FC Dallas 1-1 Portland Timbers: Dancin’ with the One That Brung You

Delighted to have found this searching for "crippling brain-fart."

Had Sebastian Blanco failed to score his impressive goal (which I missed in real-time; Taco Bell run…for some damn reason), Portland Timbers fans would have little to hold onto on the attacking side of the game besides Alvas Powell making a series of bad decisions, before making his one clear good one - e.g., his late shot on goal. And even that decision only looked “good” due to Powell having better control of the ball and his body than he did on any of his other misfiring forays up field. He made a similar, clumsier run earlier and took a shot from the tough angle and he lost good runs by Fanendo Adi in both cases…thus we draw yet another line that divides good decisions from a bad ones.

I’d file Diego Valeri hitting a shot in frustration from over 30 yards out in the same binder: whatever it suffers on the decision side, it gains from winding up as a decent shot. Still, he scores that one time in 30 attempts, and that begs the question.

Blanco buried his goal, of course, and that lead to the fairer result because, all things considered, the 1-1 draw it ended in feels better for this game than a Dallas win would have. There, it’s worth considering whether another referee would have called a penalty kick on Cristhian Paredes’ late hand-ball in the Timbers area. (Was it a handball? I don’t recall at the moment who noted the ever-increasing complexity of what does and doesn’t constitute a handball in MLS at this point, but I am, and will always remain, a fan of the “porn” definition of a handball - e.g., I know it when I see it. To answer the question, yes, I would have called that one on the grounds that who knew where the cross would have traveled had Paredes’ arm not knocked it down. Call it the “trajectory theory” of handball.)

Regardless, I raise that point to raise the issue of thin margins. Because neither team could put away this game, never mind squeeze the proverbial last hand on the bat for dominance, this game hung forever in the absence a moment of brilliance and/or a crippling brain-fart (hmm….maybe that’s the inspiration for the image?). Both teams had singular moments of brilliance - e.g., Dallas’ Jacori Hayes sending Portland’s defense and midfield into retreat by running at them before dishing to Roland Lamah for the cool finish; Portland, meanwhile, answered with Blanco’s goal. Besides that, the game was just so much running around.

Truth be told, I’m pretty happy about that. Portland looked quite a bit better moving the ball forward in this outing than they have all season. Some as yet unmeasured part of me wonders about the extent Dallas allowed that; as noted in the preview I slipped into this post, I figured Dallas would leave space in the channels near the top of the attacking third for Valeri and Blanco to operate in, and they did (and, to empathize a little, I’d be shitting myself if I were a Dallas fan). I haven’t looked at the boxscore - and probably won’t till I wrap up the rest of this weekend’s (blessedly sparse) games, but I doubt Portland generated a ton of shots. Then again, Dallas didn’t either and, in the context of the 2018 season so far, that spells less relief than release - i.e., on par with coming out on the other side of a crippling bout of “stomach flu.”

San Jose Earthquakes 3-0 Portland Timbers: That Day the Team Showed Up…Stoned, I Guess?

A universe that bounds angels to the earth.

We all should have seen it coming as early as the 16th second (yes, second) when David Guzman skipped past a loose slow-roller at the top of the Portland Timbers’ defensive third, with prospects of a lethal counter on the horizon.

Look, it was bound to happen. Off days are inevitable, especially in a league like Major League Soccer, which seems to operate as if it exists in the Harrison Bergeron Universe. If a team comes out flat as the Portland Timbers did last Saturday, it loses, universe notwithstanding. Sure, off days happen, and I can’t see the Timbers coming out that flat any time soon – at least not unless they want to chuck the career (guys, don’t…changing jobs sucks) - but the outlines of something ominous lurks at the back of this one.

With so much to unpack, where to begin? Ah, I know! How about a jinx/prediction:

“With too many of San Jose’s new guys failing to pan out (Danny Hoesens), or not panning out enough (Tommy Thompson, Jahmir Hyka, and Marcos Urena), and Chris Wondolowski shooting blanks even on the rare occasions he can find the ball, the ‘Quakes feel like a one-goal-per-game team right now.”

That was me, by the way. Anyway, pull Tommy Thompson out of that equation and every other player in that sentence played to the direct opposite. Danny Hoesens got dangerous time and again – including when he kicked off the chaos that led to San Jose’s first goal – Jahmir Hyka scored (though, in honesty, he’s been all right), and Chris Wondolowski put some shine on his shooting boots before this one, because he bagged two quick-twitch classics (or just goals) in this game. Hell, even Marcos Urena shot well today – yeah, the same guy who’s limp-dicked his share of tries (not fronting there; for all the things I do competently on the field, absent a good wind-up, I’ve got a weak shot).

That's how one team beats another 3-0. Still, who knew it would be Florian Jungwirth, a defensive midfielder converted to central defender, apparently (if only according to the broadcast booth), who fed Wondo for both of his goals. And that’s where I flip the microscope to Portland’s side.

Portland Timbers 4-2 Houston Dynamo: Referees and Comeback's a Bitch

Referees pictured at right, toward the top...

I can’t speak for the rest of Providence Park, but, the second the halftime whistle blew, my little corner of it positively raged at the referee (Alex Chapman, right?). So many middle fingers; didn’t think there were enough hands to hold all of ‘em. And  yet, a couple notes on this.

First, referees are as the gods; we are but their playthings. To put that another way, try to think of them the same way the ancient Greek thought of their gods – i.e., as capricious beings meddling in the affairs of mortals – and you’ll keep your blood pressure in check, your face won’t develop lines later in life because you’ll twist it into contortions less often, etc. I guess this makes the crowd a Greek chorus of the crowd, and the players the armies at the foot of Troy’s walls…c’mon, we’ve all read The Iliad, yes?

As for the job of refereeing itself, I view keeping a lid on potential violence during a game as their primary mission. After that, I assume they all try get things right, but I also understand that they’ll bone a few calls most games, and it is what it is. All in all, it’s a shitty, thankless job that both fans and players make worse. A world without referees is a world without soccer, so can we all move on from this particular whining point?

OK, next point…hold on…gotta climb down from my high horse…

Second, in most cases a referee can only hurt a team when they’ve left themselves in a position to be hurt. And that’s at least a bit of what happened last night in the Portland Timbers' (eventual) 4-2 win over the Houston Dynamo: the Timbers coughed up free kicks all around their 18, and most of the fouls were legit – including the one that lead to Houston’s penalty kick. Roy Miller got his leg around Erick “Cubo” Torres, a call was reasonably made, etc.

Portland 5-1 Minnesota: Guts, Glory, and Blown Timelines Edition

Two men enter, one man leaves. And keeps the bird.

Had you asked me when I went to bed last night about the side of the field Diego Valeri was on when he scored his penalty kick, I would have said the far side. Had someone disagreed with that, I would have said, “Well, guess there’s only one way to settle this,” and rolled up my sleeves for some deadly-serious arm wrestling.

And yet, I would have been completely wrong. Valeri scored his penalty kick right in front of me. Portland would score four more running toward my seats – Fanendo Adi surged straight toward my seats (if a little under them) when he made his second-half stoppage-time solo raid – but, overall, I lost the hell out of the sense of when just about everything happened in last night's 5-1 win for Portland (just linking to full highlights for now; I'll get links to individual goals up later/probably). In case it’s not clear in the above, my sense of timing would have meant that Valeri scored his penalty kick in the first half.

But Portland scored just one goal in the first half, that ugly, blessed thing by Lawrence Olum poked over Minnesota’s ‘keeper John Alvbage. It might not have been the prettiest goal (OK, no, it was ugly), but it came as a hell of a relief, right? What’s better than an early goal to soothe doubts and calm the jitters?

The way the time-line slipped up has the subtle, secondary meaning: that Portland always looked more or less in control of the game. Between the way my memory works and all the dumb ways I handicap it, most games live in my head as a series of events; sometimes they’re linear, but most often they’re not. For instance, for last night’s game, I never lost track of the fact that Portland scored five goals and that, at some point, Minnesota United FC (wow, that’s the first time I mentioned them?) pulled back a goal. That’s the salient detail – that Portland always had the lead – so the sequence doesn’t matter…or at least that’s what I tell myself so I don’t start asking too many questions about how things are working upstairs. (Where did you put my memory pills, Judy? Randall can’t find them.)

The other thing that didn’t work last night – and this was a bit of a surprise – was Minnesota’s defense. There will always be the question of what leads to any given goal, whether it’s attacking brilliance of defensive idiocy, and I think Portland’s second goal (and the winner) offers up a good case for dissection. While it’s true on the one hand that Portland maneuvered the ball smartly into Minnesota’s final third – the way Alvas Powell played the ball into Adi with his back to goal, and Sebastian Blanco shifted into acres of space outside, where Adi found him for the (inch-perfect) cross to Valeri (who really seems to like scoring with his head this year) – it’s no less true that, on the other hand, Minnesota’s defense didn’t rotate anyone out to Blanco until it was far, far too late.

Timbers Draw RSL: On Patience and/with Gamesmanship

Hmmm...sleeping together did not fix things...

So...what is the rule on mulligans in Major League Soccer? Surely they have one, maybe tucked somewhere within all the byzantine shit about how to fit a roster together?

I guess what I'm saying is, mistakes were made last night during the Portland Timbers awkward 2-2 draw at home against Real Salt Lake. What we know is that, both teams made something together last night, I'm not sure either side feels all so great about what happened, there was some bad behavior, etc. Has anyone checked with the RSL camp? Anyone else think they'd be open to a do-over? Think about, Jamison Olave out for the next game, Kyle Beckerman out for the next game....then again, Juan "Burrito" Manuel Martinez got away with that late lunge on Darlington Nagbe. (Happily, it sounds like Nagbe will be all right.)

I saw this match live, for the record, which rarely passes into my brain the same way as it does when I watch on TV – just...more distracted at a live match – so I filled in the (some? maybe?) gaps with the 20-minute mini-game this morning. The video missed a couple biggies – e.g. where the hell is my replay on Fandendo Adi's allegedly offside opener for Portland, and what kind of foul led to Plata's free kick. And Adam? The hell was that? Why did you run off the very happy rails on which this game was running, Mr. Kwarasey? This is goalkeeping, son, not preparing to sit down on a pleasant patch of artificial turf.

Portland Can't Find a Way Past San Jose...which is true of that city generally (a mess, I tell you).

San Jose's defense. I mean, how do you get through that?

Somewhere around the 60th minute (think it was the 58th, but not checking), the ball squirted out to Darlington Nagbe, who stood just outside the Portland Timbers' 18. With the ball under control, Nagbe looked up to find his options. Inside one second, unable to find an option worth passing to, Nagbe raised his arms in clear "fuck-it" frustration; by the time the full second had passed, Chris Wondolowski had poked the ball off Nagbe's foot and the San Jose Earthquakes took one more run at the Portland Timbers' goal. This was just one reason today's game ended 2-1. San Jose frustrated the holy shit out of Portland.

It wasn't always that kind of day, though. The Timbers largely dictated the opening. Right up to the 30th minute, really. That’'s when Wondolowski "did Wonolowski things," as Fox Sports' commentating team put it, this time breaking past Jermaine Taylor inside Portland's (sacred and inviolate!) six-yard box to meet a cross to the near post. So, there was that, a goal. Before that, Portland's Lucas Melano pinged a ball off the crossbar; Diego Valeri rode a tackle and put a seeing-eye toe-poke on goal, only to have San Jose's 'keeper, David Bingham, tip it to the outside of the side netting. Making matters worse, the ref missed it and awarded the 'Quakes a goal kick afterwards. In a replay of that shot later in the game, the video followed long enough to capture Valeri looking Bingham in the eye and saying, "tell him." With "him" here being the referee...and, yeah, even as I type that, I'm surprised Valeri bothered. Well, not so much surprised that Valeri bothered as I'm surprised to think he thought it would matter. Then again, of course Valeri would think that. It's not for nothing the man reads devotional literature...

For the first 30 minutes of this game, Portland attacked San Jose's defensive third in a way that promised an inevitable breakthrough. Wondo scored, of course, but the Timbers picked up after it, probing their way to San Jose's goal, and everything looked set to follow a narrative in which the question would be whether or not the Timbers could equalize. And, if so, where things would go from there? And so on.

It didn't turn out that way. In one awful (at most) five second sequence, Quincy Amarikwa – remember him? the guy who's finishing I questioned? – picked up the script, blow his nose on it, mic-dropped that sucker to the floor, poured gasoline on it, and set that fucker to flame. With that, and for the second year running, Portland again find themselves an early favorite for being the team on the receiving end of a Goal of the Year (memories...). If you didn't see it, do yourself a favor and watch Amarikwa's goal - which is even more impressive for the stuff that came before it. A lob over Adam Kwarasey from at least 40 yards out, it is a thing of perfect beauty. It also came right before the half and, arguing from the second half, it just plain freaked-out the Timbers. Even when Portland pulled back a hearteningly impressive consolation goal (sure, it's too little, too late, but that at least means Portland has ideas on how to score one of those elusive buggers), the Timbers' approach play presented as more desperate than methodical. Desperate can work, of course, but "methodical," by way of being controlled, typically works better.

Portland v. Vancouver: A Timely Experiment (that should end right now).

Not pictured: Blas Perez running in to kick these kids.

Well, that was fun, yeah? Seeing a collection of (metaphorical) toddlers run out against a bunch of (metaphorical) first-teamers. (OK, yes, low blow. Vancouver Whitecaps fans, you have my apologies. And yet...)

Immediately after I told the guy sitting next to me something to the effect that the Portland Timbers were doing pretty well in terms of keeping Vancouver's first team off the scoreboard? Of course they scored. Of course...a better fan would have gone piss immediately after to insure that the Timbers would have scored in his absence. I guess I'm not that fan, but, then again, scoring wasn't really on the cards for the Portland Timbers tonight, was it?

In case it's not clear by now, the Portland Timbers trotted out a clear B-Team tonight, to play against....yep, that's pretty much the Vancouver Whitecaps starting eleven. Well, give or take on Vancouver's starting eleven, but, still, they had more of their A-team in the game than Portland did, and by a country mile. Any Timbers fans losing his/her mind over this....well, first of all, he/she shouldn't. Not even the guy on the MAX who wondered out loud to his girlfriend how a team that won MLS Cup only a few months ago could lose at home in their preseason. He seemed especially disappointed that this happened right after beating Minnesota United so comprehensively just a few nights ago? It's not that shocking, is it? (And, to his credit, the same guy acknowledged shortly thereafter that Portland started virtually none of their, uh, starters, so...again, he was surprised, why?).

Speaking for myself, I didn't know what to expect when I showed up tonight – and that's mostly down to willful ignorance of Portland's staring eleven on any given match day. With that in mind, any and all can paint me all colors of giddy about what I watched out there tonight – e.g., our depth against (most of) an MLS club that many people expect to do pretty well in 2016. For this lukewarm mess of a team to lose just 2-0 to a club that scored once with a new striker (left wide-open on the back post) and again with one of last year's starters? Well, I wouldn't say I learned a ton about what to expect from the Timbers as a team this year. What I did learn, however, was a thing or two about Portland's depth, plus a likely sub here, maybe a starter there. And that's what the rest of this will be about. Ready, steady...go!

Portland v. Seattle: On a Quiet Fight Before the Dawn

Sort of a new aspiration for tone and feel...ah....

So I lied. Posting here again. I think there's enough Portland Timbers content on PTFCollective already that adding another stick would be just another stick on the big, beautiful bonfire, thereby abetting overkill. Call this a little eddy in the larger stream of content...visit when you want to sit a while with your thoughts on the Timbers. Shh...listen to the water, let it flow around you. Ignore the couple aggressively dry-humping a little ways upstream and just...shh...think they're almost done...wow. I'm right here. It's not like I'm not talking...

Speaking of dry humping, the Major League Soccer preseason rolled on last night, with the Timbers squaring off in the early evening yesterday against their less-fashionable, less-adored northern neighbors, the Seattle Sounders. The result followed the pattern from last season – e.g., Seattle struck first, but the Timbers won when it mattered...even blew the occasional fuse (There are those who say that Portland fans will never let Sounders fans forget that Portland won MLS Cup before they did; I'll be the guy forever rubbing in the epic, embarrassing meltdown in the U.S. Open Cup, July 2015).

This being everyone's preseason, I have only short notes on this one, no grand narrative, etc.

Timbers Top RSL And Hope's Clever Disguise

We don't do silver linings here....

As I tweeted earlier today, there really isn't much left to say about the Portland Timbers in this 2015...and yet I found a way to say all kinds o' shit below. The central premise, though, is true: Portland will either make the Major League Soccer playoffs, or they will miss them. They took a big step toward tonight, with a 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake. The Timbers very probably put RSL's playoffs hopes to the sword...fuck it, they would have done the same to Portland given one single moment of brilliance...

That said, yes, I have to shit on the parade. Because rain isn't unpleasant enough, I have one big theme to address, one that puts no small amount of effort toward rubbing off the silver lining precisely to find the clouds. It grows from a mindset that I sensed around the people with whom I watched the game tonight. At game's end, the feeling expressed as a mixture of a lot of relief and a little shock: there was a sense of, holy shit, we won?

It's not so much shock, either: after all, the Timbers have picked 6 points out of the Rio Tinto safe this season. I'd also argue that Portland was the better team tonight – that's even before Jamison Olave got sent off fairly early in the second half. And yet, the...thing, whatever it is, hangs on a pair of thoughts, each of them containing a different impressions of Portland's offense. On the good nights, when Portland pounds the opposition goal with wave after wave of attacks (an endangered species in 2015), what pops into one's head is, "why won't the fucking ball go in?" Other nights, like tonight, when the attack is lean and opportunities few, the thoughts becomes a question: "can we steal it?" Those two diametrically opposed mindsets speak to vastly different impressions of one's team, and one of them shades toward the opposite of positive.

Tonight's win didn't require actual theft. Still, the game's lone goal resulted from the most basic, nakedly opportunistic approach in soccer – e.g. a ball over the top to a fast dude. Yep, Lucas Melano corralled a pass from Jorge Villafana (who should only get a secondary assist, with the first going to Melano's noggin) and out-ran two RSL defenders, until one of them (Olave) tripped his trailing leg on the edge of and/or just inside RSL's penalty area. Fanendo Adi took the ensuing, probably justified penalty kick (it wasn't a clear-cut call, but still a good one, for me), of which...

The Timbers Take 3 Out of Ohio: Does a Banal Observation Explain a Big Win?

A glimpse inside Nagbe's mind at the crucial moment.

Can someone just transcribe all the shit I said last night and edit it for slurring, repetition and terrible ideas? (I'm just so tired, Judy...)

Two of my favorite non-green-and-gold clubs in Major League Soccer lost in Week 30. That'd be the Columbus Crew and Red Bulls New York ("s" deliberate, btw). Orlando City SC ran over the Red Bulls in a game that was brilliant and tragic all at once; more on that at mid-week. That result also reads a little weird given New York's current form and reputation. It's not that they're invincible, or anything – Chicago gives 'em fits, for one – but Portland's loss to them in Week 29 was only surprising for the sleepy, tits-to-the-sky manner in which they lost it.

I thought the Timbers had a decent chance going into Columbus, in spite of the New York loss, thanks to all the goals the Crew have coughed up this season (49...now 51, and it could have been 52 as everyone who sleeps on either side of the Willamette knows, because penalty). What's better for a sputtering offense, after all, that a permissive defense? That turned out to be true in the end, but it took a good night from Portland to make that cheap little factoid stand as tall as it did...which I include here to signal to anyone reading this that I in no way believe that I called the win.

That Portland lost to the Red Bulls at home and beat Columbus on the road still sets up a weird disconnect in pattern and placement. Most Timbers fans seem to feel like there's something wrong with the club, or at least that's what the angsty vibes that I get through twitter and  conversations in the walking world (aka, irl) communicate to me. I feel it too, obviously, which accounts for why I've spent the past couple weeks trying to pin the tail on the correct donkey, first throwing one player under the bus, then another. When that felt unsatisfying, I turned to trying to cut through to some path that leads to coaching and management. On that, let's just say I might have found the trailhead, but I haven't yet started the hike.

I’ve been carrying around something someone else said on that for about a week, something I was going to use in some post on what’s wrong with the Porter/Wilkinson brain-trust. Here that is (with the author duly credited):

Portland Timbers Draw Sporting KC: A Study on a Work in Progress

Sacrificed my smallest finger. What have you done, Timbers?

I have to admit it. The Portland Timbers goal-less draw against Sporting Kansas City left me feeling...feelings.

As the Twitter-verse pointed out, and against the general way of the drinking world, can we all agree that we're all better off forgetting that first half and holding onto the bright memories of the second? The second half presented the Timbers Army, and affiliated fans, with a great big doozy of expectations. My right hand still bears the reddened evidence from all the times my fist hit a barroom table. (Consider that an offering: if I break my hand on the table after the miss that inspired it, can I parlay that brief moment of pain for a Timbers goal at their next attempt? If not, why not? Trade makes the world go 'round, allows the wheels of commerce to turn, etc.)

Getting back to the first half, however, that played out pretty much as expected. Kansas City plays to make the game ugly; they're a classic high-press, disruption-first kind of team; they set out to make it hard to play just about anywhere on the field (which makes them an excellent primer for the Timbers' next opponent, New York Red Bulls). Something shifted at the half that gave the Timbers the moxie and space to attack – and I hereby raise my hand to confess that I have no idea what that would be – but would humbly submit that maybe it was nothing more than that little bit more moxie that created the space...these are the mysteries of soccer, especially when one sits down to try to write the first, second draft of history (in this modern era, the first draft always goes to Twitter).

Whatever happened, Portland piled on the chances in the second half – and in a manner reminiscent of last week's loss to Seattle Sounders FC – only to find themselves "Melia'd" at every turn (and, sweet Jesus, is there some kind of passing of the torch going here, wherein KC's Tim Melia becomes the heir-apparent for fucking over the Timbers, a la Nick Rimando?). As a very smart man I watch games with suggested, does Portland just bring out the best in opposition goalkeepers? I mean, is this our club's fate?

The pisser comes with the fact that that little edge – e.g. a standing-on-head performance from a 'keeper – is all any given team needs to take a gigantic shit on a basically acceptable night for the Timbers. Being the sociable type, I didn't catch every single minute of tonight's game - there will people to meet, etc. - but I damn-skippy caught Graham Zusi's shot off Adam Kwarasey's left post (as well as a couple headed shots off set pieces that rather kindly landed at or near Kwarasey to make for comfortable saves). KC wasn't good tonight, really, but any team with enough talent, or even just a reliable trick up their sleeve – can steal any game against the Timbers on a night when they don't score...

...suffice to say that the second half of tonight's game made up for the first half, excitment-wise. Heart-in-throat stuff. And that's why we tune in, isn't it? Is that enough random junk in the  (long) lede? Let's review...

The Houston Game Showed Portland the Way: Can They Take It?

A Portrait of the Author on the Silver Screen. Or in World War II. Been to both.

In a post last week, I wrote a check against future credibility that I'm not 100% sure I can cover. To refresh memories, I studied all 25 goals the Timbers have scored in 2015 (now 28; thank you to persons involved) as a frame to discuss what the Portland Timbers do when they attack the opposition, or try to. I ended that post, 1) a bit in my cups; and 2) by suggesting...no, stating that I would talk about how to fix the problem this week. And with the personnel on hand.

Looking back on it all, I feel OK saying that whole idea was crazy. Or, better, beyond my knowledge and talents. If I could put together a post on that, and one worth reading, I may as well go start climbing the coaching ladder. Because professional stability is my personal "woobie" and on the suspicion that I'd probably start hiding from my players after the first confrontation (think Major Major from Catch-22), that's out. Another obstacle came with a morning-after-sane-light-of-day realization that the only things I could think to say on the subject echoed things I've said in the 20+ game reports on this site – e.g. I'm a fan of overloads. And...and...well, this is why I don't coach. Well, that plus the conflict anxiety thing.

But the statement obligates some kind of stab at the subject, no matter how feeble. I won't lie. When the first wave of writer's block hit, I consciously blocked out time to watch all of last Friday's game between the Timbers and the Houston Dynamo days after it happened (this is braver than it sounds; I actually caught enough of the match to see all four goals in context; then I watched the 20-minute mini-game; followed that up with the full 90 tonight; my family is looking at me in a way I can't quite translate; will call for help if needed; anyway). The hope was that the team would bail me out; I waited for them to put on a clinic, so I could sit down tonight and simply say, "like that. Portland should attack like that."

The Great Rio Tinto Smash-'n'-Grab (A Template for the Rest of the Year)

Think this is where the Timbers are. I'm OK with it.

Well, that one left me...confused.

For me, the defining moment came in the second half when (I'm working without notes; forgive the vagueness), Diego Valeri received the ball from _______ (blank intentional) and broke toward Real Salt Lake's goal with Darlington Nagbe on the opposite side of the field. The two Portland Timbers had just one RSL defender at their mercy – I'm going with Aaron Maund as the junior partner (though, let’s face it, Jamison Olave is on the wrong side of pretty much every metric), but that's not important – when Valeri, a man normally so bright and bold and proactive, took a few steps inside RSL's half, squared the ball to Nagbe, who was still 45+ yards from goal. The implied message of that pass was, "Here ya go, kid. Hope you got ideas, because I got nothin'."

That play didn't end the game. Credit for the Timbers 1-0 win over RSL goes to Nat Borchers, who, tonight, proved that Third Time's a Charm is a thing when he knocked his third header inside RSL's area past Nick "Portland Kryptonite" Rimando for the game winner and his third of the year at the death-rattling death of the match. Let's see...that’s two run-on sentences now...

What leaves me so confused about everything that happened tonight is how precisely I feel like I understand what's going on, the general trends. And yet I'm not entirely sure I'm right. How's that for an Alice in Wonderland lede?

Tonight was rife with paradox. For one, Portland organized in the simplest of defensive shapes...which, as it turned out, resulted in RSL playing all kinds of crazy, tight passing stuff against, and through, the Timbers. Going the other way, Portland managed only a few, a happy few, attacking sequences that really threatened RSL's goal. Outside those moments, just about everything about the Timbers attack (one sequence aside) looked like pin the tail on the donkey. In all honesty, I thought we looked a little bit like grab-astic shit all over the field going forward tonight – more on that later – but I...think....maybe, that all that was by design.

Timbers Top Chicago, But Are They Tall Enough?

NOTE: This is NOT a high bar.

Celebrating a win comes naturally. It's also easy to moan about a loss. This morning, though, I'm going to do the second hardest thing in spectator sports, i.e. moan about a win. (What's the hardest thing? Trumpeting the little victories in a loss.)

This could have gone up last night, but, after peaking at Twitter and seeing generally positive tweets about Adam Kwarasey's clean sheets (in spite of himself?) and how reliably the Timbers perform at Providence Park (but what about well?), giving people time to celebrate before I haul the rain clouds over the party felt like the classy thing to do.

Look, I'm happy that the Timbers accidentally beat the Chicago Fire last night. Yeah, yeah, credit Timbers players for putting themselves into position to cause problems, but the goal that won it was accidental. In the hours since the final whistle blew, I’ve come to think of the win as such: when Lassie came over the hill barking her head off, she brought good news and bad: the good news is that Timmy is alive and uninjured (we won!), but the bad news is that Timmy is still at the bottom of the goddamn well.

This past Thursday, I attended a classy symposium comprised of people with a peculiar (erotic?) interest in the performance and fate of the Portland Timbers. At one point, some smart someone floated the question of whether last night's game was a must-win. After answering yes, I drifted off from time to time as I tried to figure out why that felt accurate. What I came up with is the argument that facing a team that's clearly in the running to be, literally, one of the worst in the league, and on your home field, works like those childhood-destroying signs at amusement parks that say "you must be at least [this tall] in order to ride this ride."

Being as tall as that sign only means that you're big enough to go on the ride, not that you're ready for it. Think of "the ride" as the playoffs, and you should follow.

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.

Portland Timbers' Win Over Seattle Sounders: The Tale of the Hydra

(In your best "Keanu," say) "What do you do? What do you do?"

Do I feel elation?

It's closer to contentment, which is better. Elation implies "surprise" on some level – as in, you're so goddamned excited, at least in part, because you didn't see the good thing coming. The cards set up pretty favorably for the Portland Timbers tonight.  They took down the Seattle Sounders 4-1 in Portland, but that was hardly a surprise with Seattle limping in with half the line-up missing (more on that later). The Timbers fielded a team (sorry!) One and a Half Men short of the best (Liam Ridgewell and, for some, uptight dickholes, (e.g., me), Maximiliano Urruti on the bench accounts for the other missing half) and that was more than OK. The Timbers first team, well...it's pretty goddamn good lately. The basic math works pretty simply: Portland(2) > Seattle (0.5). So, no, I'm not elated. Content? Yes, and all kinds of.

With the way this set up, the Timbers had to win this game. Blowing out Seattle complemented the evening elegantly (?) as a shot backs a beer, but a win, any win, was all Portland needed to back up the argument that the Timbers' own blowout loss to the Los Angeles Galaxy was an anomaly, the soccer equivalent of putting in overtime on a bad night at the office, sucking the rust off a trailer hitch, etc. etc.

All that's great (and gross), but the greatest thing slips sweetly into the talking points:

Timbers v. Los Angeles: A Collapse in Five Parts

I fear nothing! At least once!

The Portland Timbers dared the Los Angeles Galaxy the punch them in the stomach hard as they can! So, LA did. Five times, in fact. For all intents and purposes, though, the Timbers dropped after the second goal. It might have been after the first goal, really.

OK, no, that’s not really what happened. The Timbers didn’t strut down to LA all cocky and certain. Caleb Porter, for one, said all the right things, talked about club’s recent streak with due humility, etc. And yet, Portland was due. First of all, four-game winning streaks are damn rare in Major League Soccer; as we’ve all heard ad infinitum and beyond, Portland has only managed two-game streaks since joining MLS. The point is, one doesn’t have to watch MLS for all that long before one sees the whole “parity” thing intervene. Clubs rarely win for very long. When long streaks do happen in MLS, they generally hit/victimize clubs in the form of nightmarishly long losing streaks.

In that context, each win after the second straight one tempts the Fates to give your team a little kick in the teeth. And, thus, MLS nips hubris in the bud.

That said, was there any reason for the inevitable loss to be so damn brutal, so unbalanced? Did anything in the past four wins come with an assist from luck, or did something sniff of too much hype and Timbers fans seeing what they wanted to see? Maybe the Timbers beat either shitty clubs (the Colorado Rapids; who doubled-down on their incompetence just tonight), or clubs on a distinct downswing (e.g. the New England Revolution, who doubled-down on their incompetence just tonight). Maybe it’s simply that Western Conference clubs (e.g. the Timbers) are better than Eastern Conference clubs (e.g. DC United and New England) and everyone’s better than the Colorado Rapids (except FC Dallas). Or maybe it’s simpler still: LA is back to their best and Portland just picked a bad time for a visit.

LA sure as hell looks back to their best. By combinations of passes and movement that look so simple and straightforward in action, the Galaxy finds attacking players in two yards of space (see LA’s opening goal, in particular) – and all that begs the question, what was better; the pass or the run? Either way, it all ends with the opposition’s ‘keeper sitting on his ass in the dirt while one of his stunned defenders picks the ball out of the net behind him. The Timbers had a couple of those moments tonight. And that, for the most part, was that.

Portland Timbers Just Sort of Walk Over the Houston Dynamo

Wait. Will he still have a number?

The Portland Timbers won.

I think that's a sufficient explanation. The Timbers out...did the Houston Dynamo in every meaningful facet of the game. Unless they snuck in another one during bathroom breaks (at home; no line) or during the intermission where I had to regulate on some howling UFC action between cats, the Dynamo produced two oh-so-close shots all night: the goal that should have counted for Raul Rodriguez off an early corner for Houston combined with Ricardo Clark’s pick on Jorge Villafana. Later, Clark (again) almost scored the infamous Juggling Recumbent. He would have pulled it off, too, if it wasn’t for that meddling crossbar...

It's possible Clark was the most potent player on the field tonight. He just lacked the supporting cast to make anything. Back to Houston's highlights...

...those two moments came damn close to changing the script in Portland tonight; had the Dynamo scored the first one, in particular, it's hard to know how the Timbers would react. When’s the last time they had to come back into a game after going a goal or two down (May 30; not so long ago, as it happens). To their credit, Portland did plenty to make those two moments isolated events. Most to the point, Portland made and finished two great chances, both of them lousy with Argentines. Fans got a cherry on top when Diego Valeri came off the bench and showed enough flashes to get arrested in any civilized state. Well, given the right setting.

Before moving on to Timbers Talki...no, Timbers talking points (not all caps), just a thought or two more on Houston. The Dynamo looked pretty clueless out there tonight, something that probably had a lot to do with having Brad Davis and Giles Barnes missing. Impressed as I was at all the panic Clark created all night (very), he pulled enough of that out of his ass to make one worry that the next thing he pulled out would be a vital organ. Another thing for Houston to wrestle with was how readily the Timbers got around Kofi Sarkodie all night. Portland keyed on his flank enough to imply a pre-planned line of attack; the payoff the Timbers achieved probably won't go unnoticed. More than anything else, though, the Dynamo was undone by sloppiness all over the field. Errant passes, passes that went behind, or ahead of players’ runs, or, worse, flat-out give-aways like the one Horst coughed up to Maximiliano Urruti, or…some damn mess out of the back or another. Sorry, want to get to the talking points...

Timbers Top New England: The Wonderful Efficiency of the Counter-Revolution

Yes, that is absolutely as fun as it looks.

A couple things escaped my attention while watching the Portland Timbers' late (late) 2-0 win over the New England Revolution. Holy yellow cards, for one. That ref really seemed to get a kick of pulling stuff out of his pocket.

One thing that couldn't be missed, however, was how well Portland pinned New England into the wrong end of a shooting gallery. I can't check the box scores yet (still games to watch; still results to parse), but I'd be shocked if Portland managed more shots on goal in any game this season as they put up against the Revs. The reputations of the club reversed a little, in fact, with the Timbers playing the short, quick, slick stuff on which New England built their little near-empire over the past couple seasons.

There's not much to say about New England, really, who got something close to over-run last night. The worst thing one could say is that they lost all of Adi on Portland's opening goal. They had a couple chances, of course, and Adam Kwarasey bobbled a couple of them (but on a night, and in the context of looking better every game), but the Timbers crashed into them one wave after the other. Something about harnessing the Power of the Pacific. Which, as everyone knows, is the superior ocean.

And there it is: Portland's first three-game winning streak in their short life in Major League Soccer. It's a bit of a shame, really, that the Timbers have next week(end) off, because thar be wind in the sails and a fair wind it is (Arrr, me mateys!) And there's a little irony in this because before this streak started, most Timbers fans would have killed for this week off with any eye to buying time to get Diego Valeri back on field. And that’s a good place to start into the talking points.

Sounders v. Timbers. On Being Proud (Because You Have To)

Off camera: 7 other toddlers on their cans.

First of all, holy shit, was that a boring, boring, boring game. Cascadia "Clash" my considerably hairy ass (no image). One can find twice the intensity at Sunday afternoon croquet amongst toddlers.

For the first time ever, Seattle Sounders fans and Portland Timbers fans have something in common: the experience of watching two teams do absolutely everything in their power to not fail. Yes, this was the equivalent of watching your five-year-old learn to ice skate. All you non-parents out there, cherish this moment, maybe take a still from the game and post on your refrigerator. How boring was it? (Your answer: "I don't know!"). The referee concocted fouls just so he could dish out a couple yellow cards for something to do.

Anyone who watched knows the game's one and only turning point: one long throw, one soft shot by Seattle's Andy Rose, which was followed by Portland's Adam Kwarasey pattng the ball over his body and nearly into the goal like some kind of misguided kitten; I think Clint Dempsey claimed it, which only goes to prove the point that forwards are shameless as Hollywood starlets. In the end, the game ended in a 1-0 Seattle win.

I'll keep my comments on the Sounders short: if you're proud of that one, you're dyed rave green down to the roots of your wool. That's to say, you’re the kind of person who joins cults. Speaking of, did you know that your personal path to enlightenment starts with buying me a Mercedes? I'm happy to take checks.

Now, to turn to the Timbers...jesus, where to begin? I know! With bullet points!