New York City FC 1-2 Portland Timbers: A Long, Lucky Breather

No, really. We got this coach...

If there is a bigger cliché in soccer than the Tale of Two Halves, I don’t know what it is. New York City FC freshened it up a little, in that it was mostly them to which the cliché applied. It was as if Nick Cushing asked his players at halftime whether they were tired and, upon agreeing they all were, they torched a game-plan that had run over the Portland Timbers over the opening 30 minutes. Portland took the space NYC left open for them to (very) slowly get back in the game (I have the Timbers first shot on goal at the 73rd through Nathan Fogaca) and yet, with time on the edge of running out, a heretofore indifferent Evander floated a late, glorious winner over NYC ‘keeper Matt Freese. With that, Portland picked up a 2-1 road win that no one could have seen coming even by the halftime whistle.

Which was weird, right? I try to avoid counterfactuals – because, lo, the game played out the way it did in all known dimensions – but some part of me has to wonder about all the different ways that game could have ended. Especially given that it started with New York City so deep down Portland’s throat that I’m surprised that didn’t run clear out their ass all the way to New Jersey.

Words to describe how scattered and dizzy Portland started don’t come easy. The only part of any Timber to touch the ball over the opening 10 minutes was Dairon Asprilla’s forehead and even that happened only once or twice (related, please relegate that tactical choice to the rubbish heap, on the grounds it does not work). When NYCFC scored their inevitable break-through goal off a thrice-recycled corner at the 10th minute (think of all the planet we could save with such a program), things looked bad. That outlook downgraded to dire over the ensuing 25 minutes and, here, even the most stubborn Timbers fan should acknowledge that New York should have gone two goals up at a minimum and going up three was deeply in the conversation. The exhibits on offer:

Exhibit A: the (sixth or seventh) run around Portland’s right that had Mounsef Bakrar running free at an actually prone Maxime Crepeau in Portland’s goal; and

Exhibit B: the slip/sideways pass by Crepeau directly to an NYCFC player who had nothing a recovering Zac McGraw between him and an open goal.

New York had more chances besides (the highlights have most of 'em, just not Exhibit B) – in all honesty, they could have been up 4-0 with true finishing – and then, to paraphrase Star Wars, the guns, they stopped.

Portland Timbers 4-1 Seattle Sounders: A Buffet of Satisfaction

Seriously, you can put these anywhere....

When I was a knock-kneed whisp of a lad, I knocked in an own-goal off some part of my body or the other. I don’t remember which one, honestly, but what I do remember is how hard I strived to make up for that mistake. Played like the future in professional soccer I never even sort of had depended on it, and it went about as well...

It takes work for me to summon sympathy for the Seattle Sounders – and, honestly, I’m not even trying to tonight – but I do think some form of the professional version of the same thing happened to them tonight. To walk through the two crucial moments...

The Portland Timbers attack had stalled somewhere around the top Seattle defensive third somewhere around the 70th minute and the wholly familiar lack of ideas seemed to have reasserted itself in the collective psyche; a promising play that started wide pinched inside and looked doomed for finding a path forward. The Timbers had six or so players clustered between the channels, so I didn’t think anything of it when the ball drifted wide to Santiago Moreno [corrected, ty @ShellWitty!]. When he clipped in a ball that looked like a Hail Mary wrapped inside an Our Father, I thought even less of it....only to see Dairon Asprilla bellow “fuck it!” to the heavens and lash in a collapsible bike for a Timbers equalizer for the literal ages. My God, the legend Asprilla has written into the history books. Maybe he doesn’t get a statue, but maybe build a grotto in his honor with a little fountain that splashes into a reflective pond...

Hold on, I’m not done with this bit yet. That put the game at 1-1 – wait, have I mentioned the game ended 4-1 to the Timbers yet? – but there was more delight and pain to come. Five minutes later, Santiago Moreno got the ball on the right inside Portland’s half and played a looping diagonal into the heart of Seattle’s defensive third. I’d direct any sadists watching that clip to drink in the spread between Seattle two center backs (not usually an issue for them) and the way Moreno’s cross fell into the gap behind the two defensive players further up-field. To be totally fucking clear, that whole goddamn thing does not come off without Fogaca taking a perfect touch; moreover, how many times have you seen him finish that clinically literally ever? Sometimes things happend that are beyond your control...and I've finally forgiven that little whisp of a lad...hold on...off for a good cry...

FC Dallas 1-1 Portland Timbers: Better.

Dallas translated through bowling.

After a season that has started with what can only be called incompetence – which, at times came in the flaming variety - it felt pretty damn good to see the Portland Timbers achieve the opposite in yesterday’s 1-1 draw at FC Dallas.

Over the Timbers’ first five games of the season, I had to dig at least shoulder-deep into the barrel to pick out good performances. Zac McGraw’s name has come up in most games – take a bow, young man – Dario Zuparic almost as much, but the list has generally been short, allergic to padding and concentrated in the defense. The larger problems, not to mention the outright failures, have come at the collective level – i.e., players, even league legends (see, Chara, Diego) looking shaky playing the ball forward and an attack grabasstic up to the point of mutual incomprehensibility. Hope walked lightly on the land, in other words; outside of a couple promising starts that only felt more heartbreaking by promising more, her feet may have never even touched the ground.

Weighed against such a lowly level, the Timbers knocked it out of the park in Dallas yesterday. Without declaring this draw an actual turn-around, and with a full acknowledgement of the final score duly acknowledged, I’m content to call Portland’s first (more or less) quality game of 2023 a kind of win.

For all that, Dallas tends to offer a shifting yardstick. I noted in the preview that people rarely rate them as a contender and games like this get at why. They struggle to string together good results, which means they struggle to generate real, season-shaping momentum. Now, had Jesus Jimenez not strayed offside, thereby cancelling out the insurance goal/tap-in that Alan Velasco scored almost immediately after Dallas went ahead after Facundo Quignon made good on three minutes of pressure and as many corner kicks in the 74th, I feel confident saying that Portland would have been, in fact, fucked. So, yeah, Portland caught a break or two. Moreover, there was more than a little but for the divine (delighfully pissy) grace of Aljaz “All the Jazz” Ivacic, because the Timbers’ defense gave Dallas several cracks at both go-ahead and insurance goals...and gods only know why Portland would start anyone but Ivacic anytime he’s available at this point. If you haven’t seen some of his saves, do yourself some good and make your heart a little bigger by dipping into the highlights from this one.

Portland Timbers 0-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: How Hell Works

Marvin did that again? And again? And again? And again?

There was this band in Pullman, Washington way back when called Ignatius, who had a song titled “Waxing Pathetic.” Wish I could find that one right now...

FC Cincinnati played profoundly unwatchable soccer for three solid years. Just head-up-your-ass aimless stuff that made you wonder why they bothered.. I bring that up to explain this tweet:

“My spectator-sports life has come full circle: watching Portland feels like watching FC Cincy used to and vice versa.”

Maybe someone with a gambler’s personality/pathology could look at the last 10 minutes of the Portland Timbers’ exhausting and goal-less home draw against the Los Angeles Galaxy and talk himself into believing they’re due for something better. After 80 minutes of material that, frankly, insulted the concept of nothing, the Timbers finally located the goal and tried to put the ball in it – something long-time fans might recognize as the prime directive of the beautiful game. The increasingly maligned Jaroslaw Niezgoda fired his first shot – and the Timbers’ only shot on goal – at the 89th minute; that’s almost certainly the closest Portland ever came and Niezgoda would slice a header wide just minutes later. Justin Rasmussen fired a good, if tricky look into the stands some time later: and, yeah, that covers close to everything the Timbers did in the attack today.

Nearly everything outside of that fell somewhere between useless and dispiriting. A couple isolated moments aside, Portland hasn’t had an attack worthy of the name all seaosn. I’ll tease out a couple reasons why below – forgive me if I’ve made the same notes before, but also blame the Timbers for doing the same flailing shit over and over again – but I’d call that the second most disturbing thing about what has been a god-awful start to the 2023 season. The first thing: a genuine, thoroughgoing and baffling inability to either hold onto the ball or do something with it – and over stretches of the game that somehow feel longer than the game. I’m pretty sure that’s how Hell works, by the way...

The Galaxy, meanwhile, have some light ruing of their own to do. They never dominated the game, but they did enough to push 50/50 to 60/40 in their favor for most of the first half. They pinged two shots off Portland’s post – one by forward Preston Judd in the first half, and another by the lively Memo Rodriguez on a free-kick (I think) in the second – Gaston Brugman came within a couple fingertips of lobbing David Bingham somewhere in the first five minutes, and they had a couple other good looks besides. The Galaxy moved the ball pretty well, too, or at least they seemed to know where to look for the next pass more often than not (and literally doubled the Timbers on number of passes); if Portland can claim a win on defense, it was forcing Riqui Puig to get on the ball at the base of LA’s attack and thus endeth the list.

Portland Timbers 1-2 St. Louis CITY FC: A Complicated Affair, with My Compliments to the Villains

Bro. Little help?

At this point in the season, nothing kicks you in the balls/punches you in the tits quite like the rare moments when the Portland Timbers look like a professional soccer team. By my math, that has happened exactly three times during the 2023 season – the last 25+ minutes against Los Angeles FC and, perhaps more tellingly, the first five minutes of the (seriously) home games against Sporting Kansas City – who, thank gods, suck as bad as they do – and, tonight, St. Louis CITY FC, aka, the team that yells at you!!!

Unlike that one, lonely win at SKC, St. Louis hammered on the Timbers’s fingers until they slipped off the cliff’s edge and that’s the how Portland fell to a 1-2 loss at Providence Park tonight. Gods’ honest truth, St. Louis' second goal slighted the Timbers’ honor slightly less than their first. Set pieces have been Portland’s Achilles heel for almost as long as Achilles sulked in his tent, but the fact not one single Timber tracked Jared Stroud’s late run on the equalizer...well, what is that but bad news? And when you suck at set pieces the way the Timbers do, the cost of allowing any other kind of mistake...well, what can that do but grow and grow until it chokes you like kudzu?

Details aside, the singularly most troublesome thing about the Timbers’ season so far is their collective and apparent inability to control a game in any way whatsoever. They can have moments, they can flash some magic here and there (don’t quote me on that), but I can’t remember the last time I felt like the Timbers had a real handle on any game they’ve played.

And yet, if you’re like me, you still hear the siren’s song, i.e., that soothing sense of calm that seeps into your senses when you see a promising 20 minutes last week, or a promising 20 minutes this week. It’s a seductive trance, of course...and I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, especially given the dreary reality of Timbers soccer right now, but, the real story of the 2023 season so far tracks closer to something I tweeted during in my game thread:

“It’s slipping away bit by bit but Portland’s doing all right so far, even if I miss and/or want to see more of the caffeinated [sic] beginning.”

Los Angeles FC 3-2 Portland Timbers: Taking the Good from the Present

The top rock on the left fell off around the 65th.

Just when you’d given up, amirite? Ah, what could have been had the Portland Timbers played the entire game the way they played the final 30 minutes...

One thing I know for sure: I didn’t see Evander’s goal coming until Cristian Paredes’ dummy got the words, “holy shit,” halfway out of my mouth. Everything Portland did to that point rattled around the bad bandwidth of anxious and useless – and to the point that any sane person would have taken inflated odds against them scoring a second. And yet they did, with a goal that mirrored the scramble that teed up Los Angeles FC’s opener. That gave the game a nice sort of symmetry, even if on a see-saw that had only begun to tilt toward balance.

Two big questions hang over the Timbers’ 2-3 loss away to LAFC.

First, did you expect anything but a loss? Just as a thought exercise, put away all the specific complaints from today, forget the...concerning first half: quiet your mind and ask yourself, would you have picked the Timbers team you saw down the stretch in 2022 to go into the tougher half of Los Angeles in the second game of the next season (aka, March) and win that game? Sub-question: what do you think your answer would be if I told you that Dairon Asprilla, Sebastian Blanco, Felipe Mora and (why not?) Yimmi Chara would not be available before the game?

Admit it. You would have thought for, at most, a second before muttering, “yeah, they’re fucked.”

That’s for anyone who needs a pick-me-up after The Half That Shall Not Be Named.

The second question seems bigger to me – and I pose it without having a clear answer.

How much did the triple substitution at the 59th minute change the game? To refresh your memory (and you’re not alone), the Timbers replaced Santiago Moreno, Marvin Loria and Justin Rasmussen with Larrys Mabiala, Cristhian Paredes, and Claudio Bravo, respectively. Some gnashing of teeth flared up in my wee corner of twitter – the grounds was Portland “going defensive,” which isn’t a crazy thought – but the changes made decent sense in context – i.e., Gio traded a a little more beef in defense (aka, Mabiala) for a player whose touch appeared afflicted by nerves (aka, Moreno), a solid shuttler (aka, Paredes) for a stymied soloist (aka, Loria), and he almost unquestionably upgraded the left back position and threw more attacking juice into the mix when he replaced Rasmussen with Bravo.

Minnesota v Portland Preview: Loons Attack (in a Variety of Ways)

My understanding of the Loons' attack, a visual.

Things have been good for the Loons lately...but have they been too easy?

Maybe? Arguably? But I’d think twice before hanging my hat on it. To start with the basics:

Minnesota United FC
Record/Basics: 10-8-4, 5-3-3- home, 5-5-1 away; 31 gf, 26 fa, + 5 goal differential
Last 10: WLLLWWWTWW (6-3-1, 2-0-2 home, 4-2-0 away; pretty damn easy on that last 5)
Oppo: @ FCD, v NYC, @ NE, @ MIA, @ LAG, v RSL, @ VAN, v SKC, v DC, @ HOU

What We Know About Them
Emmanuel “Bebe” Reynoso & The Loons, right, like one of those bands that vanishes behind a charismatic lead singer? It’s a little more than that, obviously, but Minnesota’s No. 10 tends to dominate conversations about the team – especially when they’re doing well. While that’s not wholly unjustified (I’ll get into it, or at least a theory of “it”), I also think of a Minnesota as a stubborn, pain-in-the-ass of a team, but also one that has legitimately competed over two of the past three seasons. Some famous names from even those past good teams have moved on – e.g., Jan Gregus, Ozzie Alonso, Christian Ramirez and Miguel Ibarra – but, some real mysteries aside, the replacements are doing better than fine (see above and, for Portland fans, look higher in the table). The Timbers are rolling in against a team with five wins in their past six games – even if said run got a boost from a combination of venue and opposition. Going the other way, they did an impressive amount of that good work on the road, something worth estimating in my mind.

To the surprise of no one, Reynoso leads them in every top-line attacking stat, but he gets good support from Finnish international, Robin Lod (6 g, 2a), and, so far as I know, regular soccer player Luis Amarilla (5g, 3a). They have a solid ‘keeper at the back in Canadian international Dane St. Clair, and Michael Boxall still leads a bruising defense. No less remarkably, they’ve sustained that run of form without more current notables like Romain Metanaire and (the talented, yet hard-to-place) Hassani Dotson.

Portland Timbers Preview: A Trip to the Pastel Kingdom

More menacing than previously...fwiw.

I don’t have any great insights into Inter Miami CF’s system, how they line up, etc. I have, however, watched them a couple times over the past couple weeks – a goal-less road draw at the Philadelphia Union and a 2-0 home win over Red Bull New York – and my main thought after both results is this: Miami probably isn’t as bad as you think, Portland Timbers fans, so I wouldn’t take three points as a given. In fact, if I had to put money on anything, it’d be a draw.

Chalk my lukewarm take on the Timbers’ chances down to Miami’s improved defensive record – i.e., after allowing 15 goals over their first six games, they’ve allowed just six since then and in sufficiently challenging settings (v ATL, @ NE, @ CLT, v DC, @ PHI, v RBNY; their record through that went WLLTTW, fwiw) to make me trust it. On the one hand, sure, it bears acknowledging that neither Red Bull nor Philly rank among the league’s attacking powerhouses, but I also doubt anyone had Miami picking up four points from those two games, and yet here we are. It also bears noting that the Timbers have scored as many goals in 2022 as the Red Bulls and two more than Philly, so that’s one more data point to run past your opinion of the Timbers attack (I know where mine is, but you do you).

Because I don’t really know what The Underlying Numbers say (and I’m not even sure where to look at this point) and I keep forgetting to look at the power rankings (eh), I don’t know whether the cognoscenti see Miami is under- or overachieving. All I have is their present record – 4-6-3 overall, with a middling 3-2-2 at home – plus those past two games to judge them. And what I saw there was a sturdy, organized defense – more significantly, one that managed both RBNY’s and Philly’s generally energetic approaches to defense. Moreover, the box score matches my eye-test for the Red Bull game: Miami looked the more rugged defensive team, something you don’t see a lot against RBNY. That Miami played through the pressure well in both games makes me lean toward discounting Portland’s chances to frazzle them.

On the brighter side, playing away should give the Timbers several chances to play in the only way their attack actually seems to function – i.e., in transition - and that’s nice, beats the alternative we’ve collectively endured in all venues and against all teams outside of Sporting KC at home, and so on…but what would surprise you more at this point: the Timbers running up the score (which, here, means three or more goals) or the Timbers not scoring at all?

Portland Timbers 0-2 Philadelphia Union: A Meditation on an Attack

Is he angry because he doesn't know where to go?

Someone else fired the Portland Timbers’ first shot on goal - I don’t remember who it was, but also, does it matter? - but Bill Tuiloma got their best one. The fact he fired it well past the 80th minute, may have even been after the 85th, says plenty, but I’m less concerned about the specific identity of the man who fired it than I am by the fact that Timbers can’t seem to generate offense without the ball coming forward at just the right angle and to an attacking player in just the right space. You?

The last 10 minutes of the Timbers' 0-2 home loss to the Philadelphia Union gave a glimpse into an alternate universe where Portland threw caution to the wind for the full 90 minutes and made Philly sweat through every one of them. Or, more likely, the Union drew the obvious conclusion from the Timbers first 20 attempts to break them down after they'd compacted the defense and figured they could ride it out. Maybe it was something the Timbers started to do, maybe it was something Philly stopped doing, and a maddening snitch’s adherence to the rules by referee Allen Chapman aside, both Union goals felt like alarms that went off ten (or five) minutes too late to get to work. It took Portland too long to get going - which, here, means all the way going - while it seemed like the Union could revive their method at will. There was no point during this game…which I joined late due to a wrinkle in a stupidly specific rule in NASCAR, one that bears a grating fucking resemblance to Allen Champman standing gape-mouthed with an index finger cocked to the earbud in his ear like he was trying to see where he hit the right note in a Double-Mint Gum jingle…ahem, when I thought Portland had a credible shot at actually winning it.

I mean, bravo on the goal that Chapman called back against both the letter and spirit of “clear and obvious error” (failing to be a prick on behalf of pricks; Chapman’s an evil wizard), but sure as I see the Timbers damn-near even on shots and one-fourth of average in shots on goal (two; they got two), the attack just plain sucks right now. Shut your ears to the siren song of the Sporting Kansas City sacrifice, ‘twas the dream of the song, etc., yeah, yeah, yeah; for the love of all the over-rehearsed weirdness I’ve watched over the past…I’m going with ten games, which includes the wins over SKC and Vancouver, Portland has completely lost track of how to get to goal. They do better in transition, obviously - that’s why I lead with Tuiloma and his chance - but I’m getting close to calling the formula for stifling the Timbers something perilously close to fool-proof.

Being a mere 20% less obvious might help. How many Timbers attacks enter the critical phase (aka, anything inside the opposition’s defensive third) with a ball into the corner? Even if I admit that me answering “all the time, like every fucking one of them” is a product of watching for something and seeing it to the exclusion of all else, that’s all I see to the point where I think Gio might have branded that useless stab at everything but the dartboard. As much as it stood out tonight (luridly), a standard Timbers attack against a compacted defense tends to look like so: the ball goes into one corner (usually with nothing happening near the goal), and then comes back out to a supporting fullback; the ball goes centrally from there, a couple flirtatious in-and-outs to the top of the 18 and back follow before the ball goes centrally again, from whence it goes to the outside channel with the most open space; after that the receiving player flails the ball at some point either toward or above the middle, and to three guys making the text book runs, one near-post, one centrally, one far post. And so on forever, until nothing at all happens. On most plays when the cross wasn’t on, I saw Timbers players come out of the middle to support the wide player. It happened without any rhyme or reason that I saw. Just people throwing money at charities and hoping it all goes away (not being righteous; I resemble that metaphor).

Portland Timbers Preview: In Need of a Little Union Busting

Something to avoid in both soccer and life.

I’ve been eyeing Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Union as the likeliest brick-wall in what, until the Portland Timbers hacked up a lung down in San Jose, looked like a soft landing going into the June break. (And this is an international break, right?) Then again, Philly hasn’t exactly kept up expectations. Since bolting ahead in the Supporters’ Shield race early in the season, the Union haven’t won a game in weeks. Moreover, some of the points they’ve dropped - e.g., all three points away to Toronto (and that damn game sold me on TFC) plus two more at home just a couple nights ago against…fucking Miami?

I just sat through two good chunks of the Philly v Miami game - the first 30 minutes, then the 65th to…around the 80th - and, for what it’s worth, that experience doesn’t match the other spot-checks I’ve done on Philly games. They typically play vertically, even to a fault, but the Union either had an off-day, or Miami upset Plan A. They couldn’t start Julian Carranza, their second highest scorer and all-round second most effective player (four goals, three assists), due to the loan arrangement with Miami, so that’s one hole, and they started leggy, loping (yet generally competent) defender, Jack Elliott, as the defensive midfield in the absence of the regular, Jose Martinez (a player I don’t know well, btw). That might have pulled a leg out from Plan A, but, for all the forward movements that petered out or died on both sides of the center-stripe (so many), Philly still created plenty of chances, firing 20 shots, eight of them on goal. Against that, I saw most of those shots (the highlights include, well, the highlights of those), but it didn’t change the overall, real-time impression of a stymied, ambling Union attack.

To turn to some things that went well for Philly, Daniel Gazdag fired some menacing shots, and they’ve got a pair of solid shuttlers in Leon Flach and Alejandro Bedoya (who apparently speaks five languages), and they get solid overlapping options out of Kai Wagner and Nathan Harriel and/or Olivier Mbaizo (depending on who starts). Finally, to defend Philly’s…reasonably-maligned forwards, Sergio Santos and Cory Burke, both made good runs - e.g., see Santos’ run on one of Gazdag’s better shots (coulda had a tap-in) - and, even if either of them only puts away one chance in 15, the risk to Portland of allowing them 15 chances is real.

To flip in the other direction, even with a handful of other defenses in touch, the Union are the only team left standing on single digits for goals allowed. They’ve allowed just five goals over their past nine games, and three of those games came against your livelier attacking teams - e.g., Montreal, Red Bull and LAFC. Based on goals scored alone, Portland keeps up with all three of those teams, but anyone with a working memory knows that seven of the Timbers’ goals on the season came in a wheels-off blowout over Kansas City. Moreover, all those teams score steadily, whereas Portland has been shut-out three times and limited to one goal on six other occasions - i.e., a 0.67 goals-for average across most games. So, the question is, how does a putzing Timbers attack get past that, plus Andre Blake as a back-stop?

San Jose Earthquakes 3-2 Portland Timbers: Lost, and Never Found

Won't lie. I wanted to do better with this....

Have you ever seen one of those old movies, or even a parody of one, where a central character whispers a dozen farewells on his/her way to the beyond?

The Portland Timbers gave their best homage to that trope tonight in a slow-fade 2-3 road loss at the San Jose Earthquakes. The foreground the blunt reality, San Jose wanted it more. Their energy was better, they contested the ball faster - or, in far too many cases, at all - and they just, for lack of a better word, competed tonight in a way the Timbers only did either one player or one moment or a time and, yes, the “or” in that clause is 1,000% conscious, deliberate, not a typo, etc.

As documented in two or three places, I expected goals in this game. Moreover, I expected the game to turn on which team scored the most goals - i.e., basic logic meets basic math - and it did. And, finally, I don’t know what happened to the Timbers tonight, I really don’t. Rather than say they gave up…tempting as that is, I feel alright letting them off the hook with, they couldn’t see the path forward, so they tried to walk directly into the trees. Big ones too.

Where to begin with dissecting this one? And is there a point to the project? Hold on. I'll find one or two...

To make up for cavalierly shitting on San Jose’s defense going into this one, I hereby acknowledge that Tommy Thompson, aka, The Goal-Less Wonder, waltzed his way to one step inside the penalty spot before a there-but-for-the-width-of-Bill-Tuiloma’s-boot the Timbers would have gone down 4-2. After a certain point - here, I’m thinking rather pointedly about the ‘Quakes’ second, jail-break-perfect counterattacking goal - everything about the game rhymed with that moment. Even the laws of gravity seemed to tilt against the Timbers from that point forward and, yes, now confirmed, Portland did something less than half of shit over the course of that second half.

I, like a lot of people, have waited patiently for the Timbers to find a rhythm and start doing something with it this season and assumed they would. Even if I didn’t trust it, I hoped that Portland’s 7-2 win over Sporting Kansas City had knocked off the rust…but, no. Moreover, assuming you stick with the implicit premise of my review - i.e., that an early goal invites teams to play toward Portland, which opens up space for their counter - well, the wheels fell all the fucking way off that one tonight. Once San Jose landed on a method to stuff the Timbers transition outlets - related, does anyone think that’s some state secret by now? - the game ended as a contest. For the record, that happened somewhere around the 65th minute. Or the 70th, in the event I want to spare anyone’s blushes.

Portland Timbers 7-2 Sporting Kansas City: A Viking Funeral for a Dinghy at Sea

Oh, how I laughed. So, so loud.

When I went to see the live-action Speed Racer, I went in with expectations as low as I was high. I walked out on Cloud 9, wearing one of those smiles that doesn’t go away till you fall asleep and, I’m guessing, pupils big as saucers. I expected nothing, basically, and walked out feeling like a won the lottery. Then again, the same thing happened with Cats. Cats was fucking terrible, but, goddamn, did I have fun watching it…

That’s the only experience I can come up that matches what happened tonight in the Portland Timbers positively rolling 7-2 win over Sporting Kansas City. Everything thing I’d seen and read going in prepped me for SKC to compact its defense and for the Timbers to smash tiny fists against it for 90 minutes, plus stoppage time. Instead, the second half happened, and very early on.

Because drawing talking points out of a blip within a blip feels like the greatest fools errand since the invention of the snipe hunt, I won’t let the magic of seven goals scored carry me too far in either direction; I’ll neither hype the result, nor wallow in its flaws. In the biggest of pictures, the fact that SKC has sucked more than their share this season falls well short of a state secret, so I didn’t expect anything more from them than energetic resistance. And, to give a general opinion, how have they not moved on from Peter Vermes? His shit’s been baking in the sun for a year or three by now…

In my mind, the entire game turned on SKC handing Portland the first goal, and so cheaply too. The defenders parted and, lo, goal opened wide for Bill Tuiloma. Nothing about that goal made sense; all that time to organize and you let a guy shoot free from eight yards out. The game didn’t end there, of course - they had a whole damn second half of slapstick ahead - and SKC briefly threatened to get back into it. I put that period into the space between the 10th minute and the 25th, and it produced a couple shots from range, but not much more. Things loosened up a bit over final 20 minutes of the first half, but neither team did much; as recorded in one strand of the mini-multiverse of twitter threads I had in this game, I begged for someone, anyone to find inspiration around Portland in the first half, because I could not.