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| So filthy. |
I’ll start with a note to anyone who runs the game, whether in the front office or from the coach’s bench: soccer is one hell of a lot more fun between two teams who want to win; the visuals fall apart when you throw in one team that doesn’t want to lose. The Portland Timbers and the Houston Dynamo FC played it right tonight, so credit to both teams. That was fun!
Moving on, how do you spell G-R-A-V-Y? Three points at home while resting your starters. Just in fewer letters.
Gods in heavens, where do I begin?
Due to general enthusiasm, my notes on the Timbers 2-1 home/understudy win over Houston read (in general terms) as, “oooh, did you see that?!” As such, I’m going to do two things in this post:
1) Address the game in general terms; and
2) pass out player grades (or comments) for every Timber who played tonight.
So, I’ve never done player grades (at least that I can recall…hiccup!), but, given that Portland decided to lead with its depth (classic weak-hand trump game strategy, btw), going that route feels appropriate for this one. As we all know, there’s a long season ahead and that points to the wisdom of Portland priming its cover in every position possible - and, based on tonight’s result, progress looks good. I’ll get to that before digging into the player ratings, but first, let’s talk general terms.
The Game
There was no question as to who came out to win and who came out to contain early - that was Portland and Houston, respectively, and almost to a puzzling extent given everything that followed. The Timbers scored very early, and through what I thought (or what I sold to myself as) a Yimmi Chara dummy off a, frankly, brilliant move by Pablo Bonilla move/cross from the flank, only it wasn’t a dummy. Yimmi missed it, but Dairon Asprilla smartly played the odds and followed the play to slice home a pedestrian goal (by his standards). The Portland Timbers irregulars moved the ball smartly all over the field and all was right with the world….until it wasn’t.
Moving on, how do you spell G-R-A-V-Y? Three points at home while resting your starters. Just in fewer letters.
Gods in heavens, where do I begin?
Due to general enthusiasm, my notes on the Timbers 2-1 home/understudy win over Houston read (in general terms) as, “oooh, did you see that?!” As such, I’m going to do two things in this post:
1) Address the game in general terms; and
2) pass out player grades (or comments) for every Timber who played tonight.
So, I’ve never done player grades (at least that I can recall…hiccup!), but, given that Portland decided to lead with its depth (classic weak-hand trump game strategy, btw), going that route feels appropriate for this one. As we all know, there’s a long season ahead and that points to the wisdom of Portland priming its cover in every position possible - and, based on tonight’s result, progress looks good. I’ll get to that before digging into the player ratings, but first, let’s talk general terms.
The Game
There was no question as to who came out to win and who came out to contain early - that was Portland and Houston, respectively, and almost to a puzzling extent given everything that followed. The Timbers scored very early, and through what I thought (or what I sold to myself as) a Yimmi Chara dummy off a, frankly, brilliant move by Pablo Bonilla move/cross from the flank, only it wasn’t a dummy. Yimmi missed it, but Dairon Asprilla smartly played the odds and followed the play to slice home a pedestrian goal (by his standards). The Portland Timbers irregulars moved the ball smartly all over the field and all was right with the world….until it wasn’t.
