Vancouver Whitecaps 3-2 Portland Timbers: The Psychological Comfort of Getting Robbed

Were the cops on the take? (Nah.)

So, yeah, another editorial curve ball. The idea of posting the Portland Timbers match report/next game preview and then re-posting that with a wrap of the week’s league-wide action sounds stupid when I actually say it out loud…something I’m only now realizing, after typing out the entire concept at least twice. I had a good, if mildly blasphemous reason for adopting it - i.e., writing about the same team every week gets stale, especially when they keep doing the same shit over and over. Staving off my annual ennui was the goal, but fuck it. If Portland forces me to, I will literally post something that has “same shit” for the match report and “AMA, yolo” for the talking points.

Rough result last night, obviously. Getting robbed never feels good, but it hurts a little more when what came before it felt pretty good. In fact, I feel comfortable calling that the Timbers most impressive game of 2026, if with a curdled side of “damn shame about result.” And yet, it was and wasn’t that simple.

Vancouver Whitecaps FC 3-2 Portland Timbers
What Passes for a Match Report
Vancouver scored early and too easily for my liking. Edier Ocampo scored it and the simplest take I have for what went wrong boils down to Jimer Fory switched off, thereby stranding Alex Bonetig and Finn Surman, in succession. The game carried on from there with the Timbers looking like 11 men running up that hill, but I also had this grand theory that Vancouver suffocated Portland without doing much for themselves. In the main, the Official Highlights support that theory, while the Official Stats run against it - i.e., that is some lopsided shit.

The Timbers came up for air somewhere around the 30th minute and slowly clawed their back, first to solid ground, then to the lead. Thanks to an opening 20 minutes that conditioned me to accept failure as the expected state, the progress Portland made felt unlikely and, for that reason, precarious. Even after an equalizer for the ages at the 36th minute by Juan David Mosquera – who played a game that gets a fan’s cockles all hot and jittery (hold this thought) – waiting for the ‘Caps to shake off the stupor and get back to stuffing Portland into their own half seemed like the grown-up thing to do…

Portland Timbers v FC Cincinnati: A Preview/Parenting Crisis

Which is which? And can you trust what I tell you?

To make one thing clear from the top, I may or may not have two children*, but there’s no question as to which is the favorite. Even with the past three and two-thirds season asking one of them, “why can’t you be more like your brother?,” the Portland Timbers will always be my team and FC Cincinnati my sincerely cherished side-piece. [Psst...I love you, girl! I’ll leave her for you, I swear.]

(* With how often I’ve neglected Cincy, through both good times and bad, I have, at most, a fingernail’s hold on neglectful divorced dad going through…just all of it.)

That said, rooting for both kids makes plenty of sense given the state of play. They both need the win – Cincinnati to keep up with the Supporters’ Shield race/melee, the Timbers to keep in touching distance of hosting a first-round playoff game (or, worst case, just making the damn playoffs) – so any and all results serve a purpose one way or the other…and yet, and as much as I hate to ask, things have been going really well for Cincinnati lately – I know; no, I know – but it has just been so, so long since the Timbers, y’know, had a good season. I’m not asking Cincinnati to let them win, I’m just making things emotionally complicated the way a parent does when, deep down, he’s absolutely asking Cincinnati to let Portland win, but not in a fake way, because I still want them to feel good. Wow, did it feel good to get that off my chest! (Father of two, going great…)

Moving on…

Per the title, the rest of this post throws out the first five coherent thoughts I’d tell fans of one team about the other. My list won’t be everyone’s list, so I’d (literally) love to have anyone who finds this toss in their own thoughts in either the comments or to the skeets when this goes up on Bluesky…somewhat related, I stopped checking Reddit, almost certainly from failure to match the intensity of, oh, 75% of the posters. That’s to say, I miss some chatter, just not that chatter.

Right, like they do in MLS, let’s kick this off with the home team.

Portland Timbers 1-1 San Jose Earthquakes: A Tale of Wild Cards & Cliches

Killing himself. Wild, right?

For those who missed it, Preston Judd had a big game in the San Jose Earthquakes’ 3-3 draw versus Houston Dynamo FC. Two weeks after that opportunist’s brace, he teed up the winner in San Jose’s win at the till-then utterly hapless Los Angeles Galaxy.

Judd scored the late equalizer in San Jose’s 1-1 draw at the Portland Timbers, of course, but guess who fired the shot that led to the rebound he put back? Ousseni Bouda. Now guess who Judd set up for the winner against the Galaxy? Yep, Bouda.

When prepping to face the ‘Quakes, any sane coach would key on The Cristians (Espinoza and Arango) and Josef Martinez. Martinez didn’t suit up yesterday, something I think was known, but who knows? The larger point is, who builds a game-plan around stopping Ousseni Bouda and Preston-fucking-Judd?

Still, what is a wild card except an old-school cheat code? And yet…is that what really happened?

About the Game
I only half-watch games when I see them live (to anyone wondering why I don’t go to many of them), so I just sat down to re-watch the second half. Even that confirmed a handful of loose perceptions I had from the first half – e.g., the Timbers performed soccer well enough, but the ‘Quakes always looked that little bit more incisive, Dave Romney won every 1-v-1 against Santiago Moreno and basically took him out of the game, etc. Still, and despite what was scored as Portland’s 0.55 xG versus San Jose’s 1.09 at the half, the Timbers played well enough to make me think they would hold it together and had a punter’s chance of figuring it out before the final whistle. Full disclosure, I missed Ian Harkes’ second yellow card – of which, funny! (i.e., his foul on Diego Chara was soft, without being wholly, laughably unreasonable) – plus a couple early shots (which, if The Mothership means to earn its keep, should be in the full highlights). As for the +/- 15 minutes after Harkes’ 52nd -minute sending off? Yeah, caught all of that. Soccer has at least a half dozen cliches and, as just demonstrated by San Jose, a team playing like 12 men after going down to 10 is very much one of them.

Portland Timbers 0-0 FC Dallas, aka, The Sum of Our Greatest Fears in 48 Minutes

Oh, it's coming, champ.

A should-win on Wednesday versus Austin FC that ended in a loss, followed by a must-win late this afternoon versus FC Dallas that ended in a gutless, goal-less, leg-less draw. Ye gods, egads, etc.

First question: how to put a bow on that much nothing?

Second question: when was the last time (verb tense entirely deliberate, btw) you could either believe or talk yourself into thinking that the Portland Timbers have a chance to end their season on the highest-possible high? Don’t know what that was for you, but for me it was a playoff (or play-in) win and a dream of bigger things (no matter how implausible)?

I was somewhat optimistic, personally, even through the loss versus Austin. That optimism took a square shot to the stones tonight and I can name the moment the blow landed: somewhere around two minutes after Felipe Mora’s best shot of the day, aka, the 48th minute or thereabouts. To that point in through both games, Portland had a firm handle on the game-states. They weren't scoring, sure...and, okay, Austin snuck one past them, but the Timbers were still doing good, productive, proactive things all over the field. And then even that dried up. If one accepts the conventional wisdom that Portland can't defend a lead, they need to be the team that outscores all comers. Instead, they've now gone 230 minutes without scoring. Closer to the point at hand, Dallas took over the game after that last best shot and that’s how they tagged ‘em both (both balls, I mean, paraphrasing Kingpin).

The Very Basics, aka, the (Perversely Happy) Flashbacks to the Austin Loss
Much like last Wednesday versus Austin, the Timbers rolled up the chances versus Dallas from around the 17th minute to the 39th. Mora blew at least two chances before steering his best chance wide, Jonathan Rodriguez almost caromed home a header off an Evander free-kick at the 22nd minute, and Evander tried everything up to and including (repeatedly) trying to salsa his way through the middle of Dallas’ defense. Both Juan David Mosquera and Santiago Moreno flailed some shots wide – one of them a hopeful bicycle attempt (Moreno’s) off one of Portland’s best flurries of night – but, for a second week running, the Timbers’ shot selection looked more desperate than wise or good. Finishing and finished product aside, the signs looked all right over the first half: the Timbers won every 50/50, not to mention most of the 40/60s, and they recycled the ball into Dallas’ end of the field over-and-over. Seeing a functioning recycling program felt good, guys…

Colorado Rapids 2-1 Portland Timbers: You Can't Always Get What You Want

Wants and expectations do a weird little dance toward the end of every American spectator sports season – and, let’s face it, the fact they unfailingly end in playoffs lumps them all into the same species. On the one hand, you know that your local team could really use the unlikely win…but doesn’t that adjective, “unlikely,” speak to the reality of the situation?

After a season of reducing the Colorado Rapids to a wholly-owned subsidiary of their very own, the Portland Timbers finally lost a game to the Rapids when it mattered most. The 2-1 final score hints at the respectably tight final outcome, but I doubt even one Timbers fan cares, what with Portland at the bottom of a deeper hole, seven teams above them, Minnesota United FC breathing down their necks and the already playoff-bound Los Angeles Galaxy coming to call on Wednesday…

…run-on sentences suggest urgency.

The Basics
What could have been, you know? Had Jonathan Rodriguez buried that first-minute breakaway, had the offside flag not gone up, if pigs could fly and sing “Hurdy Gurdy Man” as they whisked around the sky, maybe Portland gets that early goal and tees up an early Timbers lead. That’s how every meeting between these two teams have played out in their two games in 2024 and, oh, how that has fucked over Colorado at a 4:1 ratio. The early goal fell on the Rapids’ side of the ledger instead – more on that goal later - which left Portland chasing them for a change. It took just 10 minutes for the Timbers to catch them, and on a far better goal, and the game settled into a back-and-forth duel with decent chances falling on both sides.

Portland's best chances fell to Antony, Colorado's to Rafael Navarro: anyone familiar with either team can tell you how that panned out…I kid, I kid. Frustrated as he made anyone with green and gold in their veins, I won’t shit on Antony too hard – more on that later, too. When the goal came, it turned less on something special from Navarro than on Portland’s and/or Juan David Mosquera’s catastrophic failure to mark a player of his (demonstrated) quality on a set-piece.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Seattle Sounders: (Complicated) Glory! + League-Wide Shit!

Oh, I'm just getting warmed up....

I was out of town for the Portland Timbers checks-all-the-boxes 1-0 win over a (punch-drunk) visiting Seattle Sounders team, but tracked the game from afar on the socials (i.e., reddit and Bluesky). People bitching about the broadcast team (Taylor Twellman and Jake Zivin, I think) popped up here and there and…I just don’t get how anyone can’t screen out the chatter, never mind get caught up in the relative amount of praise they heap on one team or the other. In my experience, color commentary follows the “broken clock” rule, with some hacks hitting the mark more often the others.

Why start there? Perhaps because some thoughts and arguments floated below may fall short of expectations for proper fandom. Let that come as it does, I’m squeezed a lot into this one post. Because it has surely been kicked around both hard and long enough, I won’t burn too many words on last Saturday’s game – which, to be 100% clear, was pretty damn awesome and nifty…it just needs an asterisk, maybe two.

The (Righteous!) Big Picture
Apart from giving up what (giving the Timbers’ history) felt like two games worth of corner kicks in the first half alone, I don’t recall a time when Seattle looked to have the upper hand last Saturday. Even if Portland’s chances weren’t all gilt-edged, the thought process behind them shone through; half the time, they failed due to some combination of a runner being half a step ahead or behind or the angle on the pass 10-degrees off. With key starters like Felipe Mora and Jonathan Rodriguez absent courtesy of varying amounts of bullshit (now half-corrected!), that shouldn’t surprise anyone. With the chance creation that little bit off, the happy deflection that transfigured Juan David Mosquera’s goal into a thing of beauty felt right at home. As for the play that led to it, what was that but vintage Timbers soccer?

The brighter notes played on the defensive side of the ball, and mostly through Timbers defenders throwing themselves in front of the best chances Seattle created. Dario Zuparic stood out there, with his block on Seattle’s not-yet budding star Pedro de la Vega as a stand-out moment (if it's not in here somewhere...crime). Kamal Miller got caught behind the ball now and again, and both fullbacks got burned 1-v-1 more often than any Timbers fan wants to see (Mosquera, in particular), but all concerned recovered well enough and generally played for one another. Now, about all that…

The Loss v Charlotte FC, Wailing, Lamentations, and Acceptance

The cruelest serving.

You ever get to the end of a long-form math equation only to realize that you did something wrong somewhere and wound up with the wrong result? That’s what the past three match reports I’ve posted (here, here, and here) feel like after the Portland Timbers fucking bummer of a 0-2 loss at Charlotte FC. I’ll get return to the math problem, but let’s start by wrapping up what happened last Saturday with the brevity it deserves.

I don’t see the point of breaking this game down because the work of litigating what went wrong feels like writing the same thing for the…how many games has Portland played in 2024? Eleven? So, yeah, but for some time off early last month, I’d be flagging a lot of the same issues for the eleventh time.

Face-planting disasters in defense? Check! Hell, the Timbers got a two-fer-one out of Zac McGraw last Saturday (see all the way below for links). Struggles with ball progression? Covered! Not on the same page? They weren’t even reading the same goddamn book. It was so bad (how bad was it?), Charlotte’s Enzo Copetti scored a goal in open play. Timbers fans got a brimming plateful of more of the same, basically, only without the thrill of a late rally or the pain of watching an early lead slip away. Another week of dining in Hell’s cafeteria…

Over those past three match reports, I’ve pointed to a green shoot here (Felipe Mora’s back!), a bright spot there (the Timbers’ first complete game of 2024!), and maybe even sprinkled some fairy dust around both to brighten them up a little (Evander will know what to do!). Again, and I cannot possibly stress this enough, the set of problems outlined above has appeared in some form or another in every game this season and the sum of the green shoots + bright spots – (the same problems X 11) = 12th in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference and 24th overall.

Where is the line between looking past bad results and ignoring them? Is it still a green shoot if it doesn’t grow?

Portland Timbers 2-2 Los Angeles FC: A Meditation on Cherry-Flavored Cough Syrup

This image was called "cuddling a cow," also, yes!

Thus endeth another case study in what might have been. The game turned on a justified red card to Portland Timbers goalkeeper, Maxime Crepeau (it sure looked like Claudio Bravo kept Los Angeles FC’s Denis Bouanga onside; more on him later), and all it took from there was Mateusz Bogusz’s 51st (damn good) minute free-kick to lead to Solomon splitting the baby at one point a piece. Not much happened between there and the final whistle, if with one exception.

The Timbers got lucky to escape with the 2-2 draw because Nathan Ordaz committed no crime ahead of what looked like a last-gasp winner for LAFC. I’m a good partisan and, as such, I don’t blow air into the cow’s nose when it doesn’t shit in my living room, or however that saying goes. To put that another way, Portland may have got lucky on that one call, but they made their luck otherwise and that feels like an improvement over several of the games I’ve seen so far this season. Also, who invited the fucking cow?

If I had to name the most maddening element of the Timbers 2024 season, it follows from the fact that every result comes loaded with too many caveats to make sense of where things stand with them. Today, it was the red card, but it has been playing from a hole measured by one to three goals in earlier outings. This game provided the usual divide of positives and negatives – and I’ll get to some of them (jetlagged AF, honestly) – but my biggest personal positive comes from the Timbers going up, first, 1-0, then 2-1 on two…respectable goals from open play. I’m shading both of those, and for reasons I’ll get into, but, all in all, today’s draw might have been the Timbers most complete game of 2024.

If you’re with me, let’s run over this hill screaming! Aaaauugggghhhhh!!

Vancouver Whitecaps Scouting Report: What to Do When You're Expecting a Land War in Asia

Imagine him running to you in a field of wildflowers.

Why not? Let’s see if we can’t get things entirely wrong for the third straight week…

Some Basics

The Vancouver Whitecaps got off to an impressive 2-1-1- start in 2024, if with the curiosity of both wins came on the road – and with impressive goal differentials too (3-1 at FC Dallas and 2-0 at the San Jose Earthquakes; also, yes, both team tripped out of the gate). Home games have been less kind, yielding just one point from a home game against Charlotte FC and and bupkiss against Real Salt Lake just last weekend. Vanni Sartini has committed to a 3-4-3 throughout, if with variations, but he hasn’t been on the sidelines until (checks watch) this weekend. Maybe that gives them a boost, maybe it doesn’t; I just know I’m pulling for the latter.

On the numbers side, they’re holding steady at one goal allowed per game and pushing two goals for, but, again, the goals haven’t come at home, which, to be fair, could be nothing more complicated than playing tougher teams at home than they have on the road.

Some familiar names remain in the lineup – e.g., Ryan Gauld, of course, and who doesn’t know the man who’s played for every team in MLS by now, Fafa Picault – but there’s a real possibility that another familiar name, Brian White, will sit this one out in concussion protocol. That would be a tragedy for one of MLS’s great everyman players, if it comes to that, but it would be a timely let off for the Timbers? To anyone looking for why that is, I give you Exhibit A, aka, his assist on Vancouver’s lone goal against RSL. Speaking of…

The Review

I have a little more to work with in terms of how the ‘Caps have scored goals in 2024 and crosses, and approaching wide in general, look like the most popular paths. They commit numbers when they do go forward, loading the box with as many as five players and even sending in a sixth for good measure (see here), so Portland’s midfielders need to stay frosty on those late runs. Fortunately, that plays to one of Portland’s strengths, aka, Zac McGraw who bosses the aerial game like few players in MLS. It doesn’t eliminate it by any stretch, Vancouver can always play the ball where he isn’t, but that’s a decent plus to have in the back pocket.

Philadelphia Union Scouting Report: A Tale of Fatigue, Potential Underperformance & Absences

Union fans, from what I gather and despite everything.

The Philadelphia Union limps into Providence Park this Saturday, mostly likely with a goal of playing for another draw or just not collectively expiring outright at the 64th minute, if not prior. Early as it is in 2024, the Union have got already around. And the experience has not always been pleasant (see, "violently ejected" below).

Some Basics

Were it not for the abandoned match versus the Seattle Sounders a couple weeks back, this would have been the ninth game of Philly’s season. Trips to San Juan de Tibas, Costa Rica and Pachuca, Mexico in the CONCACAF Champions’ Cup (CCC) (and Kansas City and Austin) padded their frequent-flyer miles but all that flying and shitty airplane air takes its toll. For good or ill – here, it depends on whether they value getting a little rest over their self-esteem - Pachuca violently ejected them from the CCC just over a week ago, giving the Union its first full week’s rest since February 20.

Meanwhile, back in MLS’s regular season, Philly have played three games and finished in as many draws, all against teams that barely impress their own fans, aka, Chicago Fire FC at home and Sporting Kansas City and Austin FC away. Because all those games struck me as non-events, I skipped ‘em. As such, last night was my first long look at the Union this season. I didn’t go in blind, mind you: a quick tour through the (mildly authoritarian) Philly subreddit provided some context. To parse the sum of two threads (here's the other thread), the blowout at Pachuca magnified some anxieties – mostly about the defense, if with a dash of pining for Leo Flach* – but a lot of commenters have embraced a long-view/Zen philosophy to their team’s sputtering start.

The Review

I heard rumors (here) about Austin ditching the possession-heavy approach of seasons past and drifting toward more of a transition model. That made the Union’s 2-2 draw at Austin last weekend feel like a good model for how Philly might play the Timbers. With that, lights, camera…replay!

Austin v Philadelphia, in General

The Timbers can go a long way toward making things easier this Saturday night by being clean on the ball – and, to be clear, Austin fucked up with and without pressure from Philly.

Houston Dynamo FC 1-0 Portland Timbers: A More Complete Incompleteness

One way to "break" one's duck...

In my mind, the biggest question about last night’s game was which team would score first. The Portland Timbers came (god)damn close in the fourth minute when my personal Man of the Match, Santiago Moreno, found Cristhian Paredes loose on the right side of the six (gotta be in here somewhere), but Houston Dynamo FC gored the proverbial duck first, thereby taking a 1-0 lead they never surrendered. Timbers lose, Timbers lose, etc.

By the way, does anyone know where the phrase “break your duck” comes from? Yeah, I could google it, but what’s the fun in that? This stays poultry-heavy for a few, btw. Moving on…

Lacking as it was in some familiar areas - e.g., attacking verve and total concentration in defense - I don’t have a lot of gripes about Portland’s overall performance yesterday and, as a handful of people reminded me on the Timbers subreddit, they don’t often leave the “great” state of Texas with points. A point or three would have been nice, sure, but all things considered, I find it harder to argue that Portland deserved some slice of the points last night than to argue that Houston didn’t deserve all of them.

Given the way Houston has played under Ben Olsen, this one was always going to be grind. The Dynamo play a patient, methodical game and, to use a phrase I may have forgotten to get to in the preview, they can hold onto the ball until they behoove themselves (it can take a while sometimes) to swing into the attack. No less important, Houston tends to have its ducks in a row behind the ball as they push forward – and, outside some frantic moments over the opening 15 minutes, that held  last night. Feel free to chicken-and-egg this until you, a regular human, unlocks the ability to lay eggs, but Houston reliably had at least one player in the right place at all times and all night. Whether that followed from the Timbers’ lack of execution or from the Dynamo just having really goddamn good defenders – e.g., Micael exceeded my already high expectations and, bluntly, Phil Neville should have Juan David Mosquera watch video of how Griffin Dorsey plays the same position until further notice – I can’t say and it just doesn’t matter at this point.

The reason it doesn’t matter? The Timbers made the game’s one, fatal mistake and that’s all this game had in it.

Houston Dynamo FC Scouting Report: Leading with the Chin, Boldly

That's...a choice.

This Saturday, the Portland Timbers take their strong start to the 2024 regular season the home of 2023’s “who did what now?” surprise team, Houston Dynamo FC. I did some scouting, this is my report.

Some Basics

Despite being just two games in their Major League Soccer regular season, CONCACAF Champions’ Le…Cup play has Houston six “real” games deep into the young 2024 season. They have won just one, versus St. Louis CITY FC at home, but they’re stumbling more than they should for a team that has hosted four at home. In their defense, they’ve played good capable, teams in them all, St. Louis and Columbus Crew SC twice, as well as a lively Red Bull New York team once (as for the 6th team…wait for the reveal). Another big picture notable: Houston has scored in every game but one – their CCC Home loss to Columbus last week.

Head coach Ben Olsen has tried a few formations, but it looks like he leans toward a somewhat conservative 4-3-3 (sample); fwiw, I’m not sure what he’ll do against the Timbers, but I’m interested. I hung “conservative” on his line-ups because he builds (most of) his middle threes around Jan Gregus, Artur, and either Coco Carrasqulla or Amine Bassi as the “creative” third. The forward line has (somewhat) consistently involved Ibrahim Aliyu and Sebastian Kowalcyzk, but has had dudes rotate in and out, mostly by absence or circumstance. As for the defense, the primary constants are Steve Clark in goal and young Brazilian Micael (Santos de Silva) in front of him with either Ethan Bartlow or Erik Sviatchenko for a partner. The left fullback and/or left-sided defender has rotated its cast as much as The Love Boat (yay old people!) and, yes, absolutely, there's Griffin Dorsey on the other side...also, hold that thought...

Olsen has this bunch playing a methodical, arguably labored, possession game that sees them play north of 450 passes in every game. I see that The Mothership’s “Availability Report” shows their absences as “To be announced” (because it’s fucking useless and/or may require you to create an account, not unlike the still-absent Form Guide (fuckers!), I'm not paranoid!), but I believe that Hector Herrera remains injured and it looks like they loaned out one-time big-time signing to Sebastian Ferrera, but he never got off paper when it came to entering Houston’s plans for league domination. Oh, and they are wafer-thin at forward, so Herrera starting looks like the only wild card.

New York City FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: A Long, Lucky Breather

No, really. We got this coach...

If there is a bigger cliché in soccer than the Tale of Two Halves, I don’t know what it is. New York City FC freshened it up a little, in that it was mostly them to which the cliché applied. It was as if Nick Cushing asked his players at halftime whether they were tired and, upon agreeing they all were, they torched a game-plan that had run over the Portland Timbers over the opening 30 minutes. Portland took the space NYC left open for them to (very) slowly get back in the game (I have the Timbers first shot on goal at the 73rd through Nathan Fogaca) and yet, with time on the edge of running out, a heretofore indifferent Evander floated a late, glorious winner over NYC ‘keeper Matt Freese. With that, Portland picked up a 2-1 road win that no one could have seen coming even by the halftime whistle.

Which was weird, right? I try to avoid counterfactuals – because, lo, the game played out the way it did in all known dimensions – but some part of me has to wonder about all the different ways that game could have ended. Especially given that it started with New York City so deep down Portland’s throat that I’m surprised that didn’t run clear out their ass all the way to New Jersey.

Words to describe how scattered and dizzy Portland started don’t come easy. The only part of any Timber to touch the ball over the opening 10 minutes was Dairon Asprilla’s forehead and even that happened only once or twice (related, please relegate that tactical choice to the rubbish heap, on the grounds it does not work). When NYCFC scored their inevitable break-through goal off a thrice-recycled corner at the 10th minute (think of all the planet we could save with such a program), things looked bad. That outlook downgraded to dire over the ensuing 25 minutes and, here, even the most stubborn Timbers fan should acknowledge that New York should have gone two goals up at a minimum and going up three was deeply in the conversation. The exhibits on offer:

Exhibit A: the (sixth or seventh) run around Portland’s right that had Mounsef Bakrar running free at an actually prone Maxime Crepeau in Portland’s goal; and

Exhibit B: the slip/sideways pass by Crepeau directly to an NYCFC player who had nothing a recovering Zac McGraw between him and an open goal.

New York had more chances besides (the highlights have most of 'em, just not Exhibit B) – in all honesty, they could have been up 4-0 with true finishing – and then, to paraphrase Star Wars, the guns, they stopped.

New York City FC: Remember When New York Was Cool?

NOTE: Freaky AI art, not a stake-out

“On paper, New York City FC's attack should be way better than this. Mounsef Bakrar and Jovan Mijatović at striker. Julián Fernández and Agustín Ojeda as wingers (Talles Magno is out hurt). Santiago Rodríguez and Hannes Wolf as chance creators. Long-term, I'll hedge on that group clicking.”

- Jonathan Sigal, 29 Takeaways: One Thought on Every Team After Match Day 3

After sitting through New York City FC’s 0-2 Week 2 road loss at St. Louis CITY FC, I can confirm. As a side note, I don’t know how he gets to Match Day 3 when every team in Major League Soccer save two (Inter Miami CF and Real Salt Lake) have played just two games. But I digress…

With the MLS season in its late-preschool years (did the math; turns out if you take the average U.S. life expectancy of 77.28 years and divide it by 34 games, each game equates to roughly 2.3 human years), NYCFC doesn’t have much for a track record for 2024. I can, however, provide the following facts: they currently sit at the bottom of the Eastern Conference with an 0-2-0 record and a -3 goal differential, with zero goals scored. Both losses came on the road – the first against Charlotte FC, the second at St. Louis – and NYC is hardly piling up chances, posting 19 shots between the two games, with just four on goal, and a flaccid xG of 0.6 in Game 1 and 0.7 in Game 2. Now, one could put that down to a slow start, opening with two games on the road, the yips, a gypsy curse, a bad, as-yet-undisclosed Tarot reading – wrap your imagination in a freak flag and let ‘em fly – but, those issues with scoring carried over from a 2023 season that saw NYC get one thin whisker over 1.0 goals per game for the season (the actual number: 1.03 goals/game). In other words, this is a thing.

That thing really stunk up that loss at St. Louis, too. I spent the game waiting for NYC to do anything worth reporting, but like 83% of police stakeouts (this stat is not real), I wound up watching 90+ minutes of a whole lot of nothing from them – at least on the attacking side. St. Louis, on the other hand, found multiple looks on goal – and don’t let that 3 shots on goal fool you, because, on top of scoring the two goals, both Cello Pompeu (who’s looks worth the look) and Samuel Adeniran (ditto) knocked shots from about 20 yards out off the same post…which makes one wonder who’ll step up for the Portland Timbers.

I’ll get to that, but, with an eye to keeping a leash on the chatter, I’m condensing my scouting notes on NYCFC to five, quick-hit talking points. If I was better, younger and more confident, I’d post video, but I don’t have the foggiest as to how to do that. So enjoy….words!

Portland Timbers 2023 Post-Mortem, aka, I Was Strolling Through the Roster One Day...

Perhaps the greatest team player.

With this post, I intend to put the Portland Timbers’ whimper of a 2023 season to bed. My gods, where to begin…

For starters, I could dismiss the desperate optimism that percolated into the final preview post of the regular season: no matter what I and gods know how many others thought or hoped, 2023 was a hopeless, wet turd. Even had the Timbers backed into the playoffs, it wouldn’t have given any of us, be it fan, player, coach, or the guy that washes team’s laundry, anything more than the chance to say, “well, at least we had that.” If some parallel timeline exists where the Timbers lifted MLS Cup at the end of a mind-bending playoff run, many, many threads separate that loin-stirring paradise timeline from...well, this. Even if they started healthy and stayed that way all season, I’d put the Timbers’ meaningful chances of winning any trophy on the same level as a tiny snowball’s chance of rolling through a vast, flaming Hell without sweating off even one drop.

Changes are coming, of course. I believe we’ve all the seen reports that Portland will name the new head coach sometime in the next week and, for what it’s worth, I’m weirdly excited about this and completely willing to give whoever they hire a full, 17-game grace period, i.e., half of what I expect next season will be (surely, they can’t push that higher). That’s less to say I can't be disappointed by the announcement, than I can’t conceptualize the universe where they name someone so what-the-fuck (think Lincoln High’s soccer coach, and by slipping him a greasy $100) that I won’t give the new coach time to prove himself or herself. (I don’t believe any women have been named, but a woman wouldn’t count as a what-the-fuck hire for me.)

I don’t think I’ve made any secret of my belief that the general malaise and inadequacy starts with the roster – one that, to my mind, falls short individually, collectively, perhaps even interpersonally. No matter how much sense various snippets of reddit chatter make to me, I’ll leave that last one alone, and on the grounds that I don’t know how many hands it passed through before I read it, but my money’s on fourth-hand, once removed at best.

Club de Foot Montreal 1-4 Portland Timbers: A List of Things Not to Do in Future Sporting Events

That really feels more "on."

God have mercy on my soul, but I went back to see if I could find The One Wrong Thing that led to the Portland Timbers' crushing and potentially fatal 1-4 loss in Canada France to Club de Foot Montreal. I blame Reddit. Reddit is to blame…

Because Bryan Acosta caught so much flaming shit, I made the decision to watch where he was throughout the periods around the four goals Montreal scored last night – which, as careful readers already know, doesn't make a lick of sense because Acosta came off before L’Impact scored goals three and four. Those flies in the ointment aside, I had a theory I wanted to test, specifically, the potentiality that the Timbers defense/midfield failed due to the fact that they manned it with three players – Evander, Santiago Moreno and, yes, lumping Acosta into that bunch – who are, at a minimum, more inclined to think about what’s ahead of them than the flailing, half-panicked defenders behind them.

Before digging into what I saw, I had a lot of arguments from other people in my head before I sat down for the replay – e.g., theories about Montreal overloading the space either Juan David Mosquera or Claudio Bravo left open by pushing both too high and naked (i.e., without cover), gripes about Portland’s failings on transition defense, or something as simple as Larrys Mabiala being to old/slow for the game-plan – and that was on top of the narc-ish craving to blame it all on trying to fit Acosta into a No. 6 shirt that simply doesn’t fit him…

...wouldn’t you know, it was simpler than all that.

To be clear, Acosta does not appear to wear the No. 6 shirt comfortably or well – and do file that away for the future – but he really was in or around the places he should be in the crucial moments. That’s to say, he may not have managed the job well, but his positioning wasn’t the problem. Moreover, 1) that wasn’t the Timbers’ biggest problem, and 2) I’d put good money on Kwadwo Opoku burning 70% of MLS’s d-mids with the turn that created the chaos that led to Montreal’s second goal. And, to circle back to problems, the way Portland’s back three got stranded on that play was their biggest defensive problems yesterday afternoon.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Real Salt Lake: Exciting in a Way You Don't Exactly Like

GOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!

The title speaks to most of my thoughts about the game. And yet does that shoe really fit? And do we have to call in Cinderella for the tie-breaker?

On the chapter level, I don’t think tonight’s the Portland Timbers’ (glorious, radiant!) 2-1 win over Real Salt Lake requires any kind of detailed explanation. One decisive, isolated moment aside – here, I mean isolated as sighting a yeti riding the Loch Ness Monster – both teams struggled to stitch together anything terribly threatening and they both looked, for a lack of better phrase, like two groups of men contemplating their near-term fate.

That broad reality doubled the value of Santiago Moreno’s early go-ahead goal. Gods know it wasn’t pretty. Evander looked to have lost control of the ball, and too close on the left to make much out of it, until he saw Jose Mosquera loose and advancing on the back post. Evander’s cross strayed just past the toe of...what’s his name for RSL, landed in the slightly-hesitant path of Juan David Mosquera (frozen, apparently, by the lingering toe), he then pitched a cross into a wide-open gap into the beating heart of RSL’s defense, and Portland’s very own, long-troubled winger, Santiago Moreno, butted it home like a Bighorn in mating season, hallelujah, it was 1-0 to the Timbers.

I want to stop here to talk about Moreno, because he strikes me as one of the two real storylines for this game - not to mention the rest of 2023, and beyond. As any tuned-in Timbers fan knows, Moreno has had an angsty season, unsure of his role on the team, maybe even doubting MLS, God, and everything. As I watched him tonight, looking a little looser, more effective, maybe even a little more handsome, I got to wondering whether anyone on the coaching staff sat him down and told him that the slate is clean, the future is now, and so on. Set aside the question of whether saying such a thing is wise or deserved, part of me wonders whether it came up on practical grounds? To maybe knock things loose with a frustrated player, one perhaps in need of motivation? Reasonable hiccups aside, it worked. I’d call that Moreno’s best game of 2023...which doesn’t feel so brave, really. After all, that's one goal, one assist, one player.

Portland Timbers 1-2 Tigres UANL: Three Team Round Robins Are Kinda Dumb

Possible metaphor for capitalism...

I’m going to let the game thread handle the play-by-play for the Portland Timbers...yeah, I’m going to call it disappointing 1-2 home loss to Tigres UANL. I’ve started 100 posts with “I’ll keep this short” only to delete it after I’ve run over by a mile and a thousand meters, but, seriously, this result doesn’t tie into anything besides the present (current?) tournament, there’s no question left but whether the Timbers make the first round and...hold on, I have some breaking news...

The Timbers have, in fact, already qualified for the second round. And, yeah, that makes sense: With Portland still on a +1 goal differential, a Tigres win would kill San Jose’s chances of topping that and vice versa, and San Jose can’t pass them on points even if they won a penalty shoot-out...wow, a three-team round-robin set-up is kinda dumb. Tidy, but dumb.

To briefly summarize the game (again, please also consult the game thread for additional material/insights), the game started with some light groping, only then the Timbers got into a rhythm – seriously, they countered in a way that gave me whiffs of nostalgia – and, before you knew it – POW! (ZOWEEE!) – they went up 1-0 on a cracking free-kick by Evander (c’mon, a non-celebration celebration is still a celebration). Not content to be the hero of the play, Evander made the fool decision to pantomime a swing that grazed the top of a Tigres player’s head, which right got him sent off for a second yellow, two yellows make a red, etc.

Won’t lie, didn’t love what followed – see below – but, the Timbers dodging two fairly reasonable penalty calls aside (don't think either made the highlights, so...), Portland handled playing a man down...let’s go with capably. You don’t have to love what you don’t hate and, honestly, it held together until it didn’t. The decisive moment came when Juan David Mosquera let Jesus Angulo bolt past his shoulder at the back post with the goal yawning wide before him. Tigres scored and the game effectively ended. If memory serves and the numbers add up, Portland managed just one more shot on goal after that and, in my mind...I guess I’d say they did some things I wouldn’t have.

St. Louis CITY FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: No Comments, But Also Three Pages' Worth

Kid's already miles deep on, "you just made the list, mate."

What’s that phrase? No comments?

No comments because that Portland Timbers win checked every box.

At the apex of the glory, a defense stayed organized and held strong, and then one player put the team on his back and ran till they got proverbially there. Even more important, the Timbers took control of a game for the first time in 2023...sorry, the second; the way they stomped Seattle seems like something I usually keep between me and my therapist. At any rate, after a desperately drab first half, the Timbers either got a locker room stemwinder or they figured out that St. Louis CITY FC didn’t have their whole heart in tonight’s game. Once it became clear they could take the game to St. Louis, the Timbers kept yelling, “please, sir, may I have another,” kind of like an Oliver gone gritty on a revenge bender, until they answered back to St. Louis’...let’s call it complicated equalizer....

...and that’s another box checked: the offense repaying a good game by the defense by clawing back one goal.

The Timbers have never looked as much like a professional soccer team as they did tonight, not in 2023, not like you, not like me, and, yeah, I’m starting to trust my credulous eyes more with each passing week. To finally get to the lead, the Timbers beat St. Louis, the best team in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference coming in to tonight, 2-1 and at their place...wait...oh my God, I finally found a linguistic detour around “at home.” Sorry to interrupt, but this is my Mount Baker at a minimum.

Before digging into the rest – and, honestly, even acknowledging the timeline – I have a couple notes on St. Louiis. This was either the fourth or fifth time I’ve watched them this season and, outside last week’s draw at Colorado, I’ve never seen them look so...what’s the word...less like they'd spent the afternoon blood-doping and doing all-day two-minute hate sessions at every Timbers player. When I watched the Colorado game, I put the absence of their xA (xpected Aggression) down to saving their lungs for a full 90 at altitude. After tonight, I’m starting to wonder if they’ll already hit the fundamental limitations of relying on “playing at 11” as a strategic choice. They didn’t have Joao Klauss – who, to his very real credit, has Maxi Urruti-level qualities at brain-fucking defenders – and that left Eduard Louwen trying to do everything with, as I once said without the information to back it up, “MLS average players.”

Portland Timbers 4-1 Seattle Sounders: A Buffet of Satisfaction

Seriously, you can put these anywhere....

When I was a knock-kneed whisp of a lad, I knocked in an own-goal off some part of my body or the other. I don’t remember which one, honestly, but what I do remember is how hard I strived to make up for that mistake. Played like the future in professional soccer I never even sort of had depended on it, and it went about as well...

It takes work for me to summon sympathy for the Seattle Sounders – and, honestly, I’m not even trying to tonight – but I do think some form of the professional version of the same thing happened to them tonight. To walk through the two crucial moments...

The Portland Timbers attack had stalled somewhere around the top Seattle defensive third somewhere around the 70th minute and the wholly familiar lack of ideas seemed to have reasserted itself in the collective psyche; a promising play that started wide pinched inside and looked doomed for finding a path forward. The Timbers had six or so players clustered between the channels, so I didn’t think anything of it when the ball drifted wide to Santiago Moreno [corrected, ty @ShellWitty!]. When he clipped in a ball that looked like a Hail Mary wrapped inside an Our Father, I thought even less of it....only to see Dairon Asprilla bellow “fuck it!” to the heavens and lash in a collapsible bike for a Timbers equalizer for the literal ages. My God, the legend Asprilla has written into the history books. Maybe he doesn’t get a statue, but maybe build a grotto in his honor with a little fountain that splashes into a reflective pond...

Hold on, I’m not done with this bit yet. That put the game at 1-1 – wait, have I mentioned the game ended 4-1 to the Timbers yet? – but there was more delight and pain to come. Five minutes later, Santiago Moreno got the ball on the right inside Portland’s half and played a looping diagonal into the heart of Seattle’s defensive third. I’d direct any sadists watching that clip to drink in the spread between Seattle two center backs (not usually an issue for them) and the way Moreno’s cross fell into the gap behind the two defensive players further up-field. To be totally fucking clear, that whole goddamn thing does not come off without Fogaca taking a perfect touch; moreover, how many times have you seen him finish that clinically literally ever? Sometimes things happend that are beyond your control...and I've finally forgiven that little whisp of a lad...hold on...off for a good cry...