Portland Timbers 2-0 Vancouver Whitecaps: Is This Progress?

Glad to be back home.

Five wins in the last eight games, suddenly 6th in the West sure as Brooke Shields was Suddenly Susan in a sitcom I neither watched nor fully understood in terms of concept and timing. The Portland Timbers won walking away (also) 2-0 against the Vancouver Whitecaps tonight, thereby keeping their Cascadia Cup Dreams primed for the filling and suddenly looking like they’ve learned how to put one foot in front of the other (hold that thought). Better still, JPants picked up his/the Portland Timbers' 3rd clean sheet of 2024 – which makes one wonder (hold that thought, also) – and, better than all that, the entire game played out comfy as a well-worn pair of PJs.

Hold on…

Is it new format time? Yes, it’s new format time. Also, welcome back to the old gym. Hope it smells like memories! Right, back to the new format…

If I Had to Summarize This Game for Someone
Tonight’s game started as so many have: with the Timbers laboring to play the ball out of the back and ceding both possession and control. Vancouver’s Sebastian Berhalter teed up a few solid chances over the opening 20 minutes or so and that inject a little “what could have been” into this game if, say, Fafa Picault or Alessandro Schopf (probably?) could head the ball fer shit. The Timbers snatched after floor scrapings throughout that period, with the choicest pickings coming from Jonathan Rodriguez poking a couple (feeble) shots toward goal from the back-post.

Then suddenly, some light supernatural meddling met the yips for Vancouver and, three lucky bounces and one cool finish later, Portland went up on a cool-as-you-like finish by Rodriguez. And that goal changed the game, at least in my mind. Twenty-six-plus minutes would pass before Schopf got sent off for his second stupid yellow card (gotta be in here somewhere, surely), but Vancouver was, at most, marginally better before his red card than they were after it. Felipe Mora delivered an insurance goal that made me feel as good about the assist as I did about the goal (another thought to hold), but the ‘Caps had 52+ minutes to rack up some shots and they only managed seven, with just one on goal. Vancouver barely showed up tonight, carrying forward a run of form that has seen them slip down the standings like a water buffalo struggling in quicksand.