Phoenix Rising 1-0 Portland Timbers: From Paraguay, WIth Some Confusion

Not in Paraguay...

Knowing that was Phoenix Rising’s first team out there tonight was the only thing that kept me from turning off that game at the half and donating my eyes to science ahead of schedule. (Thereby teaching the next generation how astigmatism; I am a hero.) A wiser man would have followed the instinct, but some online trickster, a Windy City Loki, lured me all the way through all 95 execrable minutes of that nightmare. I felt less frustration watching my toddler trying to tie her shoes the first time around.

Now (speaking of!), put yourself in Jorge Moreira’s shoes. Imagine flying in from Argentina (or Paraguay; does it matter in this case) for your first game of the rest of at least 40, and watching those first 45 minutes. Speaking for myself, I would have called my agent immediately and refused to get on that…disgusting field. The first 38 minutes of the Portland Timbers' 0-1 loss to Phoenix Rising (you lost to that awful slogan as well! Shame!) was nothing more or less than a crime against competence and good taste, an assault to eyeballs, spirit and aesthetics.

Fortunately, the result didn’t matter. Moreover, it’s not Moreira lit it up out there. He had a fauxssist (TM….don't touch it, it's mine!!) on what looked like Cristhian Paredes game-opening goal, but it took me less time to figure out Andy Polo was offside than the ref. (Serious question: what’s with the dramatic pauses? Can we get a little more of “get your ass over here and rubber-stamp the fact he was off” and get on with the goddamn game with VAR?) Outside that shining moment and one particularly cool, calm moment when he shepherded a ball out of a tricky situation with two dudes on his shoulder, you would have thought Moreira was a trialist based on tonight, what with all the USL talent (named Junior Flemmings) making him look like something less than a threat to Zarek Valentin’s one and only day job.

I’m not worried about Moreira (yet…nah, just messin’). This was his first game, new league, new country, that’s just a lot to take in. Also, a good USL team is nothing to sniff at. For instance, after watching Solomon Asante play a full 90, and thinking about all those MLS teams in search of a winger…well, it makes you wonder, if nothing else. (Then again, seriously, will a time come when the influx of talent to North America gathers enough steam that a player like Asante will go to USL as a stepping stone to MLS?)

Given that this game meant less than nothing (aka, Saturday, against the New York Red Bulls 1.5), I don’t want to spend too much time on it. I’ll start with some general thoughts about each of the “Three Units” (e.g., 0-38, 38-79, 79-90), then go through what I’ve seen from the more marginal/contingent crowd on the Timbers line-up. In other words, my comments on Jeff Attinella, Diego Valeri, Diego Chara, Sebastian Blanco, Larrys Mabiala, Jorge Villafana, and even Zarek Valentin, Dairon Asprilla, and Andres Flores start and end with “stay healthy, fellas!” Yes, even if they're not all starters. Just to note it, did Flores pull the “single white female” thing on Lawrence Olum (e.g., unlikely replacement on at least one level that everyone seems to buy)? I’ll get to (marginal) personnel later; let’s talk about each of tonight’s shift.

Portland Timbers 2-2 New York Red Bulls: Choice Paradox

Much as I wouldn't know what to do with all those arms...

It took 70 minutes for Sebastian Blanco to get deep enough in Kyle Duncan’s head to take advantage. In that sense, I came away from this game more impressed by the New York Red Bulls youth than anything else. At the same time…Blanco is my favorite Timber for a reason.

From a Portland Timbers perspective, last night’s 2-2 draw against the Red Bulls coughs up too many variables to manage: too many dudes to assess, an opposing team that played a familiar system with different parts, and that’s on top of a state of play that only raised more questions. I blame preseason, and to the extent that I can’t decide whether the uneasy feeling from Wednesday’s win over the Seattle Sounders carries over. Not all B-teams are created equal, for starters, but New York has the power of their surprisingly reliable plug-‘n’-play system that goes quite a ways toward erasing that distinction. They don’t have an MLS Cup to show for it, but the Red Bulls have been the most reliably “money” team in MLS for nearly half a decade now – so says three of the last six Supporters’ Shields, so says last year’s league-leading goal differential.

Given all that, call this a good test for the Timbers. The result doesn’t mean anything, obviously, and ending in a tie makes it mean a little less, but, outside a whack at someone’s knuckles here and sharper questions there, just about every player performed well. Because the recap posted to MLSSoccer.com doesn’t provide the full treatment (e.g., no box score), I can’t say whether New York out-shot the Timbers. I suspect they generated more chances, and better ones, and that’s where my personal threat level tops out. Your feelings may vary – thanks in no small part to all the variables – so long as you rate the resilience of New York’s system (as I do), seeing Portland come back from two goals down against them felt like a decent evening’s work.

Most of the negatives I saw showed up on the defensive side and a lot of those showed up in the vicinity of Julio Cascante. The lowlight came when Cascante’s misplayed of a ball over the top that forced Larrys Mabiala into a tackle dicey enough for the ref to call it a penalty kick at first glance (it wasn’t; good call), but he also struggled more under the Red Bulls’ pressure than any Timbers this side of David Guzman. And, as alluded to, I don’t think Guzman looked all that sharp yesterday, and on either side of the ball, but he had more good moments than bad ones on balance, just like everyone else in Timbers green. That said, both goals were regrettable – the first for the way Villafana got caught forward and for the way Mabiala and Zarek Valentin lost Brian White between them, the second because that’s shit defending on a corner – and, again, you just don’t want to see that, even in preseason. Mistakes are one way to lose a game, so the fewer the better.

FC Cincinnati 2-1 Charleston Battery: A First Step to Where...Exactly?

Honestly, the only real cyborg we know.

“Lamah Over Ledesma Should Not Be Automatic,” came very close to being the name for this post. It didn’t work when the line between them blurred.

Earlier tonight, FC Cincinnati topped the Charleston Battery2-1 down in Charleston. It was a good win, not a great one, and, as a game, definitely not one for the ages. I’m glad Cincinnati won, if only because MLS being better than USL is the structural order of things, but it felt more like a battle of capacities – by which I mean, Cincinnati had a means to win this game in the form of higher end players at their top-end - while Charleston did not. FC Cincy fans should feel cheered by how quickly their team reversed Charleston’s equalizer (and how much sustained pressure they piled on), but there’s nothing particularly interesting about a team with MLS resources and reputation beating a team with USL resources and reputation. In other words, Cincinnati did win….but am I alone in wishing the win looked either better or more explicable?

I’m going to set this up in the spirit of a geometry equation – i.e., start with a set of “givens” and see where I can go from there. (Also, I never made better than a “C” in Geometry, probably because my teachers failed me, not the other way around. Monsters, but I digress.) Here are the givens:

1) The line-up Alan Koch trotted out was a plausible starting eleven for FC Cincinnati;

2) There are players on FC Cincinnati’s roster outside those 11 players who can help build a different starting eleven for FC Cincinnati;

3) That win did not send the right kind of chills down your spine; and

4) That’s OK. We’re all OK.

Portland Timbers 2-1 Seattle Sounders: Getting Results, Managing Expectations

The rosters may have affected expectations.... 

A mash-up of the Portland Timbers beat an even more deconstructed version of the Seattle Sounders down in Tucson, AZ last night. The final score was 2-1, and, no, the result doesn’t matter. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t interesting, or some unlikely collision of optimism and pessimism. I don’t really know how pre-season works – is there something in a players’ contracts regarding how hard you “go in”? does the coach send them onto the field with something like, “play, but not really, but I’m also watching, so play” for motivation? - I only know it’s different. Not just because of that, but due to the literal throw-shit-at-the-wall line-ups you see, and probably should see, up until the game right before the start of the season…

…if I were a coach, I’d tinker even in that game. Experiments are how we learn, and these are cheap.

Portland Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese did something noteworthy with his 2/3, 1/3 line-up: he fielded two competitive, and reasonably-balanced units. To save you from clicking through a link, here were Portland’s line-ups for the 60/30 shifts, respectively:

First 60: Attinella, Valentin, Mabiala, Cascante, Villafaña, Guzmán, Paredes, Polo, Valeri, Blanco, Melano

Second 30: Clark, Farfan, Tuiloma, Dielna, Miller*, Flores, Chara, Asprilla, Loría, Conechny, Ebobisse

Both units showed good faces and bad ones – also, I don’t think either of those specific line-ups will ever see the light of day in regular season. “Team First 60” had a little more attacking “pop,” while “Team Second 30” had mostly effort/promise mixed with stabilizing influences all ‘round (went with the buddy system, usually a good call), but, regardless of whether the world will see either specific line-up, both sets could manage a game if it had to. I don’t think they’d hold up through a season, but Portland has emergency arrangements, and that’s my happy thought for today.

The bad news is complicated. Both units, isolated parts of them, and individual players all looked good at some point tonight; there was a blessed minimum of stinking up the joint. At the same time, neither Team First 60 nor Team Second 30 faced the Sounders’ best at any point last night. The Sounders played a decent, reasonably experienced line-up for the first 75 minutes – e.g., players like Will Bruin (who had a couple chances, even a PK shout), Harry Shipp, but it was Handwalla Bwana who stood out, and for more than scoring Seattle’s goal – but that team featured…maybe three, four marginal starters for Seattle? They played a passel of toddlers for the game’s final 15 minutes – aka The Seattle Super Junior Sounders! - and that’s who Dairon Asprilla bullied to create the game winner. As far as that goes...

MLS Tourist Journal, Calender Week 6: Preseason and Varieties of Excitement

This far and no further till the regular season. You know the drill...

The fresh signings keep rolling into Major League Soccer – some flashier, some smarter – and preseason has started for just about every team in the league. Shit’s gettin’ real, but I still wouldn’t mistake anything that happens today for future lived reality, yea, these are the Ponzi schemes of fandom (what?).

Only the preseason portions of the above applies to the Portland Timbers and FC Cincinnati – and I’m directing the late jab at the end toward FC Cincinnati – but, before getting to them, I wanted to start with a wide-lens snapshot of MLS.

Varieties of New Signings

“They're coming off a championship, so those are the things that motivated me to come. ... [The chance to move on to Europe] was a factor, too. You see players leaving [MLS] for Europe, so that played into my decision.”

So said Atlanta United FC’s Pity Martinez, but the broad idea of showing up/off in MLS as a stepping stone to fat European pay-days has gained real currency over the past couple seasons. And not all players are doing this the same way, so do read the fine print in any new arrival’s contract. For instance, it looks like Martinez signed “a long-term contract” with Atlanta, so, even if he (and even Atlanta’s FO) think he’ll be gone in a year or two, they’ll have some control when he leaves and will almost certainly get a kick-back out of it. The San Jose Earthquakes took a different approach in landing Argentine forward(? – thought he was a midfielder) Cristian Espinoza, and used new head coach Matias Almeyda as a sweetener. Espinoza’s signing is almost explicitly rehab, i.e., “[talented] young player that needs minutes moves to a team with playing time available.” The other club involved – Spain’s Villareal – tapped Almeyda to mentor Espinoza and, if things pan out, Villareal reaps the long-term benefits. That business of acting as a finishing school for bigger clubs around the world doesn’t sound like the best deal, but, on the grounds that weirder things have panned out, may as well see where it goes…

Several other eye-catching signings have come together over the past week…just real quick: rumor turned to reality when New York City FC landed their Romanian stud/Replacement David Villa, Alexandru Mitrita (they also added young American defender Keaton Parks, who called rich-people start-up NYCFC “a great club”…based on…?); sticking with defenders, the rich got richer when Atlanta added the well-pedigreed Florentin Pogba at centerback and the Los Angeles Galaxy correctly identified and filled a hole with the signing of Uruguayan centerback, Diego Polenta. Moving to the other side of the pitch, it’s good to see Real Salt Lake sign a forward, and here’s to wishing Liberian international Sam Johnson comes through for them, while further north and east, and promises to “eat people” notwithstanding, I think Toronto FC might have taken a flyer by signing injury-tinged American forward Terence Boyd.

MLS Tourist Journal, Calendar Week 5: Keeping Up with the Joneses

He's not real, he's not real, please, don't let him be real...

“As a player, it’s one of the worst parts of preseason: Competing for a spot. You never know where you stand, and sometimes you’re competing with a friend. Every night you lie in bed and think about the way the coach spoke you, his mannerisms, and what they mean for your future.”

MLSSoccer.com’s Bobby Warshaw wrote a column about the preseason experience that broke my taboo against treating the soccer players as human beings. Until I get some real background – e.g., this article about the Portland Timbers’ Cristian Paredes' tough first year miles away from his home – I really do see soccer players as video game avatars. I’m not saying it’s healthy, I’m just sayin’…on to the weekly recap.

In all honesty, the first weeks of February don’t feel all that different from the last weeks of December. Sure, preseason has started, but, what’s going on with FC Cincinnati aside, it all feels like a big, stupid pile of names and numbers (e.g., FC Dallas beating Houston Baptist University 6-0, which feels like someone telling me the Toronto Raptors dunked all over the local high school’s varsity team, and why would you do that?). All the same, this was a busy week, one filled with trades what God-knows-what meaning, and a notable combination of action and silence between and amongst all the rest of the teams in Major League Soccer, aka, MLS…goddamn it, working in law has infiltrated my brain so fucking deep that I now use defined terms. The shame…

I’ll get to all that – plus a short segment on the teams who I don't believe are keeping up with the rest of the MLS Joneses, as well as my notes on the past week’s culture-shifting trades – down below. First, however, it’s time for a quick check-in with the two teams I follow, FC Cincinnati and the Portland Timbers. But not in that order. For reasons that will become immediately apparent.

Portland Timbers

Hometown Team 2.0 hasn’t done a thing since signing Claude Dielna last week (at which point I discussed it at some length), and, won’t lie, I feel like I’m sitting across from a significant other determined to give me the silent treatment. (What did the counselor say, Gavin, what did she say?!)

United States 2-0 Costa Rica: Ruler Theory

All shapes, sizes and qualities. All too big for some.

The United States Men’s National came out the other end of a scrapping slog against Costa Rica with a 2-0 win earlier today. It certainly wasn’t handed to the U.S. – Costa Rica kicked ‘em a couple times to remind the U.S. they were there to play (nothing malicious, just present) – and they struggled for long stretches of the game to play through a well-organized and well-coordinated defense. The break-through goals came late, though, and that’s the story of this edgy friendly.

One thing, though: I will never get used to Gregg “Both Gs” Berhalter’s fixation on dicking around with the ball in the back. I think I’m starting to get the risk/reward calculus involved – more below – but you saw the ball get tangled in Zac Steffen’s leg that one time in the second half, and I could feel the breath of that Costa Rican attacker on the back of my neck. Anyway…

The win felt good, especially in the sense that it underlined last weekend’s result against Panama, and in more ways than one, but I won’t project much out of it. From what I understand (I was only half-listening, honestly), the U.S. will have all eligible, healthy players available for the two friendlies coming up at the end of March – against Ecuador and against Chile – and those games will hand us all a big enough ruler to accurately measure the machine “Both Gs” Berhalter is building, and the ground underfoot will feel a little firmer after that. All the same, I plan on withholding judgment on the design and elegance of the car we’re driving till after this summer’s CONCACAF Gold Cup.

Back to the Panama thing, the Americans started just as slowly in this game as they did against Panama, only with the twist of facing Costa Rica, a better team. The Central Americans’ counter was very much on at that point, and they caught the U.S. midfield too far forward a couple times. Their pressure was effective, but also efficient: they built it around positioning, as opposed to scrambling, and they had a player in the pocket of any American when the ball arrived at his feet, plus another player or two nearby foreclosing on available outlets. Yanqui players struggled with this, none more than the Chicago’s Fire’s youngster, Djordje Mihailovic. After impressing around the edges last week against Panama (with his movement, for me), Mihailovic reacted slowly here, and like his head was in different places there, but he coughed up the ball over and over again, and mostly via theft.