Sporting Kansas City 4-1 Portland Timbers: Are My Psychological Preparations Paying Off

Denmark smells like something crawled up its ass and died and brought a yeast infection along for laughs. Things smelled rotten three, four games ago.

Proof!

Here I was all primed to throw out a “I’ve written them off before” lifeline, one that included water‑wings that read, “if they put together a run, not only would that get them into the playoffs, it’d get ‘em there running” (they’re big water‑wings), and then I remembered that, in this season of fetid evil (aka, World Cup year, Qatar edition), the Portland Timbers have only seven games left to go. Between tonight’s result and the most basic math, a “run” would amount to them winning, say, five games of seven down the stretch. By any count, that means starting with a W next week...I mean, with the way the Sounders are playing...

About that result, the Timbers 0-3 road loss at the quite lowly Sporting Kansas City. Yeah, yeah, 1-4 road loss, but when the official webpage can’t get it right (see right/caught you, MFs!!), I feel all right calling the second half a 1-1 draw. Sebastian Blanco’s late consolation came four score minutes and four goals too late, sure, but had Portland played the first half like they played the second, well...we’d have something better to talk about, now wouldn’t we? The stats page backs me up on that too, especially the progress of the xG. Meanwhile, back in reality...

Because I was finishing off a really killer pork chile verde (nailed it), I couldn’t really drink in the details of each of the goals Portland’s allowed. Having just put my eyes and heart through them all again, I’d rank them as follows, the most egregious to the most forgivable: 3rd (all that standing?!), 1st (at least everyone pitched in on the fail!), 2nd (SKC got a bit lucky, but I’m giving an assist to the positively drugged defensive reaction), and 4th (shit happens when your pants go down). The simple story of this game goes something like this: after doing very little for 30 minutes, the Timbers fell apart for fifteen minutes. If I were the coach, I’d make the defense sit through the first and third goals 20 times between now and Friday night. I started the review tonight and I’d add on five more viewings any time the team complained.

Would to gods I had more than a couple positive things to say about Portland’s offense. To their very real credit, it took only a minute or two after the halftime whistle for the Timbers to create good chances; to his very real credit, SKC’s ‘keeper, John Pulskamp, stopped all the good ones. Portland added two more quality shots before the clock ran out – Dairon Asprilla got one, Blanco (who had a decent night after mo’ better support came on) got one more – but that still adds up to one slim shot more than SKC had goals.

Toronto FC 3-1 Portland Timbers: Unbalanced, Undone

Jaroslaw Niezgoda says "Hi."

I’ll start with a confession: I didn’t get the usual granular [ed. - what? listen to yourself, man!] read on the Portland Timbers in their 1-3 loss at Toronto FC because I was catching up with an old friend (#WorthIt). Still, I think I saw enough to state that things did not go well, and with some confidence. Anyone who disagrees may speak now or forever hold your........no takers, eh? Small surprise. The box score reduces that reality into numerical values, none of them good; I remember seeing the shots distributed at 7 shots to 0 sometime during the first half and hoping that improved in some way...but nope. Jaroslaw Niezgoda sends his regards from the remote desert island you can see on Portland’s passing map....

As argued in every preview-esque thing I tweeted going into this game, I expected a track meet in this one – i.e., two defensively-impoverished teams trading blows from the starting whistle to the one that called it a night. What we got instead was a Toronto team probing the Timbers defensive flaws like a dermatologist determined to eradicate acne and Portland playing the role of the face on which said “doctor of science” operates. The defense failed to get their lines right and to a point that left little pockets that Toronto’s freshly-arrived European contingent to exploit in a deeply uncomfortable way. And did they ever...

I didn’t mind that so much – I expected it, in fact, based on a review of the short footage Lorenzo Insigne provided after his arrival – but still felt some optimism that the Timbers would make Toronto’s heretofore shaky defense sweat just as much as Portland’s....but it was not to be, not in 90 minutes and probably not 180. My frustration with the Timbers attack has by now been thoroughly documented and explained in as many ways as I can think of it (I like to keep things fresh), but that did not prepare me for what we all witnessed tonight – aka, as close as a team can get to a no-show after stepping on the field. Flawed as the Timbers attack has been this season, I don’t think it ever slumped to something as helpless as three shots total, with just two on goal.

Thankfully(?), one of those two shots on goal went in. Moreover, it went in off the foot least likely to do anything useful – aka, Josecarlos Van Rankin’s – and, Timbers fans, can we all just take a quick breath and savor the only thing that went right tonight? Portland made at least two smart attacking moves tonight, both delivered by (what else?) quick decisive moves into/across Toronto’s 18 and both ending in shots on goal. Sure, Yimmi Chara fired straight at Alex Bono’s right shin, but the move was there, even if Yimmi wasn’t all the way. Going the other way, can a team win a playoffs-worthy number of games when creating just two good attacking moves? It depends on the quality of the defense behind them, obviously, and that’s where the worm turns and the conversation shifts to all the things that went so terribly wrong tonight.

Nashville SC v Portland Timbers Preview: A Hall of Mirrors in Another House

Makes me wanna puke, too.

The Portland Timbers road form (1-4-4) lends a real "but for Providence Park" vibe to the Timbers 2022 season. On the plus side, they’re playing a team that has struggled to get all three points at home – yes, even lately. First, their numbers:

Nashville SC
Record/Basics: 7-5-5, 26 points, 2-1-3 home, 5-4-2 road; 22 gf, 19 ga, +3
Last 10: TLWLWTWTLW (4-3-3; 2-1-2 home; middling, but last 5 were pretty soft)
Oppo: @ SJ, @ LAG, v RSL, @ HOU, v MTL, v ATL, @ COL, v SJ, v SKC, @ DC

What We Know About Them
I have a misconception that Nashville’s struggling stuck in the back of my mind, but that probably looks at their 2022 through the refracted lens of their home games – more on that later. When most people think Nashville, they probably think Walker Zimmerman at the back, Dax McCarty (somehow still) steering traffic through the middle, and Hany Muhktar running loose up top/off that old war horse C. J. Sapong. And, yes, both have done well in 2022 (8 goals, 5 assists for Hany, 5 goals, 3 assists for Sapong; funny side note on Sapong, he’s still an every other year player). Other words that may come to mind: combative and counter-attacking.

All that has largely held up lately, if with a little less Zimmerman (see, qualifying, World Cup).

Notes on Recent Form
I haven’t seen a ton of Nashville this season – and this’ll be my first full 90 with them – so I’ll have to stretch the numbers a bit. That said, I’m expecting the way they create chances to have a fair resemblance to what they tried – and with some real success against Orlando City SC in their midweek U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal (here’s the MLS in 15 for your edification). Nashville came within three stoppage time minutes of winning that game and had a fair argument for the better team, but that was also another road game; their last two wins both came on the road (at Colorado Rapids and at DC United). When I look at their last three home games – against Atlanta, San Jose and SKC – I’d expect at least five-six points out them, and yet they managed just two. More to the point, they rarely see more of the ball, even at home, and they played arguably their worst game when they attempted possession – the home loss to SKC.

To flesh out the general profile, Nashville doesn’t create a ton of chances – they probably averaged 11 shots/game in their last 5-6 games – but they get a useful number of shots on goal out of it (e.g., around six). And they probably get away with it because they rarely let the opposition get to, never mind much over, a 1.0 xG.

Portland Timbers 7-2 Sporting Kansas City: A Viking Funeral for a Dinghy at Sea

Oh, how I laughed. So, so loud.

When I went to see the live-action Speed Racer, I went in with expectations as low as I was high. I walked out on Cloud 9, wearing one of those smiles that doesn’t go away till you fall asleep and, I’m guessing, pupils big as saucers. I expected nothing, basically, and walked out feeling like a won the lottery. Then again, the same thing happened with Cats. Cats was fucking terrible, but, goddamn, did I have fun watching it…

That’s the only experience I can come up that matches what happened tonight in the Portland Timbers positively rolling 7-2 win over Sporting Kansas City. Everything thing I’d seen and read going in prepped me for SKC to compact its defense and for the Timbers to smash tiny fists against it for 90 minutes, plus stoppage time. Instead, the second half happened, and very early on.

Because drawing talking points out of a blip within a blip feels like the greatest fools errand since the invention of the snipe hunt, I won’t let the magic of seven goals scored carry me too far in either direction; I’ll neither hype the result, nor wallow in its flaws. In the biggest of pictures, the fact that SKC has sucked more than their share this season falls well short of a state secret, so I didn’t expect anything more from them than energetic resistance. And, to give a general opinion, how have they not moved on from Peter Vermes? His shit’s been baking in the sun for a year or three by now…

In my mind, the entire game turned on SKC handing Portland the first goal, and so cheaply too. The defenders parted and, lo, goal opened wide for Bill Tuiloma. Nothing about that goal made sense; all that time to organize and you let a guy shoot free from eight yards out. The game didn’t end there, of course - they had a whole damn second half of slapstick ahead - and SKC briefly threatened to get back into it. I put that period into the space between the 10th minute and the 25th, and it produced a couple shots from range, but not much more. Things loosened up a bit over final 20 minutes of the first half, but neither team did much; as recorded in one strand of the mini-multiverse of twitter threads I had in this game, I begged for someone, anyone to find inspiration around Portland in the first half, because I could not.

Porltand Timbers 0-0 Real Salt Lake: A Stat That Screamed Volumes

Look, just hear me out...

For once, I can honestly say this won’t take long.

Second, the facts: the Portland Timbers drew Real Salt Lake 0-0 at Providence Park last night. Neither team deserved more than one point, though, all things considered, RSL had the two best looks at goal and therefore the better claim on all three points. (Also, it really says something when the video secton of the game summary includes no individual highlights.)That said, after enduring this game, I feel like I could make the beginning of a case that some draws should see both teams awarded zero points; maybe leave it to a panel of international judges to decide, as in Olympic ice skating, only screen them to make sure real-world political alliances don’t slip any mischief into the final analysis.

To linger in that alternate universe, if I had to argue the Timbers’ right to one point to those judges, the case I made would go something like this: they posted decent numbers and put enough shots on frame to meet some bare standard for competence; moreover, a (reportedly) dodgy hip forced them to play without their lucky rabbit’s foot, aka, Diego Chara. Finally, and this is a personal note, they did one thing I asked of them in my preview for this match [Ed. - that’ll be the last one I post this season; those are fucking up the writing schedule.]: multiple Timbers shot the ball from range, with Cristhian Paredes taking the two best cracks, with honorable mention to Bill Tuiloma.

Now…if I was the prosecutor…

To start, the fact that Paredes (a box-to-box midfielder) and Tuiloma (a central defender) fired Portland’s best shots means a whole bunch of dudes didn’t show up for their shift last night. Santiago Moreno cut inside and clipped a decent shot toward Zac MacMath’s goal, but that one, like nearly all the rest, looked something a teammate would fire at him in warm-ups. Too many players - to name names, Dairon Asprilla, Eryk Williamson, Yimmi Chara, and, yes, Sebastian Blanco - continue to look rusty, something that simply won't do one-quarter into the regular season. The defense did all right, collectively, but Claudio Bravo will miss next week’s game at the Colorado Rapids due to a stupid, yet very on-brand tackle in the (fucking) corner of the field (the dark side of eagerness), and…just…for why Josecarlos Van Rankin? The argument that the Timbers can’t do better in that position just depresses me at this point. I mean, have the Timbers tried walking through the stands to ask for volunteers, because random, solicited tryouts stopped feeling irrational at the beginning of April. Related, I going to need some rose-colored glasses and a couple cocktails laced with ecstasy to make me feel good about the fullback situation next week.

Portland Timbers Preview: Versus RSL, Desperation & Despondency

The elephant calling bullshit on the image...

First, I’m going to my first Portland Timbers game since that God-forsaken game against Minnesota United FC at the height of last summer’s heatwave, which, taking everything together, it felt like watching a game on fucking Mars. At any rate…

…wait, one more thing. FC Cincinnati plays Los Angeles FC this week and, because LAFC is a Western Conference team, I came in and out of thinking Portland plays LAFC this weekend and Cincy played…shit, I don’t know? Cleveland? Memphis? By that I mean another team in the league, obviously(?), but that still kicked my brain brain from one thought process to another as I mapped out the what ifs. It got a little multi-versey, honestly…

Real Salt Lake. Portland hosts RSL tomorrow. And I’m going…fuck, how does the SeatGeek app work? Now, seriously, the game…

Between recent results - e.g., New York City FC handed them their heads, asses, and everything in between last weekend, then they tripped over the North Colorado Hailstorm in the U.S. Open Cup at midweek - and their late form (grimace along at home), I expect them to come into Providence Park in some place in between despondency and desperation. And I suspect that how they approach Saturday’s game will turn on where they fall on that spectrum.

Based on their approach to the first several games of 2022, particularly their early successes, I expect desperation will be the dominant mode and, therefore, expect RSL to play an aggressive game, if not a very aggressive game - e.g., they’ll hunt the ball, challenge everything that comes at them, 90 minutes on the front-foot, and so on; basically, I expect them to play according to the Gospel of Mastroeni. Their hot start cooled off - they haven’t won in four and have just two points from 12 - and that rhymes with the broad theory that they played over their heads and/or teams embroiled in CONCACAF Champions’ League campaigns early in the season and have since crashed back down to Earth. Moreover, the road game at Portland kicks off a tough stretch, or, rather, continues it, seeing as they played away to New York City FC last weekend. About which…

I tuned in just after the 20th minute, which amounted to two goals too late. New York piled on chances, then goals, and the final score looked like a teeter-totter with an elephant on one side and a mouse on the other…only/, unlike in the cartoons, the elephant didn’t remotely mind the mouse. It ended 6-0 and, in certain moments, 10-0 didn’t seem out of the question.

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.

Portland Timbers Preview: Big Fish, Minnows and Goalz

Confident he thinks soccer is for communists, but still...

I had the pleasure of sitting through all of Houston Dynamo FC’s 4-3 win over the San Jose Earthquakes. And I mean that: that was a fun game, plus I got to see Jeremy Ebobisse score apretty brace (miss you, sir; door’s open for me). Sadly, I’m not sure how much anything I saw there helps me know what to expect during the Portland Timbers’ visit to the (not yet) muggy flatlands of East Texas.

To start, I can assure whatever pain you believe the Timbers' defense has caused you personally, it pales next to what San Jose fans endured at Houston (and generally, from what I gather). Neither team played the cleanest game - in fact, they both gave it away like they didn't want it - but San Jose got so turned in circles that they handed Houston chance after chance - probably a multiple of total goals they scored, even if a low one. The Timbers defense commits the odd gaffe - and, hear me out, what if they don’t do that Saturday? - so Houston should have to work harder for this one. Also, hold that thought…

Acknowledging the above doesn’t get the Timbers off scot-free, obviously, not with the way Houston plays. I, like you, do not like the idea of Fafa Picault running at any of Justin Rasmussen (because, rookie), Pablo Bonilla (because destructive puppy; also, done with his suspension, yeah?) or Josecarlos Van Rankin (because, let me count the ways); and that whole situation only gets worse when you fold a marauding Adam Lundqvist into the equation. Houston’s Tyler Pasher could cause some problems as well, but I have more faith in Claudio Bravo and less in Pasher and that helps me feel a little safer about Portland’s left. I still expect to see some amount of clean-up from whoever starts at center-back (more below), but that’s never not true, so…

To lay all my cards on the table, and this brushes past a recent history of struggles in Texas (ft. The Worst Governor in America), I see this as a game a good Timbers team should win. Still, that's the question isn't: are the Timbers a good team in 2022? That remains open in my mind, sadly, and will remain so until the full roster is 100% online, and that’s the thought that rubs against said open question. What can be established (provided you don't think about all the flaws in the theory) is that Portland is a better team than Houston and, by the associative property (transitive?), better than San Jose. Think of it as striving to be the big fish among the minnows.

I don’t have to tell any Timbers fan that, two games excepted (Week 1 v NE, and last weekend at VAN), Portland’s offense hasn’t scored more than one goal per game. Here’s why that matters…

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.

Portland Timbers 1-3 Los Angeles Galaxy: Notes on a Parade of Elephants

I, like you, see more than one problem...

Never has a final whistle sounded more like a choir of angels. With that, let us pick the corn out of that piece of shit.

I’d like to begin by thanking the people involved for the few highlights. First up, Bill Tuiloma for delivering the Portland Timbers their one and literally only highlight with an elegant free-kick early in the second half. Second, let’s have a big round of applause for Madison Shanley, who (from what I gather) sang the national anthem while wearing a very red t-shirt with the equally relevant words, “YOU KNEW” in bold black across the front. Way to use the platform and keep on shining you crazy diamond.

Up next, yes, I think the Timbers had two very reasonable shouts for penalty kicks for which, as I see it, PRO Referees should have to answer for not calling - much as they did for a blown call in New York City FC's loss to Toronto FC. The first came when Yimmi Chara got cut down in the area…somewhere after the 73rd minute (I only know because, according to the chronology of my notes, it happened after Eryk Williamson came on for Sebastian Blanco), and, yes, I’d really like to hear the basis for not making that call. The other came later when…again, I apologize, but I’d lost interest at this point and I don’t recall which Timber had made the run, but the Los Angeles Galaxy’s Nick DePuy’s arm, again, very visibly made contact with and/or stopped the progress of a cross, and from an unnatural position. So, yeah, that would have been two penalty kicks to the Portland Timbers and a well-better-than-average chance of seeing an afternoon of mud-wrestling end in a draw. Keep racking up the "significant officiating errors," PRO referees! Really adding value out there. Sadly, I’ve got bigger fish to fry and duller axes to grind…deep breath…

I don’t give a shit about the blown penalty calls because the Timbers got the result they deserved. They lost 1-3 today, in Portland, against a Galaxy team that looked smarter, sharper and that executed better down to the last man; 1-5 wouldn’t have been remotely unfair. The Timbers, meanwhile, were fucking terrible, and uninspired besides - and I very much mean that down to the last man. Nothing can redeem that performance but better ones in future games and, by all the gods in all known religions, that had better fucking start with a change in the game-plan. Happily, I cataloged the myriad failings in a twitter thread, so I can focus on the damning and persistent issues that have led to what I’d like to think even the most hopeful Timbers fan can agree has been a bad start to the season.

Portland Timbers (Lucky) 1-1 Orlando City SC: Thoughts on a Visit from a Gift Horse

Once again, a portrait of the author. (Call me.)

I’ve decided not to feel any particular thing about the 1-1 draw that could have easily been a loss for the Portland Timbers today. The darker side of me - and that’s the fellow I’ll be chatting with for most of my comments tonight - thought Portland was running out of ideas, options and time right around the time Orlando City SC’s Andres Perea tripped Cristhian Paredes at the top of their 18. That mistake handed the Timbers a shot at redemption, as well as a plausible hold on a narrative that says they have a fair shot at getting better as time, familiarity and the return of fresh, healthy faces has time to show up in the starting XI.

And, for what it’s worth, that feels like an important narrative to maintain somewhere between the foreseeable future and the if/when it falls apart. To be clear, I’m pulling for the “if” scenario - i.e., the one in which things don’t necessarily fall apart - even if I believe 2022 has already posed some tricky questions for the Timbers.

Speaking of questions (and I’ll have more below), the big one I had after today’s game: how much did what happened today followed from Portland doing it to themselves versus Orlando doing it to them? Best-case scenario, the Timbers befouled a good game plan with poor execution - i.e., all you need to fix the problem is better execution. I saw Gio Savarese frame this as a “lack of urgency” in the attack, and I more or less accept that, if with a couple re-writes - e.g., maybe favoring early crosses that give attacking players space to run into, instead of tapping and dancing for the perfect cross against an organized defense…and I type that acknowledging that Portland found one of its better chances when Josecarlos “The Maddening” Van Rankin clipped a cross to the back post that Paredes could have buried and put the Timbers up a vital goal. That’s just one example; another could reduce all the way to something blunt and simple as pulling trigger on a half-chance instead of playing for the sitter. All that’s to say, the Timbers have a nagging habit of overelaborating in the final third, and it very much hurt them today…until Perea rescued Paredes’ visibly doomed run across the top of Orlando’s 18…get my mints, Stella, I’m going to French kiss that gift horse for…hold on, brb, and don't mind the tattered clothing…

To turn over to the bright side of things, and as much as the aesthetics favored Orlando, this was a cagey, tactical game. Portland gave them as little as the xG indicates for most of the game, but Orlando made the most of the one vivid breakdown when Alexandre Pato picked out Junior Urso’s run-from-the-depths and the latter calmly poked home the shot (though, on further review, Pato fairly clearly chopped blindly into space that found Urso, so how concscious was it?). And, sure, you could call the (more or less) free header that Benji Michel headed toward a goal in some alternate universe the moment when Orlando could have put the game away, but this was a decent performance for Portland on the defensive side. Diego Chara put in the usual heroic shift and Zac McGraw has given the Timbers good positioning with a side of aerial dominance that should have the people calling the shots thinking, if not second-guessing (and, if the theory holds, more competition should equal a better back-line). After that, Claudio Bravo achieved his usual balance of bad-'n'-ballsy, while Van Rankin played one of his better games of 2022, if only to about 10 minutes before his incredibly pointless self-sending off…again, I’m Team Bonilla/Bravo, risks be damned. Still, the defense more or less did its job, if against a team that plays like Victorian authors write, so, yeah, I’m more concerned about what the offense isn’t doing right than what the defense is doing wrong.

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…

Portland Timbers 1-0 Austin FC: Forest Versus Trees; Even If I Can't Get that Metaphor Straight

We are in a good place, and we love each other.

Started a new tradition tonight: I didn’t write down notes of any kind until the second half. Except on twitter…also, there wasn’t much to say about that first half. It was a classic vague, mutual groping, a feeling out period that went on a little too long without going anywhere. Nothing of real note stood out, at least not beyond Austin FC having a lot of the ball and the Portland Timbers getting the best look. Bottom line, all that played to the Timbers strengths, only at an angle that arguably benefited Austin’s strengths more than Portland’s.

Now, I’m not a fan of the halftime speech. That could because I’ve never heard a real stem-winder, at least not one that didn’t involve me as a half-negative argument for inspiration (again, the frame was, “if he can do it”; true story, at least twice), but whatever Giovanni Savarese said before he sent his charges back onto the field, whatever adjustments he made, I’d put the number that worked at somewhere between 60-80%. The other part of that equation, and the one I’m least equipped to make: what adjustments to Josh Wolff make to what Austin did?

For all the noise that came between the whistle that started the second half and the one that ended it, the loudest came in the 62nd minute when Bill Tuiloma got a big step in front of whoever the hell wears Austin’s No. 4 jersey (Ruben Gabrielsen, huh), and powered home a point-blank header off a pretty-as-you-like Yimmi Chara set-piece to put the Timbers up 1-0. Some sweaty moments aside, if fewer than one might think, that was all the Timbers needed to pick up their first win of 2022.

Tuiloma had a wonderful game. Give or take 10 minutes after he scored, he cleared an absolute, no questions asked Austin goal off the line, and during a scrum that had Timbers defenders flying around their own area like clay pigeons. And that’s one of my take-aways from today: the Timbers bent their defense to the breaking point, but made sure that it didn’t. Tuiloma and Zac McGraw deserve a tip for all the clean-up they did today, but they got a decent lift from Josecarlos Van Rankin’s best game of the season, plus a…well, let’s just say we’ve got something to think about after Justin Rasmussen’s wholly impressive first-team debut. As much as I hate making judgments off a tiny sample size, I wasn’t nearly as impressed by Rasmussen’s defending - which wasn’t bad at all - as by his composure on the ball. Good passes forward, smart slip passes under pressure…suffice to say questions abound and the answers don’t seem so obvious all the sudden…

…no. No. Don’t give in. Cool your jets. It’s one game. It’s one game. Moving on…

Portland Timbers 2021 Season Review: Say....That Was a Lot

A feeling that, in retrospect, miraculously passed.

I’ve struggled with where to start this look back at a 2021 season that was as complicated for me as it was for the Portland Timbers. I’ll keep the personal side short: I shut down this site in early August - and every intention of walking away forever - only to revive it on October 16. I still tweeted game threads and almost certainly watched more games than I missed, but that choice left a 13-game hole in the permanent record I only lightly consulted before writing this post.

That period contained both the lowest low - the 2-6 loss at home to the Seattle Sounders - and the season-saving high that was the eight-game stretch that saw Portland pick up a nether-stirring 22 points out of 24. For perspective, the Timbers picked up just 33 points over the other (shit!) 26 games of the 2021 season, which amounts to a piddling 1.27 points per game; for further perspective, they picked up 23 points over their first 17 games of 2021, a figure that, somewhat surprisingly, pans out to a superior, overall goal differential of 1.35…I don’t get bowling math either, but that’s a whole other goddamn story. Things ended better than they started, basically, and I wonder how far that slipped down the memory hole and for how many people.

To start with the biggest question - i.e., what to make of it all? - I’ m pretty sure that accounts for the struggle. On the one hand, I know I never expected the Timbers to reach MLS Cup; on the other, I never expected them to tank that badly when they won the right to host the same final, not with how they’d been playing on both sides of the ball. And yet, all it took in the end was the same kind of collective defensive brain-fart that had panicked and enraged Timbers fans since…honestly, I think that’s been a thing for some time, and playing a good defensive team to revert back to a form I noted in the last Timbers post before (temporarily) shutting down this site, a meltdown of a 1-4 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy:

“What are the two most frustrating thing about the Timbers? My bingo card shows stupid defensive errors and aimless attacking moves. This game was a smorgasbord of both…”

While the way(s) Portland struggles/fails files under plus ca change, some of what looked like the biggest moments of 2021 came and, because I don’t have notes (I’m willing to dig up) on it, went during that 13-game gap. For one, fan/personal favorite Jeremy Ebobisse left for the barren, over-priced wastes of San Jose (as opposed to the fertile, over-priced glory of Portland) in August 2021. Quirks in timing - specifically, that loss in which Seattle handed the Timbers their asses six times, followed shortly by the 2nd beat-down at Austin FC of the season - filled the skyline with dark, heavy clouds. At least half the Biblical plagues descended on the Rose City just a few weeks later when Eryk Williamson limped off the field, never to return. Again, I’ve got no written record of exactly what I said or thought in those moments, but “we’re fucked” might have made an appearance or two.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Sporting Kansas City: Seeing a New Face in a Bad Mirror

An aesthetic and practical metaphor for Portland's defense.

You know what was most satisfying about the Portland Timbers temporally-vital 2-1 win over Sporting Kansas City last night?

Seeing the Timbers win the game on the kind of goal that ruined their 2020 season - and arguably the half season before that - was deeply satisfying, almost healing. The ball into the attacking third was good, but not spectacular, the ball after that was more hopeful than wise, but it still pipped through Andreau Fontas’s high five-hole, giving Marvin “Human Frustration” Loria the chance to run it down for something close to a tap-in. letting in that kind of messy shit has become Portland's stock-in-trade, but if SKC wants to take it off their hands, I'm good. That ugly bugger finished Portland’s come-back and gave me a flush of optimism for the season ahead. All in all, I’d call the win far more comfortable than pretty, but it wasn’t all that comfortable either, and that’s square one for my talking points:

“Something else that struck me: SKC’s goals looked like dunks - i.e., they forced the kinds of breakdowns that any good team can finish, they kept finding the right pass, etc.”

I pulled that comment from my MLS Week 7 review, specifically, the notes on Kansas City’s 3-2 win over Houston Dynamo FC because it gets to what has grown into a massive, which, here, means borderline pathological, pet peeve for me: for all their faults (hold that thought), SKC has been really good at pulling teams apart - as suggested by their (now) league-leading 17 goals scored. And I’d argue that’s how anyone concerned about Portland’s defense last night should apply that thought - i.e., wherever they looked ragged and panicked just remember they played a team that is good at that thing. Maybe I’ve danced around this point, maybe I’ve have tapped the proverbial sign about it, but, barring anything short of a ruthlessly effective system (e.g., Barcelona’s glory years), it’s…just weird to expect perfect control, composure and consistency from every player on [your team] in every game, especially when they play different teams with different players every week, players who have different strengths and weaknesses, and who do different things on and off the ball, and on and on and on. Every conversation about a team's success and failure should keep the quality of opposition as something as a main talking point. But I digress…or do I?

The other side of SKC is written into that final score against Houston - e.g., the two goals they gave up (and to Houston). They’ve given away goals all season. Differences in style notwithstanding (see the possession numbers), I’d go so far as to say they’re starting to resemble the Timbers in way both good and bad. A team that can’t keep out the opposition can only find success by out-scoring them; both Portland and Kansas City have the weapons to pull that off (player availability assumed), so this one boiled down to the question of who could pull it off on the night. Sure, Sporting pinned in Portland several times last night, but one Timber or another managed to get in the way (see the balance of blocked shots), whereas KC let Dairon Asprilla (get well!) have two cracks at scoring the opener. Portland’s defense wasn’t flawless - they got caught in one of their patented “can’t clear the danger” spin cycles in giving up the opening goal - but they held firmer over the full 90 than SKC and that was enough.

Portland Timbers 3-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: Struggle. Horror. Stroll.

It only looks innocent.

Huh, maybe I should title all these things in three word descriptions. Beats repeating cliches like, “a tale of two halves,” right?

The game started cagey, it took a moment of horror - and, arguably, a substitution - to change it, but, once the ball got rolling, gravity did its thing and Portland Timbers coasted to a 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy at home.

LA’s Derrick Williams brought the horror, and by way of what might have been a drunken-headed tackle a couple minutes before half-time that knocked Portland’s Andy Polo out of the game and off the field for gods know how long. It left LA and everyone associated with them blushing instead of complaining - a rarity in soccer - and Williams got a straight, justified red for it; fines and a couple more missed games should be coming as well. Regardless of whether Williams had a concussion at the time, that kind of tackle all but obliges you to make amends. Visit Polo to apologize, buy him a box of chocolates (the good stuff; not that See’s bullshit), maybe gift card to Dave & Buster’s with $200 on it, and that’s at a minimum. Williams’ tackle was the house-guest equivalent of shitting in the middle of someone’s kitchen; mens rea doesn’t even come into it.

That came just before the end of the first half, and the Wheels of Justice turned quickly from there. Less than two minutes after the second half whistle, Josecarlos Van Rankin dropped a dime into an arm’s length gap between LA’s Daniel Steres and (maybe) Julian Araujo for Felipe Mora to nod into the goal - and the Timbers…well, they didn’t quite never look back, but they took care of the game in one of the weirdest and most passive ways I’ve seen in a while. Allow me to explain…

Looking at the summary, I see that just 13 minutes passed between Mora’s first goal and his second - a head-on-a-swivel-alert put-back on a nice bit of collective lock-picking by Portland, in which a strong shot by Claudio Bravo set up Mora’s put-back - but something truly peculiar made that dozen-plus minutes pass slowly. For one, the Timbers did something familiar after going ahead: they let up. That could have followed from a conscious choice to drop back, stay compact and absorb, but it had the effect of giving the Galaxy, not just possession, but time to pick at the edges of the Timbers’ defensive third. While I don’t recall anything super dangerous during that time - related, I just confirmed that Logan Ketterer didn’t make a lot of saves, but that’s still three more than I remembered - LA had the ball in an area where control becomes chaos in the blink of an eye.

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.