Portland Timbers 0-1 Sporting Kansas City: Say, That's Not Right (But It Is)

WWWWAAAHHH!!!!

First, some context: my wife and I had gone on a date prior to the game, and that put me about two sheets to the wind at kickoff. I made it through the game, and then some, but I think I wrapped myself in Sheet 4 or 5 somewhere in there and, in every sense except actually being asleep, called it a night. With that in mind, I’m going to approach this from an impressionist angle.

A feeling sums up the Portland Timbers’ 0-1 loss at home to Sporting Kansas City: a sense of vague yet persistent frustration. Every time a Portland player faced an obstacle, he did it knowing that another obstacle stood beyond that one, and so on to what felt like infinity for some damn reason (or maybe Sheet 3, but I digress). By game’s end, most Timbers players looked not so much tired, as weary*. Enervation in game form: that’s what Saturday’s loss felt like. Running, but never moving, Sisyphus putting his shoulder to the rock again, etc.

Something told me that Portland would never score. I can’t even peg the time this occurred to me – did that come to me before or after KC scored their goal? – but I think I’d experience the former as resignation and the latter as despair, and how far are those two things, really? No team in MLS has had much luck breaking down KC this season, but the Timbers seemed likelier than most teams to do it. Instead, we got a double-layered shit sandwich: a loss at home against a Western Conference rival and an indication that KC’s has both the system and the intent to put their opponents in a submission hold for the length of the 2017 season. They’ll choke off games, basically, and that’s boring, but effective. And boring.

I just sat through the condensed game to fan the fires of memory a little, and here’s where I pick up that asterisk. * Portland’s best chances came late, so my memory failed me a little on that detail (but is that timing issue relevant? you be the judge), but I still maintain there’s a reason my chief mental impression of the night featured Diego Valeri seeming to just scream at referee, Drew Fisher. From the looks of it, it just came out as “WWWAAAAAAHHHHHH!!” It’s like Valeri performance-arted The Scream live, on-field, only instead of wailing about the horror of existence, his felt more like "do you believe this fucking guy?" as a madman's bellow. At least that’s how I remembered it…

DC United 0-0 Sporting Kansas City: Professionals, Grimly at Work

5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock...

[This ties in with something I plan to post either tomorrow or Wednesday, depending on how god’s willing, and in which way. He’s cagey…]

DC United versus Sporting Kansas City, a game that knotted in fairly dreary zeroes, was on the TV the entire time I was in the same room, or a room adjacent thereto. I’m solid from about the 30th minute on, but I was preparing what turned out to be a pretty disappointing pot roast up to that point. So, that’s the disclosure portion out of the way…

Both DC and KC field solid professionals – aka, players who don’t fuck up a lot – so disciplined performances all ‘round, both Saturday and generally. Not a lot of daylight to be had between them, then, and this game felt pretty goddamn technical as a result, but for all the wrong reasons.

The name didn’t so much lack for highlights – KC’s ‘keeper, Tim Melia, saved both the shot and a rebound on a penalty kick, fer crissakes – as the ones it provided delivered on the defensive side. To hit this game solely from DC’s perspective, they handled just about everything KC could throw at them, up to and including an imbalance in possession, but a larger distinction showed up on the attacking side, where DC looked just…slower than Kansas City. I mean this last point in a “running in mud” kind of way: every KC player appeared able to run down any DC attacker in three or five strides.

Sporting KC v. Portland Timbers: One Boring Game, Many Talking Points

Eyes on me, Darlington. Be the ball...

Well, that happened. A goal-less draw against Sporting Kansas City in Kansas City. So, what does it mean?

Maybe it's a general early season thing, but I caught the same thing from the Portland Timbers (and Kansas City) that I caught when watching the New England Revolution play to an equally frustrating result against the Montreal Impact earlier today. One half of the team was all the way there, while the other half wasn't. Of particular significance: the New England broadcast recalled naming Kelyn Rowe as New England's match in that club's blow-out loss against Seattle Sounders FC. That's only remarkable because last week's (general) consensus man-of-the-match for Portland, Darlington Nagbe, had something of an off-night tonight against Sporting KC. There's a reason for that...on to the bullet points:

A Rotating Cast

Most of my personal goat players from Week 2 – notably, Dairon Asprilla and Alvas Powell – were Week 3's better performers, while most of Week 2's brightest stars – notably, again, Nagbe, but also Fanendo Adi, Rodney Wallace, and Jorge Villafana – didn't do so hot in Week 3. It's not as straightforward as that – for instance, both Adi and Wallace came closest to scoring for Portland – as opposed to it being a question of degrees. To give an example, KC's Jalil Anibaba and, particularly, Jimmy Medranda, basically owned the side of the field that Portland tried to hold down with Wallace and Villafana. As for Nagbe, well, the game sort of swallowed him whole. Or, more to the point, KC mauled Nagbe's worst habit – i.e. dribbling around in circles while he thinks about what to do. I tell you, what that kid needs more than anyone else is some fiery-eyed guru to look cold and dead into his eyes and say, "just act, feel the moment." That said, I want to highlight Asprilla because, tonight, he looked the part: aggressive, confident, willing to shoot from range, crashing the box at appropriate moments. Even if he didn't have his defining moment, he put himself in a place to have it. And that beats the shit out of a kick in the head. Maybe we'll get 'em all firing at the same intensity one day. Anyway, next...