Houston Dynamo FC 5-0 Portland Timbers: A Game That Felt Like a Curse

Simple, basic. What was missing.

There is nothing to take from that but total failure. The Portland Timbers' 0-5 loss at Houston Dynamo FC was the eternal audition for the not-ready-for-prime-time players, only without the happy ending. It is not worthy of anything but derision and talking points.

Screed the Firste
Portland’s midfield spent the entire damn night behind the ball. Problems abounded all over the field – the Timbers arrived late to every challenge and played a step behind every pass Houston played, which very likely followed from the fact that damn near every Timber spent all night looking like nobody pointed to their marks (hold that thought, close) – but Houston got players behind the Portland’s midfield all goddamn night. It. Was. A. Disaster.

Screed the Seconde
Cristhian Paredes played high for the first 60+ second of the game and...just why? What requirement did that respond to? What was he doing up there besides wandering around like a child lost at a Target. Had he moved around with the purpose of a kid scoring free samples at a Costco, maybe. But that?

Excuse the Firste
Growing pains. I get it. My voice cracked in ridiculous and embarrassing ways too.

The Timbers had new players in key positions, and it showed. I’m talking like underwear affected by black light under a sheer white bathrobe (picture this on a man. C’mon, this is a family blog; and, shockingly, there's no google image for this). I don’t believe I ever grokked the actual formation (ehhh, mabye?) beyond thinking “why is Paredes way up there,” but new-kid Bryan Acosta looked somewhere near as lost with regard to his special purpose on the field tonight as Miguel Araujo did – i.e., fucking miles into the woods, with neither food, water nor compass, and a total aversion to roughing it a la Bear Grylles (sp? fuck it).

Portland Timbers 1-2 Tigres UANL: Three Team Round Robins Are Kinda Dumb

Possible metaphor for capitalism...

I’m going to let the game thread handle the play-by-play for the Portland Timbers...yeah, I’m going to call it disappointing 1-2 home loss to Tigres UANL. I’ve started 100 posts with “I’ll keep this short” only to delete it after I’ve run over by a mile and a thousand meters, but, seriously, this result doesn’t tie into anything besides the present (current?) tournament, there’s no question left but whether the Timbers make the first round and...hold on, I have some breaking news...

The Timbers have, in fact, already qualified for the second round. And, yeah, that makes sense: With Portland still on a +1 goal differential, a Tigres win would kill San Jose’s chances of topping that and vice versa, and San Jose can’t pass them on points even if they won a penalty shoot-out...wow, a three-team round-robin set-up is kinda dumb. Tidy, but dumb.

To briefly summarize the game (again, please also consult the game thread for additional material/insights), the game started with some light groping, only then the Timbers got into a rhythm – seriously, they countered in a way that gave me whiffs of nostalgia – and, before you knew it – POW! (ZOWEEE!) – they went up 1-0 on a cracking free-kick by Evander (c’mon, a non-celebration celebration is still a celebration). Not content to be the hero of the play, Evander made the fool decision to pantomime a swing that grazed the top of a Tigres player’s head, which right got him sent off for a second yellow, two yellows make a red, etc.

Won’t lie, didn’t love what followed – see below – but, the Timbers dodging two fairly reasonable penalty calls aside (don't think either made the highlights, so...), Portland handled playing a man down...let’s go with capably. You don’t have to love what you don’t hate and, honestly, it held together until it didn’t. The decisive moment came when Juan David Mosquera let Jesus Angulo bolt past his shoulder at the back post with the goal yawning wide before him. Tigres scored and the game effectively ended. If memory serves and the numbers add up, Portland managed just one more shot on goal after that and, in my mind...I guess I’d say they did some things I wouldn’t have.

Portland Timbers 3-2 Columbus Crew SC: The Night of the Side Netting

To start with a personal note, I watched the Portland Timbers loin-stirring win over Columbus Crew SC from an angle I’d call “a coach’s view.” Seats for the game fell into my lap and planted me six rows up from the field around the top of one of the 18s, not great for a full-field view, but it did get me up close and rather intimate with everything that went up the Timbers’ right in the first half and everything that came down their left in the second. Just different, basically, and oddly refreshing.

Impressively and rightly high in the search results.

To stick with the theme, what a way to commemorate the celebration of a Timbers legend. I’m guessing someone made the “let’s sign Diego Valeri to a one-day contract every week” joke for the first time around the 30th minute. It had legs up to the 65th minute – i.e., when Columbus’ Lucas Zelarayan scored a second rather beautiful goal – but Timbers fans couldn't burn more than 15 minutes trying to repurpose the original joke as gallows humor before Sebastian Blanco answered the tense and expectant calls raining down from the stands to just shoot the fucking ball...

...and, to close out the opening section, I was close enough to feel Yimmi Chara’s crippling indecision in the eternal seconds before Blanco slammed home the game-winner - which, like the first, punched into the side netting of Columbus' goal. The game ended 3-2, the Timbers hit the Leagues Cup break with a fresh reminder that they can, in fact, play this game and a stadium-sized crowd went home grinning and stoned on a massive hit of Member Berries. Once were kings, etc.

I didn’t commit the thought to any public place, but I went into yesterday’s game convinced the Timbers had to score the first goal to get even one point. That came partly from instinct and partly from a belief that they couldn’t afford to fall behind in a drag race against this Crew team, but I didn’t appreciate how right that was until I checked into it this morning. Portland scored first in five of their six wins in 2023 (the outlier? the win over Seattle) and, fun fact, have a 5-2-2 record across those games. It’s as if they need that blessed margin of error to keep the game and their shit together, a 100-yard head-start on the metaphorical quarter mile.

How You (And I) Should Have Known the Timbers Would Miss the 2022 Playoffs

This was how I told them apart. Now?

It becomes rarer with each passing season, but I still see people argue it’s impossible to support two teams at the same time. My rebuttal: it’s as easy as wanting one of those teams win every game and wanting the other to win every game except the ones where they play that first team. And that’s how I feel about the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati, respectively, and I’ll never understand how that’s complicated.

Going the other way, and unlike past three seasons, watching the Timbers play all season while I watched/tracked Cincy had more value than it did in the past – i.e., most of the past three seasons saw the Timbers wake up sometime in late summer and roll into the playoffs, while Cincy typically started wilting somewhere around late may and continued to the end like some overwrought Shakespearian actor counting his wounds until he rather loudly expired. There has always been a whiff of ne’er the twain shall meet about the experience, in other words, but that changed with Major League Soccer’s 2022 season.

To start with the full disclosures, yes, I really did believe that both Cincinnati and Portland would make the 2022 playoffs. That bet panned out for one team – FC Cincinnati – but not the other...whose name shall go unmentioned. Both teams needed to get something out of their final game of the season - Real Salt Lake away for Portland and DC United away for Cincy. I read both of those games as winnable, hence the whole thing about both teams making the 2022 playoffs, but I also overlooked something, arguably out of habit. The thing that makes that remarkable was how obvious it should have been in retrospect. And that goes back to something I would never expected going into 2022 – i.e., how similar Cincy and Portland would be by season’s end.

First and foremost, Portland and Cincinnati tied a lot - 13 games per team, i.e., tied for second under 2022’s undisputed masters of sharing points, Columbus Crew SC (who had 16 draws and who also missed the playoffs). Another fun fact (and unless I miscounted): Cincy and Portland had only six clean sheets all season, a detail that points to something else that’s obvious - i.e., both teams gave up goals with very real reliability. By the final tally, Cincinnati actually gave up three more goals than Portland did, 56 to 53. Moreover, just four points separated the two teams. And yet Cincy’s in while Portland’s out. And yet, that’s not even the weird part.

Columbus Crew SC 1-1 Portland Timbers: Comedy Gold

My birthday came early this year!

Did the Portland Timbers deserve their late, late equalizer? No, they did not. But that also feels like the wrong question for the moment. So, try this:

Was it funny? Yes, yes it was. I’d sit through a three-hour insurance seminar with an hour devoted to "team-building" and a bologna sandwich and Kool-Aid for a lunch if you told me I could see sad Caleb Porter at the end of it.

Still, smart shot by Santiago Moreno. And, oh, the whimsy of the assist coming off Bill Tuiloma’s head! As for Columbus Crew SC: I’d pity them under literally every other circumstance, but when your team needs a point (and FC Cincinnati needs someone to trip up there rival) you harden your heart and point and laugh....still, you gotta wonder which god Columbus pissed off...

As I said when I sat down to a frog in a tray way back in junior high, there’s so little to dissect here. Columbus played the better game, just slower than they needed to. Despite what the calendar says, the game as a whole had a mid-August vibe. With few exceptions – and those will be noted below – the Timbers played the first half as if they didn’t even want the points and they didn’t raise their game all that much in the second. A great feed to an increasingly anonymous Yimmi Chara and a flurry of corner kicks aside (all around the 58th minute), Portland rarely got close enough to see Columbus’ goal, never mind threaten it.

In their defense, Columbus didn’t do much better. They came within a stray shoulder of scoring an insurance goal, of course, and Cucho Hernandez got loose a couple times, but, apart from "that magic moment" when Kevin Molino put them ahead, I think the xG does a swell job of translating that sleeper of a game into numbers. Again, that felt like nothing so much as sitting through a long, pointless movie that slips in a great joke right before the credits rolled.

And, because I don’t think we learned much of anything today, let’s just do talking points and get on with our day.

Portland Timbers 1-0 Minnesota United FC: Say, That Was Lucky. And Ugly.

A metaphor (I couldn't find a better image to represent)

I feel like this was one of those nights where I saw every misplaced foot in defense, every stumble (remember, that one time, when Dario Zuparic almost fell on his ass watching Mender Garcia dance?), every over-hit pass, every touch that sent a ball flopping like a trout jumping for a mosquito, and more standing around and contemplating what some other player could do.

If anything went well during that first half, I either didn’t see it or failed to record it. And listening to the chatter from the broadcast booth was positively hallucinogenic. Felt like listening to goddamn propaganda half the damn time. And yet, I’m left wondering whether saw some darker, shadow-version of what everyone else saw tonight.

The one thing no one could miss: Dairon Asprilla power-glancing home a header from a Santiago Moreno free-kick. Yessir, that was the rock on which the Portland Timbers 1-0 win over Minnesota United FC was built...and then I rewatched said header and saw that Asprilla didn’t have to move at all to win it; Moreno casually dimed it onto his head while Minnesota’s near-side defender (looks like Luis Amarilla from the still I’m looking at right now; gonna savor the mystery) stepped out of the way. Think it’s Michael Boxall who’s asking the same question I am right now: what the fuck, man?

While it’s not 100% borne out by anything more concrete than the eye test and some parts of the box score, I’d call makeshift Minnesota the better team tonight. They moved the ball smarter, they teed up better chances (and a lot more of them) – I mean, I’m looking at the passing accuracy stat right now and suddenly wondering whether I even know how that’s calculated (and whether the Illuminati are involved) – and, all in all, believe a fair case could be made that, but for the Aljaz Ivacic/Claudio Bravo double save, like, five minutes into the game, this one would have slipped away from the Portland. Seriously, think of it: if either of those shots go in (or, for that matter, any of Minnesota’s five shots on goal, or any of their 21 shots), that’s the Timbers trying to breakdown an actually compacted Minnesota defense. And, based on what I saw out there tonight, I don’t think that’s a game Portland would have won...but instead this game wound up as a lesson in what happens when one team lets the other hang around for too long.

Honestly, if either Garcia or Kervin Arriaga could shoot; Arriaga’s wild swing to nowhere were a comic delight, but, this could have been Minnesota’s game at least half a dozen times over.

Sporting Kansas City 4-1 Portland Timbers: Are My Psychological Preparations Paying Off

Denmark smells like something crawled up its ass and died and brought a yeast infection along for laughs. Things smelled rotten three, four games ago.

Proof!

Here I was all primed to throw out a “I’ve written them off before” lifeline, one that included water‑wings that read, “if they put together a run, not only would that get them into the playoffs, it’d get ‘em there running” (they’re big water‑wings), and then I remembered that, in this season of fetid evil (aka, World Cup year, Qatar edition), the Portland Timbers have only seven games left to go. Between tonight’s result and the most basic math, a “run” would amount to them winning, say, five games of seven down the stretch. By any count, that means starting with a W next week...I mean, with the way the Sounders are playing...

About that result, the Timbers 0-3 road loss at the quite lowly Sporting Kansas City. Yeah, yeah, 1-4 road loss, but when the official webpage can’t get it right (see right/caught you, MFs!!), I feel all right calling the second half a 1-1 draw. Sebastian Blanco’s late consolation came four score minutes and four goals too late, sure, but had Portland played the first half like they played the second, well...we’d have something better to talk about, now wouldn’t we? The stats page backs me up on that too, especially the progress of the xG. Meanwhile, back in reality...

Because I was finishing off a really killer pork chile verde (nailed it), I couldn’t really drink in the details of each of the goals Portland’s allowed. Having just put my eyes and heart through them all again, I’d rank them as follows, the most egregious to the most forgivable: 3rd (all that standing?!), 1st (at least everyone pitched in on the fail!), 2nd (SKC got a bit lucky, but I’m giving an assist to the positively drugged defensive reaction), and 4th (shit happens when your pants go down). The simple story of this game goes something like this: after doing very little for 30 minutes, the Timbers fell apart for fifteen minutes. If I were the coach, I’d make the defense sit through the first and third goals 20 times between now and Friday night. I started the review tonight and I’d add on five more viewings any time the team complained.

Would to gods I had more than a couple positive things to say about Portland’s offense. To their very real credit, it took only a minute or two after the halftime whistle for the Timbers to create good chances; to his very real credit, SKC’s ‘keeper, John Pulskamp, stopped all the good ones. Portland added two more quality shots before the clock ran out – Dairon Asprilla got one, Blanco (who had a decent night after mo’ better support came on) got one more – but that still adds up to one slim shot more than SKC had goals.

Minnesota United FC 4-4 Portland Timbers: Rose-Colored Shades, Baby....

Yes, and that sunset.

Despite its loin-stirring grandiosity, I have no grand analysis to share about the Portland Timbers 4-4 road brawl early today at Minnesota United FC. I mean, what’s there to say about a demolition derby besides “a bunch of shit ran into another bunch of shit”? And yet I, like nature, find a way...

To answer the obvious question – i.e., did I lose faith? – of course I did. What other response can one have to seeing your team’s defense take two wet shits on an already-soiled mattress? Apologies for the crudeness of the metaphor – and I hope the sub-text that Minnesota’s first goal didn’t bother me nearly as much as the other two – but I started the outline of another yes-I-am-nervous post immediately after the halftime whistle blew. Also, as evidenced by a tweet floated into public domain early in the second half (see my game thread), I didn’t feel much better until Sebastian Blanco scored his second goal of the match – from open play too – which brings me to the only real take-away I have from this game.

Nothing has my bowels bounded up all season like the Timbers inability to score. Given that, seeing them score four goals – and seeing Blanco, of all the players on the roster, come alive? – there’s nothing to call both things but what I’ve been waiting for since First Kick and and/or that live-broadcast de-pantsing of Sporting Kansas City earlier in the season. Having that to look at helps me look past all kinds of flaws, which helped because Portland had plenty tonight. That said, and on a very fundamental level, all it takes for me to believe the Timbers can go somewhere in any given season is a reliable path to goal. And, if I’m being honest, a semi-reliable path to goal carries me a couple steps closer to interested. Now come the caveats. Because of course I have caveats.

Only two observations from my preview post for this game came through: 1) that the Loons, much like the Timbers, are at their best on the break, and 2) that they haven’t been all the way present lately. I didn’t expect the latter to come good as early as it did, but that paled against Minnesota’s defensive collapse over the first 20 minutes of the second half. Few soccer-writing cliches get the ready pass that “a tale of two halves” gets, but I don’t know that anyone has adequately explained the why/how the fuck of a team dominating one half (as Minnesota did in the first half) and then nodding off in a way that would make Sleeping Beauty say, “damn” in the second. How does that switch go off, and is there someone we can pay to make that happen in every Timbers game that happens between now and the end of my life and/or when I lose interest?

Portland Timbers 2-1 San Jose Earthquakes: Dairon = Rocky

Eye of the Tiger. Also, wrong movie.

At some long-forgotten point during my long career of amateur commentating soccer career, I had an over-fondness for boxing metaphors. With that, let’s dip into the ol’ well once more...

Everyone who has seen even one Rocky movie knows one thing: the more often he gets punched in the head/face area, the better he fights. It might have happened in one movie, it might have happened in all of them, but I distinctly remember a sequence (or five) where Rocky barked something like “is that all you got? hit me harder” (think he said that to both Clubber Lang and Drako), and, as Rocky’s corner started to panic (though not Burgess Meredith, he died during Rocky II, I think), Pauly always said, “no, no, he’s getting madder,” or something like that. And that's how Rocky won the Cold War.

Rocky got punched in the head a whole bunch of fucking times tonight – the official stats counted seven times on target – and All That Jazz Ivacic parried them all away, one of them at dead-cert equalizer by the most active/dangerous player in the San Jose Earthquakes’ line-up, Cristian Espinoza (who, honestly, should take a bow; helluva game, sir; also, The Mothership stiffed us on stand-alone clips, but the highlights would be derelict if they didn't have a few of Ivacic's finest). That “hair-of-their-chinny-chin-chin” madness was more feature the bug in the Portland Timbers 2-1 win over San Jose. And, seeing that I begged for a win, I’m not going to scrutinize it overly...despite this being the same San Jose team I semi-officially wrote off (if halfway) in something I posted just this past Friday, and despite a record of failure that goes back to 1980-fucking-2, aka, when I was a bone-thin knee-high instead of the corpulent gentleman I’ve grown into today...

...deep breath...because that’s all I take these days. And, holy shit, where to begin?

As noted early in my game-thread for the match, San Jose came out nearly as hungry as Dairon Asprilla. After an opening 10 minutes where the teams seemed to punch even, San Jose clawed their way to higher ground and, for too much of the first half, tilted the field toward the Timbers goal. My sparse notes for the first half included phrases like, “SJ clearly not intimidated” and “POR D posture a bit low early,” and I feel like both of those held up pretty well. Whatever anyone thought of each of them, a succession of yellow cards to Portland players – Josecarlos Van Rankin (39th minute/deserved); Yimmi Chara (40th minute/richly-deserved) and Claudio Bravo (41; full disclosure, I didn’t see that one, so I’m not judging its validity) – pinpoints the moment of peak out-of-fucking-control for the Timbers. I think San Jose scored off the free-kick Bravo handed them (don’t honestly recall what I was doing), but, again, who set up the goal that bobbled its way to where Benjamin Kikanovic had nothing to do but stab it into an empty goal? Yep, Espinoza. Related, Ivacic deserved better from that bobble...

Seattle Sounders 0-3 Portland Timbers: Fun! (And Pointless Anxiety!)

First, so, SO good.

Tonight’s challenge is to walk the line between celebrating a good, useful, comedy-rich win and acknowledging that, despite the 3-0 score-line, the Portland Timbers didn’t play a great game. They may not have even played a good one.

Going the other way, I see not just free money in my bank account, but a fall-down fucking hysterical situation where Mike Penso waves off a penalty shout for a trip on Nico Lodeiro that 90% of the world agrees he should give, only to reward the Timbers with an equally obvious call (something like) 40-45 minutes later for a handball just inside the area, and only after video review. Maybe the whole CCL banner stunt felt tacky to Penso too...

Because I’m about to grind a couple personal axes, I want to make a couple things very clear. First, I genuinely enjoyed the win. If nothing else, it’s exciting, i.e., a dramatic pratfall in the middle of Seattle’s presumed stroll to the throne that so many people (including me) expect them to make. Everything down to the start of the game worked toward setting up that narrative; Seattle even had one of their typical flurries around the 17th-19th minutes, one of those periods where they got off two quality shots out of a period of sustained pressure. Related thereto, and more than a little fortunate, Aljaz Ivacic completely missed both shots; he didn’t see Raul Ruidiaz’s shot till it bonked off his head and bravo, Claudio Bravo, for clearing the ball off the line on the other, but ain’t that soccer, sometimes? (Surely, you get all or some of that in here?) Isn’t that why they call it the blues?

For what it’s worth, I don’t think the game only really turned when Seattle’s Jackson Ragen got sent off for a wild-ass foul on Eryk Williamson, like, stupid early in the second half. Sure, Portland scored a go-ahead goal out of three passes and Jaroslaw Niezgoda’s ass at the 24th minute – also, hold this thought, because I’m obsessing – but I didn’t feel the weight of resignation among Seattle's players until after Ragen’s dismissal. As much as Portland’s opener put Seattle on their heels, they played as if someone had set their game-plan on fire and waggled it in front of them (while doing some really uncomfortable, faux-erotic dance) after the Ragen’s second yellow. From that point forward, some vague sense of not knowing what to do next weighed on their every step and every pass.

Basically, as good as the goal felt (very! thanks!), it didn’t take too much to imagine how Seattle would get back into the game at the half-time whistle. Five minutes after that red card, I straight up knew they had too much doubt in their heads to get anything better than the draw. Part of me thinks Brian Schmetzer chased his charges onto the field after burning the thought “put your stamp on the game” into their heads. When Ragen did, the wheels spun off.

Nashville SC v Portland Timbers Preview: A Hall of Mirrors in Another House

Makes me wanna puke, too.

The Portland Timbers road form (1-4-4) lends a real "but for Providence Park" vibe to the Timbers 2022 season. On the plus side, they’re playing a team that has struggled to get all three points at home – yes, even lately. First, their numbers:

Nashville SC
Record/Basics: 7-5-5, 26 points, 2-1-3 home, 5-4-2 road; 22 gf, 19 ga, +3
Last 10: TLWLWTWTLW (4-3-3; 2-1-2 home; middling, but last 5 were pretty soft)
Oppo: @ SJ, @ LAG, v RSL, @ HOU, v MTL, v ATL, @ COL, v SJ, v SKC, @ DC

What We Know About Them
I have a misconception that Nashville’s struggling stuck in the back of my mind, but that probably looks at their 2022 through the refracted lens of their home games – more on that later. When most people think Nashville, they probably think Walker Zimmerman at the back, Dax McCarty (somehow still) steering traffic through the middle, and Hany Muhktar running loose up top/off that old war horse C. J. Sapong. And, yes, both have done well in 2022 (8 goals, 5 assists for Hany, 5 goals, 3 assists for Sapong; funny side note on Sapong, he’s still an every other year player). Other words that may come to mind: combative and counter-attacking.

All that has largely held up lately, if with a little less Zimmerman (see, qualifying, World Cup).

Notes on Recent Form
I haven’t seen a ton of Nashville this season – and this’ll be my first full 90 with them – so I’ll have to stretch the numbers a bit. That said, I’m expecting the way they create chances to have a fair resemblance to what they tried – and with some real success against Orlando City SC in their midweek U.S. Open Cup quarterfinal (here’s the MLS in 15 for your edification). Nashville came within three stoppage time minutes of winning that game and had a fair argument for the better team, but that was also another road game; their last two wins both came on the road (at Colorado Rapids and at DC United). When I look at their last three home games – against Atlanta, San Jose and SKC – I’d expect at least five-six points out them, and yet they managed just two. More to the point, they rarely see more of the ball, even at home, and they played arguably their worst game when they attempted possession – the home loss to SKC.

To flesh out the general profile, Nashville doesn’t create a ton of chances – they probably averaged 11 shots/game in their last 5-6 games – but they get a useful number of shots on goal out of it (e.g., around six). And they probably get away with it because they rarely let the opposition get to, never mind much over, a 1.0 xG.

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 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.

Portland Timbers Preview: On Fears of Getting Run Over

We all need a hero...

Red Bull New York has yet to win at home in the 2022 season. that’s the cheeriest thought I have to pass on about the Portland Timbers’ trip to Harrison, New Jersey this weekend.

The buzz from Yimmi Chara’s back-to-back bicycle-kick goals wore off weeks ago, leaving Portland’s fans sipping stale coffee in the hopes that, if nothing else, they can stay awake until the Timbers do. The Timbers’ goals-for number stalled just over three games ago (is it possible for that number to go down?) - think the exact number is 282 minutes plus stoppage time - and I’m imagineering like a motherfucker, but still can’t picture how that changes against a Red Bulls team that, assuming they play as they normally do, will press every passer for large stretches of this game. On the plus side, Josecarlos Van Rankin is suspended for this one.

He's the most draining culprit, of course, but not many Timbers have looked like a realist’s picture of composure for several weeks. I can see any number of Portland players making a loose pass or failing to control the same, and turnovers like that will put the Red Bulls between two and five passes from scoring. The Red Bulls have scored reliably this season - they’ve only been kept off the board twice so far (again, both games at home). Just one more note on this: as with their pressing, you don’t see the goal coming until they ball has already gone in. That’s to say, unless I’m very wrong about how this game will play out, Portland’s Aljaz Ivacic will need to come alert and limber for this one.

The only break I really see Portland catching: the theoretical possibility that they’ll be able to transition against the Red Bulls gegen-press (against v gegen?). The Red Bulls do throw numbers into their press, something that should help the Timbers get vertical; going the other way, their press has looked super well-organized in all the investigative safaris I’ve undertaken - and I’ve got a second on that perception from the broadcast both more than once. Add a couple steady backstops (e.g., Aaron Long and Sean Nealis), a pair of herding-dog maniacs in front of them (e.g., Christian Casseres, Jr. and Frank Amaya, most of the time), and you’re left waiting for Carlos Coronel to bail you out with something stupid. Bottom line, Red Bull has been for any team to play through - they’ve given up just seven goals so far (average = 0.78 goals per game) - and that doesn’t pair so good with…you know.

Houston Dynamo FC 0-0 Portland Timbers: A Lotta Nope & Homework for Gio

This, only even more dandy.

Wow. That one just kind of sat there, didn’t it? A couple things happened now and again to make you think the game might open up, or at least kick out of neutral. Nope.

Houston Dynamo FC hosted yesterday’s goal-less draw versus the Portland Timbers and, yeah, the whole thing felt the same as two dudes squaring off for a fight, both of them announcing loudly “I don’t throw the first punch, bro.” At most, you can think of moments like Josecarlos Van Rankin’s no-look near-assist to Darwin Quintero as one of those dudes getting shoved and, say, falling backwards over a garbage can. He gets up, none the worse for the wear but some wet spots on the seat of his pants, while his wiser friend (Aljaz Ivacic) helps him up and away from the scene, without further embarrassment or potential pain, announcing over this shoulder, “let it go, man. He's not worth it.”

And I think that’s all I can get out of that metaphor.

The Timbers handed Houston at least one more breakthrough - courtesy of Quintero and Fafa Picault combining to break a high offside trap - but Ivacic bailed out Portland again. The Timbers’ new No. 1 pulled their asses out of the fire again in the 2nd half - and all those saves are lovingly documented in the highlights (which helped recall who did what on the morning after) - so you kept waiting for the rest of the team to do something with the pocket money he gave them. To their credit, Portland created their best chances during spells of attacking pressure, periods when they’d seemed to make the conscious, collective decision to get players forward to see if they can’t buy the go-ahead goal. Cristhian Paredes fired the best shot I can remember - and from a good if crowded spot - and I noted some better-than-half chances for each of Bill Tuiloma, Yimmi Chara, Marvin Loria, and a largely aimless Jaroslaw Niezgoda (hold that thought), but whether by lunging (Bill), or kicking more dirty that clean. Nope.

Both teams subbed in players of interest over the second half - for Houston, Corey Baird for Tyler Pasher (who let Portland’s Claudio Bravo catch up to his best moment), Zeca for Griffin Dorsey, and Thorleifur (is Thor a nickname?) Ulfarsson for a largely aimless Sebastian Ferreira; for Portland Dairon Asprilla for Niezgoda, David Ayala for…Paredes, Loria for Santiago Moreno…good Lord, why did I start this section, then, later Eryk Williamson for Sebastian Blanco - and, again, nearly all those changes made you hope ‘n’ wonder that each move might get the same unstuck. Nope.

When Houston’s Teenage Hadebe got chucked for his second yellow at the 75th minute, I couldn’t have been alone in thinking that, surely, this momentous decision will finally deliver the moment this game has waited on for…75 minutes. Yeah, no, didn’t happen.

Portland Timbers Preview: Big Fish, Minnows and Goalz

Confident he thinks soccer is for communists, but still...

I had the pleasure of sitting through all of Houston Dynamo FC’s 4-3 win over the San Jose Earthquakes. And I mean that: that was a fun game, plus I got to see Jeremy Ebobisse score apretty brace (miss you, sir; door’s open for me). Sadly, I’m not sure how much anything I saw there helps me know what to expect during the Portland Timbers’ visit to the (not yet) muggy flatlands of East Texas.

To start, I can assure whatever pain you believe the Timbers' defense has caused you personally, it pales next to what San Jose fans endured at Houston (and generally, from what I gather). Neither team played the cleanest game - in fact, they both gave it away like they didn't want it - but San Jose got so turned in circles that they handed Houston chance after chance - probably a multiple of total goals they scored, even if a low one. The Timbers defense commits the odd gaffe - and, hear me out, what if they don’t do that Saturday? - so Houston should have to work harder for this one. Also, hold that thought…

Acknowledging the above doesn’t get the Timbers off scot-free, obviously, not with the way Houston plays. I, like you, do not like the idea of Fafa Picault running at any of Justin Rasmussen (because, rookie), Pablo Bonilla (because destructive puppy; also, done with his suspension, yeah?) or Josecarlos Van Rankin (because, let me count the ways); and that whole situation only gets worse when you fold a marauding Adam Lundqvist into the equation. Houston’s Tyler Pasher could cause some problems as well, but I have more faith in Claudio Bravo and less in Pasher and that helps me feel a little safer about Portland’s left. I still expect to see some amount of clean-up from whoever starts at center-back (more below), but that’s never not true, so…

To lay all my cards on the table, and this brushes past a recent history of struggles in Texas (ft. The Worst Governor in America), I see this as a game a good Timbers team should win. Still, that's the question isn't: are the Timbers a good team in 2022? That remains open in my mind, sadly, and will remain so until the full roster is 100% online, and that’s the thought that rubs against said open question. What can be established (provided you don't think about all the flaws in the theory) is that Portland is a better team than Houston and, by the associative property (transitive?), better than San Jose. Think of it as striving to be the big fish among the minnows.

I don’t have to tell any Timbers fan that, two games excepted (Week 1 v NE, and last weekend at VAN), Portland’s offense hasn’t scored more than one goal per game. Here’s why that matters…

Vancouver Whitecaps 2-3 Portland Timbers: No, Thank You. No, Really.

Happy to have it, disturbed I needed it.

Sweet Jesus. Feels like you need a chart with an interpretive guide with an addendum to read that one. On the plus side, the Portland Timbers picked up their second handful of three points in 2022 with a 3-2 win at the Vancouver Whitecaps. On the down side, Vancouver looks as shitty as their record - i.e., 1-4-1, but for the San Jose Earthquakes, etc. To nudge the cold, hard facts back toward a positive direction, Portland grabbed those three points on the road, never a bad thing. But let’s dig deeper

First and foremost, I’d argue Portland looked the better team throughout - can I get a “thank God” on that, HA-llelujah! - and I’d be stunned if the numbers don’t back that up. Checking………okeh, let’s take a step back and define “better,” because maybe there’s a language barrier here, or maybe I’m just not vibing with the data-dorks at MLSSoccer.com, but they’re saying most of differently, so maybe it’s time to take another step back to look at all this from a greater distance.

What went right for the Whitecaps today?

I thought Ryan Gauld looked all right, or he looked like what I remembered at least - e.g., hyper-active (in a good way), eager to combine and make things happen. He kept Timbers defenders and midfielders chasing all over the place, drew one penalty and came close to drawing a couple others - something I can’t stress that enough given Silvio Petrescu’s beer-googled evening of refereeing (i.e., the VAR was busy). I also thought Russell Teibert played a strong game, too, and in the same kind of omni-present way. Finally, above and beyond terrorizing Josecarlos Van Rankin for most of the night, Cristian Dajome scored a peach of a goal off a collective mental slip by Portland’s left side. Still, I’m not sure I’d call what I watched a two-goal performance by Vancouver; they scored their second goal on their second penalty kick - and on a call I wouldn't have made, fwiw - and it’s hard not to score one when you get two free cracks from 12 yards out. Petrescu/the Timbers D handed them some padding, in other words. Now, about the Timbers' performance...

It left me more happy than frustrated, for one, but it’s complicated from there. Marvin Loria found space down the left for as long as he played and, sure, give the man credit for the cutting inside to create the penalty kick that put Portland ahead (and on one helluva kick by Dairon Asprilla), but I’d also argue Loria killed more plays than he helped along over the course. And I think that makes Loria the perfect talisman for this win. Only a couple Timbers played a solid 90 (or less, depending) - fwiw, I’d put Bill Tuiloma, Diego Chara, Cristhian Paredes and, at long last, Aljaz Ivacic in that group - but just about every player had a moment or two when he did something a little better than. For instance, Asprilla didn't have a bad night - e.g., he stretched the field nicely and did some stout hold-up work - but it didn't add up to much besides a lot of running around. Until, that is, his moment when it arrived (aka, the penalty kick). He capped it off with a lovely gesture to a grieving Zac McGraw…just, all the emojis, guys, except maybe the poo and the fruit teenagers use as innuendos, and those moments exonerated whatever flaws marred Asprilla’s (et. al.’s) game and that gets to how the Timbers got a good result against a team that, so far, looks like it’s going to through some things instead of go anywhere in 2022.

FC Dallas 4-1 Portland Timbers: Some Color(ful) Commentary on a(n Ideally Irrelevant) Debacle

Only less good than the Blazing Sword.

As noted in early communications, I only realized today that I’ve been posting real-time narratives of every game I’ve watched for two, three years now. Here’s tonight’s transcript and, for what it’s worth, I think it catches the highlights, just so and all that. Now, to expand a little…

I’ve heard the phrase “a half to forget” to describe one of those 45 minutes in Hell stretches that every team faces now and again. That phrase is stupid, and may no one utter it every again, even in jest. Those are precisely the kinds of halves (halfs? calfs?) that a team should never forget. It should be the bulletin board rage-spiration that one gets from looking in the mirror on his/her/their worst day, an interminable 45 minutes where every player on the field contributed a little fuck up to create a great big Voltron of fuck up. So, yeah, #neverforget

The headless-chicken scramble you see in the highlights of each of Jesus Ferreira’s threefirst-halfgoals gives a fair impression of Portland’s first half, aka, the soccering equivalent of asking “what the fuck just happened?” two full fucking minutes after it did. It would take a miracle to come back from such colossal and repeated breakdowns. To their credit, the Timbers gave it a fair crack. And that’s real praise. Speaking for myself, I would have asked the refereeing crew for a towel throw in under the rules of Association Football, as currently written and adjudicated, to spare my eyes the sore.

 Portland took their first big step into the game - “back into” amounts to forgiving anything about that first half - when they started to, for lack of a better word, try. They ditched staying organized and vaguely interested for making Dallas work for just about any pass closer to Portland’s goal than Dallas’ attacking third. The second big adjustment came with Sebastian Blanco coming on for a theretofore pretty well useless Santiago Moreno. I’ll get into all that shortly, but first…

His joy = your pain.

This game ended in a 1-4 loss for the Timbers. It’s been about…nine months(? no, eight) since I’ve seen them fall apart like they did today. And, sure, I get the thing about Texas and March and the team will get better as [_______] player comes back. None of that explains away the sheer, collective uselessness of Portland’s first half. All they can do is play like it never happened…which, okeh, yes, I picked at the metaphor long enough to figure out the true meaning of “a half to forget,” it’s possible I found the true meaning of Christmas (don’t let dad drink before noon), and that’s pretty much my take-away from this…game. Portland kinda sorta punched back, if 36 minutes far too fucking late, but I’ve watched this team long enough to know how they work. Or can work. And, in their defense on most days, it does. Now, back to the action…

Blanco Re-Signs & Existential Uncertainty

Mood.

In all honesty, a large part involves not wanting to see another Portland Timbers great dissolve into a shadow of himself. Watching Diego Valeri play last season, but also mostly not play…I’m still not sure I can find the right word for it, but I’ll attempt an analogy: it felt like watching your dad reach a point where he can’t do things. Call it the unsettling feeling of mourning someone who’s still alive, and all that can mean.

But, no, I’m also not thrilled to read anything about a “medical condition” in Sebastian Blanco’s knee. And those two anxieties are very much related.

Anyone who follows this site knows I’ve been obsessing over the Timbers’ inevitable transition season since 2018*…which, factually, was never so immediately “inevitable” as demonstrated by two trips to MLS Cup between then and now. So, yes, I’m prone to worry, glass half-empty to a point that might make me an unreliable narrator, but, that transition is coming. Dammit. I’ll get a Yahtzee one of these rolls… [* I just searched my old posts and discovered the first time I talked about any kind of off-field transition (as opposed to the on-field tactical choice) was at the end of 2020…so maybe I’ve talked about it less than I thought.]

That another, smaller part of me felt a kind of relief at the idea of Blanco moving on seems implied in the above. Holding that dodgy knee in the back of my mind made the length and uncertainty of the negotiations read in such a way that helped me make peace with it. It’s not that I didn’t see the rumors of a potential deal with Real Salt Lake (think that was the only one), so much as thinking that the Timbers letting him go meant Blanco couldn’t possibly come back to haunt the team as some revenant dressed in claret and cobalt. About that...

“In an age where contract negotiations are becoming increasingly more public and visible, and players’ actions on social media are scrutinized to the nth degree. This raised some eyebrows and caused panic amongst Portland fans immediately.”

Portland Timbers 3-1 Minnesota United FC: Weird, Good and Glorious

My people call it Sebastian Blanco.

Does anyone else think that Portland Timbers fans just witnessed something parts weird, good and glorious? To take the adjectives in turn:

Weird: Did anyone else see as much walking as I did, and from both teams? That note speaks to the second half - specifically, after Sebastian Blanco slipped in his first, deciding dagger - and also covers the time when I thought Minnesota United FC would push the game, if for no better reason than they had to. Related thereto, how many Timbers counters, 1) started about 20 yards from their own goal, and 2) started with Dairon Asprilla either winning the ball or getting it at that place, looking at a wide-open field ahead of him and starting up with a look that said, “this shit again?”

Good: Because, before Blanco scored the dagger described above and the, no, please, after you, insurance goal that Minnesota gifted him, the possibility that he wouldn’t continue, never mind finish the game, looked like a real possibility. I mean, how many of you fretted to sweating about the Timbers’ post-season chances in any shape when you saw Blanco on the ground rubbing his back/ass?

Glorious: Because the Timbers overcame an early deficit against a team who has always given them trouble, pushed through a heavy dose of chippy shit (that was six cards by Minnesota, and one of them should have been red and had damn well better earn a date at Studio 54 (aka, DisCo should review that and fine or otherwise punish Franco Fragapane for that straight-up shitty lunge at Diego Chara)), and had the comfort of seeing Steve Clark cover every piece of, admittedly, weak shit that Minnesota managed to fire on goal.

I won’t lie: I had ample and frequent questions about the choices and posture of the Timbers, and on both sides of the ball, but they still ended the night 3-1 winners over perhaps their fiercest bad match-up in MLS, and looked oddly comfortable once they got back in it. Up next, the Colorado Rapids and 4,000+ more feet in elevation. First, however, let’s drink it in, shall we?

First question, how the hell did this happen?