Los Angeles Galaxy 2-4 Portland Timbers: The Sweet, Possibly Misplaced Scent of Potential

The Portland Timbers might be actually be…like, good this season. On evidence of everything, up to and including tonight’s game, the Los Angeles Galaxy is not a good team, so that bold stretch has less to do with the specific result of the Timbers beating the Galaxy 4-2 in LA, or even Portland’s current six unbeaten, four-game winning streak than the loud “clicking” sounds coming off the pitch every time they play…can the Timbers Army do Beatnik snap applause loud enough for the field mics to pick up?

About the Game
I can best sum up the first half by saying the game's first shot on goal went in, Timbers 1-0 at the half. Some good things happened – e.g., Finn Surman and Joao “Big First Step” Ortiz combining to contain a palpably eager Joseph Paintsil – but the game rarely rose higher than a flailing stalemate over the opening 45 minutes until Antony ran down a Santiago Moreno looping cross, turned with it, chipped over his defender and teed up David Da Costa for that lonely goal. Real one-eyed-man-in-the-land-of-the-blind stuff, basically, and then the halftime whistle sounded. The Galaxy came out as something like the same team – which, factually, they were – but Portland came out of the locker room transformed, as if inspired by a speech, the abrupt realization that they’d survived the worst, or both, and commenced to play the confident, connected soccer that savvy fans pay to see and swoon over. Just after the 50th minute, the Timbers went from besieging the Galaxy’s defensive third to an organized retreat after a turnover to scoring a slick insurance goal at the 53rd minute by the foot of Santiago Moreno: the three-to-four minute sequence that proceeded it might have been the most “soccer” soccer Portland has played all season, just checking all the boxes on how the manage and win a game. With the game slipping away, Greg Vanney gambled on a mass substitution – a shift change that included Marco “Chekhov’s Gun” Reus – but the same all-star team that created Portland’s second goal did themselves one better on their third. Even with my money on Kevin Kelsy skying that shot eight times out of ten, he capped a stellar, “yes, and” counter run up the left by David Da Costa and Antony with a net-bursting first-time shot (oof, may have to check the full highlights) that, despite a couple hiccups, buried the game. As everyone who tuned in knows, the Galaxy pulled back two goals in three minutes – the first on the kind of play that made LA so lethal just one season ago, the second due to a mixture of magic and missing the obvious – and that momentary lapse in bowel control sullied what would otherwise have been a “happy Halloween, we are here, motherfuckers” kind of performance. Instead, it staggered into…let’s call it a karaoke version of the same line. Which brings me to my favorite part of the game…

Getting Reacquainted with the Los Angeles Galaxy, MLS's Joy Points Kings

He was just as surprised to be named MVP.

Thumbnail History
The olds whisper legends about how the Los Angeles Galaxy started its storied history as Major League Soccer’s first Buffalo Bills, losing the first three MLS Cup they played. Those early stumbles buried more than one relevant fact – e.g., they won their first Supporters’ Shield in 1998, their first CONCACAF Champions’ Cup in 2000 (not the feat it later became, to be fair) - but the Galaxy put together competitive teams from the jump, even if they didn’t have all that many trophies to show for it. With long-forgotten players like Mauricio Cienfuegos, Kevin Hartman, Danny Califf, Cobi Jones and (the semi-infamous) Carlos Ruiz leading the way, the Galaxy won a Double in 2002 – and came damn close to a triple (they were runners-up in the U.S. Open Cup that year). Some real successes followed – an MLS Cup in 2005, if with a decidedly average team (also, won by one of the flukiest goals in MLS history) and the Shield again in 2009 – but LA spent the rest of the 2000s bumping their asses against the ground as hard and often as any team in MLS. Turns out that playing in a world-famous city doesn’t do a team enough favors when roster rules and small budgets bind every team in the same shackles (ball gag optional). It ultimately took not just the arrival of the Designated Player Rule (2007), but also the subsequent expansion(s) of the same rule (2010 and 2012), for the Galaxy’s natural advantages to kick all the way in. Success wasn’t immediate - even David Beckham, aka, the OG DP, played with the peanut gallery calling him a flop over his first few seasons - but the opening of MLS’s Rube-Goldbergian budget rules set the stage for the five-plus-season period that made the Galaxy the most dominant team in MLS history. Between 2009 and 2014, LA won three MLS Cups, two Supporters’ Shields, and they went to one more MLS Cup besides. They owed a lot of that success to Landon Donovan, aka, the man whose name now graces the league MVP award, but Ireland’s Robbie Keane arguably put those teams over the top (his hit-rate in MLS was nuts). Those two, Beckham, some outstanding defenses, and unsung heroes like midfield back-stop Juninho turned the Galaxy into MLS first unstoppable force since the DC United teams of the late 1990s/early 2000s. Even if both Red Bull New York and the Seattle Sounders would like a word, MLS hasn’t seen a team as reliable as LA’s best teams since. After the 2014 MLS Cup, LA could only squeak into the 2015 post-season as a wild card and they missed the playoffs outright in 2017 (with a tap by the Wooden Spoon thrown in for good measure), 2018, 2020, 2021 and as recently as 2023. The Galaxy signed the biggest players they could to solve the problem – see, Zlatan Ibrahimovic and Giovani dos Santos – but they either scrimped on the foundation (my personal theory, fwiw) or just couldn’t put one together, any star can only shine so bright, etc. Maybe that’s what made LA’s comfortable 2024 MLS Cup win feel like a bolt out of the blue. With wingers Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec running on either side of Devan Joveljic (traded after 2024), and the small, shifty No. 10(?) Riqui Puig pulling the strings, the Galaxy raced up the table by, often as not, running up the score. The sturdy yet dynamic midfields of Mark Delgado (also traded), Edwin Cerrillo and Gaston Brugman (also traded; just Brugman) bought those four stars time to be lethal and the rest is, as they say history. And then history threw up all over the fairy tale.

Los Angeles Galaxy 3-2 Portland Timbers: The Good, the Bad, That Pet You Lost When You Were 10

R.I.P.

I’m choosing to read last night’s 2-3 loss at the Los Angeles Galaxy through a very particular lens. The Portland Timbers’ performance was…let’s go with fell short of stirring. A lot of I had to do with energy or just vibes, generally - i.e., if had one 100 random soccer fans sit through that game, none of them knowing which team had played the Wednesday before, and asked at the end who did, I’m guessing north of 70 would have pointed to the Timbers. Moreover, the fact the Galaxy started all the same forward players (i.e., the front six) for nearly the whole game makes that mythical tally looks 50% worse.

So, yeah, a front six on half-a-week’s rest put three goals past James Pantemis and, stats be damned, repeatedly got goal side of Portland’s defenders and midfielders. That they strayed offside about half the time saved the Timbers from a runaway. Or did it? The game ended with xG at 1.9 for LA and 1.7 for the Timbers, after all…I’m still deciding how much that tracks. [UPDATE: those numbers have been updated (or I read 'em wrong/tipsy): LA remains on 1.9, but Portland ended with 2.0.] Moving on…

A Summary
Portland came out looking fully prepared to go toe-to-toe at the Galaxy – and, for the first 20 minutes, that worked(!). Both teams fired warning shots over the first ten minutes, but, as the clocked ticked upward, the heavier fire came from LA’s direction. The Timbers snatched chances here and there – e.g., Santiago Moreno with a smart scoop from range at the 30th, Evander crashing the near post ~sixteen minutes later (did both make the highlights?) – but the Galaxy got a hold of the passing lanes starting around the 25th minute and the questions got heavier for the Timbers defense from there, particularly through Riqui Puig, Mark Delgado and Gabriel Pec prowling up the right.

Not coincidentally, and yet controversially, LA’s breakthrough came up the same side when Joseph Paintsil slipped behind a Timbers’ high line that wantonly flirted with danger and, together, he and Pec outran the Timbers backline for the depressingly easy goal that put the Galaxy up 1-0. If you mosey over to the Timbers subreddit, you’ll find a couple threads seething about Paintsil being offside and, having reviewed the video, I dissent (and, no, you won’t change my mind, not without really impressive graphics). More to the point, much like your gerbil/goldish/hermit crab, etc. that died when you were 10, maybe even under mysterious circumstances, that goal isn’t coming back. The pertinent question was how the Timbers would respond.