Timbers Lose to the Red Bulls: A Feel-Piece in Response

Yes, part of me thinks it's this easy.

Tonight's 2-0 loss was really, painfully simple. The Portland Timbers got outplayed by a better team. Period. So, what makes the New York Red Bulls a better team? That's the pisser. It's not that hard.

O.G. New York (my fan-boy name for that club) knows what they're doing when they have ball. They play out of trouble more effectively, and no matter where they are on the field; Red Bulls players provide better support; they create those useful little triangles by reflex, as opposed to any (apparent) design that allow their players to reliably move the ball out of danger, and get it going the other way, time and again. It didn't hurt that they beat the Timbers to damn near every piece of slop that shook loose, managed to get the requisite number of bodies behind the ball damn near every time, etc. etc. etc. But it was that piece of knowing what to do with the ball that mattered most tonight. Sure, sure, both of New York's goals relied on some form of lax defending, but New York made those chances by doing the right thing more often than not.

Unrelated, but significant, can Timbers fans please retire the "dodgy 'keeper" chant, or at least apply exclusively to those 'keepers it has a snowball's chance in Hell of rattling? Luis Robles, Jr. is not that guy. I speak for myself here, but I'd trade Adam Kwarasey, plus whoever serves as our back-up 'keeper these days for Robles. The guy is U.S. Men's National Team material, and has been for years; only Jurgen Klinsmann's profound, persistent asshole-ism/Brad Guzan keeps him out (well, yes, and his age). Need evidence? You got it.

Even without Robles pulling miracles out of his ass, Portland simply labored to get a shot on New York's goal. Too many shots came from a lack of ideas – i.e. a Timber would shoot out of a dearth of visible, or observed (as in, didn't see 'em), options. Darlington Nagbe wound up at least twice only to pummel the ball into the one or two New York defenders between him and the goal; same with Lucas Melano, Rodney Wallace, Diego Valeri...Will Johnson at least skied one off the bar, but I'm pretty sure he banged one into a red and white wall right along with the rest of 'em. It's a great idea, shooting from distance, and one I'm in favor of generally...just not when a trio of defensive players loiters in the way.

With all the above in mind, "intention" provides the theme for tonight – i.e. the sense that, unlike the Timbers, New York has a plan and some sense of how to execute it. That one goes deep, if only in my head. Why?

MLS Week 23 Review: GOTW, SOTW, ROTW, Plus A Lot of Comparisons

A moment most MLS fans have had to contemplate.

Well, the good news is, I finally wrestled one these weekly reviews to under three pages. Huzzah! And...that's the preamble: let's get to Major League Soccer's Week 23.

Week 23 could be called the Week of the Inflated Result, with several teams (see: Columbus Crew SC v. Colorado Rapids; or, Sporting Kansas City v. Toronto FC; or Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders FC). posting scorelines that looked bigger on paper than they did on the field. It could also be called the Week of the Outside of the Boot Goal (examples  #1 and #2). More than anything else, though, Week 23 brought with it some sign of separation among clubs, with the clearest example coming with what the Vancouver Whitecaps did to a Real Salt Lake side that tried to sneak a B-team onto the pitch (see: methodical pounding), which worked about as well as trying to put out a fire with a paper towel.

My personal highlights of the week included a mom in Colorado doing the “earmuffs” with her kid in the hope of saving him from what I assume was the "you suck, asshole" chant. It's that or Felipe's trouser blowout against New York City FC. Video for both moments was, by definition, hard to find. Actually, the video department is totally slouching this past weekend. Maybe they’re losing interest…so, watch those mini-games, yeah?

All in all, I believe that very little happens week to week in MLS. I wish I could frame all this better than, “so, a bunch of stuff happened, and here’s some of it.” I don’t, though, so what comes below are just a collection of notes that came to me as I watched all the mini-games during MLS Week 23... and the following three games in full (and, yes, the Conifers & Citrus Interest Rankings have been updated!):

Portland Timbers v. Chicago Fire (full, grumpy write-up here)
Colorado Rapids v. Columbus Crew SC (brief, barely worth reading write-up)
Los Angeles Galaxy v. Seattle Sounders FC (write-up)

Uh, last thing: I'm replacing the ol’ beer-'n’-shots motif with a straight-up Top 10 thoughts for the week. Actually, I’m just moving “the shot” (e.g. the big, heavy-hitting idea) to a separate post…look, it’s a work in progress, all of it. At any rate, join me on a tour of MLS Week 23, starting with The Honors!

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.

MLS 16 Rankings. Just Rankings.

Bliss. Most weekends of the year.

For this first part of Major League Soccer's Week 16, just plain rankings unfold below. Well, that plus the sort of "what-does-it-mean?" sort of thought that comes to me every week sometime during the 5th MLS mini-game.

Two themes to discuss before getting into all that. First, is this league goddamn crazy or who? I mean, what the hell are the Seattle Sounders doing losing to San Jose anywhere? Why can't Toronto FC beat even the lowliest club in MLS in their expanded hizzouse (I'm not spelling that right, am I? But, yes, I'm talking about New York City FC...or are they now the formerly lowliest)? Why are the expansion teams suddenly going all Freaky Friday with each other's reputations?

Second, let's talk transition, or, rather, the dreaded "transition year." Personally, I've used it as a knee-jerk shorthand for "shitty season" long enough that the thought behind it lost its meaning. Webster's Dictionary defines "transition" as...jesus, never mind. The point is, bad teams pick up and drop new players into the puzzle like slow infants smashing the star over the square hole. No one notices because, bad yesterday, bad today. Either an upgrade happens or no one notices. Before you know it. you're the Chicago Fire. When it comes to good teams, the years pass subtly from great to good to "smart" to some version of manifestly bad. The realization hits you like a pressure drop: you're pretty sure you feel the change, but you can't be sure till it starts raining. I want to believe that this explains my ongoing fascination with Real Salt Lake (because it damn sure ain't the product on the field). RSL's intended future finally showed up last Saturday, when Sebastian Jaime scored his first goal for the Utahans since joining late last year (and celebrated by looking like his wife gave birth to Twins Spoken of in Ages Past; Olmes "Almost" Garcia followed up by doing the rare something - accidentally, it bears noting, but everyone takes three points: for now, these are RSL's stewards for the post-Saborio era. Never mind how much shit's gonna hit the fan when Javier Morales and Kyle Beckerman retire: that is a transition,with a massive Jamison Olave cherry on top: the new players' (ideally) growing pains combine with the slow, clear, steady decline of players who will become club legends of some scale or another.

The 2 X 4: Best Defensive Duo in MLS; Portland's Puzzling Pieces + 4 More!

This is not a 2 X 4, but it showed up in a Google search for "2 X 4"

So, I decided to retire (the little-noticed, and therefore likely, unmourned) 3 Big Ideas, 5 Little Thoughts. I named that still-born little beauty "The 3 X 5” for the length of its short little life. Ah, memories. Still, the problem was obvious: what does 3 X 5 have to do with Conifers or Citrus? Nothing.

So, welcome to the 2 X 4. There is no more legit cut of wood known to mankind, people. And it’s a di-rect (if manufactured) descendant of a gen-u-ine wood product, a subtle improvement, if you will, upon the majestic conifer. It will still involve Big Ideas and Small Thoughts, just two of the former and six of the latter. And, in keeping with this site’s connection with the Portland Timbers, one big idea will focus on them. All the same, that’s going to be the second big idea...look, I think about this other stuff, so I may as well lead with it from time to time. And…away we go...

2 Big Ideas
1) Best Central Defensive Pairing in MLS
This one’s been bouncing around my head for a couple weeks now. I’m pretty sure it came to me the day I spotted Clarence Goodson’s name next to Victor Bernardez’s in the San Jose Earthquakes’ starting eleven. Then and there, I said to myself (quite possibly out loud), "Shit, that's gotta be close to the best central defensive pairing in MLS." So, I test the theory.

Now, we can throw out some candidates right away – e.g. my Portland Timbers. Though positively stoned on hope for the long-term prospects, the most positive thing I can say there is that they've worked things out and they haven’t. Toronto FC goes out the window as well because, new acquisitions aside, well, TFC just has a shitty defensive record and they damn-skippy don't play for Philly because, damn; the Houston Dynamo, on the other hand, imploded their defensive record only recently.

At any rate, that's the dead fruit in the grass a-molderin' (where the Hell is this hillbilly tone coming from? The lumber thing?). To find the finest fruit, the stuff substantial enough to make strong branches sag, I've picked through all the MLS rosters and checked some starting line-ups. The player combos listed below strike me as the Top 5 tandems playing in MLS right now. As in, right now, which temporarily rules out RSL, due to Chris Schuler’s injury. Finally, yes, they’re listed in order and, yeah, I had to get a loose on definitions with #2.