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| Anyone have Evan Bush's home address? |
To start with the obvious, the Portland Timbers have neither
scored so many, nor allowed so many, shitty goals in the 2018 season than they
did in last night’s 2-2 draw (at home, dammit) against L’Impact Montreal. They’ve
run a tight ship over the past dozen games, but that ship sprang some leaks
over their last 90 minutes of play - and, arguably, over their last 180 minutes
of play. With their U.S. Open Cup loss to Los Angeles FC, you could point to
the subs (as I did in here, David Guzman), the quality of LAFC, and say, “Professor Green, in the bathroom, with
that tactical combat knife he ordered online.” The clues don’t add up as easily
for last night’s draw.
I’ll start by saying, 1) I’m not panicking, and 2) you lose
a little nuance when tracking just the results. I’d heard the rumors that
Montreal’s defense had improved, but argued (or held out hope) that the teams
their defense had improved against comprised some part of the improvement. That
said, if there’s an edge to give in tonight’s game, the Montreal Impact scored
the better goals. The Timbers, on the other hand, dredged dark, disgusting
things from the grime of the ballast deck. It is what it is, the unbeaten
streak continues and, to bright side things a bit, the Timbers came back twice, thereby scooping
their points out of some tight spaces.
All that said, this was a bigger result for Montreal. I’m
high enough on Portland to think they should have won this game outright and
with little complication…and then L’Impact scored the first goal. It was a pick-pocket classic, a toe-poke on a sloppy pass, the kind of play/goal the New
York Red Bulls have ridden to success in recent seasons. The Timbers back-line responded…poorly,
getting stretched to and fro (Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence), but plays like that file nicely under “it all
happened so fast.” If anything, Montreal’s second goal was worse, one of those
wax-on, switch-off situations that follows from a long ball (by Ignacio Piatti,
of all people) to Matteo Mancosu, who had so much net to shoot at that it would
have been harder to miss his shot (Jeff, Jeff, Jeff). That was the second go-ahead goal for a
Montreal team that should have had none. And yet they did.
If there’s a worrying trend of any kind for Portland, it’s
letting in the first goal. If there’s a horse they’ve ridden to success, it’s
scoring first, or keeping the other side from scoring at all. That matters
because this Portland Timbers team is designed to hold the game together until
it takes the lead. That’s the logic of the Christmas Tree - i.e., you can’t
score on me, but, if I score on you, you’re fucked, because Christmas Tree,
motherfucker. It wasn't clear how regularly Portland managed games until I went back and counted last week, but that dynamic - i.e., scoring first, etc. - has defined the team's unbeaten streak. Back to Montreal, and their defense, I think I read they’ve
adopted a similar system - and, with that front three (e.g., Piatti, Mancosu,
and Alejandro Silva) they, like, Portland, have the talent to attack on the
cheap (i.e., by committing fewer players). Montreal definitely played compact
last night, a 4-5-1, with the “4” and the “5” in easy spitting distance of one
another (“Stocky Christmas?”); they set up in a way that required the Timbers
to break them down…
