Minnesota United FC 1-0 Portland Timbers: On the Psychiatrist's Chair

(Just probing you for weaknesses...)

To lead with the unpopular opinion, whether or not that was a handball by Larrys Mabiala – and I’m of the opinion that it was – he took one hell of a risk flapping both arms high in the air and goal-side of the player he was marking. That moment of stupidity capped a game that, between extreme heat and terrible aesthetics, all concerned parties wanted to end. Losing 0-1 on the road to a good team – e.g., Minnesota United FC – only rises to the level of a crime because the Portland Timbers play the same team in just a few days’ time and the same venue in the U.S. Open Cup with a shot at the final on the line.

That shifts the frame, in my mind, from the meaning of the loss to the question of whether one team or the other gained a psychological edge from this game, no matter how narrow. An answer (“the answer” is a high bar, y’all) circles back to the starting premise for this match-up – i.e., the Portland Timbers played a good team on the road. There’s a massive mitigating variable in this particular mix as well because, after a first half in which the Timbers looked like some version of its better self – mostly on the passing side – the game played out as if they’d downed some shots at the half and during the hydration breaks, as opposed to sugar, water and electrolytes. A late flurry from Brian Fernandez (et al., obviously) aside, the passes stopped connecting and got a little more wild and ambitious (and lazy), and the Timbers collectively tailed off as the game progressed.

One open question is, why? Was it fatigue? The heat? Did a second-half shift in Minnesota’s structure fluster what had been, to that point, the high standard of Portland passing? Did Giovanni Savarese direct them to dial back the intensity knowing that that most of those players would take the field again in just three days? Answer those according to your personal theories; they’re mostly rhetorical fodder, and is it possible that only the sports bras these guys wear truly know the answer to any of those questions? (Are those things micced up? Do they hear/feel pep talks from the coaches?)

We do, however, have the base-line facts on hand: 1) Portland stopped connecting passes with any consistency in the second half; 2) they pushed Minnesota to the wall in their own house. It took a penalty call that over half the people on my twitter feed crapped all over for Minnesota to win the game, at the death, and with Portland ‘keeper, Steve Clark, guessing right on Ethan Finlay’s shot. That’s one thin goddamn line, and enough for me to render my final verdict:

Portland Timbers 4-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: Of Victory and Flexibility

The MVP of second assists.

In an attempt to keep this short (that failed; caveat lector, and is that name taken?), I’m going to use the counter-arguments to describe the Portland Timbers 4-0 submission hold over the Los Angeles Galaxy, here, in the fourth round of the U.S. Open Cup. Yes, at least three of the Timbers’ goals loitered in the neighborhood of lucky and, no, that was nothing like the Galaxy’s best team out there. My response to that is, so what? The fact that wasn’t LA’s best team only matters in terms of what Portland has to handle next time they play LA; the deeper story is that Portland played whatever LA threw onto the field straight off of it – and without fielding every one of its regulars, and that’s your context.

From the time Sebastian Blanco scored Portland’s third, and only fully intentional (and yet still fortunate), goal until the end of the game, the Timbers played cat-and-mouse with LA. For instance, somewhere around the 70th minute, and after a period of flinging the ball forward looking for the next goal, Portland collectively pulled back and steadily passed the ball backwards first, then all over the field, just holding it. I guesstimated the sequence at around 20 consecutive passes, but a full composed minute passed before LA got back on the ball. And then Portland chased LA off the ball again – or LA passed/pissed it away – the whole thing started all over again.

Dame Fortune might have kissed every one of Portland’s goals more or less closer to the lips (and Blanco’s was straight-up tongue), but the Timbers very deliberately wrecked the havoc that lead to each of them – whether by Blanco’s ball over the top to Jeremy “Broadside of” Ebobisse that caused the second goal or the slick combination between Tomas Conechny and Jorge Moreira that ended with the ball falling to Blanco for Portland’s third. As for the fourth goal, I only submit it for the record: after a brief pressing rally around the 2/3 mark of the game, the Galaxy slipped into a stupor for the rest of the game. Another useful deflection, another goal, game, set match, Portland.

That’s the entire narrative thrust of this game, really. Once the Timbers put the Galaxy in the soccer equivalent of a figure-four leg-lock over a 10-minute period in the first, this was 50 minutes of LA failing to find any solutions. Waiting on a tap-out that the rules of the game doesn’t allow, basically, and that means waiting for the final whistle to bless the inevitable. While you’re hear, though, I’ve got three bigger picture ideas to pass on, both about this game and the Timbers as general. In no particular order…

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Louisville City FC: Holy Shit, a Win! (And the Scrabbling Path Forward!)

Suspense is contextual.

I will be brief, I will be brief, I will be brief. [Eh, you be the judge.]

I have two big, related takeaways from FC Cincinnati finally gaining a clear positive during its 2019 season with a 2-1 win (in extra time!) over Louisville City at scenic Nippert Stadium in the over-revered, yet under-valued U.S. Open Cup. First, Louisville’s press disrupted everything Cincinnati so much thought of doing for most of regulation time. Sub-first, I do wonder whether they ran themselves legless – not that I blame them either, given how close that came to being the path to success.

Second, and most crucially, how much did knowing how to manage Louisville help FC Cincy? My personal theory: an uncomfortable amount.

By pressing the way they did – and successfully - Louisville played an underdog’s hand in this game, but Cincinnati holds a clear edge in talent. Making that count took playing around Louisville’s press – something it took Cincinnati the first five minutes of the game to break even once, but it took most of regulation to finally tilt the field in its favor and, this is key, irrevocably.

Once Louisville gave up the (glorious) second goal (Team Kekuta!), and after so much exertion, I couldn’t see them coming back into the game. The underdogs had to take their foot off the gas eventually and, once they did, Cincinnati put the game in a…well, stunningly poorly executed choke-hold. Fuck me, if I didn’t feel like I was yelling “finish him” for a whole goddamn hour.

I’m happy for the win, particularly the spirit of it. Anyone watching the huddle after Fanendo Adi scored his first goal of 2019 (srsly, that can’t be right) should feel heartened by Forrest Lasso’s cross-talk with Adi over the celebrating mob. I have no idea what Lasso said, but everyone looked bought in and that’s how you build a team – aka, Step 1 to Success in team sports.

To go the other way with a thought that feels complicated: the first 70 minutes felt like Cincy bending without breaking while getting muscled all over by Louisville. That dredged up something I’ve noticed from FC Cincy during its long, dark winter-but-it’s-summer in MLS. FC Cincinnati has one hell of a time getting on the front foot in any game. Against a team capable of dominating them, the switch never flips and that's one theory on their string of regular season losses; when playing a Louisville team doing the soccer equivalent of throwing itself onto a hand-grenade to victory, it takes, as it happens, about 78 minutes. The larger point, and I’m going to emphasize this: Cicinnati does not have a reliable way to assert itself in games.

U.S. Open Cup, Portland Timbers 1-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: Good is Good, And That's Good

What Portland defeated tonight, helpfully translated.

Just real quick, in a fit of enthusiasm, I want to talk about the Portland Timbers' 1-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy in the U.S. Open Cup. This’ll be bullet-style (will it?) and refreshingly straightforward, but also stylistically frustrating. I walk the line…

When I talk about the Timbers being “good” - even in a post like the last one, where I’m shoving a ceiling on top of the conversation - a game like tonight is exactly what I’m talking about. This Timbers team is organized, it knows what it’s doing out there, and it has reasonable flexibility on top of all that. That’s how a team wins a “Cup” tournament - and, yes, I’m talking U.S. Open and MLS, if the stars line-up right - only Giovanni Savarese and staff haven’t figured out how to weaponize that yet, into the unstoppable force that wins titles without blinking. But it’s working well enough, like, nine games in a row well enough.

More to the point, Portland plays well. The team moves the ball to where it wants it to go well enough that I can poo-poo possession like the mediocre appetizer it is. The coolest detail comes with how they came up with a smart way to play the ball forward out of the back, especially against teams that press - i.e., diagonally, and outside-in; it doesn’t just beat the first line of pressure, it means the team can switch the play, or keep it on the same side.

After that, this Timbers team gets vertical real goddamn fast.

Also, Portland is fine without Darlington Nabge. I’m still trying to figure out if it’s not better.

Back to this particular Open Cup tie, LA came into this game 3-1-1…on that, um, just checked the opposition across that time (e.g., @ MTL, v. SJ, V. FCD (this was the loss; noted), @ Portland (the draw, and one of Portland’s flattest games of the season), v. RSL), and I take back what I was about to say, LA wasn’t quite so much on a tear as a run of reasonable expectations with good fortune riding in the side-car. LA is adequate at this point, maybe even playoff-reasonable, but that 3-1-1 amounts to getting results any team with a remote chance of success should get. In other words, this is a result to celebrate for the Timbers, but not get cocky about.

For those who do want to feel cocky, on the other hand (not judging; I’m raising my hand in that tentative way people do when they only think they know the answer), think about how Portland managed the keep-away, how they passed well almost as often as they did, the fact they created - what? - 4-5 quality chances, and that’s at a minimum. The defense cleaned up what it couldn’t prevent from coming in - and hats off and thrown on the ground in gratitude for the mighty, reverse goal-line header by Mabiala to make Portland’s one goal stand up.

Just to note it, even with Liam Ridgewell out, Portland has a decent four-man deep rotation in central defense right now: Mabiala, Tuiloma, Julio Cascante, and (worst-case) Lawrence Olum.

MLS Cup Review: Darkness and Light

Just google "shitty trophy." This masterpiece shows up surprisingly early.

[Yes, Jesus, the title is tongue and cheek.]

Darkness

Today, I sat through the MLS Live’s condensed replay of MLS Cup 2016…and, for the record, my minimum charge for re-watching that one-night revival of soccer-as-rugby in full starts at $50. The face-off between MLS Cup debutantes, Toronto FC and the Seattle Sounders, featured two teams desperate not to fuck up and, as such, it heavily favored labor over artistry. (NOTE to author: Overwritten narrative? One that you will never pick up again?) If teams won games by getting in each other’s way, this would have been a final for the ages. In soccer, though, teams win games by scoring goals - whenever and however they score them – and Seattle dragged the game to penalty kicks, where they scored five goals to Toronto’s four. That’s more goals.

And that’s also how Stefan Frei’s bear-paw save became the game’s biggest talking point…

I took the time to read other people’s articles this morning (busy as hell this afternoon; goddamn Christmas), and most sing the same notes – e.g. Seattle never managed a shot on goal, Frei’s save, and the broad argument that there’s not a lot to say beyond that. The “advanced course” of articles offer details that make sense only to those more finely-tuned to some sub-plots – e.g., that this was a particularly shitty final to present to a broadcast TV audience after years out of the spotlight; that Seattle’s Osvaldo Alonso would juice the holy shit out of his knee before missing this one; and that, of course, Toronto’s Jonathan Osorio would get emotional after the loss.

After reliving the final (in condensed fashion), I’ll only say I found a couple strings to pull out a little further. One thing that didn’t show in the mini-game is something only one article (by Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl) flagged. For me, this was one thought I kept coming back to, especially on Toronto’s side of the ball

Ben Olsen Will Not Die

First, we exchanged information. Then we talked about Ben Olsen...

Sometime during the broadcast of DC United’s grim loss to the Philadelphia Union this weekend, the color commentator (I think) casually let slip that Ben Olsen has been coaching DC for six years.

[Cue sound of record scratching and a 13-car pile-up just outside the window.]

SIX FREAKIN’ YEARS? Ben Olsen? Benny-Ball is almost done with kindergarten? When I dropped this into the podcast, the way Cody responded told me I wasn’t alone in finding this...well, unbelievable.

We attempted a brief segment on coaches - e.g. what gets a coach fired and, most critically, who’s the next guy to fall off a hot seat) – but we only hinted at how Olsen fits into that discussion. The answer: he doesn’t. On some levels, he sits outside of it.

Portland Loses to Real Salt Lake Again. Competition/Venue Notwithstanding

We tried to wake him on the charter. He didn't look so good.

I'll start by owning some ill-advised tweets. For starters, when I said Real Salt Lake was "thin" all over and the Portland Timbers "thick" I overlooked the presence of Javier Morales and Joao Plata; the same statement also ignored Sebastian Jaime, the RSL forward who has been coming on of late, and Luke Mulholland, who has been RSL's ironman/most consistent contributors for going on two years (yes, it’s still true even if goal posts confuse him).

When I was tweeting what turned out to be utter crap, I was actually talking about RSL's defense, which had not only lost local legend Jamison Olave to a dodgy hammy, but also back-ups Chris Schuler and Justin Glad. In my defense, I said something about Phanuel Kavita...which is a thin defense seeing as he didn't play tonight. Aaron Maund did, I think, and he did fine. They all did fine. But does it matter who lined up for Real Salt Lake when the Timbers did so very, very little to put that defense under pressure? No, obviously.

Whether from fatigue, lack of real interest in the U.S. Open Cup, a pre-agreed upon lackluster night, the Timbers never really took the game to Real Salt Lake. Altitude wasn't an issue, Kyle Beckerman wasn't a problem (because, not there), so unless the entire Portland team gasped for air the second they stepped off the chartered bus, there's no not so much an excuse for tonight as an acceptance that the club, collectively, didn't want the U.S. Open Cup trophy (and the CONCACAF Champions' League spot that goes with it) nearly enough. And, so, they lost 2-0.

As much as I basically missed the entire first half, it didn't really look all that different, at a glance, from the second half – of which I caught every exceedingly dull minute. The Timbers got players forward, and more than once, but soft diagonals to the flanks generally replaced the passing and movement that Portland uses to create their best chances. And all the crosses that I saw got cut off three yards from the crosser’s boot, so, no, not very effective.

The Timbers Advance: An Open Cup Victory Sprinkled with Sweet, Sweet Humiliation!

Wait! Right, left, down, A...STOP IT! What's the move?!

First of all, wow, is this going to throw a handful of ground chiles all over the next Cascadia match. The Seattle Sounders turned in a meltdown worthy of toddlers, I tell you. Clint, you've added to your legend, buddy. Congrats! Back to the regularly scheduled post...

If you've ever played Mortal Kombat, and if you're as terrible at it as I am, you know what it's like to master one even mildly effective attack. Say, it's a jab, something you can work against an opponent due to a fluke of timing, so you use it to shave off a narrow band of health at a time. This only gives you the illusion of winning. If the guy you're playing has mastered his avatar’s "killer move," you can land all the jabs you like, but your opponent has still lost only two thirds of her bar, and she'll lay your ass OUT after just two attacks. And if you're not on the floor with your entrails sprawled to the sky after that, your sad little spandexed man is swooning on his feet to set up the same humiliation.

That's the rough experience of playing against this edition of the Seattle Sounders: no matter how badly they've played all 90 long, the Sounders have the talent to score at absolutely any moment and steal the game. Turns out the tale unfolds a little differently when you push Seattle to the 120th, when, again, they melt down, get three players sent off, and just generally act entitled. And so your club wins, 3-1. Can't we game-plan this for next time?

Anyway, great, deeply satisfying win for the Portland Timbers – and I absolutely look forward to the hair-rending amongst Sounders fans (even if I'm not likely to see it), because, yes, two of those cards were harsh. One wasn't (e.g. the two yellows to Brad Evans), not that they'll either care or remember, and Sigi Schmid's game management followed roughly the same script that Caleb Porter might have followed if he was a complete idiot and left Diego Valeri in to the end of the game. But he wasn't, so Portland didn't...and now Portland is in, Seattle's is out, etc.

Then again, wins in a Cup tournament come in isolation by their very nature: they’re not part of the season overall, naturally, which means patterns from that regular season matter a lot tonight, while, at the same time, they don't matter at all. I'll attempt to draw a line between league play and Cup play below, but it won't last long. And there will be bleeding.

MLS 2X6: Sending Off DeRo; The (Imaginary?) Jewsbury/Johnson Situation + 6 More!

But....TRADITION!!!

First of all, and son of a bitch, somebody pinched my feature title (yes, yes, almost certainly before I first used it, but still)! It turns out that the Portland Timbers' official site carries a feature titled 2 X 4. It's pure puff-piece to me, but I’m not about to go toe-to-toe with a media behemoth like portlandtimbers.com...so I went with the obvious solution – e.g. add a couple inches to one side.

That said, since I'm rarely going to be timely posting this thing once-per-week, I really need to kill on content. Or at least produce an amusing read. Gulp.

TWO...
1) A Legend Quietly Departs Stage Left (Tres Canadien)
And that quiet piece is curious because, as pointed out in a "what all did he mean for Canadian soccer?" think piece, Dwayne DeRosario didn't play quiet. A showy goal celebration defined his career (on top of pulling off one of the most memorable political moments in MLS history*) and, prior to the last couple seasons, De Rosario could flat-out fucking ball (more on that later). As has been pointed out all over, DeRosario could have got a long (tortured) Landon-Donovan-esque arrivederci had he retired right – that's as opposed to doing well short of a whole lot for Toronto FC last season and posting a whisper via Twitter. Happily, the tributes came in regardless (even archived ones) and DeRosario absolutely earned it. He was every bit Donovan's peer, a ready answer in any argument about who was the best player in MLS for everyone who didn't like Donovan. Now, personally, I always preferred DeRo, who was gritty and inventive were Donovan was practiced and polished (to diamond clarity, it bears pointing out). Hit that first link above and you'll see why DeRosario had his haters, too, if for vastly different reasons than Donovan. With the latter, it was an argument about phoning it in, while it was a whiff of arrogance that dogged the former throughout his career. Well, screw that: I like my players messy; that's why I didn't really take to Donovan until, 1) his freakout departure to Cambodia, and 2) I could no longer ignore all the, uh, records.