Pittsburgh Riverhounds 0-0 FC Cincinnati: Poop Just Got Real (and Thank God)

I've been conditioned to this FC Cincy a certain way...

I won’t call it a whole lot of nothing (or even a whole lotta nuthin’). I’ve gotten more pleasure out of scores of games, maybe even several hundreds of them (I’ve been around a bit), but Cincinnati FC’s goal-less draw at the Pittsburgh Riverhounds’ (dinky*) stadium wasn’t paint-drying/grass-growing/old-people-fucking level of torture. At the same time, check The Match Center for highlights, and good luck with it!

(* I’ve had the pleasure of watching U.S. domestic soccer live for over two decades, and I can’t remember the last time I sat in a stadium as small as Highmark Stadium. In its defense, it is only the flip-side of the farce of playing professional soccer at, say, Gillette Stadium.)

In an attempt to explain/analogize to this game through a series of moments, I offer the following:

Pittsburgh’s Neco Brett received a nearly perfect cut-back from a player whose name I don’t recall; he wound up losing track of the ball, allowing his right foot to push it past his (so they tell me) preferred left foot. Minutes later, maybe even as few as one, FC Cincy’s Emery Welshman knocked a loose back pass around Pittsburgh ‘keeper Dan Lynd, only to stumble onto his can at the end of trying to run it down. For the record, neither of these moments show up in The Match Center highlights.

The other moment happened in the second half - somewhere in the 70s, if I had to guess (which I do) - when Cincinnati’s rather large Forrest Lasso tried to shepherd a ball over the goal line with Kay Banjo hanging on his back; Banjo whipped his leg around Lasso’s largeness, nearly creating another chance. This also didn't make the highlights, and that's why I chose them.

Not every shot was terrible - Christiano Francois and Romeo Parkes tormented FC Cincy’s defense in a way I’ve never seen (even at 18 games watched, I consider myself a noob), and both Emanuel Ledesma and Fatai Alashe put solid shots on goal (and all those made the highlights) - but that this game didn’t see many good chances. The detail I flagged with Banjo is meant to draw out the idea that Pittsburgh played the better game, thereby surprising FC Cincinnati, thereby perhaps reminding them that things only get harder for the rest of the season and (are you paying attention??) into some indefinite future given the path this young team has chosen.

By way of translating reality to numbers, the best stat I can provide for Pittsburgh’s visible edge in this game would be shots, general: the Riverhounds had 18 to Cincinnati’s four. Credit Pittsburgh for being the team most likely to; credit Cincinnati for making them the team that never did - even if with moments of doubt (e.g., Lasso having to pull Brett’s jersey at 34(ish) or Hoyte flirting with an own-goal when Francois broke through (yet again) down Pittsburgh’s left in the second half). I can’t think of any way in which Pittsburgh wasn’t the better team yesterday, and that runs counter to normal for someone who, like me, still has yet to see FC Cincinnati lose.

Real Salt Lake 1-4 Portland Timbers: Chekhov's Axe

I worry sometimes, perhaps more than I should.

The Portland Timbers rolled into Sandy, Utah last night “needing a result” against Real Salt Lake, if in some non-specific sense. To give a tautly symbolic answer for what they wound up getting, I give you Lucas Melano’s first goal of 2018, and Portland’s fourth of the game. After playing something like even for 70 minutes, RSL either fell apart or the Timbers tore them apart - and in Sandy, too, a rare feat in 2018 - on the way to a 4-1 win that arrived late, but with gusto.

It was a strange game, honestly. Portland could barely connect more than three passes in the opening 10-15 minutes - and not by anything RSL was doing, but by just giving away the ball. It took them some time to knock that shit off and, even when they managed it long enough to create Jeremy Ebobisse’s game-opening goal, the quality and composure of their work came in and out like a series of cameos. If you watched the first 70 minutes of this game with your heart beating green and gold, you never stopped checking over your shoulder for the inevitable falling axe (you know that thing, where they show you a gun at the beginning of a play?). I can speak only for myself, but I didn’t stop checking my 5 and 7 for that axe, even after Sebastian Blanco put Portland up 2-1 with some strapping thievery. That lingering paranoia would last took three, maybe four minutes more when Blanco buried the game with his second goal of the game, and the Timbers’ third.

I became a contented puddle after that unswaddled miracle. Once it became clear that the Timbers could fuck up without fucking up the game? Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, etc. After a long day of watching my country self-immolate, this was very, very welcome. It was nice to have an uncomplicated, happy emotion for a few.

Portland built its win on all those goals (if with a dash of slam-dunk (e.g., Melano’s goal)), but, around half time, I noticed something that I wasn’t seeing: looks at goal for RSL, never mind any good ones. RSL scored, obviously, and through a slightly enormous seam left open when the Timbers’ got wrapped up in defending a cross that never came, but they didn’t get too many shots in the end (nine total; numbers mean something when they match what you see). As I review the game in my mind, it feels like Portland’s midfield - ft. Mssrs. Chara and Guzman - managed the game as much as anyone else out there; I don’t recall heroics from this or that defender and Steve Clark didn’t have much to do in goal either. Portland kept RSL away from goal, basically, and for most of the game. The reality is, the Timbers managed the Hell out of this game. As much as that’s obvious in retrospect, I really never did stop checking for that axe. How many dumb/sloppy/clumsy goals have the Timbers allowed this season? No idea, and it doesn’t matter; what matters is the extent to which I’ve internalized that as “a thing,” something that just happens because bad things happen to good people. Or just Julio Cascante. When he came on, I could have sworn I saw a red dot on his back...

MLS Week 32 Preview: Stakes, and How Much They Matter

Fun image. Older image (look who's missing).

As I look over the match-ups for Major League Soccer’s Week 32, I’m seeing a good number of games that matter, but fewer games that I have any reason to expect to be good. To put a sharper edge on that, few of these results will be important, at least beyond the hopes and dreams of the local fan base. Here’s a compare/contrast that makes the point: Real Salt Lake v. Portland Timbers involves two teams with something to play for, and, even if neither team plays all that well, the stakes will make every kick, no matter how unfortunate, matter a little more, and all those things make this a good game simply because it exists; by way of contrast – and I’ve got several options, so let’s go with… - FC Dallas v. Orlando requires the result itself to be of any interest to anyone outside the Dallas metro area and (or, given where they play) its exurbs. For anyone wondering, yes, I omitted Orlando from the locus of locations that give a rat’s ass about this result.

All in all, I put the total number of games that match RSL v. Portland (i.e., “good because it’s important”) at three of Week 32’s 11 games; Toronto FC v. Vancouver Whitecaps makes a quiet case for bumping that up to four games, but another, more persuasive case exists for treating both teams’ hopes for the playoffs like Canada’s chances for reaching the World Cup. Appropriately.

In the rest of this post I’ll briefly preview all of Week 32’s games –RSL v. Portland gets a little extra and goes first, because, fan! I’ll direct most of the notes to expectations, as opposed to questions of tactics, “hot” players (play, not looks, except where noted), or other granular things that I don’t really know about. I pull these assumptions out of two places: 1) the rolling monument to my neuroses that I call The Form Guide ULTRA (Week 31's), and 2) my ass. Moving on…

If you’re a Portland Timbers fan, you should be worried about their chances away to RSL on Saturday – and mostly because RSL holds most of the cards, if not all of them. That’s not a call for panic – four points separate the Timbers from the abyss, after all, and the chasing Los Angeles Galaxy has its own Death Race 2000 to run (see below) – but the track records for both teams, both season-long and current, lean in RSL’s favor. “Tilt” is the correct verb, because this isn’t toddler versus dumptruck: in terms of patterns, this pits 3-5-2 in their last 10 games for Portland, against 4-2-4 for RSL; and impressive as RSL’s nearly 2.0 goals per game over that same period looks, their 19 goals for over that period get massive padding from their back-to-back six-goal games against the Colorado Rapids away and the Galaxy at home. That doesn’t make those results any less impressive (or timely), but wisdom points to treating outliers as such when you play with numbers.

MLS Week 31 Form Guide ULTRA: New Week, Good One, Too, New Format; Same Tables

This guy's fault. (Also, real good live performer.)

Because I’m on short time this week (saw The Jesus Lizard on Saturday, interested parties better get to ‘em before David Yow keels over on stage), it’s going to take more of this week than I want to organize a Top 5 talking points to kick off this ride through Data Hell (see the “InfoBoxes” below). Then again, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I’m not really equipped to give detailed analysis – look below, you’ll see it’s mostly numbers I’m relying on – so, I’m going to try linking to the scores/match recap pages and flagging points of interest in the highlights and other data sets for each game. [Ed. – I’m only giving one link to each game; if you want to see what I’m talking about, you’ll have to do some poking around.] If nothing else, that matches with my actual knowledge of what’s going around MLS.

So, yeah, that’s your basic structure – notes on games, then InfoBoxes. To explain the latter, those are simple tables, one for each team in MLS, that talks about where each of them are after the week in question (e.g., Week 31). Those tables show how all the teams in MLS did over their last 10 games, against who (whom?), and in whose house. And, to provide a key for some terminology, “IN” teams are the ones projected for (or, now, already in the playoffs), “OUT” teams are the ones who, according to appearances and the numbers, look dead; finally, there are the teams who could still go either way, and I call them “Marginal.” I’ll have to work out where to put information between the notes on the games and the notes with the InfoBoxes, but I’ll try to keep repetition at a minimum.

All in all, I’m less surprised by what I see every week, and that makes me think there’s some value in all this. Call it a good guide to MLS, but hardly an infallible one. Anyhoo, let’s start with all the games in MLS Week 31. Links to the recap are in the scores. You see 'em, right?

New York City FC 2-0 Chicago Fire

The box score hints that this was the massacre it looked like. David Villa scored a beauty for NYC’s second, and on top of setting up NYC’s first goal with a half-blind backheel (he knew someone was back there). Going the other way, Villa’s goal was like a live re-enactment of why the Fire’s season sucks so bad.

Houston Dynamo 3-0 Philadelphia Union (U.S. Open Cup)

I won’t usually bring U.S. Open Cup results into these weekly reviews, but, holy shit, did Houston need a bright spot this season. Also, how can anyone be against DaMarcus Beasley winning a trophy for the long road ahead? This had highlights and lowlights - Mauro Manotas’ slicing sprint through Philly’s flank and Aaron Trusty fucking burying an own goal, respectively.

Portland Timbers 0-0 FC Dallas: A Time to Take Chances

Just because it feels good, doesn't mean it's right.

I’m not sure where to start this post, so I’ll start with Jeff Attinella. Seeing him go down twisted the knot in my stomach a little tighter for the Portland Timbers’ slide down the shute of the 2018 inevitable end-run. It’s not that I think Steve Clark isn’t a good goalkeeper, than I think Attinella is a better ‘keeper. And with the Portland Timbers teetering on the edge of a margin, this team needs every advantage it can get. I don’t know a thing about the recovery time for separating shoulders (it happened a second time, and during the game, right?), but I’d rather have one steady ‘keeper back there, than have a guy start, then try to keep a semi-meaningless ball from rolling off the field, and then, after two-three arduous minutes, get his arm back in place only to have pop out again.

Look, I’m slapping the turf with Jeff Attinella, not at Jeff Attinella. Bottom line, while I might think Attinella is a better ‘keeper, I’m also at a place where I want the best possible, consistently fieldable iteration of the Portland Timbers on the field every week until their whole goddamn season ends - even if that means starting Clark (the fuck you mean “fieldable” isn't a word?).

That said, minus one highly relevant player (see: Blanco, Sebastian), the Timbers fielded its A-team tonight and…look, it’ll take a miracle for this team to do anything serious in 2018. I took a handful of pros and cons away from this game, but the overarching marker for Portland tops out at “good.” A team with any worthwhile mojo wins a game like this - i.e., if they can’t break down one of the top teams in the league with Plan A, they can put a call in to Plan B and get a result or rescue a draw. Generally speaking - and this game coughed up more than the usual number of “yes, buts” - the Timbers aren’t built to do that. That Blanco was missing didn’t help, but, on the evidence, his presence hasn’t been make or break for Portland this season, even as he makes the team usefully better.

At the same time, what goes for Portland applies to Dallas: they’re more or less a solid defensive team with a handful of useful means to get to goal and, Lord willing, score them. Overall, Dallas is every bit as unremarkable as the Timbers - i.e., their results don’t catch the eye, and they’ve lately relied on certain, specific people (in their case, Michael Barrios) to keep them in the running. Close observers of the Portland Timbers should find that both accurate, and a little sad, because, no matter how you arrange the letters, none of what happened tonight, and for either team, spells “G-L-O-R-Y.” Call last night’s 0-0 draw a blown opportunity for both teams, and, holy shit, is that really the first time I mentioned the score?

FC Cincinnati 3-0 Indy Eleven: Fat and Happy in the Lap of Luxury

Loving cradling our collective asses...is it good for you?

FC Cincinnati rotated its squad - more than a little, too - and they still comfortably outplayed visiting Indy Eleven, 3-1. Hey…I lead with the score. (And here’s The Match Center for all the numbers and videos you’re going to get on this game.)

The machinery didn’t run without friction, some portions of it more manifest than others - e.g., Indy made Cincy ‘keeper Evan Newton stretch for a couple shots, and, when Pa Konate came off the field at 53’, nothing about that substitution made me scratch my head - but it never felt like Indy’s game to win. And that makes the numbers from the match curious reading - especially the figures for attack and distribution. A couple testaments to the gap between the game I thought I saw and those numbers lurk on my twitter feed (@JeffBull5), but, who is to say what is real in paranoid times? Who’s to say that some miscreant statistician within the secret sanctums of the USL FO didn’t replace the actual numbers from this game in an attempt to hide FC Cincinnati’s true greatness? No, I can’t prove it, but you can’t not prove it either. (CITIZENS: Keep your eye on the Orange and Blue’s record, watch for skullduggery! Eternal vigilance!!)

(Speaking of conspiracies, did that Cincinnati’s Matt Bahner get away with a goal-line handball early in the second half? And what to make of the Zapruder-esque quality on those replays? Wait...can someone make a basement disappear with the push of a button?)

Whatever the numbers say, Cincy created better openings, some of them boulevard-wide - e.g., when the wonderful work down Indy’s right by Michael Lahoud and Jimmy McLaughlin so mesmerized the defense that they gave Fanendo Adi a public-park’s worth of free acreage. McLaughlin would strike again later, and with a ball over the top to a surging Danni Konig that I didn’t credit enough when I watched it live. Then again, for all the good work by McLaughlin and Konig, the latter couldn’t have finished that chance without a blundering assist by Indy’s ‘keeper, Owain Fon Williams, and two of his defenders. Indy’s defense would cough up yet another mistake when Carlyle Mitchell pinged a (good) Russell Cicerone cross into his own team’s side netting…hell, maybe there is no need for a conspiracy to explain this result.

MLS Week 31 Preview: The Battle for the East

Dreamin'.....

And so the calendar rolls into MLS Week 31…more or less. As with most things, MLS refuses to measure/organize the progression of its season in keeping with real-world practices. I wanted to briefly preview – or, better, frame – this weekend’s games. Because the whole thing about a dogfight in Gresham versus a revolution in China, I’m going to start local.

The Portland Timbers host FC Dallas this Saturday and, as noted in last week’s Form Guide ULTRA, this game ranks pretty highly in my personal order of importance (here, for easier checking on the notes below, is the official Form Guide). It’s a home game, of course, – and that matters with only two left – but a win here offers real, potentially enduring positives. Beating The Cream of the Western Conference (well, this week) will puff some wind in our sails and (big stretch!), who knows? Maybe the confidence will carry Portland an extra step when it counts. More than that, though, a win here sends the Timbers into the rest of its regular season with some a little more padding. Y’know, for safety? So…what are the chances?

While Dallas is hardly on fire (4-3-3), Portland’s ass keeps bumping the ground lately. Sure, the team has been perfect at home over its last 10 games (3 wins!), but those are, 1) the only three wins over that time, and 2) those came against Toronto FC, the Colorado Rapids and (better) Columbus Crew SC. Further complicating matters, Sebastian Blanco (aka, One-Man, Two-Way Kickass Squad) is suspended for the occasion; there are no other significant, or at least not surprising, absences for either team. Having suffered a choking period of their own, Dallas isn’t exactly flying into this game, but they’re comfortably in the top half of defense teams – not great for Portland’s fitful (now Blanco-less) attack – and Dallas transition very quickly, often isolating fullbacks in particular with the kind of long balls that stretch defenses. Oh, and they’re not slouches on set-pieces either. All in all…sigh. For what it’s worth, I think Portland can get all three points…it’s just that I think a draw, goal-less or otherwise, feels more likely.

If Maximiliano Urruti who shivs us…love the guy, but…damn. Just damn. OK, on to the rest of ‘em!

After looking at the weekend’s match-ups, I decided to call Week 31 The Battle for the East. That’s no exaggeration (well, outside being an actual exaggeration), because three games have potential to move things in significant directions. [Ed. - Obviously, all this comes in the context of a league that enforces both parity and an aggressively generous playoff system - i.e., to miss the playoffs is to fuck up enough to disappoint your dad, and have two of his friends mock him. Your mom will always be there for you, pumpkin.] To take them in no particular turn: