MLS Off-Season Weekly: Looming, Gaping Holes, A Smart Move (with Caveats), and, Crap, The CBA!

"What do we want? More charter flights! When do we want them? More often!"

If you thought a holiday weekend would slow down the news in the Extended Major League Soccer Universe, you have no goddamn idea how media works. The news is thick and dank, so let’s dig in – starting with one of the two teams I follow (followed by the other one, then a bunch of league-wide news/perspective/angry-uncle ramblings):

Portland Timbers: Stumbling Toward the Next Plan A
Absent any updates on the Valeri Situation, my attention wandered to other parts of the Timbers’ roster – and it turns out I wasn’t alone in that:

“The truth is Chara's probably not high-scoring enough to suit Portland's needs, but it's hard to figure what their budget will be after what happened with Brian Fernandez. There are also rumors that they're leaning in the direction of getting another center forward anyway, and pushing Jeremy Ebobisse out to the wing once again.”

Personally, I’ve had Chara on my mind lately, but in a wholly different way – i.e., less about his alleged limitations (which Timbers fans have internalized by now) than his clear and absolute gifts, and what that means both in terms of managing his minutes over the next season or two and to the impending post-Chara future. So, no, he doesn’t score often (when he does, he times it for maximal effect - like his tackles), but I’ve never seen a player with his capacity for covering ground and knack for ferreting the ball off players’ feet; I’m not sure he can be replaced like-for-like (the same goes for Valeri, with some twists, as I’ll get into below). And that’s why I brought up managing minutes in 2020 and, like, one year beyond, just as much as I pointed toward the post-Chara future. Assuming he comes back, Cristhian Paredes doesn’t play the same game as Chara, or at least not to the same effect, and neither does anyone who has partnered with him so far (and if Paredes doesn’t come back, the same will apply to whomever replaces him). As such, when Chara’s not out there – whether resting for a game or two, or in the Chara-less future - the players around the area Chara vacates will need to adjust in terms of positioning, and adjust expectations as to how and how much of the ground behind or in front of them (as applicable) gets covered. That doesn’t have to be bad, but it will be, without question, different. Next question – and I ask out non-rhetorically (because I don’t know the answer) - how much does it throw players to make those kinds of shifts from one game to the next. Moreover, is what I’m describing even a meaningful issue? I think it is, obviously, but what do I know? Anyway, just fretting about the inevitable…

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-2 Seattle Sounders: My First Scouting Report...on a Travesty!

You fucking wish, John Champion.

If you’ve heard anything about the Seattle Sounders in this game, believe every word. First, yes, they really did only draw this game by the mercy of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s 71^st minute miss and the David Bingham-Jorgen Skjelvic tag-team-super-fuck-up-own-goal 10 minutes or so later.

Heightened moments aside, and ignore the box score, because that shit absolutely did not happen, Seattle sucked on both sides of the ball. On the defensive side, players bunched, blocked each other out of the game, and generally couldn’t decide who should do what. The lying box score says they posted 21 shots, but I remember only one or two of the six they put on goal. What really stood out was the general, universal disconnect among Seattle’s players. At some point, Jane Campion mentioned something about Gustav Svensson and Cristian Roldan getting into a tiff about who should do something (their theory: push into the offense). The bigger issues came on offense: way too many of Seattle’s players simply did not see simple, useful, available options – whether a long, cross-field diagonal to a fullback open as all outdoors, or even the next obvious one. When that’d gone on long enough, players stopped making the runs – because why would they? – and, when they did, they just got burned all over again, like Lucy yanking away the goddamn football on loop.

I will not let myself believe the Sounders will be so magnificently incompetent when they come to visit Portland. There lies folly. (How does one use “folly” fancy? Asking for a friend.) And, to start a little gossip, they might be missing Gustav Svensson, who had his leg wrapped in ice after limping off for reasons I missed through random fast-forwarding. (I put in the time; if this was porn, I would have caught, like, 3/4 of the actual plot.) Still, the team Portland will face looked decidedly average, both on Saturday and of late.

For context, here’s a table that should look familiar to people:

SEATTLE SOUNDERS, 11-8-7, 40 points, 40 gf, 39 ga, (8-2-3 home, 3-6-4 away)

Last 10 games: WLWWLWLDLD (4-4-2)

Last 10 at home: WWLLD

Last 10 away: LWWLD

W	L	W	W	L	W	L	D	L	D
v VAN	a NYC	a CLB	v ATL	v POR	a HOU	v SKC	v NE	a RSL	a LAG
1-0	0-3	2-1	2-1	1-2	1-0	2-3	3-3	0-3	2-2

Who They Are in One Sentence: I count one win to be proud of in those last 10 games – Atlanta, way back – plus a stray or two. The key thing to remember: Seattle used to shut down teams. They’ve given up 11 goals over their last four and, as nearly everyone’s pointing out, they’re usually surging right now.

Their Last Game: See above. And weep.

Next Games. @ POR (8/23), v LAG (9/1), @ COL (9/7), v RBNY (9/15), v FCD (9/18), @ DC (9/22), @ SJ (9/29), v MIN (10/6)

Allowing for, let’s face it, fairly consistent error, the above shows the results and opponents from Seattle’s last 10, along with the teams they played. I threw in the rest of the Sounders’ 2019 regular season schedule to add value, while omitting the strength of schedule stuff I tried to include in the Form Guide ULTRA. Enough about me, here are some more big picture thoughts on Seattle:

The New Guard Nods Off (a Bit)

There are some “stats are lies” static in the thin collection of numbers (e.g., Seattle rocked a 44 gf, 43 ga in its 2016 championship season), but Seattle had its most success by keeping the goal allowed down and running up the goal differential as far as their latest trick-pony could raise it. Last year was their best, with a +15 goal differential on 52 goals for, and 37 goals against. They’d stay tight, keep out the goals, and find some special player or another – e.g., Clint Dempsey, Raul Ruidiaz, Nico Lodeiro; someone always seemed to show up – to either score or create enough goals to cover it. While the scoring side has…mostly held up – with eight games left, they’re on 40 goals scored, so they probably won’t be far off their actual (four-year) average. It’s the defense that thwarts ‘em. I’m aware that Zlatan does it to most defenders (i.e., 20 goals – X penalty kicks), but Kim Kee-hee died out there tonight. That’s the real story with Seattle, they’ve got 39 goals against already – just four goals shy of their worst defensive season, goddamn 2016, when they allowed…oh, see the beginning of the paragraph...

“Star”-“Power”

I went hunting to find the players who might be letting Seattle down this season, only to find that most their key players – barring Joevin Jones due to absence/injury – are pretty much on pace for their “Sounders-version” of normal numbers. Both Lodeiro and Ruidiaz should match their output from 2018 – more fodder for the “blame the defense” theory – while, with Morris, it’s tricky. He put up crazy numbers for a rookie, only to have a pair of lost/semi-lost seasons between 2016 and today. Like the rest, Morris is on pace for 2016 numbers in 2019, but…

What Does “Elite” Even Mean Anymore?

The fascist-adjacent hacks at MLS (I’ll only do that once, promise) didn’t include it in the highlights, but Morris spurned a “just-touch-it” header early in the game, and that was before throttling two to three promising plays in the crib by bumbling offside.

Morris also played a hand in Seattle’s only coherent and reliable attacking move of the night – e.g., a ball over the top of a high line to a fast guy (gave 'em their first goal) – so he’s a weapon – one, coincidentally, likely to aim at the heart of one of the Portland Timbers’ most famous weaknesses.

Overall, though, he mattered about as much as the rest of the Sounders tonight, which is to say neither much nor often. And that’s where I want to close this out, the question of Seattle’s collection of actual talent. With Chad Marshall retired to save that magnificent cabeza and Roman Torres taking time off to get huger(!!), Seattle has relied on Kim Kee-hee and 24-year-old new kid, Xavier Arreaga, at centerback. Arreaga had at least a half dozen punishable mistakes, and I’ve already noted Kim’s game. They look exploitable...for the right collection of players...

Roldan, Harry Shipp, and even a guy like Svensson are the “stars” of this team, the players tasked to hold together the newer parts on either side of them. With respect to all of them – precisely because they’re the guys that make any star player better – these are reliable parts, not a nitrous boost. When you think about it that way, it’s less surprising that Seattle’s not entirely holding together. They’re vulnerable. And they should be doubly-vulnerable playing in Portland…against that, there’s the meth-esque rush of the rivalry to consider…

That’s it. I’ll fill in Portland’s side in a twitter thread.

Portland Timbers 4-0 Los Angeles Galaxy: This Summer's Coming of Age Movie

Another coming of age movie that's very worth seeing...that cast...

Swear to God, that game, despite the lopsided final score, should be what a soccer fan shows the heretics to convert them to the cause. Until the Portland Timbers scored their second pair of goals late in their ultimate, and profoundlysatisfying 4-0 win over the Los Angeles Galaxy, this game could have gone anywhere from Poulsbo, Washington to Mars. Until the Timbers scored its third goal, this game could have gone, literally, anywhere. As I might have said more than once this season, there but for the grace of Steve Clark…

Despite the lopsided score, this is game was a fucking blast, an example to teams across the league as to how soccer should be played – i.e., both teams looking to both win it and play, and leaving the vertical space open to allow that to happen. (Every time I hear people complain about that, the same thought runs through my head on repeat: “But that’s how you make the game fun, but that’s how you make the game fun, but that’s how you make the game fun,” etc.) That allowed the Galaxy to give as good as they got with disturbing frequency, and that made the whole thing such a grand time. At least half the six saves Steve Clark made were desperate and tricky AF, and the entire experience had the feel of navigating that weird board game/puzzle where you had to steer a ball through a maze with holes all over it, but only by tilting the plane of the board (it was tres analog, obviously). But fun!

The Timbers survived it, though, and a shit-ton of the pressure landed on the shoulders of Cristhian Paredes. And, holy shit, did that kid take it all on and then some. After two seasons of contributing (more or less) nothing to the attack, Paredes delivered, nodding home a freebie and then followed that up by scoring a gem that refracted the light according to scientific parameters. In between those, he chewed up midfield real estate (just in a different way than Timbers fans are used to seeing); I lost track of all the times Paredes played a short lateral pass from the top of Portland’s defense, or rode a crap challenge and kept charging forward, but he starred last night as much as any Timber and, for a 21-year-old who struggled for daylight (or just for me to notice) in 2018, that’s a great fucking sign for the future. It’s quite possible that Portland Timbers fans previewed a coming of age movie last night. (And if you haven’t seen Booksmart, see it. It’s amazing, and it feels a little like this…but probably without the ayahuasca scene. But, to get back to non-claymation/stop-motion references…)

The Timbers as a whole brought the now-familiar aggression, and that kept the game poised on the ragged edge of chaos. Frayed tempers continue as a feature of Timbers games and…it’s complicated. On the one hand, I don’t think they win without playing at a certain heightened pitch, but, on another, it’s entirely possible that MLS referees will start comparing notes on the games they struggle to manage and, if/when Portland’s name keeps coming up? There’s the gamesmanship too – and Paredes gives an example, as when he stayed on the ground after a(n alleged) hard foul only to get up right when LA played the ball out of bounds, or when he took a dive in the area. He got a screaming from Diego Polenta on the former (while Polenta got a card), and ate a yellow for his first dive. Some might call that maturity or savvy, but I call both a risk barely worth taking it. Zlatan lost his shit throughout the game and people will (probably) argue to the end of time over the extent to which Efrain Alvarez's late red followed from Portland driving LA mad. (Again, aggression good, fouls bad. I just see this coming home to roost if it continues…ah, what am I doing, but ruining the moment.

Los Angeles Galaxy 2-1 Portland Timbers: Grey Skies Are Gonna Clear Up, Put on a Happy Face!

Like them, I see what you don't. (An Oscar, right?)

First, there’s point arguing that losing 1-2 to the Los Angeles Galaxy was a good thing for the Portland Timbers, even if it happened in LA and all that entails (I don’t know what…well, you brought it up). All the same, and I don’t know about you, but that loss felt…better than the last two. After slowly, yet comprehensively, falling apart in one game, and getting overwhelmed by the occasion (and/or bribed to throw it in the other; I wanna see the soccerdon’s tax returns, dammit!), seeing Portland lose valiantly and angrily felt, full-stop fucking fantastic. I mean, there was this sequence early in the game where Diego Valeri spent 15 minutes wrestling over a ball near LA’s left corner flag and, once he lost it, he chased the ball backwards before flopping on top of it like he was smothering a grenade and causing the foul. This was nothing more and nothing less than the act of a man who would change the Portland Timbers’ fate or die trying.

There was a fair amount of that going around tonight, and that’s why the Timbers put in its best, bravest result of the season, and in a losing effort that may or may not portend eating shit over the balance of 30 games, but let’s hope not. To put down my marker, tonight gave me faith that this team won’t eat shit over the balance of 30 games. I’m not expecting glory, but I’m also not bracing for disgrace. The goal Portland scored tonight shouted loudly back to the team that punched five, ten feet over its weight through the 2018 post-season. This team at its best really is something – and it has been for years. The concern is that it’s been too many of them.

It majesty notwithstanding, that lone, glorious goal wasn’t enough tonight – a thought that actually steers the conversation to my fundamental feeling about today’s game. Doesn’t it feel so much fucking better to say, “dammit, the Timbers got robbed tonight,” than it is to say, “sweet flaming Jesus, what the Hell is wrong with our defense?”

About that “robbed” piece, a neutral could have questioned both of the penalty calls in LA’s favor. Commenting as a decidedly non-neutral, LA’s first penalty was straight-up bullshit – and, no, you can’t talk me down – and the other one was fine, but, after calling (and blowing) the first, what does good taste and smart society say about the less-but-still-dubious second penalty call? One possibility is that they say the same thing about why, despite ample provocation, Zlatan Ibrahimovic didn’t get a yellow card earlier in game and whether or not that would have tempered his latter-game bullshit to some degree. That’s less to argue it would have mattered if Zlatan got sent off than a defense of equal application of the rules of the game. The man has natural advantages, fer crissakes…

MLS Week 4 Preview (I Got Curious) (ft. Chicago Fire v. Portland Timbers)

We all have this moment.

The bug that crawled up my butt (and took over my brain) has the crazy urge to glance at the weekend ahead in Major League Soccer - particularly, what ins & out I can manage with the Portland Timber’s visit to The Big Wind (Chicago). While I’ll start by previewing the Portland’s game, this post has just as much to do with taking some time to perform a little due diligence on the rest of the league - especially now that MLS has yanked our methadone (i.e., real condensed games, not that median-five-minute bullshit). So, I’ll read all those editions of The Kick Off I can’t find time to read all week (because I am a rat addicted to the “rage pellets” of political commentary), and we’ll see what comes out of that.

But first…

Chicago Fire v. Portland Timbers

(Official MLS preview)

First, I didn’t know the Timbers have history on their side for this game - as in the Fire has never so much as singed the Portland Timbers, never mind burned them. Probably doesn’t hurt that Chicago has struggled for almost as long as Portland has been in MLS. They’re also struggling this season: they’ve lost at home, on the road in a shoot-out, and to a barely-revamped Minnesota United FC (yikes!). Who else is also struggling? That’s right! The Timbers are struggling! Not as hard as Liam Ridgewell (who might be consoling himself in a room full of trampolines as any man would), but Portland also has yet to win, they’ve suffered a bigger hurt, but, on the plus side, the Timbers drew a game. And how you feel about that probably grows a little from how you feel about FC Dallas (Stumptown Footy’s Chris Rifer called Dallas “their most difficult of the season-opening five-game road trip,” but I don’t think Dallas has recovered from their shattering 2017), and a handful of other relevant factors. In no particular order:

1) Formationz in Flux

If my wrap-up of last week’s game had a unifying point - or two - it was that Portland’s coach, Giovanni Savarese lined up defensive - and also that I don’t think he has much choice on that, at least not for now. Because I start from there, it was interesting to read this passage from C. I. DeMann’s wrap-up of the same game:

“Three games into Gio Savarese’s reign, I’m finding it incredibly difficult to predict starters. And you know what? Maybe this is a good thing. Or, at least, not a bad thing.”

According to MLS’s preview, David Guzman returns from international duty this weekend and, with Lawrence “I Can Reach It!” Olum out, the Timbers need him. While all kinds of tinkering is possible, I’m putting money on the same formation with maybe some tweaks in personnel - say, Samuel Armenteros starting over Fanendo Adi. And that’s where it gets weird…or at least where opinions diverge.