Timbers Tie Seattle, and a Theoretical Update on the U.S. Men

Mom/Caleb makes me walk away.

I know I said I wasn’t going to comment on any Portland Timbers preseason games until the two before the season. I also know that I’ve run out of ways to say, “MLS Team X picked up Player Y. I don’t know anything about Player Y, so this move feels Z.” (And that's been the staple of a lot of the Late Tackle posts). I still want to talk about soccer, so, in two parts, I’ll write what I’ve got about yesterday’s 1-1 draw between the Timbers and the Seattle Sounders; after that, I’ll close a couple notes on the state of the U. S. Men’s National Team. Or at least what it feels like after a short sample…

Speaking of short samples, and I say this with love, I never know how much heart and brainpower I should invest when the Timbers play the mix of trialists, draftees, T2 guys and players from the Siberia end of the bench. Even if I like what I see, what are the actual odds that I’ll see that player again? Like petting a puppy at a pet store, I tell you…

Meanwhile, on Seattle’s side of the ledger, they sent out one of the rare MLS line-ups that I greet with a rare, but literal and thorough, “who the fuck is that?” Anonymity notwithstanding, one of those guys forced a penalty kick and forced the tie. And, yeah, I know Harry Shipp, and best o’ luck to the poor bastard. He’s on the tough end of a chunky depth chart. (And, guys? That picture? The one on the team’s roster page? He looks like a still from an ISIS snuff video. Maybe do a re-shoot, yeah?)

To wrap up Seattle, that seems like a good place to start. So, they got that Swedish cat, Gustav Svensson, and he seems to lurk around the same part of the field where people got used to seeing Cristian Roldan last season, so what’s that mean when Osvaldo Alonso comes back? As much as I preach squad rotation, players can get restless watching and, before you know it, a guy like Roldan accidentally winds up in the bin marked “surplus to requirements,” and then what, y’know? Depth is good and all, and I support it; it can have consequences. That’s all.

Portland Timbers 0-2 New York Red Bulls: Picking Through a (Meaningless) Mess

Timbers = All the people. And the pig. No winners.

Because there’s not a lot to say about the Portland Timbers 2-0 preseason loss to the New York Red Bulls, this won’t take long. In fact, I have only one real question to ask:

Yeah, yeah, this is preseason, but why did Portland look that much more like the team in preseason mode?

To speculate, it could have something to do with the strength/organizational integration of the Red Bulls’ academy; it’s also worth wondering whether Red Bulls II's 2016 (rather impressive looking) USL title lent them that telling little extra bit of coherence. The lesson from the former suggests that, maybe the Timbers organization ought to get crackin’ on its own academy. As for the later, yeah, Red Bulls II not only won last year’s USL title, they picked up 29 points more than Timbers 2 during the season.

As pointed out during the stream, New York could have won by 3-0, or even 4-0. Second stanza ‘keeper Kendall McIntosh probably played the biggest role in preventing that outcome. Overall, though, I found the incoherence mildly concerning at most, with a series of bad decisions, particularly at the back, nipping at its heels. More fundamentally, though, this is precisely why teams play preseason games – i.e., to, in in the spirit of Stumptown Footy’s title, to shake off the rust.

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.