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| Fixin' to kick yer ass with this shoe once I get it on... |
Well, didn’t that end like a fairytale? Going the other way, Cinderella deserved her happy ending. Did the Portland Timbers?
The first, correct answer is, of course, who the fuck cares? The Timbers…. arguably stole all three points with a 2-1 win over Los Angeles FC, but they somehow managed to make it look legit. Or semi-legit. I’ll get to the whys ‘n’ wherefores of that in the 5 Thoughts section, but, in the big picture, this counts as a BIG WIN. And, yes, that’s circumstance specific: the Timbers hit a stumble lately, taking only 1/3 of the available points from the last six games, while LAFC took…4/5th (right?) of the points over their last five games. Despite the Timbers win, that gap still seems consequential - because LAFC was the better team tonight. Only they lost. Anyway…
The game started both brilliantly and historically, with Portland going up on a guilt built by hustle (Marvin Loria) and completed by timeless composure…just…to believe that ball would clear the defender, the chest it down like you were finishing a plate with brittle ingredients, and then to shatter LAFC ‘keeper, Tomas Romero’s five-hole wide-open like that. Diego Valeri couldn’t have scripted a better 100th career goal, not with the assistance of the gods…I mean, the slacker ones like Apollo and Baldir, the artsy-fartsy ones. And, lo, it was good…
…until it was bad, obviously. For all that the Timbers managed to seize initiative here and there, this was LAFC’s game to lose from somewhere around the 10th minute forward. Shorter version, the Timbers had their moments, but LAFC had more moments. A lot of that came from something I’ve seen from LAFC over the past couple games, but that I haven’t seen since somewhere around late 2019: the return of the avalanche. Jose Cifuentes, Francisco Ginella and Latif Blessing (one of the most underrated midfielders in the league for my money) had general control of the midfield and that reliably sets up the most doom-inducing dynamic for the Timbers: an inability to clear the lines, which leads to panic, which leads to chaos, which leads to goals against. If I had to credit anything for LAFC’s, mid-key, general dominance it came with shutting down Portland’s passing outlets and for most of the game. This should come at absolutely no one’s surprised, but LAFC won the xG battle tonight. They do that a lot as it turns out - they produced the highest reading I’ve ever seen in last weekend’s win over RSL (and it held up under the eyeball test as well) - but that didn’t buy them top of the West - Portland’s just two points behind them, in fact - and that’s a big, meaningful reality.
The first, correct answer is, of course, who the fuck cares? The Timbers…. arguably stole all three points with a 2-1 win over Los Angeles FC, but they somehow managed to make it look legit. Or semi-legit. I’ll get to the whys ‘n’ wherefores of that in the 5 Thoughts section, but, in the big picture, this counts as a BIG WIN. And, yes, that’s circumstance specific: the Timbers hit a stumble lately, taking only 1/3 of the available points from the last six games, while LAFC took…4/5th (right?) of the points over their last five games. Despite the Timbers win, that gap still seems consequential - because LAFC was the better team tonight. Only they lost. Anyway…
The game started both brilliantly and historically, with Portland going up on a guilt built by hustle (Marvin Loria) and completed by timeless composure…just…to believe that ball would clear the defender, the chest it down like you were finishing a plate with brittle ingredients, and then to shatter LAFC ‘keeper, Tomas Romero’s five-hole wide-open like that. Diego Valeri couldn’t have scripted a better 100th career goal, not with the assistance of the gods…I mean, the slacker ones like Apollo and Baldir, the artsy-fartsy ones. And, lo, it was good…
…until it was bad, obviously. For all that the Timbers managed to seize initiative here and there, this was LAFC’s game to lose from somewhere around the 10th minute forward. Shorter version, the Timbers had their moments, but LAFC had more moments. A lot of that came from something I’ve seen from LAFC over the past couple games, but that I haven’t seen since somewhere around late 2019: the return of the avalanche. Jose Cifuentes, Francisco Ginella and Latif Blessing (one of the most underrated midfielders in the league for my money) had general control of the midfield and that reliably sets up the most doom-inducing dynamic for the Timbers: an inability to clear the lines, which leads to panic, which leads to chaos, which leads to goals against. If I had to credit anything for LAFC’s, mid-key, general dominance it came with shutting down Portland’s passing outlets and for most of the game. This should come at absolutely no one’s surprised, but LAFC won the xG battle tonight. They do that a lot as it turns out - they produced the highest reading I’ve ever seen in last weekend’s win over RSL (and it held up under the eyeball test as well) - but that didn’t buy them top of the West - Portland’s just two points behind them, in fact - and that’s a big, meaningful reality.
