On a scary and chaotic Saturday night in Portland, with far-right demonstrators terrorizing the city, the Portland Timbers played a soccer game.
Someone was shot to death in downtown Portland while the game was being played.
It was horrifying and absolutely everyone saw it coming.
I still wrote about what happened in the game, because I didn’t know what else to do. You can find that below.
It was an exciting, disappointing game that ended 4–4 among feelings of worry and numbness at the violence being carried out on the streets of Portland.
From the opening whistle, the Timbers pressed RSL high up the pitch. Nipping at the heels of Real, the Timbers saw immediate results, turning over RSL multiple times in the attacking end in the first five minutes of the match.
That high pressure paid off in the seventh minute when the Timbers opened the scoring after a turnover in the RSL box. As the visitors tried to play the ball short off a goal kick, the Timbers swarmed them. After three short passes between keeper Andrew Putna and his defenders failed to get the ball clear, it was Diego Chara who snuck past midfielder Pablo Ruiz and was clear in on goal. Putna charged forward, but Chara took a quick touch around him and calmly rolled the ball into the now-open net.
The goal served as a clear wake-up call for the visitor as RSL worked the ball forward into the Timbers’ end and refused to leave, sending ball after ball into the Timbers box and foiling their attempts to break out.
A handful of chances later RSL found their equalizer. Off a free kick in the attacking end, RSL sent a ball into the Timbers box that found Nedum Onuoha at the back post. The Real center back sent a headed ball back across the face of goal where it was knocked down in front of winger Corey Baird. With the Timbers defense still scrambling, Baird only had to slot it home from close range to even up the score at 1–1 in the 19th minute.
The Timbers answered immediately. Just two minutes later, the Timbers took the ball down the pitch and won a corner kick. Diego Valeri served a curling ball into the box off the restart, finding the head of Jaroslaw Niezgoda as he separated from his marker and made solid contact. Niezgoda’s header flew toward goal and skipped off the head of RSL midfielder Maikel Chang, taking it over the diving form of Putna and into the goal to restore the Timbers lead.
With the Timbers back in front, the game settled into a more familiar pattern: the Timbers sat back, presenting a strong defensive block, and dared RSL to come at them. RSL obliged, but were unable to assert themselves in the same way as they did after the first Timbers goal, leaving openings for the Timbers to break out and counter.
Shortly after the half, RSL equalized again. Off a corner kick in the 48th minute, Chang flicked the ball on, sending it arching up into the air and dropping at the back post where Damir Kreilach was alone in space. As the ball fell in front of him, Kreilach took its measure and struck it on the volley, giving Steve Clark no chance at the save as he finished from close range.
After a back and forth battle through most of the second half, Sebastian Blanco stepped up with a moment of magic to retake the lead. In the 70th minute, Chara won the ball in the Timbers half then immediately looked upfield and picked out Blanco on the right with a pass into space. Carrying the ball forward, Blanco drove toward the RSL box, cut toward the center of the pitch, and hit a curling shot on goal. Despite a heroic dive from Putna, Blanco’s ball was placed perfectly and nestled into the back of the net, giving the Timbers a 3–2 lead.
In the 85th minute, the Timbers got their insurance goal. Moments after a shot from Onuoha pinged off the Timbers’ post and was snatched off the goal line by Clark, the Timbers broke down the pitch. A throw from Clark found Blanco with enough space to look up and pick out a bursting run from Felipe Mora through the center of the pitch and into the attacking end. As Mora continued his run, Blanco hit a perfectly placed pass forward that skipped just out of reach of a defender and found its intended recipient. Mora collected the ball on the run, hesitated inside the box, and coolly finished past Putna.
The insurance goal, it turned out, was not enough to secure all three points for the Timbers as RSL stormed forward and the Timbers wilted under pressure.
First, in the 90th minute, the visitors found Gioseppi Rossie in the box with his back to goal. The RSL sub took a smooth touch to settle the ball, turned, and—the Timbers defense scrambling to recover—slotted a close-in shot past Clark.
Then, in the fifth minute of stoppage time, Baird took off on a juking run through the Timbers defense, dribbling around a pair of defenders before touching a short pass forward to the feet of Sam Johnson. Once again the RSL player was able to turn and shoot from point-blank range and once again Clark had no chance at the save as RSL pulled even in the final seconds of the match.
Aug 11, 2020; Orlando, FL, Orlando, FL, USA; Portland Timbers defender Dario Zuparic (13) celebrates after defeating Orlando City at ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex. Mandatory Credit: Douglas DeFelice-USA TODAY Sports
After more than a month away from home the Portland Timbers have emerged from the MLS is Back Tournament undefeated, taking down Orlando City SC 2-1 in the tournament final and booking their spot in the 2021 CONCACAF Champions League.
After a narrow escape against FC Cincinnati on Tuesday, the Portland Timbers looked set for another nail-biting match in the MLS is Back Tournament quarterfinals after going down 1-0 early.
It looked like the Timbers were well on their way to a 1-0 win over a bunkered in FC Cincinnati side Tuesday evening when, out of nowhere, goalkeeper Steve Clark made things interesting…
Match after match, the Portland Timbers continue to impress.
Two games in, and it seems as if there’s something new and more creative to take away from each game—something that we did not see back in March.
Against the Los Angeles Galaxy, we saw an increased sense of confidence throughout the team that manifested itself through the team’s combination play and intricate movement. In its game against Houston, we saw a team both creating and exploiting space all around the field, playing long balls with a purpose to unlock the Dynamo defense while shutting down one of Major League Soccer’s most potent attacks.
Portland did it again on Thursday night, coming in with a disciplined and compact defensive shape that managed to contain what is usually a LAFC buzzsaw to win Group F.
I don’t have much to say to open this column other than just to mention how impressive this Portland team has been over three games. The shape that the Timbers played last night required a lot of discipline (which I will go into later). I mentioned on Twitter than containing LAFC for 90 minutes is a Herculean effort––both the Dynamo and Galaxy learned that over the past week––and Portland looked defensively solid for more than 75 percent of the game. I guess what I am saying is that the Timbers look primed to make a run in this tournament and that my outlook on the team is a lot brighter than what it was when I left Providence Park back in March.
And … I guess I should mention that I had to put my bonfire-building supplies away late into the match. It’s time for the Timbers to get revenge for what was an embarrassing defeat a season ago.
Goals
7′ – Jaroslaw niezgoda
The Timbers got out to a dream start against LAFC, striking first in the seventh minute.
Taking advantage of LAFC’s aggression, Portland found success in testing the opposing backline early and often. Thanks to ESPN’s aerial cam, it’s easy to see what went into Niezgoda’s opening goal, the Pole’s first as a Timber.
During this transitional moment, Portland creates a mini-overload on the right side of the field. During this, Niezgoda is sitting between the right center back and right back, waiting to pounce. The overload pulls Tristan Blackmon towards the sideline while Latif Blessing, the right back, is caught cheating a little too far up the field. This leaves Niezgoda with yards of space to run into, and he makes the finish look easy.
Conceding first is not a new trend for Bob Bradley’s men: They did it against both the Houston Dynamo and LA Galaxy. This may be looked back upon as an easy finish, but the goal proved vital for the Timbers, allowing them to weather 15 minutes of LAFC brilliance and come away with a point at the end of the game.
36′ – Bradley wright-phillips
Yes, Bradley Wright-Phillips is not the same lethal player that carried the New York Red Bulls on his shoulders for what seems like a decade, but he is still one of the most dangerous strikers in MLS—and he proved it yet again on Thursday night.
This goal comes down to movement. Wright-Phillips sees the right side of defense pushed high and immediately makes a looping run to find that space while losing his defender, Bill Tuiloma, in the process.
Thanks to the space that his movement created, when Wright-Phillips receives the ball, he has a few touches to settle it before firing it past Clark. This is a clinical, outside-the-box finish from the Englishman, proving that age is just a number.
40′ – mark-anthony kaye
In his post-game media availability, head coach, Giovanni Savarese, mentioned the tired legs that his team was playing with near the end of the first half. That can easily be seen in the second goal the Timbers gave up in the course of four minutes.
Honestly, there is not too much to this goal. It’s just poor marking at the back post by Bill Tuiloma as Kaye gets by him with a quick spin move. Kudos to the Canadian for the good finish, because there’s nothing that Clark could really do there.
81′ – Jeremy ebobisse
In a tournament with so many young players breaking out for their respective teams, Jeremy Ebobisse’s star may shine among the brightest.
For the third-consecutive game, Ebobisse found the back of the net for Portland, this time rising up and sending a towering header past Sisniega.
This is just pure grit from some of the Timbers tallest players. In a way, Tuiloma makes up for his role in the two LAFC goals as he finds the energy to rise up and win this ball in a crowded box. After a missed half-chance minutes earlier, Ebobisse makes no mistake this time as he powered the ball to the bottom right corner.
Ebobisse is making a name for himself so far this tournament. You have to think that US Men’s National Team coach, Gregg Berhalter, is watching every game in the bubble with a close eye and Ebobisse is commanding his attention.
Tactical Thoughts
compact setup and discipline key to result
One of my biggest takeaways from this match is the defense shape that the Timbers played in. It was a narrow 4-4-2, both horizontally and vertically, that allowed space out wide, but prevented any penetration from a LAFC lineup that knows how to exploit even a sliver of space. Playing with such a compact shape for 90 minutes against one of the league’s best sides requires insane amounts of focus and discipline. Give or take a few moments, the Timbers looked relatively drilled in this setup.
The 4-4-2 did its job for a majority of the game. As seen above, LAFC was content to pass it backwards and around the block. To exploit this system, the ball needs to be played quickly between the lines with a purpose. Because LAFC played more of a probing style early on in the game, players were able to step up and win balls in both defense and midfield. According to Opta, the Timbers made 40 CLEARANCES(!!!) over the course of the game compared to LAFC’s eight.
Below, I’m going to insert a couple of examples of what the Timbers want to do. It’s a lot of last-ditch tackling that happened time and time again throughout the game.
In this clip, the midfield does a good job of stepping up and preventing LAFC to get the ball in a dangerous, central area.
Here, the defense does a great job to cut this pass off as LAFC looks to make a direct pass towards the top of the box.
This third example is what happens when you have a defensive midfield of Diego Chará and Cristhian Paredes. Portland wanted to ensure that if LAFC tried to play centrally, they would be punished. And it worked.
defend, defend, and defend some more
There’s so much that I wanted to touch on when it comes to the defense side of the ball that I thought I should separate it into two different sections.
The defensive shape that Portland used was a very compact 4-4-2. How it defended was in a mid-block.
By playing this way, the Timbers invited LAFC to towards midfield before applying pressure. The goal of this is to create space in behind LAFC’s backline, and then take advantage of the aggression to create opportunities by running into this now-vacated area.
The Timbers were relatively successful early on but, from the 30th minute until halftime, players started to get tired, and they stopped playing into the space that they created after winning the ball. This allowed LAFC to implement a counter man-marking system, which continued to win the ball high up the field, effectively trapping Portland in its own half.
“I think what was difficult today was when we lost the ball so quickly,” Diego Chará said after the game. “When we recovered the ball, we tried to play forward, but we missed a lot of passes, and I think that made it more difficult for us to keep the ball.”
All of this is evident in the graphics below.
Courtesy of OptaCourtesy of Opta
Look at where Portland defends versus where LAFC defends. Portland is playing a dangerous game of bend-but-don’t-break soccer, mostly in its own half, while LAFC is constantly trying to play on the front foot.
I can throw so many more graphics and stats such as the ones above in the article, but I don’t need to. The Timbers put on a defensive masterclass on Thursday night. Sure, it wasn’t perfect, but it’s the type of shape that every team that wants to make a deep run into a tournament needs. It’s important to remember that LAFC can exploit any defensive system and, if the Timbers could look like this defensively every game, they could go quite far in Orlando.
“The first thirty minutes we had the better of the play. We were very tight, and we didn’t allow them to be able to create much,” Savarese said when asked about LAFC’s dominant stretch. “In the last 15 minutes in the first half, they started to find the balls in between the lines; they started making better movements in those areas that we wanted to protect, and we were tired so we couldn’t close those spaces as well as we did the first thirty minutes.
“We also gave up the ball in those moments, different than the first thirty minutes when we had a lot of the ball and were smart in the way me moved it. I think that the two goals were two moments that are a little bit separated from them finding space. Yes, they had a little bit more of the ball in those minutes, they tried to create, but we defended very very well even though we had some players being tired.”
Playing through the press
When a team presses as hard as LAFC does, the opponent usually has two options: A) Try to play through the pressure in hopes to find space to attack into; or B) Stop thinking for a few seconds and clear the ball, praying to find a teammate somewhere in the attack.
In the past, the Timbers would have taken option B, trying to recycle the ball wide and play it long, which often resulted in a quick loss of possession. But these are not the Timbers of old. Against LAFC, Portland invited the pressure and attempted to move up the field through multiple series of intricate passing and combination play. It did not always work, but when it did it was pretty.
Part of playing through a press is knowing when to commit numbers forward after winning the ball versus when to sit back. Whatever the decision is, every player needs to be on the same page to ensure that there are no gaps. Playing into the created space catches a team when they are most vulnerable at the back, but if you lose the ball, there is now plenty of vacated space for the opposing team to exploit.
Above is an example of what happens when a team gambles wrong. Remember the compact 4-4-2 block I pointed out above? This is what it looks like when caught in transition.
“It was a challenge trying to balance [attacking versus defending], understanding that we didn’t want to expose ourselves defensively, but also not wanting to sacrifice the potential for a counter-attack and getting in behind the space that they were leaving,” Jeremy Ebobisse said. “A fine line for attacking players, myself and the wingers, to balance, but ultimately I think that we had some good opportunities on the break.
“That shows a job well done to manage difficulties when they had the ball and were penetrating us and those times we were able to break out, complete a few passes, and unbalance them.”
As Ebobisse eluded to, this is a formula that teams have to get right every game. There were moments in which the Timbers were caught out, like shown above, but overall they put in a solid defensive shift and allowed their attacking talents to find a pair of goals on the other end of the field.
Now it’s onto the round of 16, where FC Cincinnati awaits. One of the surprise teams of the tournament so far, the onus will most likely be put on the Timbers to break down a compact Cincinnati side. If Portland can put together everything that they’ve shown from the group stage of this tournament, advancing to the final eight is a real possibility.
It’s time for revenge.
Video courtesy of ESPN aerial cam. Graphics courtesy of Opta and StatsZone.
The Portland Timbers scored early and late in Thursday night’s 2-2 draw against Los Angeles FC, clinching the top spot in the Group F of the MLS is Back Tournament with the point over their recent rivals.
In a battle between two teams looking to outlast their opponent, wear them down, and catch them off balance, the Portland Timbers were the team still standing after 90 grueling minutes against the Houston Dynamo on Saturday night. In their second game of the MLS is Back Tournament group stage, the Timbers looked in control for most of the match as they fought their way to a 2-1 victory.
Although the Dynamo went down a man in the final minutes of the match after Alberth Elis picked up his second yellow card of the night, it was the Timbers’ ability to take their chances that played a deciding role in the match. Inch-perfect finishes from Jeremy Ebobisse in the 35th minute and Diego Valeri in the 61st minute put the Timbers up 2-0, giving the side the breathing room needed to see out the match.
Before his sending off, Elis did manage to pull one back for the Dynamo, earning a penalty kick in the 86th minute after putting a header off the hand of Jorge Villafana — who had an otherwise excellent game — and then stepping up to convert the spot-kick past Steve Clark to pull the Dynamo back within one with minutes left in the match.
In the heat and humidity of the Orlando summer, a major factor in the match against the Dynamo seemed to be the fresh legs of the Timbers’ substitutes.
Giovanni Savarese went to his bench early on Saturday, bringing on Andy Polo for Yimmi Chara in the 60th minute. He then made two more subs in the 69th minute, bringing on Marvin Loria and Jaroslaw Niezgoda for Eryk Williamson and Jeremy Ebobisse. Finally, Savarese capped off the night by bringing on Chris Duvall for Pablo Bonilla in the 82nd minute after the youngster absorbed his third hard foul of the night.
The Dynamo, on the other hand, made one sub in the 62nd minute, one in the 87th, and two in the 88th.
As a result of Savarese’s aggressive use of subs, the Timbers looked markedly fresher than their opponents during the second half even after having played with a man down for a big chunk of last Friday’s win over the LA Galaxy. With the Dynamo flagging, the Timbers subs were able to make a real impact on the match, quickly breaking up Dynamo attempts to get forward and winning the fifty-fifty balls that might otherwise have given Houston a chance to get back in the game.
Despite being subbed off late in the match, Saturday was a successful first-team debut for Bonilla who got the start over Chris Duvall at right-back, being granted the privilege of matching up against the Dynamo’s vaunted attacking trio: Alberth Elis, Darwin Quintero, and Mauro Manotas. Bonilla, a Venezuelan youth international signed from T2 exactly one month ago, was introduced to the MLS life by the Dynamo when in just the 7th minute he took a cleat to the thigh from Houston midfielder Maynor Figueroa.
Despite the rough treatment by the opposition, Bonilla acquitted himself well in the first half, providing solid coverage down the right flank and acting as an outlet for Yimmi Chara on his regular runs forward. In the second half the youngster continued his strong outing, getting further forward down the pitch as well as providing several clutch tackles when the Dynamo got forward on the Timbers’ right.
Most interesting was Bonilla’s play with Marvin Loria after the Costa Rican 23-year-old came on as a substitute early in the second half. After spending the pre-suspension preseason together with T2, Bonilla and Loria had clear chemistry playing together on the wing and combined for a strong chance on goal that Loria ultimately had blocked by a defender as he got his shot away.
The win against the Dynamo guarantees that the Timbers will reach the knockout rounds of the MLSIBT and leaves the Timbers with a final group match against LAFC next Thursday that will at most affect the Timbers’ seed coming out of the group stage.
How the Timbers treat this match will tell us much about how they view this tournament and how they view the possibility of playing out the remainder of the season. These group stage games count as part of the 2020 MLS regular season, so it will be interesting to see if the Timbers view this last group stage match as a chance to get minutes to players that have mostly served as subs like Niezgoda or Andy Polo, to bring in some youngsters like Blake Bodily or Marco Farfan who have yet to see the pitch, or just another game to run out the regular starting XI, tournament be damned.
Unlock with Patreon
