Portland Timbers 3-3 Real Salt Lake: Technology and Actually Promising Things

The fouls can see him too! Trippy!!

I’m going to start this with the elephant-sized talking point that squatted all over that game. Yeah, Video Assiste…fuck it, VAR. The specific acronym doesn’t matter, but I'm talking about that video review thing that just happened, that we all endured.

It’s not what happened on the field that bugs me. On a different day with a different angle Soren Stoika (right?) would have called that red card first time, and things would have ensued as they did – at least provided that Joao Plata’s foot kissed the ball in just the same way. Today, though, Stoika missed it and…I dunno. So, what I guess? Was getting justice really that much more satisfying than a blown call? Yura Movsisyan kept playing so Diego Chara’s contact with…whatever couldn’t have been that savage. Still, Chara does lead with the elbow a lot, and that’s a risk.

Bottom line, though, I think I’d confine VAR to goal-line tech. I’m fine with using the Discipline Committee to mete out justice after. And I’d consider putting a little more length on their levers. Think something between the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and the Spanish Inquisition. The broadcast team spoke like party-line puppets (guys…hyperbole), calling the stilted moment of video decision, “drama-filled and impactful” (which running dog swine uttered those words?!), and I think that’s what made me angry tweet. Then again, every day is a trigger…

OK, the game, the game, the game. The Portland Timbers tied Real Salt Lake into a big bow of 3’s and called it Thursday. I’m going to dig into a couple particular fascinations, maybe try to inflate them into something bigger. They were both goals and Portland scored both, but one of them said something very specific about RSL. So’s I can end big with the Timbers, I’ll start with the one that gets at RSL.

The Timbers first goal contained some good elements. Alvas Powell put in a good cross, Mattocks wrestled through some traffic to get off his shot, and Diego Valeri found that clear shot on goal as reward for following the righteous path of continuing the play, wherever it leads you. Or, to re-write the script, great cross by Powell, and, of course, Darlington Nagbe didn’t shoot, and Darren Mattocks followed that up by scuffing the shot, as is his habit, and thank god for Diego Valeri.

MLS Week 20 Review + The Bargain-Bin Starting XI

I know! Kennedy Igboananike at $800K? Madness!

I'm a late getting to this review of Major League Soccer's Week 20. I didn't even get links into the review of the Portland Timbers draw against the Vancouver Whitecaps last weekend, fer crissakes (links in there now; embarrassed by the delay). A combination of reasons led to that, all of which I will cover in the semi-traditional, semi-confessional prologue that always seems to top my posts. Said prologue will last exactly one paragraph, after which paragraph, the conversation shall return to MLS and the Timbers.

I caught only two whole games over Week 20, Portland v. Vancouver and the New England Revolution's home win over New York City FC. Worse, where I usually power through a full diet of 20-minute mini-games easily as a family of four goes through that first bowl of chips and salsa at your finer Mexican restaurants, I left chips and salsa on the table this weekend (or, more directly, I have yet to sit through Real Salt Lake's win over the Houston Dynamo). Worse, I experienced every game – whole, mini-, or live – at a remove, as if I watching television about someone else watching the games on television. I blame all of this on The Great Bon-Bon of Indifference, a chocolate confection possessed of the power to rob a person of his/her agency. Just...keep that in mind, at least for what it's worth, when you read the stuff on Week 20. The rest is gold. Or at least gold-flaked.

For Week 20's review, I'm going with a six-pack of observations and a big-ass shot; we're talking a three-finger at minimum, on the latter. As with any good night out, may as well start with the shot. You know the saying: "Liquor, beer, everclear." Or something to that effect. At any rate, the six thoughts that came to me as I watched the Week 20's game comprise the six-pack. As for the shot, well, that's courtesy of a gift I unwrapped six days late.