Minnesota United FC 4-1 Portland Timbers: Bye-Bye Scarecrow, Bye-Bye Tin Man

And on and on until you (or the Timbers) die.

Like a car peeling off one tire after the other over 90 slow, aching minutes. As if a car could do a strip-tease before catching fire and careening into literally the nearest ditch.

The Portland Timbers utterly surrendered against Minnesota United FC tonight, and in the finest literary tradition: slowly, then all at once. The game ended 1-4 and, for all we know, started there in the right cosmological universe. All I know is that, once the game took a turn around the 35th minute, it kept driving in the same direction as if no barriers, be they natural or man-made, stood to stop it. Like every left turn in the Dakotas and every bit as God-forsaken.

To make one thing clear from the start, the Timbers never looked like winning this game. Tripping their aimless, collective way to a tie, maybe, but winning it? A team can’t score a goal until it can move the ball in some general direction thereto – a shared activity miles beyond the capacities of this forced experiment of a Timbers line-up. And I’ll pick that apart later...

It was possible to believe in that knees-knockin’ tie until sometime shortly after the 35th minute. After as many minutes of probing what they perceived as Portland’s weaknesses – a lot of it through Bongokuhle Hlongwane and toward Larrys Mabiala - Minnesota started pressing in earnest, throwing numbers forward and putting the Timbers defense under sustained pressure. To echo the popular cliche, Minnesota’s first goal was coming before well Portland’s Diego Chara clipped it into the net at the 43rd minute. Both my brain and heart checked out (so that’s...the Scarecrow and the Tin Man) after Emanuel Reynoso slipped what will go down as one of the more disputed olimpicos you will ever see at the (first half) 49th minute. And, to lay my cards on the table, I am Team Olimpico. The ball was curling in before Aljaz Ivacic punched it into the goal instead of away from it.

That was 0-2 to Portland going into the half and, whatever you were doing (you crazy ding-dong), I gave up by then.

To prove I’m no heartless bastard, yeah, the Timbers clawed back at least one goal. As much as anything else, Franck Boli proved he can score a goal if someone can tee him up right; this goal looked like Boli’s other best, cleanest shot of the season, one that came on the other side, and I don’t think that’s a mistake...and I’ll pick this apart later as well. At any rate, and whether you love it or dismiss it, Portland showed enough fight to bring the game to 1-2 and whispered “I’m not dead yet” loudly enough for the world to hear.

San Jose Earthquakes 0-0 Portland Timbers: When a Plan Comes Together...Somewhat

Everything in its place. Step One.

A kind of muddy result overall, if you ask me. The Portland Timbers created an advantage, yet struggled to exploit it; meanwhile, the San Jose Earthquakes have a decent argument that they can survive without some key starters – to be clear, that’s survive, not thrive.

A 0-0 draw by any other name, basically.

To credit a coaching staff that doesn’t often get it, Gio et. al. set up the team smartly, all the forks in the right places, and so on; to keep the credit flowing, they gambled on an approach and it paid off – handsomely, even. Given how much San Jose works up both flanks, playing four at the back made sense and starting Eric Miller, a purer defender than (the admittedly absent) Juan Davis Mosquera, neutralized Cade Cowell – at least until the ‘Quakes had him drop deeper to where he could receive the ball and attack the space in front of Miller. The gamble came with defending San Jose way up to their defensive third and, for what it’s worth, I believe Portland has a team that can do that in a way they haven’t in years. Italics in the word “defending” because I saw Portland collapse space as opposed to hunting the ball. That limited most potential over-committing, a good thing under most circumstances. One thing I want to note about that, both about tonight and going forward...

I rate Judson highly enough that I didn’t expect much falling off on seeing San Jose’s starting roster tonight versus last week's, but the sum of the game begs the question of how much Carlos Gruezo and Jamiro Monteiro make the ‘Quakes tick. A midfield three with those two and Jackson Yueill has plenty of bite, plus some good ideas about how to get forward...which points to a real question about tonight’s li’l joust.

To highlight my biggest takeaway from tonight’s game, and I noted this in tonight’s game thread, the Timbers played the best full-field team defense I’ve seen them play all season. The optimist wants to believe that happened because the Timbers collapsed space with the tidiness of an in-prime K-pop act; the pessimist wonders how different that would have looked with Gruezo and Monteiro on the field: the eternal question of cause and effect lurks somewhere in the middle of all that, therefore I don’t feel like we really got an answer to the question, have the Timbers turned a corner of, gods forfend, actually improved?

Portland Timbers 2022 Review, aka, The Malaise Post

Aren't we all her? Only with beer?

I’m going to front-load the scandals that stalked the Portland Timbers/Thorns organization until it forced them to make the same choice they should have made half a decade prior. Nice as it felt to see Gavin Wilkinson and Mike Golub get their long-overdue comeuppance for years worth of cowardice and asshole-ism (respectively?), the muleheaded determination to let the wounds fester until something like the third investigation called sepsis by its name did what those things do: kill the host. Honestly, to persist in something that willfully destructive boggles the mind.

Fucking morons...

Now, had things worked out on the field for the Timbers the same way they did for, say, the Thorns, I wouldn’t be sitting here in this cardigan gearing up to bum you out. But, goddamn, if light brown and mustard yellow aren’t my colors...

Bluntly, I am excited about exactly one player on the Portland Timbers current roster: Santiago Moreno. That doesn’t mean I neither rate nor like anyone else: for all its issues, I don’t see a need to burn it all down and start from scratch (which wouldn’t work in any case); moreover, I’m open to the argument they under-performed this year. Going the other way, I lean toward thinking they didn’t – or, perhaps more accurately, they played to the level of available personnel. Staying healthy matters to any team, obviously, but the Timbers have operated on a late-stage Jenga level for longer than I like. And if losing one piece, or even two, means the whole thing comes down? Well, that’s when you know you’re doing something wrong.

The key missing piece was Felipe Mora. Portland’s transition game relied on his implausible knack (because fucker’s short) for receiving the first pass into the opposition’s defensive third and finding a good, and ideally unsettling, pass before defenses could clutter up the space. The Timbers attack could rarely break down a compacted defense even with Mora on the field, but the ball movement in the attacking third mingled buck-passing (take. or. take. a. fucking. shot. god. dammit.) with a sensation not unlike despair for much of 2022. A guy who pops into the twitter feed with the occasional comment argues that Gio Savarese organizes the attack to work for tap-ins. I think he’s sold me on that argument at this point. Even if he hasn’t sold me on his particular solution – i.e., build the team around speed – agreeing that something ain’t working is the first step to doing something different. Which, here, means anything.

Portland Timbers 1-2 Los Angeles FC: Acceptance

Fuck it.

May as well start where the game did – i.e., with the line-up the Portland Timbers chose to field in a, for them, semi-existential Sunday afternoon. They lined up the now-familiar back three, if with the personnel gently scrambled, and Juan Mosquera and Claudio Bravo on either side of Diego Chara and Cristhian Paredes in a four-man midfield. Mosquera and Bravo played as fully-modern fullbacks - dropping back to defend and running into the attack, as needed., etc. The slightest riff on the more of the same, in other words.

The real place of curiosity, at least for me, was the front line: Dairon Asprilla and Santiago Moreno on either side of Jaroslaw Niezgoda – or at least that’s how ESPN’s broadcast had it. Then again, I’m looking at the pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey version The Mothership posted as official line-up, and who really knows at this point? Assuming I have it right – i.e., Asprilla, Niezgoda and Moreno up top – the big question going in was whether that set of players knew how to handle and/or finish shot creation. Based on what I saw online, the reaction was equal parts underwhelmed and confused; “consternation” sums it up nicely.

As for me, I greeted the line-up with...all right. The broadcast team hepped me to a couple things I didn’t know – e.g., Eryk Williamson had a compromised hamstrung – but I didn’t mind it or could at least find some kind of logic to it. That assumed, however, that Timbers head coach, Giovanni Savarese, held the same thoughts in his head – e.g., that he would play a cautious first half, then trickle in game-changers like Eryk Williamson and Sebastian Blanco to salt away the big, playoff-clinching win. In short, it all made sense to me so long as Gio did certain things at certain times. For instance, get his game-changers into the game with enough time to find it.

Back in the game that happened – i.e., the Timbers 1-2 home loss to Los Angeles FC - Savarese didn’t introduce Yimmi Chara and Williamson until the 74th minute. I can’t say that cost them the game (I don’t do counterfactuals), but that doesn’t feel like enough time for most attacking players to get hold of a game. Yimmi’s special - 90 minutes may not be enough for him - but I would have liked to see another 10 minutes or more for Eryk; it’s not like Jaroslaw Niezgoda did much outside one shining moment early in the 2nd half, after all. Moreover, Eryk strikes me as the kind of player who needs some time to figure out who’s picking up what he’s dropping; Niezgoda’s seems the same, for what it's worth, but I gave up on seeing Gio put him anywhere besides the front line months ago.

Minnesota United FC 4-4 Portland Timbers: Rose-Colored Shades, Baby....

Yes, and that sunset.

Despite its loin-stirring grandiosity, I have no grand analysis to share about the Portland Timbers 4-4 road brawl early today at Minnesota United FC. I mean, what’s there to say about a demolition derby besides “a bunch of shit ran into another bunch of shit”? And yet I, like nature, find a way...

To answer the obvious question – i.e., did I lose faith? – of course I did. What other response can one have to seeing your team’s defense take two wet shits on an already-soiled mattress? Apologies for the crudeness of the metaphor – and I hope the sub-text that Minnesota’s first goal didn’t bother me nearly as much as the other two – but I started the outline of another yes-I-am-nervous post immediately after the halftime whistle blew. Also, as evidenced by a tweet floated into public domain early in the second half (see my game thread), I didn’t feel much better until Sebastian Blanco scored his second goal of the match – from open play too – which brings me to the only real take-away I have from this game.

Nothing has my bowels bounded up all season like the Timbers inability to score. Given that, seeing them score four goals – and seeing Blanco, of all the players on the roster, come alive? – there’s nothing to call both things but what I’ve been waiting for since First Kick and and/or that live-broadcast de-pantsing of Sporting Kansas City earlier in the season. Having that to look at helps me look past all kinds of flaws, which helped because Portland had plenty tonight. That said, and on a very fundamental level, all it takes for me to believe the Timbers can go somewhere in any given season is a reliable path to goal. And, if I’m being honest, a semi-reliable path to goal carries me a couple steps closer to interested. Now come the caveats. Because of course I have caveats.

Only two observations from my preview post for this game came through: 1) that the Loons, much like the Timbers, are at their best on the break, and 2) that they haven’t been all the way present lately. I didn’t expect the latter to come good as early as it did, but that paled against Minnesota’s defensive collapse over the first 20 minutes of the second half. Few soccer-writing cliches get the ready pass that “a tale of two halves” gets, but I don’t know that anyone has adequately explained the why/how the fuck of a team dominating one half (as Minnesota did in the first half) and then nodding off in a way that would make Sleeping Beauty say, “damn” in the second. How does that switch go off, and is there someone we can pay to make that happen in every Timbers game that happens between now and the end of my life and/or when I lose interest?

Seattle Sounders 0-3 Portland Timbers: Fun! (And Pointless Anxiety!)

First, so, SO good.

Tonight’s challenge is to walk the line between celebrating a good, useful, comedy-rich win and acknowledging that, despite the 3-0 score-line, the Portland Timbers didn’t play a great game. They may not have even played a good one.

Going the other way, I see not just free money in my bank account, but a fall-down fucking hysterical situation where Mike Penso waves off a penalty shout for a trip on Nico Lodeiro that 90% of the world agrees he should give, only to reward the Timbers with an equally obvious call (something like) 40-45 minutes later for a handball just inside the area, and only after video review. Maybe the whole CCL banner stunt felt tacky to Penso too...

Because I’m about to grind a couple personal axes, I want to make a couple things very clear. First, I genuinely enjoyed the win. If nothing else, it’s exciting, i.e., a dramatic pratfall in the middle of Seattle’s presumed stroll to the throne that so many people (including me) expect them to make. Everything down to the start of the game worked toward setting up that narrative; Seattle even had one of their typical flurries around the 17th-19th minutes, one of those periods where they got off two quality shots out of a period of sustained pressure. Related thereto, and more than a little fortunate, Aljaz Ivacic completely missed both shots; he didn’t see Raul Ruidiaz’s shot till it bonked off his head and bravo, Claudio Bravo, for clearing the ball off the line on the other, but ain’t that soccer, sometimes? (Surely, you get all or some of that in here?) Isn’t that why they call it the blues?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the game only really turned when Seattle’s Jackson Ragen got sent off for a wild-ass foul on Eryk Williamson, like, stupid early in the second half. Sure, Portland scored a go-ahead goal out of three passes and Jaroslaw Niezgoda’s ass at the 24th minute – also, hold this thought, because I’m obsessing – but I didn’t feel the weight of resignation among Seattle's players until after Ragen’s dismissal. As much as Portland’s opener put Seattle on their heels, they played as if someone had set their game-plan on fire and waggled it in front of them (while doing some really uncomfortable, faux-erotic dance) after the Ragen’s second yellow. From that point forward, some vague sense of not knowing what to do next weighed on their every step and every pass.

Basically, as good as the goal felt (very! thanks!), it didn’t take too much to imagine how Seattle would get back into the game at the half-time whistle. Five minutes after that red card, I straight up knew they had too much doubt in their heads to get anything better than the draw. Part of me thinks Brian Schmetzer chased his charges onto the field after burning the thought “put your stamp on the game” into their heads. When Ragen did, the wheels spun off.

Nashville SC 2-2 Portland Timbers: Improv Without a Prompt & a Bit o' Luck

I feel good, I do...just keep the damn thing on, for now.

What lies all but inertly for long stretches of time, only to come to and get to business?

The answer could be Jaroslaw Niezgoda or, in this game and, best case, the season, the Portland Timbers. It could be both, it could be neither: that’s my way of signaling I won’t even start getting ahead of myself.

After slipping down to somewhere between doomed and rock-bottom, the theretofore irrelevant Portland Timbers nabbed two straight brass rings on their way to a 2-2 draw on the road at Nashville SC on the back of (yet) a(nother) brace from the theretofore irrelevant Jaroslaw Niezgoda, at which point you have to ask yourself, is it all just a metaphor waiting for the big director in the sky box to whisper...action?

Again, good sense and more than a few visuals from tonight make a strong case for walking along the bandwagon to see what happens before you run ahead of it shouting promises of beer, wine and trophies. Best not say reckless things, and so on. If only the next word were “but.”

Leaving points on the table has become a house specialty for Nashville, for one, even against lower-rated teams that the Timbers. While I’d argue they never looked dominant tonight (confident might even be a stretch), you could feel the nerves of both team and city rattling the second a pair of their errors gifted Niezgoda the penalty kick. Penalty kicks being what they are – which Dairon Asprilla did his bit to sign, seal and deliver the Timbers to within one goal of one point – those two moments could have served as a wake-up call to Nashville or a rallying flag to the Timbers.

Fortunately for the visitors, momentum had already tilted Portland’s way courtesy of Eryk Williamson coming on for the valiant, sometimes-limited, yet clearly kaput, Yimmi Chara. [Ed. - I’ll defend him as a player (though probably not a DP...and is he still?) more than most; if they held a Utility Player of the Year Award and they gave me a vote, Yimmi would get mine, but I digress.] I also doubt any Timbers fan would seriously argue that Portland didn’t have a better second half. I’ll get to that, and Eryk’s role in it, but a word about the first half first.

Red Bull New York 1-1 Portland Timbers: Through Wind, Through Rain, Through Bull, etc.

It is called showing up to work. Dammit.

To offer a metaphor, the Portland Timbers road game at Harrison, New Jersey, compared to the experience of walking to the mailbox in a windstorm. It feels impossible when you first step into it, but, foot by foot, you figure out how to stand up, then you figure out how to walk, and, finally, you get the mail. Mission accomplished.

Sure, the wind still knocked you into a face-plant on the way back, but also, you got mail!

To set aside the metaphor, the Timbers poached a point from Red Bull New York, and stole two of theirs in the deal. No one wanted the 1-1 draw it ended on, but, returning to the metaphor, Portland found their feet tonight, and it was good. With few exceptions, either for players or in moments, they looked neither flustered nor too casual, and nearly every player in green grew into the game. Even if the result itself wasn’t good, it was good for morale. Die with yer boots on, if you’re gonna go down, take a good swing before the stars come out, etc.

To expand the commentary(/switch metaphors), playing Red Bull amounts to an effort in treading water - i.e., keeping your head up long enough find a safe harbor where you can get it together and get out of the situation. And, after a shaky start - and Pablo Bonilla and Marvin Loria stood out in that regard - the Timbers did that. In a nice bit of chemistry meeting in the middle, they collectively picked up the pace on the passes and provided options to make them happen. The way Red Bull plays makes it hard to get far out ahead - and, if you love the Timbers don’t look at the xG (because it wasn’t far wrong) - but Portland chose a moment to try to get something out of the game and pulled it off. I’ll have more on that later - due to some specifics I want to pull out - but, after three games after fairly uncompetitive soccer, just the idea of rising to an opponent plays like a choir of angels.

The Red Bulls got back into the game, of course. It took them about five minutes after the Timbers’ go-ahead goal (wait for it) for them to scratch back into the game, and only 10 minutes (or so) after that for Aaron Long to put back a second ball off a corner kick, but, a (heavy) flurry on the fringes of Portland’s back-line aside, the home team didn’t create a lot of opportunities. Moreover, when a great opening bounced their way, one that saw Omar Fernandez wide open and way up the field on Justin Rasmussen’s side and with young Justin on walkabout, the further he pushed up-field, the lonelier he got. That happened around the 82nd minute; the legs just weren’t there, something that has long struck me as the risk side of RBNY risk/reward system. I wouldn’t say they had an actual bad night; it’s more that when you shoot a little wild, as they do, you don’t hit a lot.

Colorado Rapids 2-0 Portland Timbers: Kindly Stop Saying "Unbeaten in Three"

In a word, the strategy feels off...

A sum of the sum of things. As in one example of several things. I think that gets to the marrow of it.

Would it help if Timbers attackers did better with their rare chances? Of course. When the call came, neither Marvin Loria nor Santiago Moreno answered (shit…there was one more chance I’m forgetting, but…). Loria, at least, had a dynamite moment of half-consciousness proficiency at the end of the first half, and off the Portland Timbers’ best chance of the day (helluva shot, kid), but Timbers attackers mostly fired the ball over William Yarbrough’s goal like they thought that was the point of the game. To float a theory, when your team isn’t great at finishing chances, that only raises the importance of creating more of them - i.e., if you only score once in every 30 chances, getting to 30 chances as quickly as possible feels like the shortest distance to goal. This being the age of analytics, a necessary disclaimer: I don’t know the Timbers’ goal:chance ratio. I only know they don’t generate a lot of good chances (40 shots total over their last three games), and that makes every chance a little more sacred.

Speaking of creating chances, the Colorado Rapids’ xG spiked for the first time after Diego Rubio got sent off in the 63rd minute. And, sadly, that's what it looked like in real time. The Timbers, meanwhile, flat-lined for the next 10-15 minutes thereafter and generally pissed away a man-advantage for the last 30 minutes of the game. The Big Bad Wolf howling at the brick house. And that seems to be a theme for 2022.

That inspired the title, by the way. After three games unbeaten, the Timbers got beat tonight - 2-0 at the Colorado Rapids - but I can’t remember the last time Portland looked like beating any team. Playing at that level puts their ceiling at draws, most of them goal-less, and that’s not a great place to be for a variety of reasons, up to and including entertainment. Worse, they haven’t exactly played the cream of MLS during that time - i.e., at Houston, v Real Salt Lake, and, tonight, at Colorado, aka, as close to middling (and yet still higher than the Timbers) that it gets - and that adds up to 282 minutes, plus stoppage time and in reasonably playable conditions, since the Timbers have scored a goal. I never thought Colorado on the road would be easy, but the few chances Portland got seemed to surprise (and baffle) them as much as they did me and it’s been the same thing for a while now: they don’t make chances, they grasp at them. So long as a team plays like that, the defense needs to have a perfect evening, maybe even something Disney magical…and yet the 0-2 final score speaks for itself…

Houston Dynamo FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: A Lotta Nope & Homework for Gio

This, only even more dandy.

Wow. That one just kind of sat there, didn’t it? A couple things happened now and again to make you think the game might open up, or at least kick out of neutral. Nope.

Houston Dynamo FC hosted yesterday’s goal-less draw versus the Portland Timbers and, yeah, the whole thing felt the same as two dudes squaring off for a fight, both of them announcing loudly “I don’t throw the first punch, bro.” At most, you can think of moments like Josecarlos Van Rankin’s no-look near-assist to Darwin Quintero as one of those dudes getting shoved and, say, falling backwards over a garbage can. He gets up, none the worse for the wear but some wet spots on the seat of his pants, while his wiser friend (Aljaz Ivacic) helps him up and away from the scene, without further embarrassment or potential pain, announcing over this shoulder, “let it go, man. He's not worth it.”

And I think that’s all I can get out of that metaphor.

The Timbers handed Houston at least one more breakthrough - courtesy of Quintero and Fafa Picault combining to break a high offside trap - but Ivacic bailed out Portland again. The Timbers’ new No. 1 pulled their asses out of the fire again in the 2nd half - and all those saves are lovingly documented in the highlights (which helped recall who did what on the morning after) - so you kept waiting for the rest of the team to do something with the pocket money he gave them. To their credit, Portland created their best chances during spells of attacking pressure, periods when they’d seemed to make the conscious, collective decision to get players forward to see if they can’t buy the go-ahead goal. Cristhian Paredes fired the best shot I can remember - and from a good if crowded spot - and I noted some better-than-half chances for each of Bill Tuiloma, Yimmi Chara, Marvin Loria, and a largely aimless Jaroslaw Niezgoda (hold that thought), but whether by lunging (Bill), or kicking more dirty that clean. Nope.

Both teams subbed in players of interest over the second half - for Houston, Corey Baird for Tyler Pasher (who let Portland’s Claudio Bravo catch up to his best moment), Zeca for Griffin Dorsey, and Thorleifur (is Thor a nickname?) Ulfarsson for a largely aimless Sebastian Ferreira; for Portland Dairon Asprilla for Niezgoda, David Ayala for…Paredes, Loria for Santiago Moreno…good Lord, why did I start this section, then, later Eryk Williamson for Sebastian Blanco - and, again, nearly all those changes made you hope ‘n’ wonder that each move might get the same unstuck. Nope.

When Houston’s Teenage Hadebe got chucked for his second yellow at the 75th minute, I couldn’t have been alone in thinking that, surely, this momentous decision will finally deliver the moment this game has waited on for…75 minutes. Yeah, no, didn’t happen.

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-3 Portland Timbers: No, Thank You. No, Really.

Happy to have it, disturbed I needed it.

Sweet Jesus. Feels like you need a chart with an interpretive guide with an addendum to read that one. On the plus side, the Portland Timbers picked up their second handful of three points in 2022 with a 3-2 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps. On the down side, Vancouver looks as shitty as their record - i.e., 1-4-1, but for the San Jose Earthquakes, etc. To nudge the cold, hard facts back toward a positive direction, Portland grabbed those three points on the road, never a bad thing. But let’s dig deeper

First and foremost, I’d argue Portland looked the better team throughout - can I get a “thank God” on that, HA-llelujah! - and I’d be stunned if the numbers don’t back that up. Checking………okeh, let’s take a step back and define “better,” because maybe there’s a language barrier here, or maybe I’m just not vibing with the data-dorks at MLSSoccer.com, but they’re saying most of differently, so maybe it’s time to take another step back to look at all this from a greater distance.

What went right for the Whitecaps today?

I thought Ryan Gauld looked all right, or he looked like what I remembered at least - e.g., hyper-active (in a good way), eager to combine and make things happen. He kept Timbers defenders and midfielders chasing all over the place, drew one penalty and came close to drawing a couple others - something I can’t stress that enough given Silvio Petrescu’s beer-googled evening of refereeing (i.e., the VAR was busy). I also thought Russell Teibert played a strong game, too, and in the same kind of omni-present way. Finally, above and beyond terrorizing Josecarlos Van Rankin for most of the night, Cristian Dajome scored a peach of a goal off a collective mental slip by Portland’s left side. Still, I’m not sure I’d call what I watched a two-goal performance by Vancouver; they scored their second goal on their second penalty kick - and on a call I wouldn't have made, fwiw - and it’s hard not to score one when you get two free cracks from 12 yards out. Petrescu/the Timbers D handed them some padding, in other words. Now, about the Timbers' performance...

It left me more happy than frustrated, for one, but it’s complicated from there. Marvin Loria found space down the left for as long as he played and, sure, give the man credit for the cutting inside to create the penalty kick that put Portland ahead (and on one helluva kick by Dairon Asprilla), but I’d also argue Loria killed more plays than he helped along over the course. And I think that makes Loria the perfect talisman for this win. Only a couple Timbers played a solid 90 (or less, depending) - fwiw, I’d put Bill Tuiloma, Diego Chara, Cristhian Paredes and, at long last, Aljaz Ivacic in that group - but just about every player had a moment or two when he did something a little better than. For instance, Asprilla didn't have a bad night - e.g., he stretched the field nicely and did some stout hold-up work - but it didn't add up to much besides a lot of running around. Until, that is, his moment when it arrived (aka, the penalty kick). He capped it off with a lovely gesture to a grieving Zac McGraw…just, all the emojis, guys, except maybe the poo and the fruit teenagers use as innuendos, and those moments exonerated whatever flaws marred Asprilla’s (et. al.’s) game and that gets to how the Timbers got a good result against a team that, so far, looks like it’s going to through some things instead of go anywhere in 2022.

Timbers Preview: Hopes and (...Restrained?) Expectations for a Weekend in Canada

The MLS Standings, in puffin form.

Courtesy of an invitation I can’t refuse (or, honestly, don’t want to), I may or may not actually catch this one. That said, this wouldn’t be a bad one to skip, at least based on what I expect to see. Let’s talk about why…

It’s not secret that the Portland Timbers have…not started strong. The Vancouver Whitecaps haven’t done any better - e.g., two fewer points than Portland, a guano-spattered roost immediately below in the standings (if with the one game in hand, along with most of the league); they have a -6 goal differential to Portlands…-4 (call it a teaser) and the ‘Caps have scored three, count ‘em, three goals in 2022 (0.6 goals per game, woo!). So, why is it so damn hard to see the Timbers coasting to victory up in Canada tomorrow night?

Both teams share similar patterns of play for one, e.g., two shit results aside, both on the road - for Vancouver/the record, their 0-4 loss at Columbus Crew SC in Week 1 and a 1-3 loss at Los Angeles FC in Week 4 (fuck it, I'm doing this once; here's the Form Guide; dig as the spirit moves you) - but both Portland and Vancouver have played the opposition close outside of that. Still, those shit results say both teams are capable of defensive collapses in the right situation. I’d be stunned if that happens to Portland in Vancouver, so stunned I’ll leave that thought there. To dig a little deeper

I have yet to dig deep or, more bluntly, give a shit about the Whitecaps’ in 2022. Between playing so many on the road and hosting tricky teams at home - e.g., they hosted a CCL-leggy New York City FC in Week 2 (0-0 draw), and Sporting Kansas City last weekend (1-0 W, for the ‘Caps) - Vancouver has by and large delivered the results I expected them to in each (i.e., losses, maybe draws), so what’s to investigate? Because I hop on every MLS in 15 highlight like a junkie, and knowing this game was coming up, I did dig into Vancouver’s win last weekend against SKC and, it gives off strong “only a mother/diehard can love this” vibes. The ‘Caps scored a half-trash goal somewhat late, with a big assist from SKC’s aggression approach to defense (two players eager to please “angry dad” (aka, Peter Vermes), bolted after the same ball, leaving the fatal space behind) and the chance for the shot getting tangled between Lucas Cavallini and Ryan Raposo (who actually scored it). Overall, the game had all the grace of a bunch of drunken Labradors chasing a ball on ice skates. The xG sucked (1.0 for Vancouver, a dismal 0.6 for SKC; also this isn't atypical) and no one looked particularly great outside moments, and the game didn’t dish many of those.

FC Dallas 4-1 Portland Timbers: Some Color(ful) Commentary on a(n Ideally Irrelevant) Debacle

Only less good than the Blazing Sword.

As noted in early communications, I only realized today that I’ve been posting real-time narratives of every game I’ve watched for two, three years now. Here’s tonight’s transcript and, for what it’s worth, I think it catches the highlights, just so and all that. Now, to expand a little…

I’ve heard the phrase “a half to forget” to describe one of those 45 minutes in Hell stretches that every team faces now and again. That phrase is stupid, and may no one utter it every again, even in jest. Those are precisely the kinds of halves (halfs? calfs?) that a team should never forget. It should be the bulletin board rage-spiration that one gets from looking in the mirror on his/her/their worst day, an interminable 45 minutes where every player on the field contributed a little fuck up to create a great big Voltron of fuck up. So, yeah, #neverforget

The headless-chicken scramble you see in the highlights of each of Jesus Ferreira’s threefirst-halfgoals gives a fair impression of Portland’s first half, aka, the soccering equivalent of asking “what the fuck just happened?” two full fucking minutes after it did. It would take a miracle to come back from such colossal and repeated breakdowns. To their credit, the Timbers gave it a fair crack. And that’s real praise. Speaking for myself, I would have asked the refereeing crew for a towel throw in under the rules of Association Football, as currently written and adjudicated, to spare my eyes the sore.

 Portland took their first big step into the game - “back into” amounts to forgiving anything about that first half - when they started to, for lack of a better word, try. They ditched staying organized and vaguely interested for making Dallas work for just about any pass closer to Portland’s goal than Dallas’ attacking third. The second big adjustment came with Sebastian Blanco coming on for a theretofore pretty well useless Santiago Moreno. I’ll get into all that shortly, but first…

His joy = your pain.

This game ended in a 1-4 loss for the Timbers. It’s been about…nine months(? no, eight) since I’ve seen them fall apart like they did today. And, sure, I get the thing about Texas and March and the team will get better as [_______] player comes back. None of that explains away the sheer, collective uselessness of Portland’s first half. All they can do is play like it never happened…which, okeh, yes, I picked at the metaphor long enough to figure out the true meaning of “a half to forget,” it’s possible I found the true meaning of Christmas (don’t let dad drink before noon), and that’s pretty much my take-away from this…game. Portland kinda sorta punched back, if 36 minutes far too fucking late, but I’ve watched this team long enough to know how they work. Or can work. And, in their defense on most days, it does. Now, back to the action…

Western Conference Final Preview: Notes on Lunch Ladies and Intensity

Best served with a "you're stuck here" hostility.

I’m poking around the Internet tonight in a vain attempt to find something more compelling to say about tomorrow’s Western Conference Final than, they will or they won’t. That’s to say, I don’t think there’s anything anyone involved with either the Portland Timbers or Real Salt Lake can do besides lay down the marks and hope their players hit them.

You see things - e.g., Albert Rusnak coming back for RSL; Sebastian Blanco might be back for the Timbers (but…how much of him?), how so much depends on Yimmi Chara (and a red wheel/barrow/glazed with rain; and I agree, if for a different reason), Portland’s considerable dominance over the 2021 season (3 wins, 12 goals to RSL’s four), etc. - but that’s all graffiti on the random-number-generator hype-machine that is The Mothership, more branding than information. And it tells the same story to boot - i.e., they will or they won’t.

Stumptown Footy put in more effort than spitting out a couple hot-takes [Ed. - I’m not likely to give much more, so…] - e.g., they flagged the suspension of Everton Ruiz - but they also took the correct path of chucking regular season results out the window, because I don’t see RSL playing with the same drunk-puppy abandon they did in that 6-1 drubbing back in late September. They also shared a thought I had;  here, the parenthetical is key:

“Whether it is by absorbing and countering, or by dictating the play themselves (I could honestly see it going either way), Portland’s attackers will have to be ready to offset and unbalance RSL’s defense.”

In my mind, the most meaningful will-they/won’t-they Timbers fans will see tomorrow comes with the approach Portland takes to the game. Do they come out aggressive and try to crush RSL’s spirit? Do they focus first on keeping their shit together (as they did against Colorado) to tempt RSL into the drunken puppy thing? If so, how long do they keep it up? And, since I’m writing all this out, what do I think they should do? [Ed. - Does not fucking matter; I’ve moved to thinking about spectator sports the same way I felt about school lunches: Gio et. al. will serve up something and it’ll be good or bad depending on the day. Also, slot machines offer a uniquely valid, if baffling, metaphor.]

Real Salt Lake 1-3 Portland Timbers: Easy, Breazy, Kinda Sleazy

Call it a general sentiment.

I don’t know how many times the Portland Timbers’ defense scrambled over the 13 minutes I spent staring at a(n at best) regional football game, but I saw at least two instances after it. Between that and the black box of the opening 13, I didn’t know what to think about the Timbers’ chances early.

Even after Sebastian Blanco cleaned up an oopsie with a standing (well, leaning) header, putting the Timbers up 1-0, I didn’t see any reason to think the game would slip out of competitive…then Blanco forced a fuck-up out of Aaron Herrera, putting Portland up 2-0. The game ended there if you ask me. While I have no doubt RSL out-shot the Portland (and I was right), the Timbers defense never gave them a look even one-seventh as good as the sitter RSL handed Blanco. Put it this way, you can’t build a sound home when you get the angles that wrong.

With that, the Timbers walked out 3-1 winners, sole beneficiaries of RSL’s largesse on the season, and, if I’m not mistaken, immovably in fourth-place in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference.

I’m not sure the game deserves much than that. It crapped out as a contest around the 65th minute, RSL clawed back the one, but I doubt even their fans give a shit about it. They handed it to Portland. And I mean that in at least two ways - i.e., RSL defended with neither a net nor a plan, something Blanco can tear to shit all on his own…and he did, but doesn’t that beg the question, what can we really take from this one/win? I mean, the Timbers beat RSL with a Dairon Asprilla tied behind their backs. The rest files under…

Loose Ends/Theories
Take a Bow, Utahans
To start, I just want to say how impressed I am that RSL had they season they did with that avalanche of bullshit over their heads. I hope they make it…just glad it didn’t come at the Timbers’ expense.

The Rest They’ve Earned
I’d rest starters for the Austin game. The result won’t change a damn thing and it should give the depth of the depths a shot of confidence in case the call comes down…then again, a bad result could shatter their confidence to dust, so…eh, I say go for it. Blanco’s the only player I’d play on principle - he needs the reps at this point - but sit I’d sit anyone else who could use it. That thought starts with the last name Chara, but I’m very open-minded on the rest…does Portland even have a third forward?

Los Angeles Galaxy 4-1 Portland Timbers: A Little Like Bankruptcy

There were signs...

I might have told this story before, so I appreciate your patience. When my family moved west in the early mid-1980s, I landed on my first select team - to be clear, though, this was “select” in the context of Pullman, Washington, so not so select. This put me in contact with my first soccer coach who took both himself and the role seriously (more the former, honestly). At any rate, any time he got it in his head that his charges weren’t trying hard enough, he’d throw up his hands and stop watching. I was fine with that - which is about 40% of why my career as an athlete never went anywhere (a lack of natural ability accounts for the other 60%) - but my teammates would beg “Coach” to watch again.

Phil Scudderi (the elder), wherever you are, I finally feel you. I turned away from this turd around the 80th minute.

As for the Portland Timbers, things fell apart gradually and then all at once in a, frankly, embarrassing 1-4 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy. I think that borrowed line is about bankruptcy, but do correct me if I'm wrong…

After a first half decent enough to make one think the game could go either way, holy shit, was that second half off-putting. Then again, the utter failure of the Timbers’ defense on that second goal - three LA players unmarked in the heart of the area? seriously? - gave a warning as unmistakable as a wall of “Do Not Enter” signs guarding a freeway off-ramp. Sadly, that fuck up looked like a brick wall with a force-field in front next to pure drunken chaos that led to the penalty Portland gave up for the third goal; I doubt any of the players could tell you there were in the LA area, never mind where they shouldn've been on the field. Add a fourth goal that shared all the bad habits of the first (ball-watching to the point of paralysis) and there’s your favorite home team on the wrong side of a blowout that could have run to half dozen plus to one. The xG tells the tale as well as anything…

The few positives for Portland came in the first half. They moved the ball pretty well - Diego Valeri, in particular, had some great touches and layoffs - and the Timbers found the chances I thought they would. Jeremy Ebobisse scored one on the least likely of those chances, but, from that point on, the worm had turned and grew into something beastly. Because I watched the game this morning, there goes any hope of blacking out that second half. Sheeeeeeee-iiiiittttttt.

MLS Weakly, 01 30 2021: Ignoring the Big Whale in the Fish Tank

It’s been one of those weeks in the domestic soccer world in which big things have moved very, very slowly. On the one hand, sure, trades great and small continue to come together and fall apart, but an air of irrelevance will swallow them up until the relevant parties land the whale in the fish tank one way or the other…

…which refers, of course, to the ongoing negotiations over the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between Major League Soccer (MLS) and its players’ union (MLSPA). Because my thinking on that has only got more muddled and frustrated, I’ve decided to bury the comments on it at the end of the post. I mean, why not pretend the lockout threatened by the owners won’t happen all the way up to the moment when it does? Let’s pull of a reverse mullet and put the party in the front and the business in the back.

A couple players moved around - e.g., Kelyn Rowe signed with the Seattle Sounders, Atlanta United signed some old dude (37) for a year, and the Portland Timbers are still somehow working on “finalizing” the signing of right back Josecarlos Van Rankin - which doesn’t give much to talk about on that front. The U.S. Men’s National Team* plays a game tomorrow against Trinidad & Tobgao - and I will watch it, thirsty bastard that I am, while refusing to give in to the hype of the countdown to kickoff timer that U.S. Soccer posted (for now) on its site, or the idea that I’ll watch anything of consequence when I turn in, never mind three of them.

[*Ed. - The U.S. Women’s National Team has three games in February and I still feel…funny, I guess about watching one national team, but not the other. The only response/defense I have is that I need a certain amount of context in order to enjoy (or, more accurately, judge something) and that leaves time to enjoy one national team, and so I stick with the one I started with…even as I believe I won’t live to see the U.S. Men win a World Cup….ooh, a poll!]

Thus beginneth and endeth league-wide news. The league released an outline of the 2021 MLS schedule, but it’s unclear at time of writing that they did that for the fans or for their own purposes - specifically, to put more pressure on the players to give in on the presently-stalled CBA negotiations. Think MLS gave the MLSPA until February 5 to captiula…or, rather, agree to a shaf…or, rather, sign the CBA and move on. Y’know, for the sake of unity, a popular argument these days.

The middle section of this post will, 1) kick around some idle thoughts on the two teams I follow, Portland and FC Cincinnati, and 2) talk as if the season will happen. To start with the easy one.

Portland Timbers 2020 Retrospective: The Season I Let Jesus Take the Wheel...and How the Car Wound Up in the Ditch

I still feel good overall. (Nailed it!)

Fucked up year, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just thinking that reminds me of the ads at the beginning of the lockdowns when all the commercials included some perfunctory spin on the phrase, “as we go together through these [random adjective generator for new/difficult] times.”

It’s fitting there, though, because for the first time I can remember, I more or less shut down the critical capacities in my brain fairly early into the 2020 season and just decided to believe everything would work out just fine. Maybe that goes back to some lizard-brain coping mechanism of basically going limp in the face of danger (e.g., the way I quietly muttered, “oh well,” as my car slid into a ditch just before last Christmas), but I think something simpler suggested the choice.

I’ve insisted that either or both Diego Chara’s or Diego Valeri’s legs would give out “this year” for longer than I should have - and it’s always been Valeri’s that set off the most agist-predictive concern. I didn’t recall what numbers Valeri posted in 2020 till I checked (8 goals, 7 assists) and, sure, they had to manage his minutes, but the former came in higher and the latter didn’t stop him from continuing to serve as both key cog and inspiration for the Timbers - and his set-pieces (corners, in particular) have never looked better. Chara, meanwhile…maybe he can keep retirement eternally at bay by tackling that shit before it sees him coming.

It absolutely didn’t hurt that every player Portland signed ahead of 2020 worked out well or better. Felipe Mora never looked like much, but maybe that’s the same voodoo he uses to lull defenses asleep (and does he double in size when shielding the ball? And do defenders’ eyes somehow see the same thing?) I remember Jaroslaw Niezgoda looking on the verge of passing out after scoring his first goal for the Timbers (what? he came in with a heart issue), but, until his knee blew up toward the end of the season, he showed he could score all kinds of ways and his combination-play added still more fluidity to a much smarter and trickier Timbers attack. Yimmi Chara looked like a miss at the start of the season, but found both feet in time to hold Portland’s attack together as a succession of injuries took one player after another out of the team. On the other end of the field, and no disrespect to Bill Tuiloma, Dario Zuparic gave Larrys Mabiala his missing partner in central defense…also, hold that thought…

Portland Timbers 5-2 Los Angeles Galaxy: You Know They Suck...Right?

Look into my eyes and fail, MF.

Every thought and argument takes the fact that the Los Angeles Galaxy is a terrible fucking soccer team in 2020 as a given. Dead last in the Western Conference, deep into the snipe hunt for worst defensive record in MLS (just four goals off the San Jose Earthquakes’ torrid pace of 45 goals allowed), and just two points ahead of FC Fucking Cincinnati? Live by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, as they have, you wilt like flowers in direct sun when he’s gone, baby.

Also, the Portland Timbers really seem to have their number. With tonight’s 5-2 win, the Timbers have scored 15 goals against the Galaxy this season and in just four games, more than 1/3 of LA’s total goals allowed for 2020 (this assumes the interns updated the current standings timely). The numbers just keep getting bigger for LA, too, seeing that the Timbers scored eleven of those two goals over their past two….just painfully lopsided wins. I mean, holy shit, LA…

What I want to lead with tonight are the 10-15 minutes that followed the half-time whistle. It wasn’t just that the Galaxy scored a goal inside the first minute so much as what happened afterwards that really sticks with me - largely because we’ve all seen it before. First, the opposition starts cutting out the passes that used to flow freely out of the Timbers back line; next thing you know, tackles get less crisp and timely in the defensive third and, about five minutes later, the whole goddamn Timbers defense can’t clear its lines with a free header or a clean boot. It doesn’t even take a good team to set off waves of panic - as proved by tonight’s Exhibit A, the LA Galaxy. Had they pulled the game to 3-2 by, say, the 58th minute, who knows? LA had their chances, and they pulled the Timbers all over all the way up until Eryk Williamson scored one not so much against the run of play as the laws of physics to restore the Timbers the three-goal lead they never quite gave up. Seriously, for all the moments of calm Portland managed, LA tied them on shots and pushed them hard for shots on goal - oh, and neither team polished a diamond in this one.

To return to a theme, and regardless of whether or not this counts as a late development - as in, the Timbers own the 2020 series 3-1-0, and with a +6 goal differential (15 gf, 9 ga), but the last two results (6-3 and 5-2, both for Portland) skew the hell out of the sample - the Timbers have pulled some snake-charmer shit on the Galaxy recently, just a whole thing of dazing them then fucking them up over and over and over.

Portland Timbers 1-1 Los Angeles FC: Aggressively Sticking with the Positives

And here I shall stay until I am moved...

To come right out and say it, the Portland Timbers' 1-1 home draw against Los Angeles FC broadcast a freaky signal. On the one hand, you’ve got the bare result - i.e., a loss at home and against a direct rival - while, on the other, you had had the Timbers best-possible attacking set-up pin-down and straight-up fuck-up one the league’s reigning powers, yes, even with several key players missing, but didn’t they already kick their own ass by shipping Walker Zimmermann, I mean, it’s not like the Timbers stipulated to that in the pre-game, but I digress…

To continue a stray thought in the above, the Timbers got all the way up LAFC’s head and well into their ass from, loosely, the 35th minute to the 55th, and it was equal parts relentless and delightful. As often happens with LAFC and Portland, they played a wide-open game, with both teams wanting space and, where they wanted to, giving it, and with most of the defending coming in either final third; it was confident and tidy on both sides. All that chaos failed to show up as shots in the box score for a reason, in other words, but the Timbers put their boot on the game and created enough chances until they finally unlocked LAFC’s defense for Jeremy Ebobisse. That goal didn’t just put a bow on a team effort: it reminded anyone who’s watching of all the ways that Portland’s attack can hurt you…which is not to say that Ebobisse hasn’t scored plenty in 2020, because he has. And that’s global for the Timbers at the moment.

That’s genuinely impressive, by the way, because not every fan gets to follow a team with actual game-winning talent. I know people in that predicament and I experience it myself, if not as acutely. The affliction is real…

And there’s no real flip on this one, no point where I cut against what feels like a reasonable assumption right now: the Timbers are, at worst, competitive for just about any trophy for 2020 that COVID-19 doesn’t take out of the running first. When you consider the grand/decidedly uneven scheme that is the MLS 2020 “regular season” schedule - Portland has lined up against the Seattle Sounders, aka, league special boo, and…fallen legends LAFC, and [mumble, mumble] San Jose [mumble, mumble], while Eastern Conference “royalty” like Toronto FC, the Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew SC have faced a lot of FC Cincinnati, L’Impact Montreal, DC United, Inter Miami CF, and the New York Red Bulls - even if to varying degrees, you can’t help but have questions about all the hidden strengths and weaknesses getting buried with every passing week. To clarify and confirm everything in the above, yes, I do think that Seattle, Portland, and LAFC are playing among the hardest schedules in MLS right now, and I suspect that’ll come through in the end. In other words, the team that crawls out of that pile should have a dynamite shot at a trophy.