Seattle v. Portland: The Timbers' Best Worst Loss of 2015

No, keep looking. This is for your own good. Focus...

The worst thing about the Portland Timbers' 2-1 road loss to the Seattle Sounders was that it allowed Sounders fans to feel happiness. The sweet buzz of victory couldn't have lasted very long, not with how Seattle played – and especially not against the backdrop of their recent results – but, in the moment, I saw their fans singing without a hint of irony or embarrassment. If Portland laid an egg like that, every gaffe and shortcoming would go under the magnifying glass and expletives would fill the air. Do I begrudge them the moment....well, yes. Obviously.

The result itself was the second worst thing. Because it was not fair. Weird officiating comes in at #3, even as I'm entirely willing to accept that the Timbers lost this one more than the ref stole it from them (see: total shots on goal). And at #4...well, there is no fourth worst thing. Not really.

Tonight, I'll be doing one of the easier things in fandom: celebrating a good performance and spiting the loss. Portland played pretty friggin' well on Sunday: they piled up a genuinely impressive number of chances, and didn't miss all of them by much; the defensive shape and pressure in midfield snuffed out nearly all Seattle's attacks before they could get going (the two to four that got through, though, holy shit, did those turn out poorly; more later); among the most impressive things about the game came with how well Jack Jewsbury and George Fochive covered for midfield stalwarts/dynamos Will Johnson and Diego Chara. Hell, ol' Jack turned the old line about old dogs on its head by being the most the dangerous man on the field.

It couldn't have gone perfectly, of course, or I'd be bragging about a win and Seattle's long fall from Olympus. For starters, throw that first goal onto the Steaming Pile of Shitty Goals, right next to that other piece of shit from the early season loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. The flailing, the falling, just the plain shock of the damn thing. I mean, jesus, if I didn't throw up a little pulling up that clip. Worse, the same clumsiness that let that one slide past showed up a couple more times in the first half. I mean, clearing the goddamn ball. That's park-ball stuff.

As for the second goal...look, I wouldn't have called it, either, but it wasn't that egregious. No matter how inadvertent, Adam Kwarasey did keep Obafemi Martins from getting to a ball that he very likely would have run down. Put it this way: call it most unjust in the grand scheme of the game and move on.

MLS Week 8 Previews: Seattle v. Portland, The Thrilla in Vanilla! (And the other games)

Exciting.

Week 8 has already kicked off, by now, but there's plenty of MLS soccer ahead this weekend. Topping the bill this weekend, The Only Game That Matters, The Thrilla in Vanilla, yep, that's right, Seattle Sounders FC v. Portland Timbers.

And, to all those other rivalries out there, you're doing it wrong. (Kidding (inspired by #3). I enjoy everything about Seattle v. Portland, but I couldn't give less of a shit about that stuff.)

With that out of the way, it’s preview time.

Seattle Sounders FC v. Portland Timbers
For starters, the gap between how I see the Portland Timbers and how other (maybe) smart(er), and definitely better-connected observers see them has the noodles that make up my brain unraveling a little. The team I watched fumbled all over that tiny Yankee Stadium pitch with all the grace and confidence of a teenage boy (or me) trying to undo a bra (look, it's not my long suit). Portland eventually got to what NYCFC couldn't – e.g. bumbling the ball over the line – so they won. Even the one thing the Timbers did well didn't look so graceful. Yeah, yeah, Adam Kwarasey won Save of the Week (start watching about 1:10 in there). I mean, that's a no-look save in the end (the vote is rigged; stupid democracy). The man flinched. (Not judging; I would have flinched and squealed.)

While not everyone saw the game - and see the Timbers' season as a whole - differently, enough people do to make me question my perspective and/or sanity. To me the Timbers look like a eleven guitar players simultaneously playing eleven different solos. Calmer people answer back with numbers – e.g. the Armchair Analyst reminding me of Darlington Nagbe's impressive chance creation statistics, followed by the Soccer Made in Oregon noting that Nagbe created as many chances in the second half against New York City FC as a lot of players do in an entire game.

But, damn me if I can't stop evil, doubting questions from popping into my head: what, exactly, does "chances created" mean? What's a "chance"? Portland v. NYCFC didn't feature a ton of clear openings.

Basically, the whole week has felt like everyone telling me the sky is orange, while all I see when I look up is blue. All that has me of a mind to take a different approach to the preview this week, say, weighing Portland's constituent parts against Seattle's constituent parts and seeing how they stack up. Here goes:

The MLS Divine Comedy, Week 7

Philadelphia? Hello, and sorry. To the left, please.

For Week 7, I decided to return to, but re-name, the whole "Sinking, Swimming, Treading Water" concept. Thought I'd reference the classics instead, with an homage to Dante's Divine Comedy: going forward, these posts will divide MLS's clubs between Heaven, Hell and Purgatory. That distinction is self-explanatory, yeah? And the arrangement should last even through the playoffs – that is, a club can remain in Purgatory in the post-season, for no man* resides in Heaven till he hoists MLS Cup! I’m keeping Hell pretty small and that's less about me feeling all New Testament, than about the passage to the playoffs seeming very much wide open. Good works and grace have nothing on stupid parity and the stupid playoff format.

(* Here, "man" shall mean, exclusively, a male professional soccer player, who plies his trade in the officially recognized domestic North American Division 1 soccer league, dba, popularly MLS.)

As happens more often than I should admit, the past weekend didn't come together so smoothly. I made it through only two games in their entirety:

Seattle Sounders v. Colorado Rapids
New York City FC v. Portland Timbers

With that entered into the record, I did watch the first 30 minutes of FC Dallas v. Toronto FC, it struck me as indecent to watch Nick Hagglund suffer more, not unlike Noah's daughters who wisely took a pass on seeing him rolling around all drunk and naked. The rest of the games I took through MLS Live's condensed matches – which, again, I can't recommend enough. Once again, the number in parentheses after each team's name records how many times I've spent/suffered the full 90 with it. I'll do better in catching full games going forward. Probably. The heart's in it.

The summaries for each team will be shorter than previously. All the detail stuff I once tried to work in – e.g. flagging some player, a trend, or a concept that's in the air or on my mind – will go over to a mid-week post going forward. That'll be me making sense of the week.

MLS Week 6 Review: The Hot (and Cold) 10

Little shits won't even start running...

(Shit! Hate when I come up with a name for a feature after I post it. Oh well, enjoy the fucking toddlers!)

About 10 teams into this post-Week 6 status check on every club Major League in Major League Soccer (MLS), I noticed I was very tired. Just head dropping on the desk. That it was 11:30 p.m. didn't help. When I turned to the 11th team, however – think it was Sporting Kansas City – I perked up a little. Not enough to plow through the eight teams left, but that re-engagement signaled something.

The reality is, I won't have much to say every week about every club in MLS. Some number of them – let's go with half – don't really warrant more than a sentence. With that in mind, I'm limiting these grand weekly reviews, at least substantively, to the 10 MLS clubs who most interested me after the week just past. The other 10 clubs, I'll touch on, but they won't get more than a sentence. It's on them to become interesting, whether by being great (uh, no one), wounded (hello, Sporting Kansas City!), or deeply, deeply crappy (hola, FC Dallas!).

At any rate, the comprehensive thing kind of served its purpose. It captured that moment in the new season when every club had a chance to be great. With Week 6 in the books, little narratives are shaping up for most clubs. Are all of them coherent? Oh, HELL, no. Are any of them coherent? Uh, some more than others.

Put it this way: my analogy for MLS after Week 6 is a 30-yard race between toddlers – that is, it's very disorganized, sometimes endearing (aawww, they won!), and no club looks all that interested in the finish line. That's another way of saying the "Sinking, Swimming, Treading Water" thing (see past editions) never quite added up. At this point, the whole damn league is treading water.

Life being the motherfucking time-sucking treadmill that it most surely can be, I caught only two full games during Week 6. And one of the damn things broke my heart...should be obvious which one. Before moving on, let me pause briefly to again praise MLS Live's condensed game offerings. I feel a lot more secure in my judgments this week. Any, the two games I caught:

DC United v. New York Red Bulls
Portland Timbers v. Orlando City SC

Seattle Sounders 2015 Season Preview: The Kids Who Get Everything for Christmas

Never enough tree. Nice problem.

What Happened Last Year

"It is easy to forget just how close the Sounders came to winning three major trophies in 2014..."
- Ives Galarcep, Goal.com

That sums it up neatly as anything. For Portland Timbers fans, "three major trophies" is the loop tape for your shittiest nightmares. The Seattle Sounders did come very close in the end – and not without earning it. As much as it hurts to say it, Seattle has a rock-solid team. Even if they acquired by spending more than (some anonymous) "you," that's still their team and we all have to fucking deal with it. Even in Portland. Everyone knows about Obafemi Martins and Clint Dempsey playing two-man tiki-taka through a rotating cast of MLS defenses, but a clutch of rarely-sung role-players carried the real secret to Seattle’s (near-) success (HA!) on their backs. If it wasn't Lamar Neagle knocking in nine goals (along with nine assists; most under-rated attacking player in MLS, anyone?), it's Marco Pappa coming in late to turn a game, or Chad Barrett chasing down everything like some crazed dog, or Stefan Frei pulling the ball right out of his ass before it went in the goal, or Zac Scott just...holding his shit together with retirement nipping at his heels. That supporting cast is the secret to Seattle's success. And, yes, I hate them for it. But, their nearly-glorious (HA!) 2014 was highly impressive. And the motherfuckers look all set to do it again.
Final Stats: 20-10-4, 64 points, 1st in the West, Supporters' Shield, 65 gf, 60 ga (wow.)