Level Set 2026, the Portland Timbers: Where Things Stand as We Wait for the Whistle to Blow

Hello, 2012.

[Ed. - Factually, yes, I did post a “farewell post” for this blog late last year – and it wasn’t the first time. I very much meant it at the time, but please see the bottom of this post where I mumble some excuses for what will change going forward and why the farewell holds up, if in the most sorta kinda way possible.]

What follows is a brief history of the Portland Timbers, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed in between those two sections and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., less than one week before First Kick 2026. I saw an Adam Sussman skeet telling me that Merritt Paulson told him to expect a couple more signings before then, so it's likely that not everything below is final…and yet, I’m not going to hold my breath for greatness or anything.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

…for obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015. That datapoint receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Getting Reacquainted with the Portland Timbers, My Burden, My Boo

Ah, memories.

For obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015, but it receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Now that I’ve posted mini-histories for every other team in Major League Soccer (may not be better than a Wikipedia post, but definitely shorter), I was struck by how steadily the Timbers pieced together a competitive team, and how early it came in their MLS history. When Portland graduated from the USL to MLS in 2011, they came in with a roster typical of that time (MLS…2.5?): it started with a few players who came up from the USL team – e.g., Futty Danso, Steve Purdy, Bright Dike, and Kalif Alhassan – which was then beefed up with players typical of every Expansion Draft, i.e., fixer-uppers with a good season or two behind them – e.g., Eric Brunner, Eric Alexander, Kenny Cooper – and capped with the player who was born a cagey vet and who would captain through (most of?) their first several seasons, “Captain” Jack Jewsbury. The key additions from outside the domestic professional ranks included a hot college draft pick named Darlington Nagbe and a Colombian midfielder named Diego Chara, who was sold to expectant fans as an “attacking midfielder.” The front office hired a cliché, aka, a “fiery Scotsman,” aka, John Spencer to coach them, and off they went. The Timbers did reasonably well in that expansion season, missing the playoffs by an AI-generated handful, but they fell headlong into a sophomore slump in Year 2. Despite spotting the right weakness – the attack – and upgrading with a couple Colombians (Sebastian Rincon and Jose Adolfo Valencia, who I barely remember), another reclamation project (Danny Mwanga), and spending on a DP forward (Kris Boyd), all that tinkering didn’t lead to anything good and Boyd, in particular, didn't match the hype.  2012 might have been the Timbers’ worst all-time season (and big shout to Chivas USA and Toronto FC for sparing them the blushes!) - haven’t run the numbers, don’t see the point – but the building blocks started falling in place fairly quickly thereafter. First the front office plucked Caleb Porter from the college ranks (University of Akron) before the end of 2012. The players came next, starting with the Flying Johnsons, Will and Ryan (also, no one called them that), Pa Modou Kah (why not?) came over from the Dutch top-flight, by way of Saudi Arabia – Portland even got a little jiggy when they signed former Manchester United stand-out Mikael Silvestre (who broke quickly) – and, of course, the crown jewel of the 2013 renovation, Diego Valeri. He joined on loan, but made it official (I think) before the year was over and would become a fixture/face-of-the-franchise for the next nine seasons (right? because you count both 2013 and 2021?). The result was an about-face from 2012, and an appetizer for the peak seasons to come: 2013 was arguably the Timbers’ best-ever season, if only on paper: the team was balanced, going well over the average for goals scored, while keeping out well below the average; their post-season ended in the semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs against what was probably the last, best season for Real Salt Lake’s golden-generation. Portland suffered a…senior slump(?) in the 2014 season, missing the playoffs…and this is where the way I remember 2015 comes up.

GiOut: A Requiem for an Era

If you’ve got time to listen to an old man ramble, by all means pull up a chair.

To start with the weird one, a large part of me thought it would never happen. I’ve seen fans calling for Giovanni Savarese’s head since at least the middle of 2021. Some of that baying, though not all, rested on a clear belief that he was a singular kind of problem, that his tactics bound Portland Timbers players in chains ‘n’ whips. It was his failure to appreciate the arsenal he had at his disposal, basically, and to deploy it to maximal, devastating effect against any and all opposition that held the team back.

That line of thinking very likely kept me off the “Gio Out” wagon for six months, maybe even more. I’ve seen Portland’s roster and that’s bug-fuck crazy.

It’ll go on like this till I peter out. Something about the whole thing has me feeling philosophical about spectator sports and people earning their daily bread with a barking peanut gallery judging everything they do. Anyway, back to it...

Some part of me genuinely did think the Timbers front office would keep Gio on for another season, maybe even more. Most of the analogies popping into my head involve furniture – i.e., dad’s favorite recliner – even if I can’t land them, but I hope the association makes some sense. Some others about a death in the family burbled up – and you can’t help but wonder how people relate to that metaphor – but I’m miles removed from that kind of fallout. I suppose it’s an idea of turning around and expecting to see something that’s always there, only to find it’s gone.

I’ve always liked Savarese. Seeing local journalists – e.g., Sam Svilar and Abe Asher – praise his openness and good nature helped that along, but, even when he and the team struggled, I wanted him, specifically, to turn it around. He seemed likeable enough for me to not want to see him fail.

I think the best answer to The Big Question – i.e., how much of 2022 and what looked (powerfully) like a dead-end 2023 season was Gio’s fault – is that we’re about to find out.

Portland Timbers 3-2 Columbus Crew SC: The Night of the Side Netting

To start with a personal note, I watched the Portland Timbers loin-stirring win over Columbus Crew SC from an angle I’d call “a coach’s view.” Seats for the game fell into my lap and planted me six rows up from the field around the top of one of the 18s, not great for a full-field view, but it did get me up close and rather intimate with everything that went up the Timbers’ right in the first half and everything that came down their left in the second. Just different, basically, and oddly refreshing.

Impressively and rightly high in the search results.

To stick with the theme, what a way to commemorate the celebration of a Timbers legend. I’m guessing someone made the “let’s sign Diego Valeri to a one-day contract every week” joke for the first time around the 30th minute. It had legs up to the 65th minute – i.e., when Columbus’ Lucas Zelarayan scored a second rather beautiful goal – but Timbers fans couldn't burn more than 15 minutes trying to repurpose the original joke as gallows humor before Sebastian Blanco answered the tense and expectant calls raining down from the stands to just shoot the fucking ball...

...and, to close out the opening section, I was close enough to feel Yimmi Chara’s crippling indecision in the eternal seconds before Blanco slammed home the game-winner - which, like the first, punched into the side netting of Columbus' goal. The game ended 3-2, the Timbers hit the Leagues Cup break with a fresh reminder that they can, in fact, play this game and a stadium-sized crowd went home grinning and stoned on a massive hit of Member Berries. Once were kings, etc.

I didn’t commit the thought to any public place, but I went into yesterday’s game convinced the Timbers had to score the first goal to get even one point. That came partly from instinct and partly from a belief that they couldn’t afford to fall behind in a drag race against this Crew team, but I didn’t appreciate how right that was until I checked into it this morning. Portland scored first in five of their six wins in 2023 (the outlier? the win over Seattle) and, fun fact, have a 5-2-2 record across those games. It’s as if they need that blessed margin of error to keep the game and their shit together, a 100-yard head-start on the metaphorical quarter mile.

Summertime Sadness, aka, The Thing That's Wrong with the Timbers

Mood, man.

When was the last time the Portland Timbers actually excited you?

That answer varies based on your own experiences and personal predilections, naturally, and encompasses everything from how pissed you are about front office malfeasance to how The Product plays on the field. I’ve got my gripes with the front office – and gods know I’ve aired them – but this post deals strictly with The Product.

I’m going to start with last Sunday’s home win over FC Dallas, but won’t burn a lot of time on it, you saw it or you didn’t, etc. Portland played all right: they made Dallas ‘keeper Martin Paes work (and barely allowed Dallas a shot); they scored a smart goal, Evander lofted his cross just so into the seam where Franck Boli made his run – and that run opened up a lot of the goal for the finish, good high-percentage stuff in other words. [Ed. - I have no damn idea how The Mothership measures xG, but am quickly becoming obsessed with it.] Going the other way, Dallas played like tired shit – that’s against the clean win they picked up at home midweek over St. Louis CITY FC They played through St. Louis’ pressure, which can come at G-force, and took three points on the back of two good goals. All in all, I wouldn’t get too deep into how much Portland limited Dallas’ shots, they don’t generate a ton (even in a win), and so on. I don’t mean to imply it wasn’t a good result – in context, it tickles the belly of “fabu” because they looked nothing like guaranteed going in and I’ve seen players like Alan Velasco and Jesus Ferreira fuck a defense up. It’s the context around it where...I have concerns.

Sure, Portland ended the game over the line, and in something crazy like 8th place, but they share that lowly podium with (literally) four other teams and, as I see it, the broad arc of the Timbers’ season bends toward where they started the week, i.e., below the playoff line. And that brings me to the grand thesis:

There ain’t a lot to get excited about on this roster. I’d go so far as to argue that the Portland Timbers are in the midst of a “transition year” that has somehow lasted for two seasons.

Blanco Re-Signs & Existential Uncertainty

Mood.

In all honesty, a large part involves not wanting to see another Portland Timbers great dissolve into a shadow of himself. Watching Diego Valeri play last season, but also mostly not play…I’m still not sure I can find the right word for it, but I’ll attempt an analogy: it felt like watching your dad reach a point where he can’t do things. Call it the unsettling feeling of mourning someone who’s still alive, and all that can mean.

But, no, I’m also not thrilled to read anything about a “medical condition” in Sebastian Blanco’s knee. And those two anxieties are very much related.

Anyone who follows this site knows I’ve been obsessing over the Timbers’ inevitable transition season since 2018*…which, factually, was never so immediately “inevitable” as demonstrated by two trips to MLS Cup between then and now. So, yes, I’m prone to worry, glass half-empty to a point that might make me an unreliable narrator, but, that transition is coming. Dammit. I’ll get a Yahtzee one of these rolls… [* I just searched my old posts and discovered the first time I talked about any kind of off-field transition (as opposed to the on-field tactical choice) was at the end of 2020…so maybe I’ve talked about it less than I thought.]

That another, smaller part of me felt a kind of relief at the idea of Blanco moving on seems implied in the above. Holding that dodgy knee in the back of my mind made the length and uncertainty of the negotiations read in such a way that helped me make peace with it. It’s not that I didn’t see the rumors of a potential deal with Real Salt Lake (think that was the only one), so much as thinking that the Timbers letting him go meant Blanco couldn’t possibly come back to haunt the team as some revenant dressed in claret and cobalt. About that...

“In an age where contract negotiations are becoming increasingly more public and visible, and players’ actions on social media are scrutinized to the nth degree. This raised some eyebrows and caused panic amongst Portland fans immediately.”

MLS Weakly, January 15, 2022: The SuperDraft Is a Bright, Shining Lie & Notes on Aging (and Agless) Players

At least Buyer 1205 knows what he's getting...probably.

Welcome to the…next one. Though Major League Soccer’s preseason has officially started for some and will start for others tomorrow, fans remain in that space in between 2021 and 2022. Which explains why The Mothership is running “stories” like “One reason every MLS team should feel optimistic as the 2022 preseason begins” (a slap in the face, frankly, to certain teams) and a pair of half-stale reminders about worries for each team in the Eastern and Western conferences. I get it. You do what you have to do to remind people you’re still pecking at the keyboard…as you can see…

That doesn’t mean the league hasn’t seen some eye-popping moves - e.g., Toronto FC singing Lorenzo Insigne (a move so big one only has to type “toronto fc italian” to find articles), the Seattle Sounders poaching Albert Rusnak from Real Salt Lake, and the mid-week mega-trade that sent Kellyn Acosta from the Colorado Rapids to Los Angeles FC (though didn’t the teams basically just swap defensive midfielders/No. 8s? And who would you rather have: Mark-Anthony Kaye or Acosta?). I acknowledge that’s a damned short list - and, surely, other, smaller trades are percolating as I type, even if some fall within comparatively meaningless reports of teams “showing interest” or “making a bid” - but the 2022 MLS SuperDraft has to count as last week’s biggest story.

Or is it nothing but a bright, shining lie?

With a nod to the hyped phrasing, I’m willing to let the reader decide. As for methodology, I reviewed all the MLS SuperDrafts since 2013 (and here are the rest of the links: 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, and I wound up on nine years, because I can't count so good), looked at the total number of players picked or passed on, and weighed that against the number of players who have: 1) become reliable starters in MLS (or who later moved overseas), and 2) been able to secure reliable minutes, if fewer of them, aka, journeymen. Also, and because I might have noticed it for the first time, I looked at all the players signed as homegrown players since then to make a similar comparison. Two minor caveats on that: that sample did not include players who were eligible for one draft or another, but who signed elsewhere (e.g., Andrew Gutman for Scotland's Celtic), and who knew that the New England Revolution’s Matt Turner came into the league under “other notable player” in 2016, whatever that means.

Next, some definitions: “reliable starter” means a regular on one or more starting rosters since joining MLS, a definition that grows more flexible with the more recent SuperDrafts, e.g., I doubt anyone would quibble with calling Andrew Farrell or Walker Zimmerman a “reliable starter,” but that’s a tougher call with players like, say, DeJuan Jones, Chris Mueller, or even Richie Laryea. And yet I counted them all. Moreover, I drew a blurry line on either side of the players I dubbed “journeymen,” which group includes some now and former useful players, e.g., Kekuta Manneh, Dominique Badji, Tsubasa Endoh, Jonathan Lewis, Jacori Hayes, or even Danny Musovski. At any rate, I made the choices I did and if you want to look at the same source material and make your own calls, the links are above. For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’ll wind up on wildly different numbers if you do, but I also freely acknowledge that I no less about every team in MLS with each team they add.

Portland Timbers 2021 Season Review: Say....That Was a Lot

A feeling that, in retrospect, miraculously passed.

I’ve struggled with where to start this look back at a 2021 season that was as complicated for me as it was for the Portland Timbers. I’ll keep the personal side short: I shut down this site in early August - and every intention of walking away forever - only to revive it on October 16. I still tweeted game threads and almost certainly watched more games than I missed, but that choice left a 13-game hole in the permanent record I only lightly consulted before writing this post.

That period contained both the lowest low - the 2-6 loss at home to the Seattle Sounders - and the season-saving high that was the eight-game stretch that saw Portland pick up a nether-stirring 22 points out of 24. For perspective, the Timbers picked up just 33 points over the other (shit!) 26 games of the 2021 season, which amounts to a piddling 1.27 points per game; for further perspective, they picked up 23 points over their first 17 games of 2021, a figure that, somewhat surprisingly, pans out to a superior, overall goal differential of 1.35…I don’t get bowling math either, but that’s a whole other goddamn story. Things ended better than they started, basically, and I wonder how far that slipped down the memory hole and for how many people.

To start with the biggest question - i.e., what to make of it all? - I’ m pretty sure that accounts for the struggle. On the one hand, I know I never expected the Timbers to reach MLS Cup; on the other, I never expected them to tank that badly when they won the right to host the same final, not with how they’d been playing on both sides of the ball. And yet, all it took in the end was the same kind of collective defensive brain-fart that had panicked and enraged Timbers fans since…honestly, I think that’s been a thing for some time, and playing a good defensive team to revert back to a form I noted in the last Timbers post before (temporarily) shutting down this site, a meltdown of a 1-4 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy:

“What are the two most frustrating thing about the Timbers? My bingo card shows stupid defensive errors and aimless attacking moves. This game was a smorgasbord of both…”

While the way(s) Portland struggles/fails files under plus ca change, some of what looked like the biggest moments of 2021 came and, because I don’t have notes (I’m willing to dig up) on it, went during that 13-game gap. For one, fan/personal favorite Jeremy Ebobisse left for the barren, over-priced wastes of San Jose (as opposed to the fertile, over-priced glory of Portland) in August 2021. Quirks in timing - specifically, that loss in which Seattle handed the Timbers their asses six times, followed shortly by the 2nd beat-down at Austin FC of the season - filled the skyline with dark, heavy clouds. At least half the Biblical plagues descended on the Rose City just a few weeks later when Eryk Williamson limped off the field, never to return. Again, I’ve got no written record of exactly what I said or thought in those moments, but “we’re fucked” might have made an appearance or two.

Portland Timbers 3-1 Minnesota United FC: Weird, Good and Glorious

My people call it Sebastian Blanco.

Does anyone else think that Portland Timbers fans just witnessed something parts weird, good and glorious? To take the adjectives in turn:

Weird: Did anyone else see as much walking as I did, and from both teams? That note speaks to the second half - specifically, after Sebastian Blanco slipped in his first, deciding dagger - and also covers the time when I thought Minnesota United FC would push the game, if for no better reason than they had to. Related thereto, how many Timbers counters, 1) started about 20 yards from their own goal, and 2) started with Dairon Asprilla either winning the ball or getting it at that place, looking at a wide-open field ahead of him and starting up with a look that said, “this shit again?”

Good: Because, before Blanco scored the dagger described above and the, no, please, after you, insurance goal that Minnesota gifted him, the possibility that he wouldn’t continue, never mind finish the game, looked like a real possibility. I mean, how many of you fretted to sweating about the Timbers’ post-season chances in any shape when you saw Blanco on the ground rubbing his back/ass?

Glorious: Because the Timbers overcame an early deficit against a team who has always given them trouble, pushed through a heavy dose of chippy shit (that was six cards by Minnesota, and one of them should have been red and had damn well better earn a date at Studio 54 (aka, DisCo should review that and fine or otherwise punish Franco Fragapane for that straight-up shitty lunge at Diego Chara)), and had the comfort of seeing Steve Clark cover every piece of, admittedly, weak shit that Minnesota managed to fire on goal.

I won’t lie: I had ample and frequent questions about the choices and posture of the Timbers, and on both sides of the ball, but they still ended the night 3-1 winners over perhaps their fiercest bad match-up in MLS, and looked oddly comfortable once they got back in it. Up next, the Colorado Rapids and 4,000+ more feet in elevation. First, however, let’s drink it in, shall we?

First question, how the hell did this happen?

Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers: A Disturbing Glimpse into the Future (and Present)?

Pleasant? God, no. Accurate. Umm....

Bad game, bad result, bad entertainment and, most damning of all, the Portland Timbers played its third “low-energy game” in a row. The only thing saving Portland from a richly-deserved drop to sixth place is the rolling shit-show churning below them. And, so, with a hearty thanks to Real Salt Lake, Minnesota United FC, and, so far, the Los Angeles Galaxy, let’s stare at this turd only for as long as it takes to confirm its shape and composition (don’t worry; won’t use that for the image), and move on.

As the numbers show, that sucked. Aside from losing 2-0 to a half-awake Colorado Rapids team, Portland lost every statistical category besides possession, total passes and passing accuracy - and who gives a shit about those? - and the standard, sharper markers of persistent struggle and failure, clearances, fouls, yellow cards. The Timbers looked good for a draw, at best, up to the point where Colorado scored, but it was a slow bleed to nowhere but another Rapids goal from there…and it’s worth asking, did any Timbers defender have the foggiest fucking idea where any running Rapid was on Colorado’s insurance goal?

There’s nothing to analyze from that loss, honestly, no positives, no promising leads, no what ifs. Reading the cold, hard math, the Timbers will either get the six points of nine that they should get from their final three games (v San Jose, at RSL, v Austin), or they won’t - and let the flood wash over them if they fail.

I don’t have a lot of notes on this one, but, here goes.

The End of an Era…and All That Means
I’ve worried about how Diego Valeri’s career would end earlier than I should have - which is to say, I was wrong and he had a great 2020 - but I’ll be damned if tonight didn’t confirm that the end is nigh, if not already here. One strong shot off a practice-pitch corner aside, I wouldn’t have even known Valeri was on the field tonight. And yet he was, and for 76 minutes.

Portland Timbers 1-0 FC Dallas: One Good Step and a Mess Besides

I fail. I succeed. I live. I die.

How can a game be everything you want, only less? That’s how I feel about the Portland Timbers’ narrow, yet necessary 1-0 home win over piteous FC Dallas. Neither team covered itself in glory tonight - in fact, one could argue that, if Portland strained that hard to beat Dallas, therefore… - but let’s dwell on the happy shit, for there was some. But first, a word on Dallas.

They have had a terrible season, without question, and…. yep, they’re the last team in the Western Conference again, but I see them playing most teams close every time I check box scores and the highlights, they get their chances, and so on. Still, why not sleep on a team that shows no real sign of waking up? As for tonight, and box score be damned, they had the better chances to go ahead early - Ricardo Pepi knocked on Heaven’s Door when he pinged the post on a great cross from Paxton Pomykal in the first half (and Pomykal had a great chance of his own later) - but I also suspect that’s Dallas’ season in a nutshell: a lot of not nearly enough. Call it the wages of life as a selling club (au revoir, Tanner Tessmann), and not getting enough out of players they bank on like Franco Jara (bordering on flop) or Matt Hedges (broken), but Dallas presents as a team all but screaming for an on-field ratio of mentors to mentees of 1:3 at a minimum.

A player like Justin Che provided a good example tonight: he got beat, he lunged, he poked he missed, and so on, but he also played the full 90 without allowing a total collapse. At the same time, against a team with a better idea of what they want to do in the attacking third? That shit’s fatal…

…sadly, Portland is not that team, or wasn’t tonight. There was so much nothing before Diego Valeri came on at the 65th minute, and even then it took some minutes before things - or, rather, Jeremy Ebobisse’s, on review, fairly low-percentage, and yet entirely wonderful goal - to come together. And I’m serious about that: 80% of this was a game of snatching coherence out of its opposite; getting into timelines and brass-tacks makes no damn sense. Somehow the same game contained an endless parade of soccer players making soccer plays (i.e., so many players did so many good things on an individual level to keep possession and/or the ball going where the team wanted it to) while still containing multitudes of futility.

Portland Timbers 0-1 Minnesota United FC: Turns Out I Need More than 280 Characters...

Dreamin'...

Yeah, yeah. Twitter threads didn’t work - e.g., I couldn’t complete a thought on the racist taunt thing involving Diego Chara - so I’m back in this space. I’m keeping the concept, though: five thoughts and not much more than a page. Here goes.

Overall
The Portland Timbers lost a sweaty fucker 0-1 to Minnesota United FC. I watched the game live (can human sweat be repurposed to create renewable energy, if so…), but tucked low in a corner away from the Army. I didn’t have a great view, in other words. Minnesota looked the better from that angle - they created clearer openings, defenders in the right place, etc. - but the highlights gave me a better look at Portland’s chances. (No condensed game, dammit.) Based on what I saw and what’s in front of me, the game could have ended in a draw as easily as a 2-0 win for Minnesota. A Timbers win is the only thing I can’t pencil out of it. It was not a good week for the Timbers…

Five Thoughts
1) Racist Taunts and Getting Around a “He-Said/He-Said” Logjam
If I were running MLS’s investigation into the racist taunt at Diego Chara, I’d start from the fact that Chara has never made such a claim before (in my memory) and he’s been in MLS for nearly a decade. If any other player heard it, the onus for dismissing the claim would fall on Minnesota in my mind. My first question: why would he make this up now? Crime ‘n’ punishment-wise, you take the offending player’s denial into account - i.e., you can’t prove it one way or the other - and dish a punishment that, 1) makes it clear the league will punish that shit, and 2) don’t go as far as you would to punish a provable offense.

2) A Beer for Steve Clark, on the Defense
The Timbers defense got caught in rehearsal mode on the game’s deciding goal, but the Loons created two more wide-open looks that I would have forgiven Clark for missing. In those moments, he stood on his head to give the offense - no, the entire team - a chance to salvage a point or turn around the game. They did not. So, let’s look at that…

Portland Timbers 2-1 Sporting Kansas City: Seeing a New Face in a Bad Mirror

An aesthetic and practical metaphor for Portland's defense.

You know what was most satisfying about the Portland Timbers temporally-vital 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City last night?

Seeing the Timbers win the game on the kind of goal that ruined their 2020 season - and arguably the half season before that - was deeply satisfying, almost healing. The ball into the attacking third was good, but not spectacular, the ball after that was more hopeful than wise, but it still pipped through Andreau Fontas’s high five-hole, giving Marvin “Human Frustration” Loria the chance to run it down for something close to a tap-in. letting in that kind of messy shit has become Portland's stock-in-trade, but if SKC wants to take it off their hands, I'm good. That ugly bugger finished Portland’s come-back and gave me a flush of optimism for the season ahead. All in all, I’d call the win far more comfortable than pretty, but it wasn’t all that comfortable either, and that’s square one for my talking points:

“Something else that struck me: SKC’s goals looked like dunks - i.e., they forced the kinds of breakdowns that any good team can finish, they kept finding the right pass, etc.”

I pulled that comment from my MLS Week 7 review, specifically, the notes on Kansas City’s 3-2 win over Houston Dynamo FC because it gets to what has grown into a massive, which, here, means borderline pathological, pet peeve for me: for all their faults (hold that thought), SKC has been really good at pulling teams apart - as suggested by their (now) league-leading 17 goals scored. And I’d argue that’s how anyone concerned about Portland’s defense last night should apply that thought - i.e., wherever they looked ragged and panicked just remember they played a team that is good at that thing. Maybe I’ve danced around this point, maybe I’ve have tapped the proverbial sign about it, but, barring anything short of a ruthlessly effective system (e.g., Barcelona’s glory years), it’s…just weird to expect perfect control, composure and consistency from every player on [your team] in every game, especially when they play different teams with different players every week, players who have different strengths and weaknesses, and who do different things on and off the ball, and on and on and on. Every conversation about a team's success and failure should keep the quality of opposition as something as a main talking point. But I digress…or do I?

The other side of SKC is written into that final score against Houston - e.g., the two goals they gave up (and to Houston). They’ve given away goals all season. Differences in style notwithstanding (see the possession numbers), I’d go so far as to say they’re starting to resemble the Timbers in way both good and bad. A team that can’t keep out the opposition can only find success by out-scoring them; both Portland and Kansas City have the weapons to pull that off (player availability assumed), so this one boiled down to the question of who could pull it off on the night. Sure, Sporting pinned in Portland several times last night, but one Timber or another managed to get in the way (see the balance of blocked shots), whereas KC let Dairon Asprilla (get well!) have two cracks at scoring the opener. Portland’s defense wasn’t flawless - they got caught in one of their patented “can’t clear the danger” spin cycles in giving up the opening goal - but they held firmer over the full 90 than SKC and that was enough.

Philadelphia Union 3-0 Portland Timbers: Bury It Where They Can't Find the Bodies...

Do the work. Walk away. That's the code. Or a code.

I’ll commit to putting the same amount of effort into this post that the Portland Timbers put into today’s game. Well, maybe a little more. Going the other way, I can’t fuck up the set pieces…or can I?

I’m going to start with some guesses on the stats - and, pinky promise, I’m not cheating. I’m guessing the Timbers passing accuracy dipped below…70%, that they lost the duels count handily, that they had fewer than…8 shots total, and their xG never exceeded…1.2. Right, let’s see how I did.

Shit. Wrong on literally all counts…and in what other-dimensional hell did Portland get four shots on goal? Ah, a review of the highlights dug up Valeri’s free-kick and Jeremy Ebobisse with that near-put-back in the 78th; as for the other two, they’ll go missing on account of the search party losing interest. On the one hand, I got all that wrong, so never listen to anything I say. On the other, that speaks both directly and bluntly to what I thought of Portland’s afternoon. How the Philadelphia Union won the game only 3-0, I’ll never know.

Broadly, everybody wearing blue looked tired, nobody looked good, you don’t want to hand any player man of the match honors from fear 1) of how he’d take it, or 2) that he’d pass on the offer. And why in the name of humanity would you review the video? Call it a bad trip, leave it wherever Merritt Paulson buries the bodies and come back on June 19 like it never happened - ideally with revived personnel.

Is it even worth breaking down this game? I saw at least a dozen people joke that the Timbers should practice set pieces, but the here-and-now answers to that issue strike me as fairly obvious: 1) never have Felipe Mora mark Kacper Przybylko (first goal, and hold this thought*), and 2) don’t play Philadelphia any time soon. Portland addressed the marking assignments almost immediately, but Jeremy Ebobisse didn’t do any better against Big Kacper, sadly, leaving Sergio Santos with nothing more to do than muscle through and power a point-blank shot past…shit, was that Mora standing dumbly in the middle of the goal? In the specific sense of giants versus boys, the game played out like one of those preseason warm-ups when an MLS team plays the kids from the college catchment area. It didn’t matter that Philly couldn’t craft elegant break-throughs in the run of play, because they had a one-man match-up advantage on set pieces that Portland couldn't solve. Like kids two years out of high school playing grown-up adults playing angrily on commission, Portland as a whole looked smaller on set-pieces. And, with Larrys Mabiala missing, maybe they were.

Portland Timbers 3-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: Struggle. Horror. Stroll.

It only looks innocent.

Huh, maybe I should title all these things in three word descriptions. Beats repeating cliches like, “a tale of two halves,” right?

The game started cagey, it took a moment of horror - and, arguably, a substitution - to change it, but, once the ball got rolling, gravity did its thing and Portland Timbers coasted to a 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy at home.

LA’s Derrick Williams brought the horror, and by way of what might have been a drunken-headed tackle a couple minutes before half-time that knocked Portland’s Andy Polo out of the game and off the field for gods know how long. It left LA and everyone associated with them blushing instead of complaining - a rarity in soccer - and Williams got a straight, justified red for it; fines and a couple more missed games should be coming as well. Regardless of whether Williams had a concussion at the time, that kind of tackle all but obliges you to make amends. Visit Polo to apologize, buy him a box of chocolates (the good stuff; not that See’s bullshit), maybe gift card to Dave & Buster’s with $200 on it, and that’s at a minimum. Williams’ tackle was the house-guest equivalent of shitting in the middle of someone’s kitchen; mens rea doesn’t even come into it.

That came just before the end of the first half, and the Wheels of Justice turned quickly from there. Less than two minutes after the second half whistle, Josecarlos Van Rankin dropped a dime into an arm’s length gap between LA’s Daniel Steres and (maybe) Julian Araujo for Felipe Mora to nod into the goal - and the Timbers…well, they didn’t quite never look back, but they took care of the game in one of the weirdest and most passive ways I’ve seen in a while. Allow me to explain…

Looking at the summary, I see that just 13 minutes passed between Mora’s first goal and his second - a head-on-a-swivel-alert put-back on a nice bit of collective lock-picking by Portland, in which a strong shot by Claudio Bravo set up Mora’s put-back - but something truly peculiar made that dozen-plus minutes pass slowly. For one, the Timbers did something familiar after going ahead: they let up. That could have followed from a conscious choice to drop back, stay compact and absorb, but it had the effect of giving the Galaxy, not just possession, but time to pick at the edges of the Timbers’ defensive third. While I don’t recall anything super dangerous during that time - related, I just confirmed that Logan Ketterer didn’t make a lot of saves, but that’s still three more than I remembered - LA had the ball in an area where control becomes chaos in the blink of an eye.

Portland Timbers 1-2 Seattle Sounders: Spurning Gifts

FUCK YOU! (A metaphor)

A handful of metaphors come to mind for this one - including a decent painting ruined by someone dragging a smudge of ink across it - but that one feels right for telling the story of that confounding damn thing we all watched a few hours ago.

I’m seeing a light split in opinion online, mostly around the question of whether or not the Portland Timbers controlled a game they ultimately lost 1-2, and in more ways than one. On the latter, Jeff Attinella’s (at time of writing) freak injury around the 70th minute, which left the Timbers in goalkeeper purgatory, i.e., a space where you factually have a goalkeeper, but do you? - no offense to Hunter Sulte, but you’re not really supposed to go that far down the depth chart to find a guy to push between the sticks, at least not outside a feel-good movie with that right outcome, but here we are. There was also Diego Valeri getting stuffed on a penalty kick by Stefan Frei, then getting handed a second chance on the penalty, only to shank that one off the post, then knock back his own rebound. (I’ll just go ahead and admit I forgot that’s a no-no.) My frustration with this game comes from/with that moment. I’ll get to that…

I hereby note the box score, mostly on the grounds it shows an even game (but do give that passing map a gander), but also because it shows something I wouldn’t have guessed, i.e., Portland firing as many shots as Seattle. A few only come back to me because I wrote them in my notes - a pair by Marvin Loria (more later), in particular - but my primary recollection of this match sees Timbers’ players giving-and-going all around the 18, sometimes poking through the odd ball, but mostly moving around a lot to get an obstructed view of a goal, only from a different angle. The thicket of Seattle defenders never left the front of the goal and Portland’s attackers seemed bound by some silent agreement that they’d bash through that or lose trying. When I tweeted, “shoot the ball, please,” it didn’t come from nowhere.

Still, between that set of factsd and what Sounders head coach Brian Schmetzer said at the half, I’d call that a kind of control: Portland won most of the 50/50s, I don’t think Seattle wanted to lose the ball where they did, or as often, and Portland didn’t have much trouble advancing the ball. In my book, that’s control. All that delivered some chances - e.g., a cut-back from Valeri that Jeremy Ebobisse will bury when he’s match-fit - but it mostly applied pressure on Seattle’s defense and kept them on the back-foot. And, when a team plays from the back foot, they sometimes make mistakes - e.g., Seattle’s Shane O’Neill to roll forward a lazy pass that Eryk Williamson stepped into and fed to Ebobisse, leading to a Timbers’ penalty and a chance to take the lead. Which, given the Timbers’ struggles with getting a clean look, counts as a gift.

Club America 3-1 Portland Timbers: A Gordian Knot of Failure

If only it was that heroic. And simple.

I have a couple starting points for this one, but both point to the same broad idea.

The CONCACAF Champions League (CCL) is a strange annual ritual, a sacrifice where misplaced hope dies at the feet of at least two undeniable realities. One, Liga MX teams have bigger, better-compensated rosters and hail from a country with a stronger, longer tradition with the game. Two, the tournament is scheduled when most Major League Soccer clubs will be at their weakest and least prepared. They face a two-fold disadvantage going in every time, in other words, and…I just don’t get that. Trouble is, I can’t think of a better point in any given calendar year that doesn’t pose a problem - e.g., drop it in the late-to-mid summer and you level the playing field for MLS teams, but who wants a cheapened tournament of any kind? It’s a classic Gordian Knot, only in the form of an international club soccer tournament.

Due to when the respective leagues’ seasons happen, it’s possible there is no good way to optimize this tournament…but that doesn’t that beg the question of why it happens at all? I mean, is there a point to walking through a foregone conclusion? Fuck it. I type all that as someone who loves this tournament like one of my kids, unconditionally, even when it starts experimenting with hard drugs, and so on. Next point…

I saw people tweeting all kinds of grief at Claudio Bravo tonight, and there’s no question he struggled out there tonight. I’d throw Juancarlos Van Rankin under the same bus; both fullbacks struggled - not that I’d really fault Van Rankin for the cross that lead to Club America’s first goal, because two dudes v one dude - but even that begs a very sharp question: does it really matter whether or not Portland’s fullbacks struggle against a team they won’t face again until they return to the CCL, and maybe not even then?

The short answer is, no. The only thing that matters going forward is whether both fullbacks are good enough for MLS regular season play. If they hold up there…honestly, why give a shit about what happened tonight?

Allow me to elaborate…and how have I not mentioned that Club America won leg this 3-1 yet?

Portland Timbers 1-1 Club America: Cold Truths & Something I Can’t Readily Identify

Can I interest you in life insurance?

I saw something tonight in the Portland Timbers 1-1 draw against Club America that I can’t help, but bring up - and mostly because it’s the first thought that came to me when I stepped away (taking the dog out for a shit makes room for thoughts). I’ve rarely seen Diego Chara a step beyond like he was over the first 20 minutes of tonight’s game. Club America hardly put on a clinic, but seeing Chara visibly chase the play like that looks like something broadcast from another universe.

It’s also the future that every Timbers fan knows is coming. The same thing goes for watching Diego Valeri watch the other end of a give-and-go roll by; because he can’t cover the ground in a way that really pulls apart the defense, his teammates have to play that ball differently. That or figure out something else to do with the ball entirely.

Valeri had his moments out there, but, because CONCACAF Champions League (CCL) semifinals, this game played at a high speed - i.e., exactly the kind of game that I expect to lose Valeri more and more. He’s not past it or anything…shit’s just changed. As for Chara, he started hip-checking motherfuckers all over from the 20th minute on; I last recorded next-level activity out of him around the 72nd minute, but there were times throughout the game he straight up cheetah-gazelle-d a guy on America (that is, ambushed a player from beyond who thought he had one more second of quiet). One Timbers legend can still play the same game, the other guy…I’m watching. Seasons change, the sun sets lower, it’s life, people.

Back to business, what to make of that 1-1 home draw?

Personally, I count two ways to read it. First, Club America is visibly a better team - and I mean that globally. The speed of thought is better, the movement sharper, the defense reorganizes like one of those goddamn liquid terminators (Terminators? Is it capitalized?), and, as I tweeted somewhere during the game, they shrank space fast enough sometimes that looked like they had 12 players out there. Hell, I’d even call the way they manage the game - e.g., the way they pause it to slow down the game, the flops…just everything - a little bit smoother. It’s one of those, you notice, but it’s never quite enough for you, never mind the ref, to make anything of it. Call it one a pervasive intangible.

Add the first half of the game: given the balance of everything - e.g., the (ballpark) 67-33 split in America’s favor in possession (as of the 33rd minute; it ended closer), and not the dicking around in the back kind by any means, more like bats flying out of a fucking cave - Portland did pretty damn well to give them as little they did. Timbers fans know the end-result, of course, Claudio Bravo gives Richard Sanchez a leg to fall over, etc. Penalty to America…which Roger Martinez buries. While I think every Portland fan would call the penalty stupid and unfortunate, I doubt many would argue it wasn’t earned: America was the clearly the better team over the first half…which raises the obvious problem.

Vancouver Whitecaps 1-0 Portland Timbers: Unremarkable, Regrettable, Dull.

The 2nd image under "unremarkable" somehow.

I am struggling powerfully to come up with anything useful, meaningful, or even mildly interesting about the Portland Timbers’ season-opening loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps and all I’ve managed so far is to marvel at how Richard Farley managed to write so many words about a game that offered so little for The Mothership (then again, I sometimes think they get paid by the hype).

Ooh, just thought of a couple more: the game ended 0-1. Let’s see, what else? What else?

There’s the game’s lone goal, of course, via a loud, collective brain-fart the defense allowed by letting the ‘Caps large striker, Lucas Cavallini, slip into a wide patch of space for a free header off a corner kick. The Timbers appeared to let in another goal on a later set-piece, but that one was called back for either a handball or offside; beyond signs of continued shakiness on set-pieces, it’s hard to care about a non-goal that wouldn’t have changed the outcome of the game. Had Portland been knocking on Maxime Crepeau’s goal, that would have been a moment, obviously, but I didn’t see (or, to keep with the knocking metaphor, hear) anything worth noting. Related, I’m looking at The Mothership’s collection of highlight clips, which didn’t bother to include Felipe Mora getting a step behind Vancouver’s defense around the 89th minute. For what it’s worth, and on the grounds it felt unremarkable in the moment, I don't mind the omission.

Unremarkable. There’s a good word. Regrettable? Dull? Disappointed? Nah. I don’t have the energy for disappointment.

I have one external note: for good or ill (I’ll tell you in six-seven days), and because I don’t have (fucking) ROOT Sports at home, I actually watched this one at a bar. The place was pretty quiet, fortunately, but I still sat about 20 feet from the TV, so I couldn’t see very well. The combination of that distance, the weirdness of the setting (who among us gets out much?), and just operating outside what has become routine translated into something of a metaphorical distance; put it this way, I’ve gotten used to the quiet of isolation for these games. Going the other way, given the near-complete absence of tension and/or drama, what conceivable setting could have turned that dull fucker of a game into something compelling? Everything I can come up with (e.g., “being suspended over a giant pit of ______”) would only, and perhaps blissfully, provide an excuse to stop watching.

CD Marathon 2-2 Portland Timbers: Solutions & Problems

Almost this bad. No exaggeration...

If someone told me at 3:00 pm PST that the Portland Timbers would tie Honduras’ CD Marathon 2-2 in the first leg of their CONCACAF Champions’ League home-and-home series, I would have shaken his/her hand and said, "thank you very much." And, some really unnerving details aside, I’m still there. I’ll pass quickly over the caveats - e.g., Portland’s knee-deep in a long off-season, a playing surface composed entirely of divots lumped together, travel, nerves, age, etc. - and offer two big take-aways:

1) Portland did allright despite playing in the soccer equivalent of half-finished sentences; and

2) if the central defense doesn’t tighten the hell up, Steve Clark’s gonna need longer arms.

One final thought: it took me 2/3 of the game to remember that Marathon hails from Honduras, and not Nicaragua, and that realization took the edge off the panic a little. No disrespect to Nicaragua intended, but one of those nations is ahead of the other in real-world soccer terms. Now, some notes on the game…

First things first, I saw both combinations, and attempts thereof (thereto?), that will actually come off at Providence Park and that makes me more optimistic about the second leg. Even when Marathon’s defending forced a hitch in the momentum, Portland’s players generally had sound ideas about how to move the ball forward; the grass grabbed the ball like Velcro on passes and dribbles alike - so many scooped passes, so many stifled first touches, and for both teams, by the way - but the thought process came through. My one caveat on that follows from Marathon’s peculiar defending, especially in the first half: defending can come from either pressure or organization, but the Hondurans offered neither, and even seemed mildly surprised, when Portland played passes in between their lines. I’m not sure how much the Timbers will see that in league play this season, but, what the hell? Fingers crossed.

Drilling down, I saw hints of a couple problems in defense, neither of them good. Seeing Portland’s central defenders struggle that hard with literal basics like tracking runs - see Marathon’s first equalizer and the damn-near go-ahead goal from a disturbing similar spot not even 10 minutes later - puts very direct questions as to much necessary shit the central tandem has sorted out. Based on the highlights (which, son of a bitch, don't appear to allow you to select individually any more), you’d have to ask every player but Josecarlos Van Rankin to explain himself (Larrys Mabiala, more than the rest), but that was nothing less than a tap-in - a real gut-punch given that Portland had at long last broken through via Felipe Mora just…wow, four minutes earlier.