Level Set 2026, the Portland Timbers: Where Things Stand as We Wait for the Whistle to Blow

Hello, 2012.

[Ed. - Factually, yes, I did post a “farewell post” for this blog late last year – and it wasn’t the first time. I very much meant it at the time, but please see the bottom of this post where I mumble some excuses for what will change going forward and why the farewell holds up, if in the most sorta kinda way possible.]

What follows is a brief history of the Portland Timbers, plus more brief notes on whatever long-term tendencies they have. Their 2025 season gets weighed in between those two sections and the whole thing ends with where I see things with them in this very specific moment in time - i.e., less than one week before First Kick 2026. I saw an Adam Sussman skeet telling me that Merritt Paulson told him to expect a couple more signings before then, so it's likely that not everything below is final…and yet, I’m not going to hold my breath for greatness or anything.

The post ends with a scale I came up with to measure the long-term success of every team in Major League Soccer. It does some things well (e.g., count trophies/achievements), other things less well (capture recent trends). It's called the Joint Points Scale and you can find a link that explains what it does. I was really stoned when I came up with the scale and wrote the post. Caveat lector. With that...

…for obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015. That datapoint receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Getting Reacquainted with the Portland Timbers, My Burden, My Boo

Ah, memories.

For obvious reasons, this one’s going to go on a bit longer than the others in the series…

Thumbnail History
In my head, I knew the Portland Timbers had some lean seasons before they won MLS Cup 2015, but it receded to where it felt like some other team’s history until I picked through Wikipedia posts about those early seasons, as if thumbing through a yearbook. I also remember the 2015 season through a very specific lens, but I’ll get to that. Starting at the beginning…

Now that I’ve posted mini-histories for every other team in Major League Soccer (may not be better than a Wikipedia post, but definitely shorter), I was struck by how steadily the Timbers pieced together a competitive team, and how early it came in their MLS history. When Portland graduated from the USL to MLS in 2011, they came in with a roster typical of that time (MLS…2.5?): it started with a few players who came up from the USL team – e.g., Futty Danso, Steve Purdy, Bright Dike, and Kalif Alhassan – which was then beefed up with players typical of every Expansion Draft, i.e., fixer-uppers with a good season or two behind them – e.g., Eric Brunner, Eric Alexander, Kenny Cooper – and capped with the player who was born a cagey vet and who would captain through (most of?) their first several seasons, “Captain” Jack Jewsbury. The key additions from outside the domestic professional ranks included a hot college draft pick named Darlington Nagbe and a Colombian midfielder named Diego Chara, who was sold to expectant fans as an “attacking midfielder.” The front office hired a cliché, aka, a “fiery Scotsman,” aka, John Spencer to coach them, and off they went. The Timbers did reasonably well in that expansion season, missing the playoffs by an AI-generated handful, but they fell headlong into a sophomore slump in Year 2. Despite spotting the right weakness – the attack – and upgrading with a couple Colombians (Sebastian Rincon and Jose Adolfo Valencia, who I barely remember), another reclamation project (Danny Mwanga), and spending on a DP forward (Kris Boyd), all that tinkering didn’t lead to anything good and Boyd, in particular, didn't match the hype.  2012 might have been the Timbers’ worst all-time season (and big shout to Chivas USA and Toronto FC for sparing them the blushes!) - haven’t run the numbers, don’t see the point – but the building blocks started falling in place fairly quickly thereafter. First the front office plucked Caleb Porter from the college ranks (University of Akron) before the end of 2012. The players came next, starting with the Flying Johnsons, Will and Ryan (also, no one called them that), Pa Modou Kah (why not?) came over from the Dutch top-flight, by way of Saudi Arabia – Portland even got a little jiggy when they signed former Manchester United stand-out Mikael Silvestre (who broke quickly) – and, of course, the crown jewel of the 2013 renovation, Diego Valeri. He joined on loan, but made it official (I think) before the year was over and would become a fixture/face-of-the-franchise for the next nine seasons (right? because you count both 2013 and 2021?). The result was an about-face from 2012, and an appetizer for the peak seasons to come: 2013 was arguably the Timbers’ best-ever season, if only on paper: the team was balanced, going well over the average for goals scored, while keeping out well below the average; their post-season ended in the semifinals of the MLS Cup playoffs against what was probably the last, best season for Real Salt Lake’s golden-generation. Portland suffered a…senior slump(?) in the 2014 season, missing the playoffs…and this is where the way I remember 2015 comes up.

Montreal Impact 2-1 Portland Timbers: Dead Ends & Futures

The image feature is fucked up. Here are birds of paradise getting sexy.

What good is a player who is only good every October? I’m asking for Dairon Asprilla, a player the Portland Timbers have carried on its roster since…hold on…wow, 2015. For all his lung-busting effort, he’s scored fewer goals than you think, and over more performances than you realize. God willing, he’s killing it every day with T2, but, without further excavation, I have only his numbers with the Timbers’ first team to go with, and one has to wait a while before having anything to count…something like being in prison and having one day last six months.

And, wow. Wow, wow, wow. Lucas Melano’s numbers are barely better. Even with the year off, yikes.

The Timbers gambled on its youth tonight against the Montreal Impact. The starting eleven included one regular starters (Cristhian Paredes), another guy who’s slipping out of the regular rotation (Jeff Attinella), and one patch-starter (Julio Cascante), maybe two (Marco Farfan). Every other guy Portland fielded has, at most, a start or two with the first team next to his name. They wound up losing 1-2, both to Montreal, and to a freakish, wonderful goal. Honestly, I take off both hats off to Orji Okwonwko’s winner, because that’s, at best, a 1-in-50 kind of goal, a Bird of Paradise, if you will…

…but on the level of argument, it took Montreal pulling that out of their collective asses to win this game. So, yeah, not all is lost, and that’s why I didn’t go with my original, more arresting sub-title, “I Hate this Team And I’ll Never Watch Them Again.” It was a joke, people…

The game started all right – call it 10-15 minutes – before degenerating into a conspiracy between the Timbers giving away the ball and Montreal winning nearly every duel that sent all the traffic toward Portland’s goal. The Timbers started the second half stronger and, when they equalized via the famous trio of Loria-to-Cascante-to Conechny (OK not famous locally, but do any baseball fans get the reference?). Portland looked capable of God-knows-what after that goal, and they played…relatively even with Montreal for the rest of the game, even if, after Okwonwko scored Montreal’s second goal, they never really looked like coming back into it. All the same, and generally allowing for the reality that Montreal’s B+ team narrowly out-played Portland’s B- team (in Montreal), some players looked ready for this level, while others did not.

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Portland Timbers: On Watching Your Favorite Child Fail

Fuck it. You sort out who is who.

Don't pretend. You love one kid more than the other(s). You have the sense not to announce it to the world, never mind the kid, but it shows in the way you enroll both kids in all the expected programs, but you really only push the one kid. It’s nothing personal: he/she is just a little more special, smarter maybe, or just kissed with god-given talent that you’re sure you see. Oh, and your other kid(s) knows this to the core of their his/her being and through the next 20 years of therapy.

I’m sure most people can track where this is going. The Portland Timbers are, of course, the special child in this scenario, the team just two goals short of a dark-horse shot at a title last season, the squad of mighty streaks, etc. FC Cincinnati, meanwhile, is the one people have to remind you to talk about now and again.

It was possible to keep up the pretense, probably as deep as 60 minutes into yesterday’s game between the two. Sure, Cincinnati scored the first goal (and that celebration is delightful; let your heart of stone break), but Portland rallied at the end of the first, even managed a little flurry of more or less wild attempts on goal. Somewhere during the next time the game-state rolled Portland’s way, surely they’d equalize.

Yeah, that fell all the fucking way apart when Allan Cruz back-heeled home FC Cincy’s second goal (turns out the game winner already happened). I don’t remember how many times the Timbers defense chased back to their goal like children running from the waves before that goal went in, but, in that precise moment, Junior dunked on Chad. There go your present assumptions about which kid would really benefit from piano lessons. (You will chained to that fucking piano, Chad, till you make me proud, rich or both.) As I was winding down Sunday night, I happened on a tweet from the Portland Timbers' official twitter feed that shouted a big "are you ready for the big leagues?" at Cincinnati like the slowest, most helpless pitch over the middle of the plate in human history. Junior dunks on Chad again, assist by Chad.

Just to throw it out there, save that shit for a present when you haven't allowed seven goals over two games - now 10 goals over three...hey, brought the average down from 3.5 goals/game to 3.0 goals/game. You really cherish the small victories, when they’re all you have.

Phoenix Rising 1-0 Portland Timbers: From Paraguay, WIth Some Confusion

Not in Paraguay...

Knowing that was Phoenix Rising’s first team out there tonight was the only thing that kept me from turning off that game at the half and donating my eyes to science ahead of schedule. (Thereby teaching the next generation how astigmatism; I am a hero.) A wiser man would have followed the instinct, but some online trickster, a Windy City Loki, lured me all the way through all 95 execrable minutes of that nightmare. I felt less frustration watching my toddler trying to tie her shoes the first time around.

Now (speaking of!), put yourself in Jorge Moreira’s shoes. Imagine flying in from Argentina (or Paraguay; does it matter in this case) for your first game of the rest of at least 40, and watching those first 45 minutes. Speaking for myself, I would have called my agent immediately and refused to get on that…disgusting field. The first 38 minutes of the Portland Timbers' 0-1 loss to Phoenix Rising (you lost to that awful slogan as well! Shame!) was nothing more or less than a crime against competence and good taste, an assault to eyeballs, spirit and aesthetics.

Fortunately, the result didn’t matter. Moreover, it’s not Moreira lit it up out there. He had a fauxssist (TM….don't touch it, it's mine!!) on what looked like Cristhian Paredes game-opening goal, but it took me less time to figure out Andy Polo was offside than the ref. (Serious question: what’s with the dramatic pauses? Can we get a little more of “get your ass over here and rubber-stamp the fact he was off” and get on with the goddamn game with VAR?) Outside that shining moment and one particularly cool, calm moment when he shepherded a ball out of a tricky situation with two dudes on his shoulder, you would have thought Moreira was a trialist based on tonight, what with all the USL talent (named Junior Flemmings) making him look like something less than a threat to Zarek Valentin’s one and only day job.

I’m not worried about Moreira (yet…nah, just messin’). This was his first game, new league, new country, that’s just a lot to take in. Also, a good USL team is nothing to sniff at. For instance, after watching Solomon Asante play a full 90, and thinking about all those MLS teams in search of a winger…well, it makes you wonder, if nothing else. (Then again, seriously, will a time come when the influx of talent to North America gathers enough steam that a player like Asante will go to USL as a stepping stone to MLS?)

Given that this game meant less than nothing (aka, Saturday, against the New York Red Bulls 1.5), I don’t want to spend too much time on it. I’ll start with some general thoughts about each of the “Three Units” (e.g., 0-38, 38-79, 79-90), then go through what I’ve seen from the more marginal/contingent crowd on the Timbers line-up. In other words, my comments on Jeff Attinella, Diego Valeri, Diego Chara, Sebastian Blanco, Larrys Mabiala, Jorge Villafana, and even Zarek Valentin, Dairon Asprilla, and Andres Flores start and end with “stay healthy, fellas!” Yes, even if they're not all starters. Just to note it, did Flores pull the “single white female” thing on Lawrence Olum (e.g., unlikely replacement on at least one level that everyone seems to buy)? I’ll get to (marginal) personnel later; let’s talk about each of tonight’s shift.

Portland Timbers 2-2 New York Red Bulls: Choice Paradox

Much as I wouldn't know what to do with all those arms...

It took 70 minutes for Sebastian Blanco to get deep enough in Kyle Duncan’s head to take advantage. In that sense, I came away from this game more impressed by the New York Red Bulls youth than anything else. At the same time…Blanco is my favorite Timber for a reason.

From a Portland Timbers perspective, last night’s 2-2 draw against the Red Bulls coughs up too many variables to manage: too many dudes to assess, an opposing team that played a familiar system with different parts, and that’s on top of a state of play that only raised more questions. I blame preseason, and to the extent that I can’t decide whether the uneasy feeling from Wednesday’s win over the Seattle Sounders carries over. Not all B-teams are created equal, for starters, but New York has the power of their surprisingly reliable plug-‘n’-play system that goes quite a ways toward erasing that distinction. They don’t have an MLS Cup to show for it, but the Red Bulls have been the most reliably “money” team in MLS for nearly half a decade now – so says three of the last six Supporters’ Shields, so says last year’s league-leading goal differential.

Given all that, call this a good test for the Timbers. The result doesn’t mean anything, obviously, and ending in a tie makes it mean a little less, but, outside a whack at someone’s knuckles here and sharper questions there, just about every player performed well. Because the recap posted to MLSSoccer.com doesn’t provide the full treatment (e.g., no box score), I can’t say whether New York out-shot the Timbers. I suspect they generated more chances, and better ones, and that’s where my personal threat level tops out. Your feelings may vary – thanks in no small part to all the variables – so long as you rate the resilience of New York’s system (as I do), seeing Portland come back from two goals down against them felt like a decent evening’s work.

Most of the negatives I saw showed up on the defensive side and a lot of those showed up in the vicinity of Julio Cascante. The lowlight came when Cascante’s misplayed of a ball over the top that forced Larrys Mabiala into a tackle dicey enough for the ref to call it a penalty kick at first glance (it wasn’t; good call), but he also struggled more under the Red Bulls’ pressure than any Timbers this side of David Guzman. And, as alluded to, I don’t think Guzman looked all that sharp yesterday, and on either side of the ball, but he had more good moments than bad ones on balance, just like everyone else in Timbers green. That said, both goals were regrettable – the first for the way Villafana got caught forward and for the way Mabiala and Zarek Valentin lost Brian White between them, the second because that’s shit defending on a corner – and, again, you just don’t want to see that, even in preseason. Mistakes are one way to lose a game, so the fewer the better.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Seattle Sounders: Getting Results, Managing Expectations

The rosters may have affected expectations.... 

A mash-up of the Portland Timbers beat an even more deconstructed version of the Seattle Sounders down in Tucson, AZ last night. The final score was 2-1, and, no, the result doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting, or some unlikely collision of optimism and pessimism. I don’t really know how pre-season works – is there something in a players’ contracts regarding how hard you “go in”? does the coach send them onto the field with something like, “play, but not really, but I’m also watching, so play” for motivation? - I only know it’s different. Not just because of that, but due to the literal throw-shit-at-the-wall line-ups you see, and probably should see, up until the game right before the start of the season…

…if I were a coach, I’d tinker even in that game. Experiments are how we learn, and these are cheap.

Portland Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese did something noteworthy with his 2/3, 1/3 line-up: he fielded two competitive, and reasonably-balanced units. To save you from clicking through a link, here were Portland’s line-ups for the 60/30 shifts, respectively:

First 60: Attinella, Valentin, Mabiala, Cascante, Villafaña, Guzmán, Paredes, Polo, Valeri, Blanco, Melano

Second 30: Clark, Farfan, Tuiloma, Dielna, Miller*, Flores, Chara, Asprilla, Loría, Conechny, Ebobisse

Both units showed good faces and bad ones – also, I don’t think either of those specific line-ups will ever see the light of day in regular season. “Team First 60” had a little more attacking “pop,” while “Team Second 30” had mostly effort/promise mixed with stabilizing influences all ‘round (went with the buddy system, usually a good call), but, regardless of whether the world will see either specific line-up, both sets could manage a game if it had to. I don’t think they’d hold up through a season, but Portland has emergency arrangements, and that’s my happy thought for today.

The bad news is complicated. Both units, isolated parts of them, and individual players all looked good at some point tonight; there was a blessed minimum of stinking up the joint. At the same time, neither Team First 60 nor Team Second 30 faced the Sounders’ best at any point last night. The Sounders played a decent, reasonably experienced line-up for the first 75 minutes – e.g., players like Will Bruin (who had a couple chances, even a PK shout), Harry Shipp, but it was Handwalla Bwana who stood out, and for more than scoring Seattle’s goal – but that team featured…maybe three, four marginal starters for Seattle? They played a passel of toddlers for the game’s final 15 minutes – aka The Seattle Super Junior Sounders! - and that’s who Dairon Asprilla bullied to create the game winner. As far as that goes...

Portland Timbers 0-0 Sporting Kansas City: "He's Had a Poor Night, John" Signed Stu Holden

The waiting is, and is not, the hardest part.

To start with the oft-repeated conventional wisdom from the broadcast – which I happen to agree with – neither the Portland Timbers nor Sporting Kansas City minds this result. To get all the prognostication(/bullshit) out of the way, the dynamics of the return leg play to Portland’s strengths, and for the same reason that this first leg played against them: Portland lived by transition all season, and the second game will put them back in their best shoes.

At the same time, yes, this result was not ideal (maybe; see closing arguments) and, as much as I think the Timbers have the game-plan/personnel to win any one game, 1) there are easier things than winning on the road against Sporting Kansas City, and 2) they could have won “any one game,” say, tonight, but they didn’t…and doesn’t that explode that particular fallacy? So, no, not the ideal outcome – give me what Atlanta did to the Red Bulls, only against SKC – but that’s where my thoughts on tonight’s pregnant, goal-less draw really start:

What specific thing would you have had otherwise? Or, from the other side, which Portland player made a defining mistake, or even generally failed to execute in today's goal-less home draw?

Blame Stu Holden for the title: that was close to his final assessment on Dairon Asprilla, and that wasn’t my thought for him. Sure, Dairon Asprilla killed a couple of attacks, but I’d still rate him at better than his regular season average on the night (if a couple steps below his prime-time playoff prime). More often, though, he and every player in Timbers green stayed composed on the ball, made good decisions/passes, made even better defensive reads, and generally took the game to Sporting KC. Asprilla’s better than average spread around the team to where I saw Zarek Valentin hold down right back as if he dropped anchor there; Jorge Villafana got into the attack wide, inside and judiciously; David Guzman defended better, smarter and more aggressively than he has all season, and Jeremy Ebobisse played bounces like ballet and, holy cow, do I have questions there (What, exactly, was the coaching staff waiting for from this kid?). On top of that, Diego Valeri looks 30 all over again, Sebastian Blanco’s influence continues to grow and Diego Chara needs a firehouse named in his honor right now as in no point in waiting and the people at the cutting ceremony better be damned important. If your primary definition of God is omnipresence, what is Chara but God?

The complicated truth of this moment is that the Portland Timbers are playing as well right now as they have all season. That’s great because it has carried them as far as it has – for those in need of a reminder, heading into the second leg of a playoff series, dead even in everything but (by all accounts, considerable) home-field advantage – but less great because they couldn’t put even one finger on the scale against Sporting KC, and at home.

Alphonso Davies 2-1 Portland Timbers: Anatomy of a Gamble with a Big(ass) MLS Playoff Preview

thank you andres flores.

The Portland Timbers tipped their hands when it announced the starting eleven: getting rest for key players like Diegos Valeri and Chara, Sebastian Blanco, uh, Zarek Valentin, Liam Ridgewell, Larrys Mabiala…you should be sensing a pattern by now…probably even Jeremy Ebobisse; at any rate, the Timbers decided three points today mattered less than giving those players and a few more the best chance at being their best possible selves for Wednesday’s first-round playoff game at FC Dallas. (Halloween, guys, really? You’re gonna make fans choose?)

No one will know whether the gamble paid off until the final whistle blows on Halloween, but the Timbers’ understudies couldn’t hold up their end: they lost 2-1 to Alphonso Davies, who got a genuinely nice sending off from teammates and Vancouver Whitecaps fans after turning in a game-winning nearly-90 minutes at BC Place. As Davies sat on the sideline contemplating his personal reality, the TV flashed his career MLS statistics. Eight goals and 12 assists over 65 games. At first blush, you think, huh, thought it’d be higher. Bayern’s Munich’s decision to sign him only adds up when one clocks that Davies produced all of those numbers less one assist in 2018. The way he turned a seam into a tear to score his first goal explains the rest.

Portland's decision to field an army of stand-ins means there’s not a lot to say about this game beyond, guess that’s why they’re not starters. I’ll dig into the numbers down below, but I’m also going to come back later tonight to update this post with a broad-brush look at what the Timbers, and the rest of the teams who made the 2018 MLS Playoffs, look like heading into the post-season. That’ll take some research, but I should send that out into the world by the end of the night. There were some shocks across the league today, seismic, “two in the booter,” and so on.

Back to the Timbers, do I approve of the overall decision to rest, oh, everyone who has reliably proved to be someone this season? Yes, even though it meant Portland (effectively) threw away the chance to catch FC Dallas for the honor of hosting their first round playoff tie. Making that come off would have required a lot of things to go Portland’s way - e.g., Dallas losing at Colorado Rapids (check!) and Portland winning on the road by more than two goals. That’s not some pie-in-the-sky scenario - the Timbers beat RSL by three goals in Utah a few weeks ago - but that also meant giving up something as wholly tangible and valuable as well-rested starters. Add in the fact that Dallas lost its last three games of the season, and that they’d hardly been ruthless before that - 3-4-3 in the last 10 games, and those three wins came against at home against Houston and Orlando, and away to Vancouver - and the entire plan takes a step past safe toward cagey.

On the Portland Timbers' Revealing(?) Draw Against Atlanta and (Barely Touching) MLS Week "11"

Goddammit, the 80s....

Yeah, yeah. I’m way behind on this stuff, but, look, someone died, I had to help plan my first funeral, and that shit’s time consuming. As such, the only MLS game I could watch this weekend was Portland Timbers v. Atlanta United FC. So, this week, it’s all and only about what happened when Atlanta came to Portland, Oregon. I’ll comment very, very generally on the week’s results, because I feel like I’ve got something there too. At any rate…hold on, wait.

Also, I’m doing this from memory; I don’t have time for even the condensed game at this point. I had this really compelling conversation about the service industry going on during the second half, and the damn game was how many days ago? Feels like a fucking lifetime…by which I mean, more than a little vagueness ahead. But that game did stir some thoughts…

Think I’ll start with this: the first few games of the year pumped my expectations for Portland’s season pretty high (the LA win, though, first road win since Rome fell? C'mon, you loved it). Stupid high? Maybe. (And are we there yet?) Felt good, the idea that Portland made just the right moves, solved the key problem(s) (honestly, I thought they’d solved only one problem, but, also, all of that problem with David Guzman), but some part of me thinks the Timbers have settled into what this season will actually look like. Think the Facts of Life theme song. And if you don’t know what that is, skip looking it up, that’s just your garden variety sit-com; not that’s there’s anything wrong with loving it, just have some goddamn perspective on what you love. And google the damn theme song.

Hold on. Just did it. Here you go. Back to the game…

The Late, Late Tackle 01 09 2017: Melano, Maloney, and Rebuilds

Never been asked before, but, is this metaphor to harsh?

After weighing my personal comfort level with the thought of losing my job and my increasingly-impending mortality, I’ve decided that I can’t post at work anymore. Yes, this means I’ll always be behind. That means I better make this interesting, goddamn it.

Speaking of, or the opposite, these brief highlight reels from the MLS Combine (ongoing, check your local listings: Chaos v. Control and Copa v. Tango) don’t really give you much sense of how any given player is doing (fine, admittedly, they’re not awful). Personally, my default in this, not to mention when watching the college game is, “he’ll never get away with that in MLS.” And, by and large, that holds.

This will fill in some blanks, but, even then, nothing matters till you suit up and perform, week after grueling (often pointless) week in Major League Soccer (unless you’re chasing the Supporters’ Shield; otherwise, why care till the end o’ June? (Yes, I’ll bury this thought in the background soon…rule of 3, rule of 3, rule of 3)). And, I guess that’s the point of all the roster rebuilds going on right now, so let’s get back the recap of things I can barely understand, but that I understand a little better than The Combine. Starting local, as I always will, when I can.

Melano-Vederci

One time future bright spot Lucas Melano got shipped (OK, loaned) out of Portland and back to his original (right?) Argentine club today. To the credit of the Timbers front office – and I mean this – they made an arrangement I hadn’t thought of: they loaned him back to Atletico Belgrano, so that they still might have an asset to move if Melano improves down there. Because he sure wasn’t doing it up here…

The Late Tackle, 12 07 2016: More MLS Cup Crap, Portland and Expansion, Plus Expansion (and Sad Mix)

No, please. Throw away my shit for me.

For anyone who cares about such things, I’m trying to choose how many items to cover in these daily things. I’m hung up between three topics and five. Split the difference today. But one of ‘em feels weak. Shit. Anyway…

More MLS Cup Crap

The work of hyping a cup final takes many shapes and runs from good to bad (not to pick on that last one but it's only of interest to someone who hasn’t paid attention at all for the last month). As for the good stuff, I bumped into a couple today: one a tactical preview (but with a shitty title, at least on mobile: “Jordan Morris Poses Problems for TFC,” which really sells it short), which dives decently deep into things (personally, I found the Armando Cooper stuff enlightening); the other, which also didn’t promise much by title, looks at how the MLS contestants, (again) Seattle Sounders and Toronto FC, built their rosters. It’s more of a how-to than it looks, especially the stuff about both club’s academies. If I had to give a long-term edge of any kind between the two teams, it’d go to Toronto. Take away Jordan Morris (please!), and I’d rate Toronto’s pool higher.

On a note that relates only because these two teams are in the Cup, I read somewhere that Nick Hagglund has “become a force” on set-pieces. I’m hung up on “maybe” for now, because I don’t think TFC can count on the absolute shit marking that Montreal put on Hagglund in the first leg.

One more on MLS Cup, and those participating in it. It’s cool to see TFC’s Jozy Altidore pick up a littlehype, because he’s playing out of his goddamn mind right now. I’m thinking back, specifically, to a back-heel that he used to set up one of Toronto’s goals against Montreal. Next-level shit, kid. and from a guy I still call the smartest man in MLS.

The Portland Timbers 2016: Patterns and Pratfalls (and Possibilties?)

No, think harder. What do you NEED?

I had plans to duck Darlington Nagbe entirely in this review (what do you mean, “you don’t believe me”?), but Stumptown Footy posted something last week about Scottish giants Celtic FC comin’ a’-courtin,’ and it sums up Nagbe’s game really well, so, y’know, what the hell?

“As fans in the Rose City know well, however, Nagbe provides much more than goals, assists, and tackles won. Although it’s a role that is typically far from glamorous, Nagbe is an elite shuttler who facilitates the Timbers’ transition and possession play in often spectacular fashion.”

To draw out a point: does what Nagbe bring to the team provide “much more than goals, assists, and tackles won?” And what the hell does “elite shuttler” even mean? The phrase implies that the Timbers transition better than all other teams in MLS, or even most of them, but do they? (By way of a quick comparison/name-drop, Ignacio Piatti starts and finishes his transitions.) Basically, I credit Stumptown for as tidy a summation of how Nagbe uses his considerable talents, but the actual productive value of that contribution remains an open question in my mind. And I hereby leave it open for anyone who reads this to answer…according to his or her judgment/conscience.

One final, preliminary comment: Timbers fans strike me as a fairly sentimental bunch. They connect to (most of) the players with genuine interest and a kind of familial fondness. I didn’t have a deep connection to any team for much of my soccer-viewing life, not a real one, and I have only one year in as an actual member of any supporters’ group and didn’t do anything meaningful with it when I did have it (nothing personal; I’m just not much of a joiner*), I’m not clear as to how normal this is among fans. (*That said, on this Saturday after Thanksgiving, I am genuinely thankful for having found a motley collection of people to watch games with. Yay!)

I don’t care if Timbers fans are unusually…clingy, honestly, but, when it comes to really cleaning a house, sentimentality often just sort of gets in the way. Sometimes one has to view grandma’s wish to be buried with her collection of cat statuettes for what it is: a little bit of madness. Those statuettes are worthless junk, so let’s bite the bullet and get rid of them…

…speaking of Lucas Melano. Guys, I’m kidding! Not that mean (am I?). Still, whether by fate or sub-par performance, he offers a good starting point for the story of Portland’s 2016 season.

Portland Timbers Get Too Damn Drunk Before the Party. Also, the Party (aka, The MLS Postseason Hurrah!)

GUYS! There are better uses for this!

I’m not going to dwell too much on the specifics of the Portland Timbers 4-(WHAT?!)-1 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps, not least because it doesn’t matter just now. The only thought I really have is, the team needed this. The fan-base might have needed it even more. The Timbers community, as a whole, spent the second half of summer 2016 waiting on a turn-around in the team’s fortunes. Not pining for, but waiting for it – as in, expecting it, knowing it would come. I know this is how fans talk, but still, it didn’t come. Plainly.

Overwhelmed; supine; the sick, limping lamb laying down with an exceedingly hungry, possibly scientifically-bred wolf: quality of phrasing notwithstanding, they all work. No Portland Timber player really shined yesterday, the (arguably) second unquestionably decisive game of the season (the midweek hairball against Deportivo Saprissa being the only truly clear first), and when you can’t show up for games like that, well, things like missing the playoffs happen. Empty-handed seasons happen. If I had to name anyone, I’d go with Darren Mattocks and Jermaine Taylor, each role players for the team, and not stars, but each player’s game let him down in some way (long touches and the usual lack of…finesse, respectively). When the results continued souring down the stretch, the refrain from Timbers Brass spoke to what this team can do when their backs hit the wall, so I guess the question is, their backs are against the wall now, so…when’s that change kick in?

That’s the Timbers 2016 in a nutshell – i.e., the persistence of hope against all available evidence. I haven’t yet reviewed my work for this past season – that’s part of the research of The Big Post-Mortem – but I’ll pick through every (agonizing, misguided) thing I wrote this year soon enough. The dominant idea of the Timbers, though, bought into the Caleb Porter October Miracle, the idea that Ol’ Caleb gets ‘em up for the end of the season, every season. Except this year. That theory made some sense (I checked; see? see? see?), but it omitted a major reality from that myth’s defining year, 2015: Portland turned things around then because they could defend. The Timbers had at least one end of the field figured out in 2015, something that showed not just in their defensive stats, but also in road wins. (7-8-2?! Auggghhh! My heart!)

What changed between this year and last goes deeper than a change in personnel. Well, maybe. It might be closer to argue that the issues with personnel, and even inj…fuck it. Every time I try heading down that road, I get nothing. My point is, it shouldn’t have mattered as much as it did. Wait, no. Should it have mattered as much as it did? Based on Portland’s now complete 2016, and off the top of my head, post-mortem pending, I see three big tasks ahead for the Timbers:

Timbers 1-0 Real Salt Lake: On Date Night and Silver Linings

Hmm...Movsisystem what dear?

I'm going to start this post by stating that I am happily married.

My wife and I go on date night every week, virtually without fail. It's a good practice, keeps us closer, attuned to one another in a one-on-one setting, etc. Most nights we do fine, some nights we fucking kill it, while other nights, well, they don't go so great. Maybe one of us enjoys it while the other one doesn't (a shit night of bowling/pinball does that), or maybe neither of us enjoy it and we spend the night staring glumly at the TV mulling over whether to say the thing that's really on our minds. No, not the thing I read in Cosmopolitan while buying groceries. The deep stuff...

Last night, when I tweeted/alluded that the Portland Timbers 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake left me less than thrilled, that's the vein I'm tapping. Yes, the Timbers won, and yes, that's a good thing. Honest to god, I'm happy, because sometimes a team just needs the result, because what's that but the chance to do it better the next time? That only gets more true in the post-season, and the post-season's coming. And that's good, and that's bad. I mean, we all know this by now, right? Right?

But that's what made the whole thing, well, kind of a shitty date night. Yeah, the Timbers won, yeah, they ran the gambit of "c" words on the way to getting there – e.g. capable, competent, composed, corpulent, crispy, CONCACAF, etc. – but the Timbers made only two clear chances (all half-chances besides), and they buried only one of those, and that was against an RSL that didn't pull much together. There wasn't a lot of threat coming toward Portland's goal, and Portland didn't do a raging lot going the other way, so, yeah, it was the soccer equivalent of a mediocre dinner, a brief, unresolved argument about what to do after, and the whole thing ending with getting stoned and watching something funny enough till you both pass out. #Bliss

I'm going to start the deeper dive with RSL, because how badly they sputtered gets to why it feels hard to get excited about this, a home win (more later). If you put a hand to someone's forehead and he/she couldn't sort out how to get around it, that's about where RSL was for most of last night (more later). Part of it was rotation – e.g. the decision to spell Javier Morales by starting Jordan Allen, or giving Chris Schuler (very good when whole) the start over [?] – but it came up short. Even when the right guys got on the ball – e.g. Joao Plata, Juan "Burrito" Martinez, and Yura "Cheatin' Heart" Movsisyan – they couldn't get clicking cleanly enough to do damage. They had a couple shots, they might have even "come on late" provided one defines that loosely enough, but, the cleaner narrative points to last night's win as a case of the road team defending pretty well, only to fall victim to one fatal (shockingly slow-motion) slip.

Look, Portland won. And I am happy. See? I'm smiling. Right now, I'm totally smiling. Grinning, even.

Downed by Dallas: Some Cheap Hope and a Remedy

I call it Plan P. You WILL remember!

I was able to believe that the Portland Timbers would find their way back into the game for quite a while. Until the 53rd minute, to put a number on it. That I felt like Portland had a chance against FC Dallas going in very likely had something to do with it; I mean, who doesn't want to see his/her hunches confirmed? And it's not like the Timbers didn't give people reason to hope: about five minutes after Dallas' opener a long ball from Liam Ridgewell found Lucas Melano over the top, who forced an error from Dallas 'keeper Chris Seitz, and one big enough to keep Dallas' defense dancing for a few full seconds. Even after Dallas raised the margin for victory to 2-0 at the very end of the first half, Melano meandered across the top of Dallas' attacking third, a move that, 1) threw off Dallas' defense and, 2) put him in position to later thunder a shot off the crossbar. It didn't go in, nor did Fanendo Adi's follow-up header. Still, think what drawing first blood in the second half could have meant to the contest. Or think what an answer to Dallas' first (soft) goal five minutes after it happened could have meant.

That paragraph above is loaded with a whole lotta what-might-have-been. Things felt decidedly over, sadly, once Walker "I Make 'O' Faces" Zimmerman blasted the ball over Jack Jewsbury's head and past Portland 'keeper Jake Gleeson for Dallas' third, final, and entirely sufficient goal in the ultimate 3-1 win (and with Steven Taylor clinging to Zimmerman's jersey like a damsel begging him not to leave). Zimmerman's goal launched the inquiry, basically, into what went wrong in Dallas this past Saturday.

I thought I had a pretty good narrative, one that I typed into my phone on the (long, almost interminable, really) train ride home. Those notes flagged details like a reminder of Portland's better days, back when the double pivot worked, germs of a theory on why Ridgewell and S. Taylor (goddammit, guys; sign fewer Taylors!) make for a lousy tandem, a belief that Dallas turned Diego Valeri invisible in the second half, and, finally, they argued that the Timbers have a "wing" problem. It all sounded very simple, basically.

Portland Timbers 4-2 Seattle Sounders: On the (Cleverly Disguised) Road Ahead

Wait...did they just score again?

I was lucky enough to get a late invite to today's game, and I couldn't be more thankful (thanks, anonymous person! You're the best!). I mean, how often does one get to live 45 minutes of happy incredulity, one of those moments where one can have a dozen coins in a row land on heads, and without being Professor Barnhouse?

It was a fascinating sequence, really: first, Vytas Andriuskevicius' goal eased the anxiety; Fanendo Adi's goal evidenced signs of the entire team's commitment, and, no less crucially, his; Lucas Melano scoring the third foretold either his personal redemption or the breaking of the sixth seal...wasn't entirely clear on that one; but, when Steven Taylor scored Portland's fourth goal and while standing on his feet, that's when a fog of sassified complacency sank onto the field to mingle with the afternoon heat.

To remind/inform, as the case may be, "sassified" comes from Clarence Carter's epic Strokin' (seriously, if you don't know this song, hit that link) and, as Urban Dictionary reminds us, it "[describes] the feeling following magnificent sexual gradification (sic)." (Guys, c'mon: it's "gratification". Does anyone even edit your copy?))

Things were going swell, I was smoking a cigarette, musing at the ceiling, etc., when a funny thing happened. That would be the Seattle Sounders scoring their second goal. Sure, there was one before that, but, in my state of bliss, that one only felt like Steven Taylor scored two goals on the day, one of them a helper for a brutally beleaguered opposition. When the Sounders scored that second goal, though, something changed. I haven't mentioned this yet, but I watched the game in the midst of Seattle’s fans. And, holy shit, does your body react when what you want to happen is the absolute opposite of what everyone around you wants to have happen. Put it this way, it borders on fight or flight, only without the irrationality.

The game ended 4-2 to the Portland Timbers in the end. After Jordan Morris nodded home from an unacceptably open space far too close to Portland's goal (and with Nicolas "Freakin'" Lodeiro  standing ready to play in the pass in the middle of a pasture with enough time to contemplate the meaning of his shot for each of the world's religions), the Timbers took a deep breath, re-centered, and like any good team (*****), they proceeded to play cool, possession soccer with an eye to bleeding the stamina out Seattle's legs.

The Portland Timbers And Their Eternal Transition. And Sporting KC.

AAUGGH! Connor Hallisey!

[Each week I (try to) watch three full, 90-minute games. And I write ‘em up. Part 2 of 3, for Major League Soccer’s Week 21.]

Why This Game? Because I watch the Portland Timbers every time they play. Sporting Kansas City just sort of tagged along...

And the reports that feature the Timbers games will wind up giving somewhat short shrift to their opposition, but I will try to give those teams at least some of their due.

On the Result

“Yeah, yeah, they almost just scored. I still think that watching Sporting KC attack is like watching a toddler paint.”
- Conifers & Citrus Official Twitter feed during the game

“what does that say about the Timbers then!?”
- ik3, some hours after the game.

Just about everything you read below weaves in, out and between of the above exchange. I honestly don’t think that much of SKC, a strappingly, stupidly stoned-on-athletics team that only hits the broad side of the barn because they run headlong and relentlessly into the people standing between them and the barn. They’re unsubtle, inaccurate and, to my mind, mostly containable...and yet, there but for the grace of Jake Gleeson, the Timbers barely contained them. Portland came very close to forcing a draw at the end – twice, too – but they owed that opportunity to Jake Gleeson, the man who parried a ten-minute shelling with everything up to and including an artless flail-slap. The game ended at 1-0 to Sporting, and it's har...rather, it's pointless to argue with that.

Even if they got an assist or two from Good Fortune – more on this in the section below on SKC –the Timbers didn’t cough up naked chances all day or anything, and the team played all right in a broad sense. I don’t mind the goal that won it: Amobi Okugo was in reasonably good position, Jacob Peterson just got the better read on the ball, and hence contact, hence goal. And Portland’s late chances were good; Jack McInerney’s attempt would have been the more satisfying finish (is that citrus?), while Fanendo Adi’s felt like the surer, if graceless, chance (no easy to find video; sad!). Lucas Melano’s brain-freeze returned, so the Timbers lost a couple promising chances, but, all in all, the team created chances and they defended all right...and I’m pleased that the Timbers held their ground against one of MLS’s more brutish teams. And there it is, an unremarkable and acceptable result in every sense except the missing points and timing. The Timbers have only eleven games left to get everything rolling on the right track (or 15 games if you view the Timbers’ upcoming CONCACAF Champions’ League games as chances at figuring their shit out as opposed to a program designed to fatigue your team’s players). That puts a pretty simple question in play: how close is Portland to getting everything rolling on the right track? I’ll get to it...first, let’s look at SKC.

Timbers Draw RSL: On Patience and/with Gamesmanship

Hmmm...sleeping together did not fix things...

So...what is the rule on mulligans in Major League Soccer? Surely they have one, maybe tucked somewhere within all the byzantine shit about how to fit a roster together?

I guess what I'm saying is, mistakes were made last night during the Portland Timbers awkward 2-2 draw at home against Real Salt Lake. What we know is that, both teams made something together last night, I'm not sure either side feels all so great about what happened, there was some bad behavior, etc. Has anyone checked with the RSL camp? Anyone else think they'd be open to a do-over? Think about, Jamison Olave out for the next game, Kyle Beckerman out for the next game....then again, Juan "Burrito" Manuel Martinez got away with that late lunge on Darlington Nagbe. (Happily, it sounds like Nagbe will be all right.)

I saw this match live, for the record, which rarely passes into my brain the same way as it does when I watch on TV – just...more distracted at a live match – so I filled in the (some? maybe?) gaps with the 20-minute mini-game this morning. The video missed a couple biggies – e.g. where the hell is my replay on Fandendo Adi's allegedly offside opener for Portland, and what kind of foul led to Plata's free kick. And Adam? The hell was that? Why did you run off the very happy rails on which this game was running, Mr. Kwarasey? This is goalkeeping, son, not preparing to sit down on a pleasant patch of artificial turf.

Portland Can't Find a Way Past San Jose...which is true of that city generally (a mess, I tell you).

San Jose's defense. I mean, how do you get through that?

Somewhere around the 60th minute (think it was the 58th, but not checking), the ball squirted out to Darlington Nagbe, who stood just outside the Portland Timbers' 18. With the ball under control, Nagbe looked up to find his options. Inside one second, unable to find an option worth passing to, Nagbe raised his arms in clear "fuck-it" frustration; by the time the full second had passed, Chris Wondolowski had poked the ball off Nagbe's foot and the San Jose Earthquakes took one more run at the Portland Timbers' goal. This was just one reason today's game ended 2-1. San Jose frustrated the holy shit out of Portland.

It wasn't always that kind of day, though. The Timbers largely dictated the opening. Right up to the 30th minute, really. That’'s when Wondolowski "did Wonolowski things," as Fox Sports' commentating team put it, this time breaking past Jermaine Taylor inside Portland's (sacred and inviolate!) six-yard box to meet a cross to the near post. So, there was that, a goal. Before that, Portland's Lucas Melano pinged a ball off the crossbar; Diego Valeri rode a tackle and put a seeing-eye toe-poke on goal, only to have San Jose's 'keeper, David Bingham, tip it to the outside of the side netting. Making matters worse, the ref missed it and awarded the 'Quakes a goal kick afterwards. In a replay of that shot later in the game, the video followed long enough to capture Valeri looking Bingham in the eye and saying, "tell him." With "him" here being the referee...and, yeah, even as I type that, I'm surprised Valeri bothered. Well, not so much surprised that Valeri bothered as I'm surprised to think he thought it would matter. Then again, of course Valeri would think that. It's not for nothing the man reads devotional literature...

For the first 30 minutes of this game, Portland attacked San Jose's defensive third in a way that promised an inevitable breakthrough. Wondo scored, of course, but the Timbers picked up after it, probing their way to San Jose's goal, and everything looked set to follow a narrative in which the question would be whether or not the Timbers could equalize. And, if so, where things would go from there? And so on.

It didn't turn out that way. In one awful (at most) five second sequence, Quincy Amarikwa – remember him? the guy who's finishing I questioned? – picked up the script, blow his nose on it, mic-dropped that sucker to the floor, poured gasoline on it, and set that fucker to flame. With that, and for the second year running, Portland again find themselves an early favorite for being the team on the receiving end of a Goal of the Year (memories...). If you didn't see it, do yourself a favor and watch Amarikwa's goal - which is even more impressive for the stuff that came before it. A lob over Adam Kwarasey from at least 40 yards out, it is a thing of perfect beauty. It also came right before the half and, arguing from the second half, it just plain freaked-out the Timbers. Even when Portland pulled back a hearteningly impressive consolation goal (sure, it's too little, too late, but that at least means Portland has ideas on how to score one of those elusive buggers), the Timbers' approach play presented as more desperate than methodical. Desperate can work, of course, but "methodical," by way of being controlled, typically works better.