Category: Soccer

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Not Soccer Soccer Thorns

The Three Marks of Existence

Photo by Nikita Taparia

I tried to write about Mark Parsons, who recently completed his sixth and final season as the coach of the Portland Thorns. It didn’t work. Instead I just thought about the passage of time and my experience of it. That’s what this is:

Aniccā (Impermanence)

I was 16 the first time I felt old. I was in the hall at South Eugene High School and something involving a slightly younger person happened—I have completely forgotten what—but I remember with crystalline clarity that suddenly I felt like this:

The "Simpsons" characters Patty and Selma smoking cigarettes with bored looks on their faces

It’s absurd to feel old at 16, or perhaps any of the ages that I have been thus far. But the essence of feeling old has nothing to do with objective age. It’s about being old-er. Thus, it is possible to feel old at almost any age. One of the main ways to feel old is what I felt in the hallway that day: realizing that you know things that younger people do not.

Sometimes you look at a younger person and think, “How could you care so much about [thing]?” Sometimes you look at them and think, “Good lord, don’t do that.” Sometimes, a little cruelly, it’s “Just wait until [bad thing happens].”

The other face of feeling old (aside from mysterious bodily pain, which I would not experience until some years after the hallway incident) is the sense that the world and the people in it have shifted under your feet. You drive by a house you used to live in and it’s been painted and had all the leaky windows replaced, or it’s not a house at all anymore, it’s a condo. You go to a Thorns game and it hits you—feeling old always hits you all at once, never incrementally—that there are only two players on the roster who were there when you started your foolish little hobby of writing about them whether anybody wanted you to or not.

This is all a roundabout way of saying: things change. The “they knocked my old house down” feeling and the “what do you kids know” feeling are two sides of the same coin. Something goes away, something else gets renewed. Everything dies, and the wellspring of youth is infinite. That’s all you can count on.

Photo by Kris Lattimore
Anattā (Not-self)

Where is the essence of a soccer team to be found? Is it in the players? The stadium? The manager? The ownership? The fans? Clearly not: almost all of those things have changed for the Thorns over the last six years. If they are all changeable, how can we say that a club that exists today also existed nine years ago? 20? 100?

During the pandemic, I aged a good 10 years. That was the effect of more or less sitting in my house doing absolutely fuck all for something like 15 months. What I mean is that the experience was ultimately good for me.

For instance, one night last spring I realized that I’d been waking up with a vague fear tickling at the corners of my mind every day for months. Upon reflection, I realized that the fear was the fear of death, that it was probably time to deal with that fear head on, and further, that nothing in my life had given me the tools to do so. I decided to look for God.

In that hallway at South Eugene High School, 15 years ago (15 normal Earth years, not 15 pandemic years), I’d never have believed I would one day write that sentence. But I’m not that old-feeling 16-year-old anymore. You sit around long enough, becoming incrementally more Patty-and-Selma-like all the time, and eventually you might realize that the question—the question, the only question, the burning, impossible question—isn’t “does God exist,” or “what am I supposed to do while I’m here,” but “why is there something instead of nothing?” The answer to the question, which is unanswerable, is the thing we call “God.” That is what I have come to think, anyway.

I bring this up because 1) becoming curious about the nature of the universe was what led me, in a roundabout way, to the title and structure of this article, and 2) to illustrate that things will happen to you that you don’t expect. You will change in ways that might not make sense. This is both wonderful and terrifying: wonderful because it means that you are never stuck one way; terrifying because it also means that there’s no “you” to speak of, really. Not one that persists, or is under your control.

The me I was in 2007 is no more or less me than the one I was when I started to think about death last spring. The only one that exists at all is the one typing these words right now.

The Portland Thorns, too, are only ever exactly as they are in a given moment. There’s no higher level of abstraction. At one moment in 2016, they were this:

The 2016 Thorns after their semifinal loss to the Western New York Flash

Once earlier this year, they were this:

A screenshot showing Washington in their defensive shape, with Kelli Hubly, who is carrying the ball, being left open.

Another time, they were this:

Marissa Everett, Kelli Hubly, Meghan Klingenberg, Angela Salem, and Rocky Rodríguez celebrating
Photo by Matthew Wolfe

So right at this moment, what are the Portland Thorns? Where can I go to see them?

Inevitably, we have to conclude that they do not exist. We use their name as a semantic convenience, but it does not point to any continuous thing. The Thorns are not Mark Parsons, AD Franch, Midge Purce, or “Iko Iko”. Nor are they Sophia Smith, a big red drum, Gavin Wilkinson, Rhian Wilkinson, or even Christine Sinclair. They are not a pressing team or a counterattacking team. They are not defensively sound, nor do they have trouble finishing. They are simply there, or not.

Photo by Matthew Wolfe
Duḥkha (Suffering)

The supply of suffering is infinite. It is the sting of a playoff loss, the sunburn one gets at an afternoon game in August. It is when Tobin Heath’s rights get snapped up in an expansion draft for no good reason.

We cannot stop these things from happening (please do wear sunscreen). Pain will happen. Loss will happen. Suffering is adjacent, but different: its root is in clinging. We cling to players and coaches, clearly. We cling to the idea of winning everything, to the high of a championship, to the moment when a player is one on one with the keeper and is surely, surely going to score. There is nothing here (see above). It’s like trying to scoop up sand with a sieve. Once we understand this, we can begin to get free.

It is only in letting go that we can fully experience anything. If we relinquish expectation, we start to feel that the very fact of the game is a miracle. The weight and texture of the ball, the sun and the rain, the existence of feet. We see that the moment a player is one on one with the keeper is a spark of magic, regardless of what happens next (what happens next doesn’t exist, until it does). The goal itself is an unalloyed joy, if we let it stand by itself.

Even the pain of loss, if we look at it right, is a thing to experience, to open ourselves up to. It doesn’t last. Or you might feel it today, but not tomorrow, and then again the next day. It is not us.

In this way, nothing is ever old. Everything is as new as the moment when we take it in. The world is remade in each moment, and so are we. May we always remember this. May we never feel old.

Photo by Nikita Taparia
Categories
Soccer Timbers

Timbers March Past Real Salt Lake Into MLS Cup

Photo by Matthew Wolfe.

When Sebastián Blanco pulled up grabbing his hamstring early in the second half on Thanksgiving Day in Colorado, there were plenty who figured the Portland Timbers’ 2021 season was over.

It wasn’t a crazy thought. But then the Timbers, minus their chief attacking catalyst, grew stronger and stronger in that half and beat the Rapids 1–0.

The next day in Kansas City, ownerless, permanent manager-less Real Salt Lake upset Sporting, meaning that the Timbers would, improbably, host the Western Conference Final at Providence Park against a team they’d already beaten three times this year.

And then you could feel it, couldn’t you? That unmistakable sense that the stars were aligning, that these Timbers, all but given up for dead in August, were on a collision course with MLS Cup.

It didn’t hurt that the number one seed in the Eastern Conference, the New England Revolution, were upset on their home turf on Tuesday. That meant that all that stood between the Timbers and hosting their first major championship in club history was a fourth victory of the year over Real Salt Lake.

The Timbers entered Saturday afternoon’s match without Blanco, available only on the bench, and without Dairon Asprilla, suspended after being red carded in the waning moments of the win over the Rapids. In place of their two attacking stars, they inserted 24-year-old Marvin Loría for only his second start since mid-August and 21-year-old Santiago Moreno for just his fourth start ever with the team.

It was not by any measure the most talented Timbers team to ever grace the field in a playoff game. But there was that sense. Hundreds of people camped overnight outside the stadium. A huge tifo in the North End. And an opponent that, from the first minute, the Timbers looked like they could handle.

The Timbers played this game with relish. Not with overwhelming skill, not with sublime passing moves and sustained individual brilliance, but with tenacity and cohesion and confidence. That’s what wins you playoff matches—especially on turf, especially in the rain, especially in front of one of those ear-splitting Timbers crowds that has made Portland synonymous with soccer support in every corner of the world.

The kids weren’t overawed. The veterans didn’t give an inch. And now Portland is a week away from hosting MLS Cup against either Philadelphia or New York City in what will be one of the biggest sporting occasions in the history of the Rose City.

Early forecast for next Saturday? 43 degrees and cloudy. Chance of rain. Just the way we like it.

Salt Lake’s memorable playoff run, which saw them eliminate Seattle before they knocked out Kansas City, is over. After two monumental efforts, they rarely looked inventive enough to break the Timbers down. Of course, they never looked like they’d break the Sounders down either, but went through on penalties after failing to register a shot in 120 minutes In their first-round match.

On Saturday, they never had a chance to go that route. Just four and a half minutes into the game, Felipe Mora flicked a sharp entry pass into the box for Yimmi Chara to run into. His cross hit two Salt Lake players and skidded right into Mora’s path, and the Chilean, running towards the six-yard box, deflected it in.

The Providence Park crowd let out an almighty roar. Mora had hardly had time to break his running stride as the ball came flying at him, and it was the pace from the attempted outside-of-the-foot clearance from RSL’s Aaron Herrera that eventually carried the ball past David Ochoa. It was a dream start, one that would allow the Timbers to stay compact defensively and work with the space that RSL’s need for a tying goal would eventually open up.

Over the next half hour, the Timbers’ front four buzzed as RSL struggled to build fluidly from back to front. Moreno’s pace in particular was scrambling the Salt Lake defense, and it was the Colombian who had the best chance to double Portland’s lead after Ochoa palmed a Loría shot into the middle of the box, but he eventually fired over the bar.

It was after that warning shot that RSL finally found their footing in the game. They spent much of the half trying to work the left side of the Timbers’ defense with Anderson Julio and Herrera, and it was the fullback who opened up enough space to whip a cross towards the dangerous Damir Kreilach on 33 minutes, but Kreilach’s header from point blank range was stopped by Steve Clark.

It was a classic, show-stopping Clark save, and, in a week when people around MLS talked an awful lot about his opposite number,  Ochoa, a sudden reminder of what a truly game-changing goalkeeper can do for a playoff team.

RSL never got a better look. Though they closed the half in the ascendency, the Timbers were crowding them out of the middle of the field and limiting their ability to play between lines. Their attacking fulcrum Albert Rusnak, who missed the first two games of the playoffs with COVID-19, couldn’t get himself going. Nick Belser, the former Timbers draft pick, was struggling with the pace of the game in central midfield. And the Timbers kept running hard, avoiding mistakes, and waiting for a moment to stretch their lead.

It came on the hour mark. Dario Zuparic lofted a ball towards Moreno in midfield that the winger controlled off his chest, dribbled forward, and, from 25 yards out, ripped towards goal. The shot thudded off the post, hit the diving Ochoa in the back, and nestled in the back of the net.

It was total bedlam. The Timbers’ bench exploded. Ochoa laid flat on the turf, hands covering his face. Moreno ran to the corner with his shirt off, all 5’8 of him flexing for the cameras.

It was over. Salt Lake, never a sure bet to get a single goal, weren’t going to get two. A quarter of an hour from time, Herrera, perhaps still frustrated by his fifth minute mistake, lunged in on Loría and was rightly shown a second yellow card.

RSL finished their season with ten players on the field, out of luck and out of gas. Ochoa needed to make a diving save to deny what would have been a roof-raising third goal from a Diego Valeri free kick in stoppage time, and with Alan Kelly’s whistle several minutes later, the Timbers clinched the Western Conference title for the third time in seven years.

If there were any question marks about the state of the Timbers heading into this game, they were answered emphatically. They played like a big team. It didn’t matter which players were and weren’t available—and there can be no greater compliment to a coaching staff or a group of players.

To Zuparic and Larrys Mabiala, who hardly put a foot wrong in central defense all night. To Clark, who improbably will get a second shot at MLS Cup with the team he unforgettably lost his first chance to six years ago. To Diego Chará, who was sensational in the middle of the field. Certainly to all of the role players who looked like they’d played in this game a hundred times over, and to Giovani Savarese, who has once again dialed up an extraordinary cup run.

The magic is real. MLS Cup in Portland. Next Saturday.

Categories
Soccer Timbers

Timbers, Real Salt Lake Prepare to Defy the Odds Again

Photo by Kris Lattimore.

The Portland Timbers and Real Salt Lake will meet Saturday for the Western Conference Final in what is both simultaneously one of the biggest and most improbable games in the history of Providence Park.

To say that neither team should be alive at this advanced stage of the MLS postseason is nearly reductive. That the Timbers were seeded fourth and Salt Lake seventh for this tournament does not begin to communicate just what each team has survived to keep playing into December.

RSL, for its part, may be the single most extraordinary story in major American sports right now. The club hasn’t had an owner all year. Their manager quit in the middle of the season to become an assistant coach for a conference rival. Their interim manager was the former captain and manager of their biggest rival. They snuck into the postseason with a stoppage time goal on the final day of the regular season in Kansas City. They then went to Seattle in the first round of the playoffs, failed to register a shot in roughly 125 minutes of play, and knocked out the Sounders on penalties.

They then went back to Kansas City, fell behind in the first half, pulled themselves level in the second half, and got another stoppage time winner from ex-US national team forward Bobby Wood to advance to the conference final.

They’ve won both postseason games with their best player and captain, Albert Rusnak, missing due to COVID-19. To make it to MLS Cup, RSL will have to travel to the most intimidating environment in MLS and beat a team that has already handed them three losses this year.

This stuff just doesn’t happen in other leagues. Not with the regularity that it does in MLS, where the top seed in each conference fell in their first postseason match and unfavored road teams have won four of the last five playoff games.

It simply doesn’t sense. Any of it. And that is why plenty of neutral observers like Salt Lake to upset the Timbers in the West and NYCFC to upset Philadelphia in the East and MLS Cup to be contested in a baseball stadium by an ownerless team and a team owned by the City Football Group on December 11.

Thing is, while the Timbers’ arrival at this stage of the postseason is not nearly as unexpected, the suddenness of the club’s surge and amount of adversity they’ve overcome this year is similarly extraordinary.

Individually, this Timbers team has relatively few standout performers as compared to other Timbers teams that have made playoff runs. Beyond Diego Chará and Sebastián Blanco there are only a handful of above-average players, and plenty of average ones too.

But like a number of other Giovani Savarese teams, the Timbers have refused to die this year. Their second-half revival started when they went to Seattle and beat the high-flying Sounders 2–0 in the game in which Eyrk Williamson tore his ACL a week after getting trounced in Austin, and that victory set the tone.

They went undefeated for the next month and a half before imperiling their playoff positioning with three straight losses in October. They responded to that adversity by winning their final three regular season games by a combined score of 8–1. They’ve now conceded only two goals in their last five games after conceding seven in the three games before that.

The underlying numbers hated the Timbers all year. It didn’t matter. They over-performed those numbers and have continued to over-perform them right into pole position to host MLS Cup.

Of course, the Timbers’ resurgence in the fall coincided with Blanco’s return to full fitness—and when he pulled up clutching his hamstring in Colorado on Thanksgiving in a scoreless game, it seemed very much like the team’s season would go down with him.

But it very much did not. With Blanco’s season likely over, the Timbers didn’t miss a beat. They only grew in strength and belief throughout that second half against the Rapids, and by the times Larrys Mabiala jabbed home the winning goal, it was entirely deserved.

Now the Timbers will be without both Blanco and Dairon Asprilla, undeservedly red-carded in the dying moments of the semifinal victory. They’ll have to rely on a pair of young, mostly unproven backup wingers for offensive punch on Saturday, or recall aging club legend Diego Valeri. No matter how Savarese decides to play his curtailed hand, the Timbers will relish the opportunity in front of them. The higher the level of doubt this year, the better they have played.

It is perhaps little wonder that it is two likable, fiery, longtime MLS battlers in Savarese and Mastroeni who will square off on Saturday. There may be better soccer minds in the league, but there are few people better equipped to ride the maelstrom of chaos that defines so many playoff runs. Some managers seize up under that pressure. Even the great Bruce Arena was slow to change a failing plan in New England’s loss on Tuesday night. These two have, somehow, figured it out so far.

Savarese has a big personnel decision ahead of him this weekend with Blanco and Asprilla out. Mastroeni does too. His DP Rusnak should make the trip to Portland and be available for selection on Saturday, though it’s an open question whether he’ll be inserted back into a starting lineup that has momentum after a long layoff.

RSL will also be missing their ace defensive midfielder, Everton Luiz, who was booked in both the Seattle and SKC games. He’ll be a big absence for the visitors, whose defense, now set up in banks of four, has been their calling card so far.

What happens next in this off-the-hook, quintessentially MLS postseason? You tell me. The form book says Portland. Past history says Portland. Home advantage says Portland. And it said Seattle and Kansas City before that, so there is no reason to believe that Salt Lake will arrive cowed.

But the Timbers have played with, dare we say, an air of inevitability about them for much of the fall. Timely offense, timely defense, and, when they’ve needed it most, a steadfast refusal to be knocked off stride.

It has not, it is worth highlighting again, been an easy year in  Portland. Investigations into GM Gavin Wilkinson for his role in the Paul Riley abuse coverup are ongoing, as is the pandemic that has devastated so many lives and kept so many away from the stadium. This, though, what we’re about to see on Saturday, is a reminder of what makes this sport such an unparalleled thrill: a proper occasion featuring two teams that have played so far beyond reasonable expectations that expectations have ceased to be reasonable.

They think they might just win it. This year.

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Soccer Timbers

Sebastián Blanco’s second-half brace sparks Portland’s 3-1 playoff win against Minnesota United

Photo by Kris Lattimore

Sebastián Blanco’s last memorable MLS Cup Playoff moment came in November 2018.

With Portland behind 1-0 on aggregate and in Kansas City, the club needed a lifeline to extend its season — at least one more game. In the 52nd minute Blanco provided one, seemingly out of nothing, with a right-footed shot that swerved and dipped above the outstretched fingertips of Sporting Kansas City goalkeeper, Tim Melia.

The goal silenced the crowd at Children’s Mercy Park and left Diego Valeri with both hands on his head, speechless. Blanco’s moment of individual brilliance sparked a 3-2 road victory that helped the club reach its second-ever MLS Cup Final.

Three years later, Blanco delivered his latest playoff statement, scoring a second-half brace in the Timbers 3-1 win against Minnesota United to help his team advance to the Western Conference semifinals. 

“I think the entire team had a strong performance tonight, but there were those moments that we took that [Blanco] was able to find to take our quality to a higher level,” head coach Giovanni Savarese said. “He definitely brought the magic into the game to give us the edge that we needed.”

Blanco lives for those moments. Earlier in that 2018 playoff run, the Argentine scored a 78th-minute goal in Seattle, which proved crucial in sending the game to added time after Raúl Ruidíaz’s goal in the 93rd minute. In last season’s MLS is Back tournament, Blanco’s timely goals helped Portland win its most recent trophy. 

But not even a month after Portland beat Orlando City in the tournament final, Blanco tore his ACL. He couldn’t play in the Timbers’ home playoff match against FC Dallas, which they lost on penalties.  

In his return to playoff action, Blanco appeared a step slow right out of the gates. A few touches went awry, passes weren’t perfect and, at one point, he even skied a free kick from right outside the box. 

Blanco’s afternoon this past weekend seemed destined to be cut short, too, after a foul in the first half kept the midfielder on the turf and prompted the medical staff to come out onto the field with a stretcher. Blanco got up under his own power, however, and he finished the first half. Then, at halftime, Blanco reset. 

His first goal came in the 47th minute, when he put his laces through the ball on a half-volley that sped past the reaching arms of goalkeeper Dayne St. Clair. Those who paid close attention could observe visible pain on Blanco’s face as he grabbed his back amid the celebration. Still, he stayed in the game.

The Timbers game plan ahead of the match was to exploit space between the lines in Minnesota United’s formation. More specifically, Savarese wanted Blanco, Dairon Asprilla and Yimmi Chará to continue to push and play into space between the Loons midfield and defense. The most evident example of this came in Blanco’s second goal.

Reminiscent from his strike on that November night in Kansas City, Blanco took a few touches in those spaces between the lines before firing a shot from outside the box that swerved, hit the top-right post and deflected into the back of the net to give Portland a 3-1 lead. No Minnesota defender even attempted to close Blanco’s space down. 

The Argentine made his curtain call in the 88th minute, replaced by Santiago Moreno. As he walked off the field to a rapturous applause, Blanco took a moment to reflect.

“I worked a lot for this moment,” Blanco said. “It’s been a long time for me waiting for this.” 

While Blanco’s two second-half goals made the difference in the final scoreline, the Timbers’ win came down to more than their designated player firing on all cylinders in the second half. 

Portland wouldn’t have won without the 90-minute effort of Asprilla, who consistently turned “50-50” balls into “70-30” situations. His aggression to fight for loose balls and willingness to drive at Loons defenders allowed his team to build dangerous possession. If not for Minnesota defender Bakaye Dibassy’s perfectly timed foot placement, Asprilla could have finished the afternoon with a first-half goal. 

The Timbers eventually did equalize in the waning moments of the first half. Just minutes before his towering header tied the game at one, defender Larrys Mabiala attempted a bicycle kick that required a goal-line clearance. Throughout nearly a three-minute stretch, Portland fans grew louder in voice as their team mounted so much pressure that the Loons defense cracked. 

Mabiala played an outsized role in helping the Timbers shut down Minnesota United’s front four. Other than scoring the early goal, Minnesota United never felt as if it had a foothold in the game and a large part of that was because of the defense. In the team’s last four games, all wins, Portland has given up just two goals.

And, ahead of the defense, sat Christhian Paredes and Diego Chará, who both more than held their own, especially against the Loons talented designated player, Emanuel Reynoso. Paredes, especially, put fans on notice with his defending. A few of his challenges even sparked a threatening Timbers’ counterattack. 

“The energy and support that we received today was the extra energy for us to push forward, get the result and take care of business,” Savarese said.

When Portland went down a goal in the 11th minute Sunday afternoon, it would have been easy for them to fall victim to the moment and momentum, especially considering the opponent: Minnesota United has been the Timbers’ bogeyman over the years, with seven wins and just two losses against Savarese’s team before Sunday. 

“We’ve proven that we can win there,” Loons head coach Adrian Heath said shortly after his team made the postseason by virtue of Real Salt Lake beating Sporting Kansas City in the final moments of Decision Day.

In practices leading up to the game, Savarese and his staff stressed the importance of not allowing Minnesota to get in behind the fullbacks and get a cross off — but that’s how they found the opening goal. 

The goal came through Franco Fragapane, who tapped in a squared ball from Romain Métanaire after the winger raced into the space vacated by outside back Claudio Bravo. Loon players celebrated like a team that knew how one-sided the matches between the two clubs have been. They may have even let their foot off the gas — because after that goal, Minnesota United didn’t generate many other chances.

Portland could have easily allowed the deficit to snowball; something they’ve done in some of their more lopsided defeats back in the summer. Instead, they scored three unanswered goals. 

“There was no pressure, there was only the disappointment that we allowed them in the only attack that they had to be able to score,” Savarese said. “But we knew that we were going to fight through that, and we needed to play our match.”

Added Blanco: “We started losing the game, and after that we played very mature. We created many chances and after we scored the second goal, we were still playing with the same intensity.”

What’s next for the Timbers? They travel to Colorado for a Western Conference semifinal matchup against the Rapids at 1:30 p.m. on Thanksgiving day. 

“They have a very, very good team at home,” Blanco said. “They’re very strong and we have only four days to prepare for that game. We focus now on the game and try to rest at home before tomorrow getting ready for the next game.”

So as the final whistle sounded on the Timbers’ win and children and family poured out onto the Providence Park field, there was an understandable sense of jubilation as players breathed a sigh of relief. 

The Loons may well continue to have Portland’s number going forward. It still says something that before Sunday night, their last defeat to the Timbers came in April 2018. But in the first game between the two clubs with actual stakes attached to it, the Timbers took care of business to keep their season alive.

“We’ve never beat Minnesota in the last two years,” Blanco said. “But playoff games are different than the regular season.”

Categories
Soccer Timbers

Blanco Show Sends Timbers to Colorado

Blanco celebrates. Photo by Kris Lattimore.

It was apparent from the very early stages of Sunday afternoon that Sebastian Blanco was going to have an outsize impact on the Portland Timbers’ 2021 playoff opener.

In the end, we got the full Blanco experience. He blasted a clean look inside the box and a free kick just outside of it towards the south end scoreboard in the first half. He was booked for a brutal late challenge on Franco Fragapane. He hurt his back at the end of the half and limped off the side of the field with the stretcher poised.

Santiago Moreno warmed up on the field during the intermission after Blanco limped to the locker room, but when the bell tolled, the Argentine was right back out there — and two minutes later, his expertly-taken goal had lifted the Timbers into the lead for good.

For years now, despite his advancing age and despite the catastrophic knee injury that sidelined him for nearly 12 months, there have been precious few players in MLS so impossible to defend, so capable of single-handedly deciding games. We saw it in 2018, when Blanco scored jaw-dropping goals to help carry the Timbers past the Sounders in Seattle and Sporting KC in Kansas. And we might just be seeing it this year two — Blanco Superman-ing a good if not great Timbers team into a memorable playoff run.

It was obvious on Sunday afternoon, as it has been all season, how the Timbers feed on Blanco’s energy. By the end of the day, it was his two goals and his spitfire, no holds barred, relentlessness that Minnesota United couldn’t match.

The Timbers came from behind on Sunday afternoon at Providence Park to dump the Loons out of the postseason 3-1 and book a Thanksgiving Day showdown with the first seed Rapids in Colorado. If they survive and advance on Thursday, it will no doubt be due to a player signed as a complimentary piece who has long since taken the mantle as the Timbers’ primary, irreplaceable instigator.

The regular season numbers were crystal clear: the Timbers averaged 1.9 points-per-game with Blanco in the lineup, and just 0.9 without him. Without Blanco’s inspiration, Sunday’s first round match against Minnesota — the postseason match in front of fans at Providence Park in three years — could have gone very differently.

Minnesota arrived in Portland on the back of a challenging, uneven year in which they very rarely resembled the swashbuckling side that so nearly advanced to MLS Cup last season.

But Adrian Heath’s team entered the playoffs with no small measure of confidence regardless. With a veteran group of players, and a sterling recent record against the Timbers, regular season behind them, perhaps this would be the moment this year’s Loons stepped into their own.

It started well enough. After absorbing an early spell of Portland pressure, Minnesota broke forward with a sumptuously smooth move back-to-front move and took the lead. Old Timbers enemy Osvaldo Alonso picked the ball up deep in the Loons half and broke the Timbers’ midfield line with a forward pass for Emanuel Reynoso. The Argentinian playmaker got the ball wide to Robin Lod, who easily cut inside of Claudio Bravo and hit Romain Métanire on the overlap. Fragapane arrived unmarked on the back post to turn in Métanire’s cross, and it was 1-0.

As lovely a team goal as it was from Minnesota, it was a reminder of all that has gone wrong all season for Portland defensively: they allowed the Loons to play through their midfield with astounding ease, their fullbacks were both caught out, and the result was a tap in.

That Fragapane, who was accused of racially abusing Diego Chará on his last visit to Portland over the summer, was the player to finish the move was an especially bitter pill to swallow.

But unlike earlier in the year, the concession didn’t knock the Timbers off course. Instead, they continued to buzz and press forward — playing with the clear confidence of a team that finished the regular season as the hottest in MLS. It was a sign of things to come. Minnesota was up a goal, but was increasingly struggling to break the Timbers’ pressure and possess the ball. It felt like a matter of time before the one of the Timbers’ energetic front four broke through.

In the end, though, it wasn’t one of the front four who hauled Portland level — it was center back Larrys Mabiala, who first had a spectacular bicycle kick attempt cleared off the line from a free kick, and then, minutes later, sent a towering header from a short corner past Minnesota’s backup goalkeeper Dwayne St. Clair to tie the game.

Blanco went down injured shortly thereafter. But just following the restart, he made his biggest contribution yet. Chase Gasper and Bakaye Dibassy got crossed up trying to deal with a deep Claudio Bravo cross, and Blanco smashed the resulting half-clearance on the volley past St. Clair. He wheeled away in celebration clutching his back, likely in pain, but also perhaps making clear that even when hobbled, he was the most dangerous player on the field.

It was a hammer blow. Minnesota simply didn’t have the gear required to match the Timbers’ attacking intensity and movement, and as their own attacking players failed to get in rhythm, they became increasingly frustrated and impotent.

The game state had turned; now the Timbers, with all that pace, would have the opportunity to sit back and break forward at a Minnesota back six not blessed with any great amount of speed.

After 20 minutes, the Timbers’ third goal came from very little. Blanco picked up the ball from Felipe Mora some 25 yards from goal, took two steps forward, and smashed it in again off the inside of the post and into the back of the net.

The Loons were still up for a fight — they finished the match with six players having received yellow cards and the ill-tempered Fragapane lucky in the waning minutes to escape without a red — but they couldn’t hang with their hosts. Heath now has the offseason to figure out with his front office how to rejuvenate this Minnesota team.

The Timbers, as it turned out, didn’t need an offseason. Blanco’s return and a few tactical adjustments brought this team roaring back to life after its summer swoon.

It’s not just Blanco. Dairon Asprilla was a menace. Yimmi Chara was similarly active. Despite their ongoing defensively shortcomings, the fullbacks got forward effectively. And Mabiala, another old campaigner, came up with a signature moment in his very fine Timbers career.

A trip to the altitude of Dick’s Sporting Goods Park on short rest will be a stiffer test than this ultimately was. But you wouldn’t comfortably bet against the Timbers right now — not in the kind of form they’re in, and certainly not with the player they have leading the way.

Categories
Soccer Timbers

Timbers Face Minnesota as MLS Postseason Gets Underway

Minnesota United beat the Timbers in Portland in June. Photo by Matthew Wolfe.

The Portland Timbers’ up-and-down odyssey of a 2021 will be largely defined on the field on Sunday and in the weeks to follow, as the club begins its playoff journey with a match against Minnesota United.

This marks the Timbers’ club-record fifth straight playoff appearance and fourth straight under the management of Giovani Savarese—an accomplishment that Caleb Porter never came close to achieving during his time with the club.

But where Porter’s best teams more often than not made a substantial amount of noise in the playoffs, Savarese’s Timbers, have not won a playoff game since the second leg of the 2018 Western Conference final in Kansas City. They lost in the first round of the 2019 playoffs to Real Salt Lake and were defeated in last year’s opening round on penalties by Dallas in a vacant Providence Park.

This year, expectations are higher. The Timbers enter the playoffs on a roll, having won three straight games by multiple goals and averaging more than 2.2 points-per-game over the final two-and-a-half months of the season.

By going back to a tried-and-true formula—sitting compact defensively and pressing forward with tenacity—the Timbers closed as one of the league’s hottest teams.

The result was an ultimately comfortable fourth place finish in the West and hosting rights for this year’s first round playoff matchup with Minnesota United, with the Colorado Rapids waiting for the winner in Commerce City on Thanksgiving Day.

The Timbers aren’t an appealing matchup for anyone right now. But despite their outstanding form, this match against Minnesota may be a battle.

Adrian Heath’s Loons came within a game of reaching the MLS Cup last year, returned a substantial amount of playoff experience, and have one of the league’s finest playmakers in Argentine Emanuel Reynoso.

They also have a tremendous record against the Timbers in recent years. Most recently, the Loons beat Portland twice over the summer, once at Providence Park on a scorching June day and then again in St. Paul in July.

Of course, those two games came during one of the Timbers’ poorest stretches of the season, when Sebastian Blanco was not yet playing significant minutes and Jeremy Ebobisse was still the club’s starting center forward.

Much has changed since then. It feels like this will be a contest to see whether the Timbers’ high-powered attack can overwhelm Minnesota’s defense—or whether the Timbers’ defense, the second-poorest of any playoff team in either conference, will be exposed on the playoff stage.

Elsewhere in the West…

The winner of the game in Portland will face the shock Western Conference winners from Colorado on Thanksgiving.

On the other side of the bracket, Seattle hosts Real Salt Lake in a matchup that will see RSL face their former manager, Freddy Juarez, who walked off the job in the middle of the season to become an assistant with the Sounders.

RSL closed the season in chaotic fashion under interim manager Pablo Mastroeni, losing two straight games before sneaking into the playoffs thanks to a dramatic stoppage time winner from Damir Kreilach in Kansas City.

The Sounders, who are among the favorites to reach and win MLS Cup again, are getting healthy. Raúl Ruidíaz and Nicolás Lodeiro are back in the fold, and Jordan Morris, who tore his ACL last winter, played 45 minutes in the club’s regular season finale—and should play a significant role in the club’s postseason run.

Sporting Kansas City hosts the Vancouver Whitecaps in the other game on that side of the bracket, with the Whitecaps having become one of the stories of the season under their own colorful interim manager Vanni Sartini.

Sporting, like Seattle, was a juggernaut all year, playing excellent, clean Peter Vermes soccer and leading the conference in goals scored. But Sporting has also had a mostly appalling playoff record since their MLS Cup triumph in 2013, and a fair bit of that failure has come at home.

Seattle and Sporting are heavy favorites to advance, and if the Timbers join the Rapids on the other side of the bracket, it will be the West’s four best teams standing in the conference semifinals. But this being MLS, it’s dangerous to pencil those matchups in too soon.

And in the East…

The Supporters’ Shield-winning and record-setting New England Revolution lie in wait for the winner of New York City FC and Atlanta United at Yankee Stadium, with the road team in slightly better form after their horrific start to the season.

Atlanta has a manager who experienced plenty of playoff success as a player and assistant coach in Seattle in Gonzalo Pineda, while NYC boss Ronny Delia’s only prior playoff experience came last year when his team was defeated on penalties by Orlando in its first game. Delia’s team is dealing with a pair of significant injuries, while Atlanta is healthy.

But NYCFC has a significant home field advantage due to the oddities of playing at a baseball stadium, and they play more cohesive soccer than Atlanta has at any point this year. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

On the other side of the bracket, Nashville hosts Orlando.

The Lions, as has been their wont in recent years, are sputtering down the stretch.

Orlando has a few match winners, namely Nani, who hasn’t played in weeks and should be well-rested, but Nashville is as solid as any team in the league: consistent, strong defensively, and nearly impossible to beat at home.

The winner of that game will get the winner of an all-Northeast matchup in Chester between the Philadelphia Union and New York Red Bulls.

The Union, one of the stories of last year, quietly put together a very nice second half and enter the playoffs as one of the teams to beat in the East.

But their second half was not nearly the surprise that the Red Bulls’ was. Gerhard Struber’s team was given up for dead over the summer, sitting near the bottom of the Eastern Conference and playing rather miserable soccer in front of paltry crowds. They turned it around, though, high pressing with aplomb and stringing together 1-0 wins.

It remains to be seen whether the Red Bulls have the quality required to compete in the playoffs, but it is remarkable that they are here at all.

All the drama starts Saturday—the final act of a season unlike any other in MLS history.

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Some Thoughts on Endings

Credit: Matthew Wolfe

TW mention of suicide

Watching the Portland Thorns and Chicago Red Stars semi-final alone in my dorm room in Los Angeles, I felt numb. From the kickoff, something was off in the final third. The Thorns weren’t themselves. They seemed to be getting inside their own heads and psyching themselves out. While the stats showed the Thorns absolutely raining shots down on Chicago’s goal—21 to Chicago’s five—none of them were particularly threatening. It didn’t feel like the Thorns deserved to score. 

I wasn’t “having an okay time” seeing the team struggle on the field. They weren’t fighting for the ball as if their season depended on it, which it did. Maybe it was Lindsey Horan’s sudden freak injury or Crystal Dunn’s pregnancy announcement, but the personnel on the pitch seemed as though they had hardly played together. 

The Thorns haven’t had the best run of play leading into the playoffs; despite winning the shield, they won only three of their last 11 games. Ever since Paul Riley’s predatory behavior was made public, there has been a weight on the league that won’t lift. In the postgame, Emily Menges said that the team has done a great job of leaving these traumas off the pitch and focusing on soccer when they’re playing. I have to take her word for it, since I’m not in the locker room. However, I can’t help but think of the extreme mental toll that’s been taken on the players. 

Trauma and abuse as severe as what the players in the league have been through forges intense bonds between people. The foundation for that bonding was already in place. The Thorns have praised their team chemistry and culture throughout the season, saying that they are a team unlike they have been in the past and that they truly believe in one another.

But Menges and Christine Sinclair were on the team back in 2015, too. Having to relive terrible experiences while simultaneously working your job at a place that is entwined with toxicity is impossible for me to imagine, yet these players have done it.

They end the 2021 NWSL season with three of four trophies, which is an incredible feat they should be proud of. 

And yet, I think all these players need a long break. I’m not saying that it’s great that their season was cut short and that they are off now, but from the outside, it’s a bit of a relief. 

I’ve been through my own mental health struggles, which I wrote about for my school newspaper. I played soccer for 12 years at the club and high school levels, but had to quit due to the incredible pressure placed on me by my coaches and the toxic atmosphere my teammates created. Watching the game on Sunday, I couldn’t help but worry that this heavy NWSL season would turn players away from the league—or even from the sport they love altogether. I don’t want to make assumptions about what the players are going through, but I can’t help thinking about it in the context of my own experiences. 

After Chicago scored their second goal and the ref made several bad non-calls, the numbness overtook me. One aspect of the broadcast that particularly got to me was the repeated replays of the goals scored against Bella Bixby. Having only jumped up to first keeper midway through the season, the semifinal was her NWSL playoff debut. The Thorns’ playoff hopes rested on her shoulders. She was visibly frustrated after both goals, and the commentators talked about her reaction as the film looped. The broadcast even lingered on her after goal kicks, as if to implicitly blame her for the scoreline. As soon as the final whistle blew, the camera panned to Bixby, who was overcome with emotion. The camera stayed on her face far too long, and I, too, started to cry. 

Midway through Mark Parsons’s final media call as head coach of the Thorns, Bixby announced on Twitter that her father had died by suicide earlier that week. The rest of the world fell away as I read that. I barely registered another word that Parsons said. I knew exactly what Bixby was going through, and I couldn’t believe that she had just managed to play the most important game of her career. 

When I was 16, one of my close friends died by suicide, and I couldn’t do anything for weeks. Still, five years later, it’s hard for me to do things we used to do together. I can’t listen to Taylor Swift or have a picnic where we only eat veggie straws or see our horse, Willow, without crying. The mental strength it took for Bixby to go to work, to compete at the highest level, is something I cannot imagine, and I am so unbelievably impressed. It also made me more angry at the ways the broadcast fixated on her emotions. No matter the reason behind the sadness or emotions, they’re not for broadcasts or journalists to turn into content. 

When I lost my friend, I hated how people asked my mom, “oh, how is Jaiden doing?” for weeks. It never felt like genuine concern, just morbid curiosity. Like I was a museum piece.

I’m sad for the team, and how their season ended. There will not be a Thorns team like them again, with Parsons leaving and a roster shakeup inevitable with a double expansion draft next month. I’ll be sad to see people go, but I also know that the culture and community that the team has worked hard to create will inevitably be broken up. Losing that sense of safety and community so suddenly is hard to deal with.

Even with the team splintering off in the off-season, I hope they are still able to lean on one another as results of investigations are revealed. I particularly hope that Bella Bixby has people to support her. Having a group of people you can lean on no questions asked is one of the best tools for grieving. 

I don’t have much to say about the soccer played in that semifinal. But I do know that when you lose someone to suicide, it feels like the earth has stopped spinning.

If you suspect someone is suffering from suicidal thoughts or ideations, ask them about it point-blank. It’s uncomfortable, but it’s so much worse to regret that you didn’t ask. People who are suicidal feel as though they have no one to talk to. Showing them you’re the person they can talk to might save their life.

Categories
Soccer Thorns

That’s How it Goes in Soccer, Sometimes

Photo by Matt Wolfe

The Thorns fell to the Chicago Red Stars 2–0 in their semifinal match at Providence Park on Sunday. Despite both teams taking a major last-minute scratch—Lindsey Horan sat out the match after suffering an injury the day before, and Chicago was without Mallory Pugh due to COVID-19 protocol—the Red Stars were able to execute their game plan, and the Thorns saw yet another match where they struggled to put the ball in the back of the net.

It was a rough game in that the Thorns kind of knew what Chicago was going to do in advance—if not the exact game plan, at least some of what they’d be coming up against—but they weren’t able to do enough to actually counteract that strategy.

“Our last match against Chicago, I thought they did a really good job of keeping us to one side,” Becky Sauerbrunn said in a press conference ahead of the semifinal game. “They kind of invited us to play to one side of the field and then really committed numbers and kept us over there, and it was difficult to switch the play. So for us, it’s identifying open players, it’s identifying the space that we can capitalize on and how we can get the ball there. I think if we can do that we can do that successfully and relatively risk-free, that will really help us in our build up.”

And Chicago did the same thing this time around.

“They’ve turned up into probably the hardest place to play against probably the hardest team to play,” Mark Parsons said of Chicago’s semifinal performance. “Very stingy, very disciplined, very organized performance, and they’ve got a great result.”

The Red Stars applied pressure early, cutting off spaces and staying touch-tight on Sophia Smith. For their part, the Thorns saw some success when they were able to break up a Chicago attack, switch the ball, and counter up the other side of the field, but the Red Stars were able to limit the moments where that happened from early on.

“Chicago did a really good job of keeping a lot of people in their box,” Emily Menges said after the game, “and it was really hard to get anything clean off.”

It’s not that the Thorns were bad—they generated a fair number of chances and managed to play out of Chicago’s press enough to get a couple really solid looks on goal—but, even as they found more chances, they did do the thing they’ve been doing all year where they shoot a lot and don’t have all that much to show for it. Despite a 21–5 shot line and an xG total that played heavily in their favor, the Thorns just weren’t able to find the back of the net.

But beyond the stat lines, it wasn’t a game that felt good. Kealia Watt was subbed off for Chicago after she went down a little before the 30-minute mark, and goalkeeper Cassie Miller went down a couple minutes after that.

And then there was the Red Stars’ first goal: an (admittedly very good) shot from Katie Johnson that deflected weirdly off Bella Bixby’s hand and inside the near post in the 37th minute. And then Chicago struck again when Morgan Gautrat found an open Sarah Woldmoe outside of Portland’s box, and Woldmoe snuck her shot from distance past the Thorns’ defense and inside the near post.

Again, it wasn’t that Portland were bad in the closing 30 minutes of the game, but they weren’t able to do enough to win back either of the goals or to prevent the game from ending in a 2–0 loss and Chicago moving onto the final.

“The ball didn’t bounce for us in the 18 tonight,” Christine Sinclair said after the match. “We created a lot of half chances, a lot of crosses, but we just weren’t on the end of them.”

That’s how it goes in soccer, sometimes.

It’s a tough note to go out on, especially with Parsons set to leave for the Netherlands and the inevitable roster shakeup that comes with two expansion drafts and a new head coach, especially after the fallout of the front office covering up Paul Riley’s abuse, especially with Bixby playing through her dad’s passing just days before—and especially when the Thorns had set out to win everything this season and ended up falling just short.

Categories
Soccer Thorns

A Little Worse for Wear, the Thorns Are Finally over the Finish Line

Photo by Matt Wolfe.

What strange times we’ve all lived through.

The end of this Thorns season—only the second-weirdest NWSL season because 2020 happened—came with a shrug last night, somehow sudden despite being the latest-ever closing weekend in the league’s nine-year history. If we had visions of the Thorns thundering down the stretch in Mark Parsons’s last year in Portland, growing in power until they peaked in the playoffs and won the last and biggest trophy left to win, well. They could still peak in the playoffs. They could certainly still win the big trophy. But things haven’t gone quite like that.

The season ender was, above all, weird. I’d been expecting a win; North Carolina have not been good (and weren’t good last night), and the possibility of the first decent home crowd in more than two months seemed to bode well, motivation-wise. Instead, the Thorns did more of their weird thing that they do, their frustrating thing where they look like the dominant side for most of the game, string together some beautiful attacking sequences, look like they generally have the right idea, and never manage to put the ball in the back of the net.

With that said, let’s look at how the Thorns approached NC. This team talks a lot about how they deploy the same formation against every opponent, but they do make smaller-scale tweaks against specific teams. Against the Courage last night, rather than pressing one forward and having the other available to combine or receive a through pass if the first forward won the ball, they used the non-pressing forward to mark NC’s strong-side outside back.

They also pressed the back line less than they generally do, period. Here’s a shot of the Courage defense getting lots of time on the ball, with the Thorns’ attackers gently encouraging them to keep to one side of the field but otherwise not interfering. Sophia Smith is loosely marking NC left back Carson Pickett in the bottom left of the image.

A screenshot showing North Carolina's half of the field as the Thorns defend. Carolina CB Abby Erceg has the ball and is being given lots of space, with the Thorns not pressing the back line at all. Both Carolina full backs are pushed well forward. Sophia Smith is hovering by left back Carson Pickett near the halfway line.

At first, this seems almost backwards. Generally speaking, offenses try to make their shape as big as possible, while a team in its defensive phase tries to shrink the available space. But here, as Mark Parsons explained after the game, the Thorns wanted to let the Courage spread out like this. “When their backline has time on the ball,” he said, “they get bigger, and when you win it, you have a lot of space to exploit, which you saw, I think, multiple times through the first half.”

As you can see in the screenshot above, both Pickett and Merritt Mathias, the NC right back, are pushed well up the field. Abby Erceg is taking her time on the ball, scanning the field for a pass. Eventually, she passed to Denise O’Sullivan in the center of the field, who was immediately forced to go back to Erceg under aggressive pressure from Angela Salem, bringing us to the moment below:

Here the Thorns have succeeded in confining Erceg to a little pocket on the left flank. She can’t pass to Pickett, who Smith is still covering. She could go back to O’Sullivan, but Salem is ready to pounce if she does so. She can either hit one over the top toward Jessica McDonald and Lynn Williams, or she can try to find a pass through the Thorns’ midfield line to Debinha, who’s hovering behind Yazmeen Ryan in this shot.

Ultimately, she chooses the second option, which brings us to the defensive advantage of Portland dropping one forward at a time back to mark an attacking fullback. “You look at McDonald and Williams, their biggest threat is in behind,” Parsons said. Marking one outside back with a forward lets all four defenders stay home, narrowing the channels Williams and McDonald have to get in behind.

There’s a second piece, too: “We wanted to make sure that that space wasn’t there, but they get there through their 10s.” Keeping four defenders home frees up one of them to step to the Courage No. 10s, Debinha and Amy Rodriguez, which is exactly what happened here. As soon as Erceg passed to Debinha, Kelli Hubly was in motion, springing forward to whack the ball into outer space.

Ideally, instead of a whack, they’d make a long pass into all that space created by the Thorns’ permissive pressing strategy, and Morgan Weaver or Christine Sinclair would burst through and have an easy chance on goal. That almost happened a few times, but, as Parsons said, the team ultimately “didn’t quite take advantage of those counter attacks.”

But: having already clinched the Supporters Shield, the Thorns didn’t need to win this game, which was perhaps what dictated the vibe as the game went on. After a handful of good chances in the first half, including some beautiful combinations between Portland’s attacking corps, the second half was a bit of a slog. The Thorns only posted five shots (compared to 14 in the first half), with just one on goal.

The Courage, meanwhile, were fighting to avoid elimination from the playoffs and played increasingly desperate as time marched on. It was a strange sight. Much of the individual brilliance the Courage have always had was still there, with Debinha and A-Rod both making some eye-popping, if useless, solo plays, but the machine broke down a long time ago. These days, we’re all just trying to get by.

As for the Thorns’ fate in the weeks to come: they get a bye in the first round of the playoffs, courtesy of the Shield. In the semifinal, they’ll play the winner of next weekend’s Chicago-Gotham matchup. I think it’s likely they beat either of those teams and make it to the final, but after that, it’s anyone’s game.

I genuinely don’t know what to make of Portland’s form right now. Last night after the whistle, the defense gathered for a group hug, celebrating their 13th regular-season shutout, which is a new league record. The team  was all smiles as they climbed the stairs to greet the fans and learn the winner of the Riveters Player of the Year, who—very deservedly—was Angela Salem.

They’re a good soccer team, broadly speaking. The best in the league, you might argue! It seems cruel at this point, after everything they’ve been through, to pick nits about the defense getting a little lucky a few times last night, or to ask whether the team is having a scoring issue. Parsons spoke about the need to keep improving heading into the semifinal, and he’s right. Hopefully Lindsey Horan, Crystal Dunn, and Rocky Rodríguez are all fully healthy by then, too, which will help.

As ever, the emphasis postgame was on togetherness. The last two years have been brutal for everyone in this league, and it’s hard not to assume that the last month in particular derailed the Thorns’ hoped-for late-season progression curve. But pain can lead to growth, too, and if the team is as happy to have made it this far as they seem to be, maybe that’s enough.

“This is a special group,” Kling said postgame. “It’s a real family. We’ve been through a lot this year—hard times—whether it’s health, COVID, the abuse scandals that have happened, and I think we’ve used all of these things to come together and to talk about it and to get stronger.”

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Still a Top Pro, Angela Salem Works Toward a Coaching License

Photo by Nikita Taparia
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