Chicago Fire 2-1 Portland Timbers: Ground Down by the Grind

One of many movies titled "The Grind"

You can’t win ‘em all is a mantra all fans should embrace. Maybe this is simple as losing to a good home team at their place?

It would have felt worse had the Timbers played all right…they did not. Moving on...

Chicago Fire FC 2-1 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
The Fire took the within the first ten minutes of the game. They extended that lead mere minutes later when Portland’s defense literally fell all over itself as they failed to keep out a second goal. Things generally improved from there, though neither much nor quickly. The ref was thinking about the halftime whistle before Portland fired an even mildly threatening shot and the broadcast booth (whatever you think of the talent) could still say something along the lines of Portland had a couple chances though none with conviction as late at the 80th minute with essential accuracy. The Timbers did finally pull back one goal – and I was just reminded by the highlights that Omir Fernandez added one more late sneaky chance – but the Timbers never really got going in this one. Thus endeth the overview.

On Chicago’s first goal, I saw several people fret online during the Club Tijuana game about how high Finn Surman pushes up in (what we understand as) Marti Cifuentes’ system. Seems like the Fire’s brain trust may have spotted that as well because Andrew Gutman’s ball over the top to Robin Lod found that space like he knew where to look. Such was the chaos around Chicago’s second goal that it barely feels worth picking apart – i.e., what started as a modest oil fire raged to a big one when (yikes) Surman attempted pass(?!) out of the back went straight to Phillip Zinckernagel and all the Timbers could think to do from there was throw bodies in front of it. The only commendable thing about the entire episode was Dje D’Avilla’s finish. Too much of the first half happened to the Timbers; they struggled to find their feet, never mind their front one. Passes and players slipped by and around defenders before Portland’s defenders seemed to register their presence. If the entire afternoon had anything to redeeem it, it came when Surman headed home the Timbers' only goal off a solid, (too) late set piece.

Chicago had a couple chances to pad their lead – e.g., a Robert Lewandowski shot that James Pantemis padded away (has to be in here, right?) and, happily, just past the right shoulder of a lurking Zinckernagel (why does that sound dirty?) – but they flattened a little as the game quite literally wore on. It wasn’t one for the ages, probably wasn’t even one for the month; no one besides D’Avilla should remember this game past this week. (It’s only his third goal as a pro.)

Portland Timbers 3-1 Club Tijuana: Doom & (Fresh!) Paths of Glory

Pointless, yes, but still worth celebrating.

Really going to keep it short this time. You’ll see. (You won't. It's likely you never will.)

Due to the plethora of variables in play – e.g., Leagues Cup, early season for Liga MX, a new coach for the Timbers, hints the Timbers have changed their style with all the subtlety of the fouls Club Tijuana got away with tonight – I don’t see the point in picking through the innards of tonight’s game. The game/performance had its share of measurable positives – e.g., the Timbers doubled-up Tijuana’s goals allowed in the tournament (their first two games: a 0-2 loss at Austin FC and a 0-1 loss at San Diego) – but I just don’t have a solid feel on how they’ll translate to the stretch run of the MLS regular season.

Sunday’s game at Chicago Fire FC, aka, the team that topped all of MLS in Leagues Cup play (all wins, +5 goal differential, booted the theretofore successful Cruz Azul out of the tourney), should provide another level set. That said, I wouldn’t expect too much clarity either: whatever happens in that game will still feature a plethora of variables, just not as many. But that's enough about Sunday, let's return to the pointless glory of the Portland's present!

Portland Timbers 3-1 Club Tijuana
An Almost Insulting Match Summary
The Timbers opened strong and with a lot of the ball, but Tijuana chipped back into the game one chippy foul at a time. It took them less than ten minutes to find the cheat code in Portland’s defensive shape – the gap between the fullback and the winger – and the third or fourth run it at gave Tijuana the go-ahead goal (Mourad El Ghezouani was a handful all night). Their speed and aggression scrambled Portland for most of the first half – didn’t hurt the Tijuana benefited from the ref calling a loose one – but the Timbers found their balance and clawed one back before the first half ended when Jimer Fory overlapped(!!) up their left and found Kevin Kelsy at the back post.

For me, the final stats pour the correct measure of cold water on what looked like a wide open game; it was more fast than precise, but the openings yawned pretty wide when they came. In keeping with a theme disrupted only by the loss “at” Club America, the Timbers got slowly got hold of the game and throttled the life out of it. Between a scrum or two and one nerve-rattling breakaway (all of which surely made the highlights), Tijuana managed a couple chances in the second half, but that didn’t keep Portland from running away with it and at a decent trot. Both goals came from the Timbers’ comfort zone – e.g., a turnover that became a long ball to Kevin Kelsy that fell to Antony by a redirect, then Antony getting around Tijuana’s left after transition to find Ariel Lassiter (and at least one other Timber at the back post).

Club America 3-1 Portland Timbers: The Timbers Played All Right and Fucked Up Twice

Keep smoldering, king.

It wasn’t so bad, honestly. It just wasn’t what was needed.

Based on the views on the last post, a lot of people have done the sensible thing and gone on vacation. For the rest you schlubs, enjoy these notes from another schlub.

Club America 3-1 Portland Timbers
America and Timbers treated fans to a lively one. For me, the eye test and the final stats give a truer impression of the game as it played out on the field than the final score. Portland didn’t create a wealth of chances (ten total, four on goal), but they had reasonable chances to go ahead after cancelling America’s (genuinely impressive) opening goal and they had chances to equalize, if admittedly fewer, after America got their noses ahead a second time. To break things down a little…

The answer to the question, how good was Brian Rodriguez’s free kick(?), was look on the Ball Kid's face that you see just off frame in the fourth(?) replay on the goal. The Timbers answered mere minutes later through Kristoffer Velde, who literally sat an America defender on his ass (Israel Reyes?) after picking off ‘keeper Rodolfo Cota’s half-panicked outlet (and what did all y’all think of his goal celebration?). The two teams slogged toe-to-toe from that point to America’s go-ahead goal in the second half. Passes zipped between players for both, with defenders and midfielders snapping at everything within reach. Portland found a couple chances on set pieces (someone tell Cole Bassett to put his foot through the damn ball), while America kept Portland’s defense honest from range. Good chances, in other words, but nothing to hint at immediate success or demise.

Rodriguez teed up the game winner in the 63rd minute when a couple bobbles off defended balls gave him a path inside; his shot (another good ‘un) caromed off the post to the feet Isaias Violante, who punched home the goal near post. While that goal didn’t break Portland’s back, the distance between them and America's goal yawned ever wider as the minutes ticked away. Jack Cassidy (#RIP) threw in a couple subs – fewer than I’d like and later – but neither Antony nor Vincent Janssen came in to great effect (however, hold that thought).

Portland Timbers, at the Break: Was It Underachieving?

something's gotta give, something's gotta give, something's...

To open the post with a question, does the Portland Timbers conscious uncoupling from Phil Neville render all that came before it even partially irrelevant?

Answer: Some combination of we’re about to find out and we’ll only know if the new hire makes the current team rise above lower middle-table class.

As I thought about what I wanted to write into the record during the moral injury timeout of Major League Soccer’s 2026 season, aka, the 2026 World Cup, I came up with a couple different approaches – e.g., reviewing every goal allowed this season to see if I could get a handle on whatever ails the Timbers defense (28 goals allowed so far, 2.0/game), or mining themes out of all the posts I’d written since First Kick 2026. On the theory that Neville’s departure renders all that at least partially irrelevant, all that’s going out the window.

Related, I’m not going to bother picking at the bones of the rotting camel carcass that ended Phil’s tenure, last Saturday’s 1-3 home loss versus the San Jose Earthquakes. On the most basic level, it was an(other?) example of game getting away from the Timbers; they gave up three goals with just over a quarter of the game played and Portland hasn’t scored more than two goals in any game outside the opener versus Columbus and versus a wretched, yet rising Sporting Kansas City team (now just three points below the Timbers). I doubt I would have put much time into that one had Neville stuck around. Setting aside the question of whether he was up to it (he wasn’t), the two-month The World Cup break will give every team in MLS something like a fresh start. Sure, some teams would make that start with more baggage than others – think of Portland running eight points behind the pace for the “real” (as in non-play-in) playoffs as starting adulthood with student debt in a race against trust-fund kids – but the Timbers brain-trust had plenty of information for gauging what was and wasn't working and making the relevant adjustments.

Those adjustments can only go so far, of course, with the extent limited by the players currently under contract with Portland. And that’s what the rest of this post will be: one man’s examination of the cards the Timbers currently hold in their hand and that its next manager will have to play. I’ll take those one at a time in player-by-player, position-by-position blurbs below - most based on the eye test, with a glance at the numbers – starting with the regulars and then on through the bench. Before touching on the present realities, however, let us turn our attention to a couple other externals.

Real Salt Lake 2-0 Portland Timbers: Local Man Loses Popularity Contest* (Wait for It...)

That big fucker should get you $50.

Wanting something to succeed comes with a built-in temptation to want to see the good in things. In last week’s wrap of the Portland Timbers’ win over San Diego FC, I started a thought about Portland being in a weird space after that win, plus the one versus LAFC, and just posed the obvious question – i.e., what would happen if Portland won at Real Salt Lake?

We all know that happened Saturday – EMPHATICALLY not that – but I wanted to stick with tricks of the eye for a minute. I came around on Kristoffer Velde to the point of thinking I misread my first impression; Jose Caicedo’s rep took a knock for me at Minnesota, but, being a necessary piece, I pinned my hopes on him because I have nowhere else to pin them; I keep hearing the name “Aravena” and figure it must mean something (it hasn't, not so far): players to project onto a brighter future, basically, and yet. While you’re there, stuff Cole Bassett into the frame and why not make room for David Da Costa, Jimer Fory and Alex Bonetig?

With that in your head, step back and ask yourself: did you think, believe, whatever that the Timbers would win at Real Salt Lake? I accepted the possibility they might with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old who’s pretty sure the Tooth Fairy is bullshit, but who still wants the quarter. (Or the dollar. Seriously, what did you get from the tooth fairy?). Again, we all know what happened Saturday – i.e., there was neither tooth nor quarter when we woke, just pain– so let’s kick that around.

Real Salt Lake 2-0 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
After re-watching (most of) the first half, the best thing I can say is that it’s not as bad as you remember it. Portland got pulled to shredding, no question, but RSL’s attacks didn’t hit often as they seemed to in real time. 18 shots with 11 on goal says otherwise (the game ended 25/15 to 11/2), of course, and the quality of the chance creation (quite good!) was always the biggest concern. Diego Luna ran rampant, both Zavier Gozo and Morgan Guilovogui ran free in acres outside Portland’s (and Jimer Fory’s) right, and Sergi Solans alternately out-wrestled and out-raced the Timbers oft-clumsy high line. James Pantemis’ thirteen saves kept the bloodbath polite, but every Portland fan with eyes sees the body and most know the state of it.

San Diego FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: A Little Satisfaction, a Little Future Trepidation & a Wrap Up of the West

With, like, a lot of shit left out.

This post also counts as my first/second stab at a new format/concept. On the most basic level, it involves: 1) kicking around (or just kicking) the Portland Timbers’ most recent result; 2) a quick tour around the relevant parts of the Western Conference for perspective on the grand scheme; and 3) a quick check-in with the team Portland plays next (the Dread Pirate Minnesota). I’m going to hit this at the highest stream-of-consciousness speed I can manage – about all I can do four days late, but I pledged to drag myself through this, gritted teeth, bad taste and all.

Close readers may have noticed I identified this as a first for a new format and, paraphrasing one of the worst we'll-do-it-in-post moments in the Star Wars universe, that’s true from a certain point of view – specifically, I switched the order after the sections on last Saturday’s game, so that the Scouting Memo (I tightened it up), aka, the only forward-looking portion of the post, comes at the end, which is the opposite of what I did for the FC Cincinnati post. (No need to read that; already forgotten.)

There will actually be a third iteration this weekend, when I post notes on the game and then the other bits later. At any rate…

I just sat through the highlights to reconnect with this game. The first that struck me was the full minute of the 7:30 burned on the VAR review for the Andres Dreyer “goal” called back for offside around the 30th minute. I had a joke in the hopper about that being the only actual event of the game, but the rest of the highlights and the final stats painted a better memory for this game than the World of Imagination in my mind. It was still pretty damn dull, but, hey, little Ws have big hearts.

San Diego FC 0-0 Portland Timbers
About the Game, Briefly and Broadly
Is it possible that Corey Baird, formerly of FC Cincinnati (formerly of Houston Dynamo FC, formerly of LAFC, formerly of Real Salt Lake), coming off was the single most significant event of the game? It’s possible, sure: he played two drop-flicks that sent Dreyer free-‘n’-easy behind Portland’s back line, including the one that teed off Dreyer’s offside shot. The drought only looked more apparent thanks to San Diego’s failure to post even one shot on goal over the second half. They had a couple, just not many. Even so, I wouldn’t have believed MLS’s newest kids put just one shot on goal all game if the stats didn’t swear to it…and, yep, even that one shot on goal followed from the earlier Baird/Dreyer connection. The sum of that feels a tenuous combination of promising (for Portland) and significant (for San Diego), with the emphasis on tenuous.

10 Thoughts I Had While Watching Portland Draw Minnesota

Minnesota, in human form, at home.

I decided to try something new for match reports and for a couple reasons, but I’ll only bore you with the substantive one: going deep on any given game isn’t so different from running an experiment once with a small and hyper-specific dataset. When you get right down to it, it takes string of results to make a dataset that’s worth a damn – and even those have ups and downs to go around. As my Portland Timbers have demonstrated over the past five (1-3-1) to ten (3-4-3) match days…

Portland Timbers 1-1 Minnesota United FC
About the Game, Still More Briefly
Nothing of note happened in the first half, thus endeth that portion of the post.

Overall, though, pretty goddamn dull, in part due to Minnesota’s soul-sucking approach to the game and in part due to the Timbers looking…familiar in all the wrong ways. Against that, I’m glad I re-watched the second half (I was entertaining through the first viewing, or was I merely hosting, because was I all that entertaining?) because, even as the result felt insufficient (in the biggest picture), Portland put on a better show than I remembered.

Both teams posted better final numbers than I would have guessed after sitting through it (1.5 times). Still, Minnesota put the Timbers in the uncomfortable position of using the ball and the discomfort showed. Nodding back to expectations, the Loons scored on a set piece – a reported specialty for them, despite all the headers over the crossbar (for both teams, really) – with Anthony Markanich adding to his unexpected haul for 2025. Between there and the final whistle, Minnesota either slipped up by allowing Juan David Mosquera time and space in the right channel – either that, or they got cocky and thought they could manage it – and they got within mere minutes of getting away with it. Mosquera snapped back with, 1) one of his best attacking performances of the season, 2) a shot off the crossbar that put-near broke it (certainly somewhere in here), and 3) an assist on Omir Fernandez’s tidy equalizer. Couldn’t feel happier Fernandez, that scrappy little scamp.

Out of context, I’d call this result respectable. Minnesota’s a brick shithouse of a team, they’re a ways higher in the Western Conference standings, if not as high as they would have been if they’d held on, and seeing Portland push to the end felt good. The fact the Timbers pulled it off with a gently rotated starting XI made it feel a little better. Add context back into the mix – i.e., the run of results over the past five, ten games, the reasonable argument that good, competitive teams beat good, competitive teams at home – and things feel a little worse.

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution, The Late (Late), but Still Pretty Good Show

Treat yourself!

Just rewatched the full highlights and think I heard something about both the Portland Timbers and the New England Revolution rolling into Saturday on unbeaten streaks. Sound salesmanship, but also inaccurate.

Still, the most affirming talking point about the Timbers in 2025 is the fact that, unfortunate trips to the North side of the Great Lakes region notwithstanding (one for your therapist or for your priest, depending on one’s outward reaction), Portland has improved on winning more of the games they should win. Hosting a Revolution team running (currently) four points under the Eastern Conference play-in line definitely makes the list and – drink ‘em if you got ‘em – Portland won this one. As for how they looked doing it.

Portland Timbers 2-1 New England Revolution
About the Game, Briefly
Given the past three or four weeks, just seeing Portland start as the better team counts as a l’il victory (so treat yourself!). They crowned that period of…let’s go with subtle dominance with a go-ahead goal that, all things considered, took a couple happy accidents to come together. That’s not to dismiss (or diss) the goal – the Timbers put together a might chain of “yes, and” to create the opening – but I doubt Santiago Moreno consciously weighted his cross to fall to Ian Smith (who didn’t line up where they had him…right?) and I bet Smith only hits side netting on that same shot once in every half dozen attempts (but prove me wrong, kid; prove me wrong). Now, the worrying thing…

The Revolution equalized 15 minutes later and in a way that highlighted one of Portland’s regular weaknesses (see Stray No. 5), but I was less concerned by that than how close Portland came to stumbling into a five-minute fall apart, i.e., one of those back-to-back goal, multi-goal, bed-shitting breakdowns that sees a game slip away from a team. Just two (or three) minutes after Luca Langoni finished around a firmly-seated Kamal Miller, New England’s Peyton Miller teed up Leo Campana for a simple, short finish that would have handed them the lead. Per the final score, Campana skied it, thereby sparing Portland from chasing the game.

San Jose Earthquakes (Oof) 4-1 Portland Timbers: I Believe the Term Is Jointly and Severally

The number of things that went wrong...

A team can survive a bad night at the office, being a step behind, connected only in sad little spurts, etc. A team cannot, however, survive a half dozen or so catastrophic defensive errors.

I call that kind of collapse a Five-Minute Fall Apart, even when they unfold over an 11-minute span. The rest of the game wasn’t much better and that’s the beginning of the story of how the San Jose Earthquakes rolled the Portland Timbers 4-1 tonight.

About the Game
The post started with a distinction between collective and individual failure for a reason: the Timbers committed sins both individually and as a team tonight, but they might have muddled through, even if just to a more respectable final score, had, say, both Finn Surman and Kamal Miller not bit like half-starved basses on the pieces of bait San Jose dangled before them. Their mistakes turned into the (borderline) sitters that put the game beyond Portland’s likely longest reach inside the first 30 minutes. Maxime Crepeau could have done better on both shots – the man’s head and feet didn’t seem to have an open channel, on the second goal more than the third, for me – and, as much as I get wishing James Pantemis was there, that does everyone the same amount of good as wishing Surman didn’t overcommit all the way into Nevada on the ball into Ousseni Bouda, or that Miller didn’t sprint all the way to the left sideline just to get nutmegged by DeJuan Jones. That’s the individual stuff and I feel confident arguing that three-minute span killed Portland’s chances at three points tonight. Moving on to the stuff that made even one point unlikely…

San Jose scored their first goal on their third (or fourth) run at the same attacking movement – i.e., push the ball outside to a runner sprinting to get around the Timbers’ widest defender on one side or the other, then pull it back to an attacking player who drifted into the space left open by a Portland backline that appears willing to collapse into its own damn goal. Seeing them come close mere minutes before the 90th on the same damn play felt like the right way to wrap up the game, but the problem was always the same. When San Jose pushed the ball wide, an Earthquake player curled off Portland’s defensive line and none of those players tracked that movement; Timbers midfielders – e.g., Joao Ortiz was the closest available option on their first goal – failed to run back to cover that run, leaving some quality attackers with time and the full width of the goal to fire at from around the penalty spot. Under those circumstances, whose man is that? The answer falls somewhere between everyone’s, no one’s and the first player to see him peel off. And that’s the, or maybe just a, collective failure.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-4 Portland Timbers: The Sweet, Possibly Misplaced Scent of Potential

The Portland Timbers might be actually be…like, good this season. On evidence of everything, up to and including tonight’s game, the Los Angeles Galaxy is not a good team, so that bold stretch has less to do with the specific result of the Timbers beating the Galaxy 4-2 in LA, or even Portland’s current six unbeaten, four-game winning streak than the loud “clicking” sounds coming off the pitch every time they play…can the Timbers Army do Beatnik snap applause loud enough for the field mics to pick up?

About the Game
I can best sum up the first half by saying the game's first shot on goal went in, Timbers 1-0 at the half. Some good things happened – e.g., Finn Surman and Joao “Big First Step” Ortiz combining to contain a palpably eager Joseph Paintsil – but the game rarely rose higher than a flailing stalemate over the opening 45 minutes until Antony ran down a Santiago Moreno looping cross, turned with it, chipped over his defender and teed up David Da Costa for that lonely goal. Real one-eyed-man-in-the-land-of-the-blind stuff, basically, and then the halftime whistle sounded. The Galaxy came out as something like the same team – which, factually, they were – but Portland came out of the locker room transformed, as if inspired by a speech, the abrupt realization that they’d survived the worst, or both, and commenced to play the confident, connected soccer that savvy fans pay to see and swoon over. Just after the 50th minute, the Timbers went from besieging the Galaxy’s defensive third to an organized retreat after a turnover to scoring a slick insurance goal at the 53rd minute by the foot of Santiago Moreno: the three-to-four minute sequence that proceeded it might have been the most “soccer” soccer Portland has played all season, just checking all the boxes on how the manage and win a game. With the game slipping away, Greg Vanney gambled on a mass substitution – a shift change that included Marco “Chekhov’s Gun” Reus – but the same all-star team that created Portland’s second goal did themselves one better on their third. Even with my money on Kevin Kelsy skying that shot eight times out of ten, he capped a stellar, “yes, and” counter run up the left by David Da Costa and Antony with a net-bursting first-time shot (oof, may have to check the full highlights) that, despite a couple hiccups, buried the game. As everyone who tuned in knows, the Galaxy pulled back two goals in three minutes – the first on the kind of play that made LA so lethal just one season ago, the second due to a mixture of magic and missing the obvious – and that momentary lapse in bowel control sullied what would otherwise have been a “happy Halloween, we are here, motherfuckers” kind of performance. Instead, it staggered into…let’s call it a karaoke version of the same line. Which brings me to my favorite part of the game…

Sporting Kansas City 2-4 Portland Timbers: Semi-Instant Reaction & Full Celebration

What do you mean, "my flatulence"?

Without going too deep, this will be the first of the weekly posts I’ll be shifting to in an attempt to…look, God know what. At this point, any long time readers know as well as I do that there. is. no. answer. to. that. question.

At any rate, the current plan is to post an immediate (to semi-immediate) post-game reaction post right after I watch the game, and then to add the scouting report on the Timbers’ opposition for the following week and notes on the current state/vibe of the Western Conference to that same post later in the week. Plugs will go up on Bluesky when the post is complete, but the idea is to create a Weekly post that, when all’s said and done, reviews that past week’s result, previews the next week’s game, and puts both in the context of the Western Conference writ large. And, to cap it with the punchline, I’ll be saving time on all this by tightening up the copy. And god laughed…

About the Game
When a game starts, you often get to see the idealized version of how each team hopes to play the game – and I think both the Portland Timbers and Sporting Kansas City offered decent spins on their better selves to start. While Portland’s first goal didn’t come entirely out of the blue – i.e., it was David Da Costa’s terrorizing of SKC’s right that led to the corner kick – but it’s not every day we have the privilege of seeing a teammate, in this case, David Ayala, bolt into the area and tuck it home. Spilled my damn drink, then and there. Kansas City defenders didn’t see it coming either – defending Da Costa’s cross passed from Shapi Suleymanov to Dejan Joveljic - and that set the tone for a game that ultimately turned into the kind of 4-2 road win that makes a fan feel good about the local team. Right, marching through these goals briskly as possible…

SKC worked the system I flagged in the Scouting Report – i.e., isolate Suleymanov on the right and let him cook – and he got Diego Chara to poke on a maneuver inside. Suleymanov equalized on the ensuing free kick, partially thanks to Ian Smith misjudging the size of his own ass, which froze everyone else and opened a lane for the ball to fluff into the far-side netting. After a mere 10 minutes of the same back and forth, the Timbers retook the lead with a move up the(ir) left again: Ayala stepped into a space between The SKC Jacobs (i.e., Bartlett and Davis), they went straight to “oh, shit” mode, Ayala slipped by them, fired on goal and, honestly, hit Kevin Kelsy with the ball. Ugly, but it fucked John Pulskamp all the way up, 2-1 Timbers. SKC equalized again, and through Suleymanov again, when he got loose on Portland’s left and, after getting past one defender (don’t recall), got stopped cold by the bottom of Antony’s shoe on his shin (gotta watch the full highlights for that). After the ref stared at the monitor for what felt like days, he pointed to the spot, Joveljic stepped up and scored a dirty Panenka. Put a pin in that one. If I had to explain the first half to an alien, I’d run with something like, 45 minutes of basically competent soccer (it knows what it is; don’t even go there), punctuated by catastrophic errors.

Austin FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: The Littlest Possible Win

How I watch with my ears...

Nobody won yesterday’s 0-0 draw between Austin FC and the Portland Timbers, very much up to and including any and all fans who turned up or tuned in. In its defense, the highlights reminded me of some…action I either forgot, or that didn’t enter my consciousness during the periods when I let my eyes rest and took my best shot at watching the game with my ears. Then again, the five-minute run-time tells its own story.

About the Game
Austin played the 4-3-3 that I touted for in the Scouting Report and still believe suits them best (the official line up was a lie). It never generated much offense for them, though spendy new striker, Myrto Uzuni, did bookend the game with looks on goal at either end that showcased what he’s all about – or can be. That accounts for two of Austin’s eleven shots total and their only shot on frame came when Brandon Vazquez sandwiched a point-blank header at Portland’s James Pantemis in between stumbling at the feet of Jimer Fory and chasing the ref to demand a penalty kick. Think that happened…somewhere close to the 80th minute and, sure, that does get me ahead of the game, but I wanted to wrap up Austin before turning to the Timbers. Back to the game writ large, after 30 minutes of…not a whole lot (and the first attempted nap*), both teams took more interest in attempting to forcing the ball through one another’s lines. And then came the halftime whistle, which referee Drew Fischer couldn't blow fast enough. The first team to stir was Portland. After posting a meager three shots with one on goal over the opening 45 minutes, they started to find ways to get the ball into Austin’s defensive third. One popular route saw David Ayala step higher into central space to receive a short pass inside, which he then carried into the teeth of Austin’s last line of defense; seems like a nice move to file away for the future use. While that, and other options, got the ball closer to Brad Stuver’s goal, Austin’s last line did a good job of pushing Portland’s attacking moves outside the frame of the goal, forcing them to cross or take shots from diagonal angles (Santiago Moreno probably fired the best of these). The Timbers held a very real competitive edge over the opening 20-25 minutes of the second half and, over the entire 45-minute period, they grew their top-line attacking numbers from three shots with one on goal to 13 shots with seven on goal by the final whistle. Nothing I saw from Portland struck me as outright dangerous – it’s even possible Austin had the best smattering of chances – but, as I type this, I’d rather be Portland than Austin.

Portland Timbers 3-1 Houston Dynamo FC: Goal, Assist, Yellow Card

Closest I could get given the search...

A referee has to fuck up a lot to get a nod in any post I put up, res ipso loquitur, etc.. Also, congrats to the handful of people outside the greater Portland and Houston metro areas who saw the Timbers v the Dynamo and thought, “yeah, I guess I don’t have anything better tonight” because that was a pretty fun game to watch. Right? That was fun, right? What, you’re too big for salt water taffy now? Okay, big shot. Fine. (No, I’m not. You're the one going through separation anxiety!)

The point is, the game wasn’t boring, predictions of an incompetent Portland attack slap-fighting a dour Houston defense that barely noticed them held their own sad disco in my head as opposed to crossing over into and ruining the real world. I got a couple things wrong in my Scouting Report on Houston and I couldn’t be happier about it. Time to pick through the guts!

About the Game
The Portland Timbers got off to an electric start on their way to a 3-1 home win that looked like it could have ended 5-1 before the halftime whistle. After a ball squirted forward out of a tackle on Antony (probably) Jimer Fory broke down Houston’s right with everyone in orange furiously back-pedaling in time; his cross to Santiago Moreno actually found Daniel Steres first, but, per one of several themes that repeated/rhymed across the first half, he poked his clearance to Moreno, who fed Felipe Mora, who (probably) announced his wife was pregnant (everyone seemed happier than usual) after scoring Portland’s first goal. I know I wasn’t the only Timbers fan with dreams of jelly drops and a blow-out win dancing in my head over the next (literally) six minutes because Houston handed Portland at least two more tantalizing transition opportunities between the opener and Houston’s equalizer. There’s not much to say about the latter than why is Fory (barely) defending two players and great cross by Jack McGlynn (which means I got some things right in the Scouting Report), but it didn’t take long for the game to revert back to the Dynamo panicking and Portland taking advantage. Once Antony started and finished his run up the right for the Timbers’ second goal – tied together by an inch-perfect pass by Mora – it felt like the only question left to ask was how many more Portland could score. As it happens, the answer to that question was one. The Timbers scored just one more goal between the halftime whistle and the one that called the game – it involved the same players too, Mora and Antony – and that made for a gently nervous start to the second half. Assuming I’m not mashing them into some kind of omni-clip, I counted at least four times over the second half where Houston meticulously played the ball to the edge of Portland’s 18, and even got their toe in it, before the last, desperate shot went wide or smacked into Kamal Miller, Fory, of (most likely) Finn Surman. Houston head coach, Ben Olsen, added Erik Sviatchenko at the beginning of the second half, prompting the first of several “wait, why not start him?” questions, and that got the Dynamo’s feet under them for almost 25…vaguely menacing minutes. If I oversold Houston’s competence in the Scouting Report (I did), this was the place: this team works the ball up the field as well as any team in MLS – particularly when they heed Olsen’s pleas for “CALM” – but the end-result amounts to driving a freshly-paved highway that dead-ends into some Houston neighborhood built off-code and well beneath a flood-plain. A result can be lost in one bad moment – I get it – and, by the same token, any of Houston’s long progressive possessions could have ended with a second equalizer. Back in the real world, they didn't. Moreover, at least eight of them ended with four to five Timbers running at three to four Houston players prioritizing getting back to their own goal, by necessity, because the onslaught didn’t give them the luxury of setting up the optimal match ups. Carrying the point forward…

Colorado Rapids 0-3 Portland Timbers: Comfortable in Commerce City

When you feel confident, you can do anything...

Think I mentioned this on Bluesky, but some dude on subreddit (who heard it from a friend of a friend’s co-worker, who heard it from her boss) floated the argument that the Portland Timbers were better than they earned after four games. Between Kamal Miller’s (stupid fucking) red card in Game 1 and the ref getting drunkenly novel with the concept of “advantage” in Game 4, they'd tripped themselves more than they'd been tripped, basically.

Did Timbers fans just get proof of concept with yesterday’s subtly lopsided 3-0 win at the Colorado Rapids, or…

About the Game
As happens more often than I’d like to admit, the Scouting Report I posted on…think it was Friday, but who cares because it went out the window within the first 20 minutes. The Colorado Rapids played like a constipated shadow of the team I’d watched from afar and the Portland Timbers looked – and, to be clear, this feels like a typo as I’m tapping it out…capable. We didn’t get seamless perfection by any means – see Jimer Fory at a dead sprint toward his own goal to corral an eighth-minute breakaway by Kevin Cabral (hold that thought*) and Finn Surman eating the entire fake Djordje Mihailovic baited him with at the edge of the fucking six – but the one, literally massive thing that stood out was how immediately calm and connected the Timbers looked playing out of the back. David Ayala offering himself as a first option and seeming to have a plan for his first pass went a long damn way with that; whether turning out of the pressure, dropping the ball to someone behind, who then played it forward to either Ayala or another option (Santiago Moreno, often as not), Portland had fewer problems playing out of back than they have so far in this young season. The defensive shape held up pretty well too, if with an assist from whatever the hell was going on with Rapids; I saw no evidence of the movement and connectivity I’d come to expect after watching 90 minutes of them for the Scouting Report. The Timbers looked, for lack of a better word, comfortable for the first time in 2025 – even when Colorado upped the pressure. The Rapids found a couple chances, here and there, mostly through Reggie “Grumpy” Cannon firing unchecked crosses from the right, but a state of disconnection plagued them through most of the game. With the game knotted on zeroes and the ref puckering up for the halftime whistle, the breakthrough finally came. After trying to play through the brick the Rapids dropped in front of their goal, someone hopefully played the ball wide to David Da Costa. When he kicked the ball back into the mixer, just as hopefully, it caught Josh Atencio’s ankle and bobbled into the Rapids’ goal. And thank gods for that, because, per the official statisticians (aka, the broadcast team) zero shots had been fired on goal, in anger or otherwise, to that point. That first goal opened the game, as goals by the road team often do, and the Rapids lost little time in making a second and worse mistake to allow Portland's second. For whatever reason, three defenders lumped around Felipe Mora like he was [Insert Global Star Name] and their left-sided defender drifting to cover Eric Miller (just…why, and hold that thought%) and that left Antony footloose and fancy-free up the middle of the field and, I assume, a little baffled at his good fortune before slotting home the insurance goal that the Timbers ultimately did not need. That goal arrived just prior to the 50th minute, but it effectively ended the game as a contest. With a nod to the final xG in the official stats – just to note/celebrate it, the Timbers broke the elusive 1.0 xG barrier for the first time in 2025 yesterday - Colorado’s stats aren’t wildly off the Timbers’. And yet the question of which was the better team isn’t so much as half open. The question is why?

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles Galaxy: Readings from a Spoiled Sample

This plus a couple geezers. Not great, man.

I saw the question of whether the referee should have awarded the Portland Timbers late in Sunday’s game posed a half dozen times on the Timbers subreddit yesterday and answered with a raging “motherfucker, YES!” It was a massive call to miss, no question – calling advantage on that play does actual violence to the word “advantage” – and, while having two more points wouldn’t have helped Portland in 2024, it would have lifted Portland into the playoffs in 2022, given them homefield advantage for the play-in in 2023.

I get the frustration, in other words, and a very stupid non-call can matter, even in MLS’s largely pointless regular season, but…and you knew this was coming…shouldn’t we all be more concerned with the fact that the Timbers struggled to manage a Los Angeles Galaxy B- team?

About the Game
To start with some positives, seeing Santiago Moreno back in the XI did the soul good – particularly after a couple of his early runs made it look as if he might win the game on his own. The team as a whole looked more comfortable on the ball and decently connected over several periods in the first half, even if all that running and kicking didn’t necessarily translate into anything particularly, or at all, meaningful – i.e., seeing halftime stats like three shots, one on goal for the Timbers, and five (apparently) wayward shots for the Galaxy sounded about right, as did both teams’ piteous xG. Portland even tried to press here and there, which attempt I described in my real-time notes as “looks/works half-ass, but not a total waste.” The fact that came against a veritable “who’s that?” of Galaxy players – e.g., Tucker Lepley, Isaiah Parente, and Harbor Miller (that last one begs the question of what his ancestors did for a living) – always left open the hope that the Timbers were just working out their angles before absolutely destroying the whelps. And, when Felipe Mora deflected a David Da Costa grass-cutter cross from Portland’s right to score Portland's one and only goal, that plan seemed in motion – and with a bonus of giving Timbers fans a glimpse of how Da Costa’s skill set could help the mission. That bright shiny feeling that lasted only until the second half turned into a stalemated slog. I had a sense that LA got the better of the game while the Timbers sucked back into defense as I watched, but still appreciate the confirmation from the official stats page. It’s possible Gabriel Pec hoisted too much weight onto his own shoulders – more below – but he created at least one goal-line scramble and the Galaxy fired some better shots from range between the 60th and 70th minutes. The Timbers defense held…firm-esque through all that pressure, which only made LA's equalizer, from a simple ball over the top to Christian Ramirez (wake up, Zac), more simmeringly infuriating. I just circled back to the highlights, which helpfully reminded me that the Timbers had a couple chances to get back in the lead, and that brings the game and summary back to the non-call on the penalty that started the post.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The state of play, in blues legend form.

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

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

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

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

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