On Saturday, night the Portland Timbers played Minnesota United to a 1-4 loss. The Timbers were pretty bland the entire game, but they reached their pivotal moment in the second half, when they looked defeated and even more out of ideas than they had in the first—if that’s even possible.
No vibes, just pain
We can add this match to the long stack of Timbers games that have been hard to watch this season. In the first half, Portland looked as if they didn’t know what to do with the ball. It didn’t help that Evander was out for this match due to suspension. But to be honest, the team has looked lost in the last few games, even with him on the field.
You can call it patience, sure. But what we can also see in that video is almost one minute where the Timbers pass the ball 16 times and get nowhere—except to lose possession in the midfield.
Outside of that clip, Portland was making bad decisions in the few chances they had in the attack.
In the 35th minute, the Timbers had the ball and the option to go forward, and so they did. Minnesota’s defense was out of shape, and Portland should’ve taken advantage of that. Instead of playing at a high tempo and passing the ball quickly to Noel Caliskan on the right, Franck Boli decided to pass it to the left. In this way, they gave Minnesota the time they needed find a good defensive formation.
Another stark difference between these two teams in attack is the width. Look how wide Minnesota is:
That positioning allowed Minnesota to send precise long passes and dangerous crosses to the Timbers’ box. The Timbers’ defense allowed the home side to have far too many touches in Minnesota’s attacking end, as we can see by looking at the touches and heat maps.
Despite what I saw as uneven first half, Timbers head coach Gio Savarese thought differently. “A game that for 43 minutes was even, was managed well,” he said after the match. “We created our chances, they had other chances… It was a very even game… And then all of a sudden, we find ourselves 1-0, and then the second goal comes right away.”
It is true that coaches don’t usually think like the rest of us, but the fact that all the Timbers combined created only three chances in the entire game—one each by Santiago Moreno, Cristhian Paredes and Nathan Fogaça—is very telling.
To make things worse, one Minnesota goal came from friendly fire—more specifically, a Diego Chará own goal—and the other was an Olímpico.
Things didn’t improve in the second half
It’s true: Boli earned one back—with the help of Nathan’s good pass—and gave Portland reasons to believe in a comeback.
Nonetheless, the illusion didn’t last long. Less than 15 minutes later, Minnesota’s Bongokuhle Hlongwane restored the two-goal lead, and three minutes later Emanuel Reynoso scored his brace and knocked the Timbers down.
The fourth goal was a tough blow. The way it was scored—with the always reliable Chará passing the ball unintentionally to Hlongwane instead of clearing it and Reynoso getting to the far post totally unmarked while the Timbers were asking for a nonexistent offside call—was terrible to witness.
No one, not even Chará, had a good game. He was beaten in the race with Hlongwane, and that resulted in the attacker ending in a one-on-one against Timbers goalkeeper Aljaž Ivačič. We also mentioned the own goal Minnesota opened the counter with and the nail in the coffin scored by Reynoso.
Maybe the only positive thing we can highlight is the fact that Boli scored again. In a season where goals are rare, the fact that Portland’s No. 9 has scored five times in 10 games is not irrelevant.
This game was tough, no doubt, but the competition continues. Portland will have to move on fast, since they have a game tonight against Colorado.