a good afternoon) or if Fredy Montero’s chip over Liam Ridgewell finds the side netting, this post would read both differently and a little gloomy.

Portland 2-1 Vancouver: Sure, We Were Better Than Them, But...(and awesome!)

I'm good.

It didn’t show up in the score-line, but the field hella tilted toward the Vancouver Whitecaps’ side of the field throughout the night. And that’s just one reason why the Portland Timbers beat them by an understated 2-1. All the same, that understatement has a lot of qualifiers.

It starts with Vancouver’s starting eleven and, frankly, a bunch of stuff that I’m simply not getting from the commentating crew. For instance, if Vancouver is treating this game as one last dress rehearsal prior to ducking into their CONCACAF Champions’ League series against (pretty sure, but I don’t care enough to look it up) the New York Red Bulls, then, no, I don’t understand that starting line-up. Sure, I can see Russell Teibert out there over the (later to be proved more effective, and, c’mon, who’re we kidding?) Andrew Jacobsen, but why is Nigel de Jong playing (maybe) the Left 3 in a 4-2-3-1? Because, golly, that’s not his skill-set. Giles Barnes is an on-acid vivid open field player, so who the hell came up with the terrible idea of stuffing him into the No. 10 role, where he’s got goons nipping at his heels at every turn? That man is pure quick-slash-with-the-dagger, not the player who picks the lock.

All in all, I went into the 60th minute thinking that Portland’s coach, Caleb Porter, had held the better cards (seriously), but played the weaker hand, but I premised that on the idea that Robinson rested his starters so that they'd, 1) not burn too much going into the big games; and 2) they'd turn the tables on  a tired Portland team. I was wrong, wrong, wrong, though, because, take away the Cristian Techera free-kick (and, for the record, missed the foul, but does it really matter? I mean, that stuff happens), and the Whitecaps barely showed up tonight. Hold on…I’m scouring my notes for exonerating details for Vancouver’s overall outing. I think I end on the over-arching and important statement that Vancouver will not be this bad again this season (and, if they are, god bless you Carl Robinson, because you’re fucked) and David Ousted looks close to possessed in his mission of absolutely fucking killing every last ghost of his sharply sub-par 2016 season. We’re talking Biblical and/or Rome v. Carthage level hatred. Serious shit, basically.

As for Portland, I have, literally, one complaint. I’ll get to that shortly, because I want to start with one fun detail. Tonight, more than any thought or moment, confirmed a couple ideas that seem fundamental to the Portland Timbers’ 2017. In no particular order:

Timbers Tumble in Texas...And It All Made Sense. It All Made Sense

Depressingly uncomplicated, actually.

"You see results that are head scratchers."
- Caleb Porter, Timbers head coach, post-game

I expected moments like Houston’s Raul Rodriguez biting too hard on Portland’s Darren Mattocks' run, a lunge that allowed Mattocks to follow Darlington Nagbe's leading pass into the space behind (we all know how this one ended, ball off post, Diego Valeri (of course), doing his right-place/right-time thing to tap the in Portland’s goal, no, it’s equalizer!). Or maybe when Valeri later picked the ball off (again) Rodriguez and Portland almost scored. Both of those came during a solid 20-25 spell in the second half, a time that, according to the script I’d written in my head, looked right side up. It fit the standings, after all, plus...we're the better team, right?

But was the game right side up in those moments? Was this really a “head scratcher?” That’s the thrust of Porter’s comment. It tracks my preview post, too, and a handful of tweets I put out the week prior: it tracked the assumption that, because this was Portland’s best chance for road points at this point in the season, those road points were therefore available. The logic leapt from “A-to-C,” in other words, but without any more reason than Houston’s weaknesses and/or unknowns. That’s weird because the empirical evidence points to something else, something much, much simpler.

The Portland Timbers are terrible on the road. Goddamn, clarity is refreshing. The equalizer noted above, one that I took as some kind of given, only warded off a 3-1 loss that felt inevitable by the end. The question is why I (and, I'm assuming, other Timbers fans) expected something different. I mean besides wishful thinking and blind faith. The Portland Timbers suck on the road: that's not just reality, it should be the first sentence written for every Timbers away game. "Well, obviously, the Portland Timbers suck on the road." And it'll be true. Until it isn't.

Previewing the Portland Timbers Most Winnable Road Game, and the Rest of MLS Week 30

This'll make sense by the end (Credit: 3dmetrius)

“This is MLS. The regular season breaks everyone, and afterward some are strong in the broken places. Those are the teams that figure out how to win titles.”
- Matt Doyle, The Armchair Analyst, September 19, 2016

I used to describe Major League Soccer’s regular season (or I did once) as an extended dress rehearsal that leads up to the playoffs. I think the quote above adds a wrinkle to the thought and a good one, in that it hits at some challenges that my shorter version understates. As each of MLS’s 20 teams work to become one of the two casts tapped for the final production (MLS Cup), circumstances force them to throw understudies onto the stage if their first-choice leads fall ill (or just start sucking) and, when both the lead and understudy fail, they suddenly have find entirely new actors, get them caught up on the script, the blocking, etc. As if that’s not complicated enough, some key players get to acting up on the set, so the, uh, money guys (? referees...look, it’s not a perfect analogy) send them off to rehab (fines/suspensions), and that just blows more holes in the cast, and so on. Next thing you know, the sets on fire, the director’s banging the producer, and someone forgot the goddamn breakfast spread.

Anyway, enjoying the MLS regular season is about enjoying that team-molding/team-building process, really, as opposed to the individual match results. It’s working those casts into shape, so they won’t melt under the spotlight when the competition to reach the final production really heats up.

Speaking of process, I’m working toward posting to this space only once a week. I’m not exactly growing the audience (I’d like to thank erratic posting and jumping between platforms for their contribution), and, to be open about it, so long as not all that many people are reading either of them, I’m just more interested in posting other stuff right now. I figure it’s my irrelevance, so I may as well enjoy it. Anyway, I plan on posting on Mondays and to lead with Portland Timbers stuff, while still going global as I reasonably/brief(ish)ly can on the rest. I’m less interested in total coverage than perspective and talking points. I’ll see how that pans out and go on from there. OK, turning now to a fairly regular (and final) preview-only post...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Timbers 1-0 Real Salt Lake: On Date Night and Silver Linings

Hmm...Movsisystem what dear?

I'm going to start this post by stating that I am happily married.

My wife and I go on date night every week, virtually without fail. It's a good practice, keeps us closer, attuned to one another in a one-on-one setting, etc. Most nights we do fine, some nights we fucking kill it, while other nights, well, they don't go so great. Maybe one of us enjoys it while the other one doesn't (a shit night of bowling/pinball does that), or maybe neither of us enjoy it and we spend the night staring glumly at the TV mulling over whether to say the thing that's really on our minds. No, not the thing I read in Cosmopolitan while buying groceries. The deep stuff...

Last night, when I tweeted/alluded that the Portland Timbers 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake left me less than thrilled, that's the vein I'm tapping. Yes, the Timbers won, and yes, that's a good thing. Honest to god, I'm happy, because sometimes a team just needs the result, because what's that but the chance to do it better the next time? That only gets more true in the post-season, and the post-season's coming. And that's good, and that's bad. I mean, we all know this by now, right? Right?

But that's what made the whole thing, well, kind of a shitty date night. Yeah, the Timbers won, yeah, they ran the gambit of "c" words on the way to getting there – e.g. capable, competent, composed, corpulent, crispy, CONCACAF, etc. – but the Timbers made only two clear chances (all half-chances besides), and they buried only one of those, and that was against an RSL that didn't pull much together. There wasn't a lot of threat coming toward Portland's goal, and Portland didn't do a raging lot going the other way, so, yeah, it was the soccer equivalent of a mediocre dinner, a brief, unresolved argument about what to do after, and the whole thing ending with getting stoned and watching something funny enough till you both pass out. #Bliss

I'm going to start the deeper dive with RSL, because how badly they sputtered gets to why it feels hard to get excited about this, a home win (more later). If you put a hand to someone's forehead and he/she couldn't sort out how to get around it, that's about where RSL was for most of last night (more later). Part of it was rotation – e.g. the decision to spell Javier Morales by starting Jordan Allen, or giving Chris Schuler (very good when whole) the start over [?] – but it came up short. Even when the right guys got on the ball – e.g. Joao Plata, Juan "Burrito" Martinez, and Yura "Cheatin' Heart" Movsisyan – they couldn't get clicking cleanly enough to do damage. They had a couple shots, they might have even "come on late" provided one defines that loosely enough, but, the cleaner narrative points to last night's win as a case of the road team defending pretty well, only to fall victim to one fatal (shockingly slow-motion) slip.

Look, Portland won. And I am happy. See? I'm smiling. Right now, I'm totally smiling. Grinning, even.