Portland Timbers 2-1 Vancouver Whitecaps: A Quick Rummage Through Our Back Pocket

Because not all back pockets are created equal...

Because I’ve basically stopped reading about soccer and can only make it through about 20 minutes of any soccer podcast, I got a little blindsided by yesterday’s starting line-up for the Portland Timbers. And I have the pre-game tweets to prove it. Just thankful I didn’t cough up something like, “Fanendo Adi’s contribution will define this game; nothing else matters” or “The Timbers need Jake Gleeson in goal or the entire goddamn house will come down.”

For fans, the cost/benefit break for these kinds of things doesn’t actually matter (con: you’re more likely to go home unhappy; pro: hey, now you have something to talk about before and after the game), because they’re gonna play the game regardless and, in that sense, the line-up is what it is. What can players and coaches do except play the hand dealt them by The Fates, The Furies, the referees – aka, the delegation from the Cosmos sent to every game.

Even with regular starters like Fanendo Adi out for suspension, and regular starters like Jake Gleeson and Sebastian Blanco missing through injury (the latter, only mostly missing), the Timbers knocked off the Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 yesterday at Providence Park. That’s good as a stand-alone fact, obviously, and the Timbers played all right, the depth stepped up smartly enough, etc. The specifics of yesterday matter most in the sense of knowing what the team has in its back pocket (“what does it have in his pocketssss?”), at least when it comes to the subs, but, still, let’s mash all that together for a bit and see what the lump looks like when I’m done. I’ll start with Vancouver, sort of draw an outline of the shape of the challenge.

If you go back and look at those preview tweets, you’ll notice I flubbed pieces of the ‘Caps line-up as well. Their biggest changes came with sitting Alphonso Davies and pulling Christian Bolanos from the center of midfield to play at the midfield left in a 4-1-4-1 (dammit; I hate when the TV splits from the website on formation, but I think the 4-1-4-1 is more accurate). Presumably, Vancouver coach Carl Robinson did that so he could bulk up the midfield by starting Andrew Jacobson and Tony Tchani in front of Matias Laba – i.e., putting all that muscle in the middle, so that the Timbers couldn’t play through it. I won’t pretend to know whether having Davies’ moxie and talents on the field would have pulled back at least a point for Vancouver and, even as both of the breakdowns that lead to Portland goals originated from (essentially) central areas, the ‘Caps midfield gave their opposites a game. For me, the biggest open question comes with what Vancouver lost by having Jacobson play the role that Bolanos has been playing – and I’m flagging Jacobson here instead of Tchani, because when it came to late runs into the area, it was the former who most often made them. The ‘Caps did their best coming inside from the wings and they got a decent share of chances – two or three of them quite good, too. To take the next step, and not to knock the win overly, but if Jacobson knocks in Cristian Techera’s cross (he had a good afternoon) or if Fredy Montero’s chip over Liam Ridgewell finds the side netting, this post would read both differently and a little gloomy.

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-1 Seattle Sounders: On Keeping the Dam Whole

Like this, only shoved into a dam.

More games should end like this one did. The Seattle Sounder pushed against the Vancouver Whitecaps’ defense with what looked like the pressure of water pouring through a crack in a dam, but the defense held using the familiar tactic of stuffing body after body after body into the crack (again, soccer shows the way; we can only pray that hydro-engineers will listen) and the ‘Caps held on to beat the Sounders 2-1. When it wasn’t David Ousted (who’s doing better, even if he’s still shaky by his former standards), it was Tim Parker and Kendall Waston. Or even Sheanon Williams.

From the Seattle Sounders standpoint, though, they need to ask themselves why they held back for as long as they did. Seattle can answer that however they like, but I’d like to nominate a one-word answer: complacency. Vancouver started as the visibly weaker team; Seattle, meanwhile, looked fluid and comfortable, their players moving the ball easily in a way that showed a shared understanding of where the other players should be and where they want the ball. As Vancouver eased into the game – aka, once they stopped just passing the ball to the touchline or even the nearest Sounder – they started to take it over. What’s more, ‘Caps players started picking off Seattle’s passes – and that’s how Seattle’s strength – i.e., knowing where to find their players – became a weakness. It got to where Vancouver’s players knew where to find them too.

Seattle took too long to adjust; their late dominance might have been an illusion, the product of Vancouver bunkering to defend their lead (and was that the right choice? Did weary legs dictate the choice?). And I think that’s what I mean by complacency: it’s the theory that Seattle (perhaps like the Portland Timbers in 2016) came into the season sticking with the overall approach that won them MLS Cup. That ties into the cliché about championship teams having targets on their backs, a concept I’ve never really attached any meaning to till now. Maybe opposing teams do study the champs a little more carefully. And that obliges the champs to keep things fresh. Or to see that crown get knocked off their heads.

Anyway, that’s just a theory. This was a good win for Vancouver, an unlikely team that now has two big “on-paper” wins under the belt in this young season (Seattle this week, and the Los Angeles Galaxy a couple weeks back). As for Seattle, look, I could be writing an entirely different post if either of Clint Dempsey’s shots off the woodwork went in, or if Ousted didn’t make two back-to-back saves early in the second. None of that came off: Dempsey was the only positive in the Sounders attack for too long, and that’s how you lose games.

OK, let’s close this out with some notes on both teams.

Timbers Ship Two Points North with Vancouver

Actually, I kiss your mom with this fucking mouth!

The ref for last night's game between the Portland Timbers and the Vancouver Whitecaps sure pissed off a lot of people. At least that's what I gathered last night from a glance or two at twitter. Otherwise, and per personal tradition, I haven't read a thing about that game that one time, when the Vancouver Whitecaps came to visit the Portland Timbers and took two points home with 'em. One goal each, one point each. Ah, what could have been...

Twitter also told me about Will Johnson's post-match red card. I’m guessing it was dissent that caused it (and, like most of you, I've exhausted my imagination as to what Johnson might have said, but, having read nothing, I know nothing, still), and a lot of Timbers suffered possession by the same evil spirit: Rodney Wallace a couple minutes before, and Liam Ridgewell as much as a half hour earlier. The ref did go a little weird from time to time – see, the wild sequence that started with Vancouver's Steven Beitashour splaying himself across Rodney Wallace's path, which didn't earn a call, and ended with the 'Caps Jordan Harvey lunging after a lost cause and into Diego Valeri's ankles/lower legs, which foul did earn a card...

...speaking of, this entire season will entail some amount of anxiety every time Diego Valeri gets clattered, yeah? No avoiding it? Damn. Anyway, Harvey earned all of that red, for me; Diego Chara, on the other hand, picked up a baffling yellow for a clean tackle. (NOTE: Goddammit! They quality of these "key moment" videos is really declining; replays revealed more.) Yeah, the ref was sort of all over. All the same...seriously, Major League Soccer fans really should have internalized the level of refereeing by now. The players need to get there, too, even as they have cause for alarm by way of their livelihoods being at stake. But that's another post for another day.