The Late Tackle 02 08 2017: Adu-Shaped Puzzle Pieces That Don’t Fit

Tell me he's not dead. Please.

As I’ll be noting all over the place, I am trying to simplify/routinize what I do across my various projects, despite my steady failure rate with…uh, I prefer the term differently successful.

For now (and for as long as I keep it up), I’ve decided to slim down these Late Tackle posts to one main topic. Outside of these, I’ll write up games (one tomorrow!) and put together the odd larger project (have two in the pipeline). All of it will relate to (probably) the Portland Timbers first, Major League Soccer second, and the U.S. Men’s National Team last. In all honesty, the primary function of these posts is making me keep current on the news.

Oh, speaking of, I will also flag things like results as they come. For instance, the San Jose Earthquakes edged the Seattle Sounders yesterday, the New England Revolution nicked Sporting Kanas City 2-1, and the LA Galaxy drew at ones against Mexico’s Club Tijuana.

There are a couple games on tap for today, but most of them are weird (is that the word I want? I mean is they’re against non-MLS teams, and that trips up context). At any rate, even if they’re preseason games – and “preseason games don’t mean anything” (allegedly; investigation #1) – I still like tracking ‘em. It’s not the best data, but it’s the data we got, people.

Finally, the topic. Future installments will pull out the first two paragraphs, so that should tighten’ ‘em up a bit. And, for what it’s worth, I toyed with writing up Dax McCarty’s pointed comments about his move from New York Red Bulls to the Chicago Fire, but McCarty pretty much covered it…in something like a TED Talk on sports business ethics. Impressed…

MLS’s First, and Only, Child-Star (and the Timbers Rebuild)

Given his long, winding, and increasingly weird career (loaned down to the Finnish Third? damn), it seemed more than a little strange to see even somewhat steady coverage of Freddy Adu’s brief, long-shot trial with the Timbers. I’m not talking about twitter snark, either, but regular news pieces like one that went up on SBI Soccer this morning. How does Adu continue to be worth the attention, except as a cautionary tale? (Here, I’d reference Matt “The Armchair Analyst” Doyle’s brief, brutal take on Adu (think it was on ExtraTime Radio – e.g., “he doesn’t look like an athlete.”)

The Late Tackle 01 31 2017: A Baby-Step Victory and Betrayed by Achilles!

Harry Shipp’s next step?

Let the record show that I did watch the U.S. post that goal-less draw against the Serbian First Division All-Stars (or, just Serbia). The only thing I have to add beyond what’s already out there (yay, Darlington Nagbe! yah, Sebastian Lletget!) is the thought that the U.S. looked actually comfortable on the field for the first time in a while. If nothing else, sending players onto the field with some form of tactical direction marks the only departure from the Jurgen Klinsmann Era, I’ll call that enough of a win.

Let the record also show that I’m probably gonna miss U.S. v. Jamaica. Then again, who knows? Maybe work’ll be dead on Friday.

How a Situation Becomes a Crisis

With the whole Sebastian Blanco thing waiting for someone to tie on the bow, and with a linkable report to the Portland Timbers’ loss to Istra 1961 not yetup, the biggest news out of Timbers Land probably came with yesterday’s report that Gbenga Arokoyo, the possible/planned preferred partner (sorry, got on a roll) for Liam Ridgewell, has been downgraded to broken. The guy blew out his Achilles tendon, apparently, and, sad to say, his only contribution as a Timber that I will ever recall was providing what might have been an assist on Rennico Clarke’s own-goal in the preseason opener. Tough, tough break for Arokoyo, obviously, and you feel for the guy…all while pretty much thinking that he’s not a player to bank on for the future.

If, like me, you wanted to see the Timbers sign a central defender even before Arokoyo went down, this looks closer to a mountain than a molehill (a foothill?). Portland’s thin for personnel back there, and possibly (debatably) thinner in quality, so, in a word…goddammit. If Portland goes into the regular season with the current corps of defenders, I’ll start 2017 by protecting myself (e.g. tempering expectations).