Category Archives: match preview

Battles in the North

Posted on May 18, 2013 | 5 Comments

This is going to be a bit of an odds and sods type of column in preparation for our away match later today against Vancouver. Before getting down to the more substantive content, I thought I would just return for a moment to something I mused about a couple of weeks ago. What makes football so fascinating (at least for me anyway) is its blend of simplicity and complexity. It can be a very simple game. Pass the ball and move, play with conviction, and David can beat Goliath on any day of the week. But it also is a game of myriad complexities. We come into this match in what is, for us, a novel situation. A competitive away match on the heels of hammering a team that we were expected to hammer.

If memory serves (and regular readers of this blog will know that it doesn’t always), the last time we won 3-0 was our shockingly unexpected battering of the L.A. Gals in August 2011. [See reader comment below for the correction that we actually beat the Revs by a similar score six weeks later] At this point that feels as historically distant as the Battle of Gettysburg. And, let it be said, that was not a match that we went into with any expectation of getting the sort of result that we did. We are now in undiscovered country. In this new land we are expected to do the business against clubs of lesser quality. Having done so, we now have to put aside any feeling of accomplishment and approach the 90 minutes tonight at BC Place as if it were the only match of the season. Only in this way can we maintain the kind of focus that it is going to take to get us where we really want to go.

On to more concrete matters. Pa-Modou Kah is in the house. And by in the house I mean he has got his visa issues sorted out, arrived in Portland, and started training with the squad. He’s only been about for a day and a half, but CP says he expects Kah to make “a big impact with the club.” While he’ll be on the bench for the match against Vancouver, the team want to be careful to bring him along at a reasonable pace:

We have to be smart with how we acclimate him…He’s not been with the group. He’s going to take a bit of time to get his fitness up to speed. He’s been working on his own, but he hasn’t played in a competitive game in almost a month. So we have to be smart with how we integrate him in the group, but he’s going to be a nice addition to the backline.

It’s too early to tell how this will turn out, but the signs are promising. He’s 32, which for a center half is not too long in the tooth. He made 189 appearances for Roda JC in the Dutch Evedivisie, so he’s seen football at a pretty high tempo, even if his last couple of season have been spent in lesser leagues in the Middle East.

Ok, so clearly we won’t be seeing him tonight, but this match should give him the opportunity to see just how electric the atmosphere can get in this league. We should have a pretty decent traveling contingent up in B.C., and that should give the atmosphere an added edge. The match itself presents the prospect of a intriguing battle in midfield between our resident hard men, Johnson and Chará, and the Caps’ similarly hardnosed duo of Reo-Coker and Gershon Koffie. Vancouver is coming off a grueling match in midweek against the Montreal Impact, while we’ve had a week to recover while savoring our well deserved spanking of Chivas. If I had to predict, I would guess that the physical hangover of a tough match in the eastern time zone will be an issue. Teams tend to play better in their home park, but midweek matches tend to leave teams leggy. The Timbers are the kind of team that demand an energetic response in midfield. Granted, the Caps are a counterpunching side, but they’ve been playing a bit more aggressively in midfield of late, and I would expect them to want to be aggressive on their own patch. This could work well for us.

Much as they should be well up for it due to the implications of the Cascadia Cup®, they also have a couple of other irons in the fire that might prove distracting. Thus the following quote in this week’s MLS preview in the Guardian:

A lucky win against LA may have papered over cracks in the squad, but a winning gamble in Montreal is distraction enough from our generally poor league form. A visit from Portland should bring it back into sharp focus.
No matter, though. A smart if dull draw in Montreal has us back in the final of the Canadian Championship for the Voyageurs Cup. A home win (and our home record is still quite good) means a cup. I’ll gladly sacrifice a loss to Portland if it means a better chance at the cup.

I suspect that the team itself will probably be rather less distracted than their supporters, but it’s an interesting sidelight nonetheless. They’ve looked pretty good in their last couple of matches, but their overall form this season hasn’t been terribly strong, I seem to recall that there were rumblings as recently as a few of weeks about the need to fire Martin Rennie. It’s getting to the time in the season when the supporters will be getting nervous that the team only one point out of the divisional cellar.

It would be so very nice if we could do the business in the Cascadia Cup© early this year and let the other sides chase us. Too, this is a week in which we can make up some of the ground on Dallas, who will have to cope with a visit from the slime green horde for up north. Much as I would like to see the Flounders lose any and all matches, their getting at home would not be the worst outcome for us just at the moment.

That’s my bit for this morning. I’ll be back on Farcebook this afternoon with news, notes, and tunes for those of you not making the trip up to BC. Come on the lads!

Magadh

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timbers are looking to set dallas on fire…

Posted on May 8, 2013 | 4 Comments

today the timbers take on fc dallas. if you expect even one funny anecdote about dallas, or texas for that matter, you have come to the wrong place. there is nothing funny about texas, or dallas, or fort worth, or amarillo, or el paso, or any place in texas, because it is texas. at risk of taking this blog into the world of politics, which is something we try whole heartedly to avoid, it would have been a blessing had the president fulfilled the wishes of those lunatics seeking a modern secession. the world and the country would be better off without texas. if that offends Texans–so be it.

having now expatiated my ever growing love for texas, it should not be surprising to you that i pay little attention to their sporting teams. that is, i pay as little attention to them until i absolutely have to. today, i have to. and, if you follow the timbers (if you are reading this blog, it is safe to assume you do) then you too have to pay attention to texas. dallas, texas.

as required in the build up to any sporting event the timbers are faced with a special sort of drama, they meet kenny cooper again. kfccooper was and is one of the nicest individual footballers out there, but lingering around his name are the detractors and the naysayers. i am one of them. i do not feel cooper is as good as everyone seems to believe he is, but that is an argument for another post and another day. still, surrounding cooper has always been the argument that he needed service and last year he got served. after scoring buckets loads of goals for the red bulls (and how could he not when playing next to one of the greatest players and offensive threats to have ever played the game) cooper has come back to earth. he has hit the back of the net now once in 9 games, and looks anything but the man on fire.

but never mind cooper’s absence, dallas has the man about the mls, blas perez. as we know, perez can score some goals and has this season.

moving on. not only is dallas missing cooper’s shooting boots, they are also missing some key figures. in addition to the injured stephen keel and george john, who are both questionable for today’s match, fc dallas is without the insufferably good jackson. jackson earned a straight red and was shown his walking papers against the caps for attacking alan rochat. though down a man, dallas was still able to hold on to earn a point, which may well be a testament to how bad the caps are and not how good the burn may be.

the stats from that match are instructive. the caps held 60% of the possession, completing 77% of 397 attempted passes–dallas, well, they showed up. they are not a side that relies on possession, nor are they a side that is going to pass a team to death. but playing against teams that do pass and play possession football, dallas has been exposed. they were ignited by chivas, and against toronto the fire may have superiority in attempts on goal but last year’s bottom dwellers were able to use possession and passing to earn a surprise draw.

what these three games suggest is that dallas will find the play of the timbers more difficult to handle than last year’s 5-0 drubbing. the timbers have averaged over 450 passes per game, and with the exception of the second half against sporting kc, they have controlled possession in every game this season. it is not hard to surmise what the intention of today’s play will be–hold the ball, kick it around, keep the ball away from dallas, and try to score. sure, that is a pedestrian description of the likely tactics, but the tactics need not be anymore complicated in order to find a road result against a team whose difficulties against possession teams have been exposed.

the obvious concern for the timbers is the loss of the early season’s revelation, mikael silvestre, to a season ending knee injury. though the timbers have brought in pa moudou kah as a replacement, it is unlikely that he will feature tonight. silvestre’s experience and maturity has held together a backline once noted for conceding goals, carrying it towards being one of the more formidable backlines in the mls. could it improve? yes. has it improved with the loss of silvestre? no. but the important thing to remember about this timbers squad is that defense begins at the front–it uses possession to prevent the opposition from earning opportunities. hopefully that ethic is exhibited tonight.

my internal optimist may well win out on the external pessimist, but i will keep my overall predictions for this one on the wraps. all that i care about is that we have some football to watch, tonight.

sunshine

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A Sporting Chance

Posted on April 27, 2013 | 1 Comment

Just a few brief words before heading out to do the things that need to be done in advance of our tilt with Sporting tonight. I’m still kind of in awe of the piece that sunshine put up yesterday. Everyone who’s spent any time with sunshine knows that he’s a really bright guy, but I have to say that he really showed me something, I higher level to his game than I had previously known existed. Needless to say, I’ll have to up my own performance to keep pace…or injure him in training, I’m not sure which.

To return for a moment to the already much discussed issue of last week’s match, we read here that Donovan Ricketts picked up the Save of the Week Award in the league. We have on a time been critical of Ricketts here at The Axe. I’m still not convinced that his skills are equal to (much less greater than) those of Troy Perkins. In addition to which, the way that Perkins departed the club still rankles. Be that as it may, I will say that Ricketts has done quite well so far this season, with the exception of the distributional problems that he experienced away to the Rapids. This is a top class save, necessitated, it must be said, by Michael Harrington suffering a complete brain seize and wandering away from one of the most lethal finishers in the league, but high quality nonetheless. It prevented us from returning to our old pattern of going down through needless concessions, and kept us in position to take the point that we did (to say nothing of the three points that we should have taken).

This is the third time this year that Ricketts has claimed the award, which is great, except that it means that we’ve been giving up the sort of chances that required top class saves. We’re three points better off than we were after seven matches last season, but we’ve given up one more goal. Offensively there is a world of difference since last year. Defensively, not so much. We have different problems now, but we still have problems. We’re better defending on the flanks than we were last season, and we tend to exert more pressure in midfield than we used to be able to, but we’ve had problems in the middle. They seem to be getting worked out, if two clean sheets in three matches are anything to go by, buy our backline is still a work in progress.

I have very fond memories of Sporting’s visit last year. Not that it was really one of our better performances in terms of quality of play. As a matter of fact, it was really the beginning of the time when we all began to realize that the Kris Boyd experiment might not be all it was cracked up to be. What I do remember clearly from that match was that it was settled by a beautiful bullet header…by Chance Myers…into the back of his own net. Yes, that made me very happy. A further positive result from that match was that we managed to keep Kamara and his mates relatively quiet at the offensive end.

This time around the equation is much changed. We’ll be on the road in one of the more difficult places to play (at least in terms of the Eastern Conference). On the other hand, we’re going to bring a much different challenge in terms of defending that we did last year. KC tends to play a very high line. And the play it very well, as their 500+ scoreless minutes clearly illustrates. L.A. exploited this on numerous occasions, and I think that the pattern from that match offers some useful pointers for this one. K.C. tend to be vulnerable (when they are vulnerable) to teams that pass well and counter attack quickly. Their fullbacks like to get forward, and that would suggest that one of the most important elements of this match will be on the flanks. If Harrington and whoever we have on the right (probably Jewsbury but who knows) can get forward and keep K.C.’s wide players honest it will do a lot to limit their offensive production. In any case, we should have ample opportunities to run in behind them and pass through them. L.A. beat them twice on the break. The first resulted from what looked to be an uncalled handball. The second was a case of Robbie Keane burning Nagamura in the open field and squaring to Donovan for a tap in. K.C. likes to get men forward. The question is: can we use that to our advantage?

This is all easier said than done. L.A. is one of the best counterpunching teams in North America, and Sporting didn’t keep all those clean sheets through dumb luck. They are a physical side who like to get the ball into the box and mix it up. Sinovic is starting to round into form on the left flank and Claudio Bieler is one of the best off season acquisitions to show up in the league this season. It is my hope that we will adopt the attacking posture that we did away to San Jose last week. While, aside from Valeri’s moment of quality, it didn’t really produce that much, it also kept up about even in possession and seemed to keep a lid on a Quakes attack well-schooled in how we like to defend. For me, this approach is even more crucial this week. K.C. is a team that likes to hold the ball, so it’s going to be crucial for Johnson and Chará to be aggressive in midfield and allow us to turn that statistic in our favor.

If I had to predict, I’d say that Michael Harrington’s play will have a lot to do with how successful we are. I rather overrated his play last week. Looking back at the match I noticed some worrying signs, over and above the chance that he gifted to Wondolowski in the 22nd minute. He’s going to have to have a particularly energetic match and to be effective at both ends of the park for us to get a result in K.C.

That’s enough for now. I’ll be up on Farcebook about 90 minutes before game time with last minute info and a few tunes to drink beer to. Cheers til then.

Magadh

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Only Time Will Tell

Posted on April 21, 2013 | 5 Comments

This is a place where, in normal times, I provide some analysis of our upcoming opponent’s previous match. My reservoir of material is a little bit thinner this week than it might be at other times, since our opponent this week was our opponent last week and the subsequent discussions of the match have quite extensive. A lot of water has passed under the bridges since the final whistle blew on Sunday night. I think it’s fair to say that the match and the events that surrounded it constituted a series of body blows for the Earthquakes. They had a man sent off (and admittedly that was not the most significant of that particular individual’s troubles), they lost the match (on a brilliant free kick it must be said), and their away support behaved abominably in the streets of Portland. This is a week that all associated with the team would, I am sure, prefer to forget.

There have been consequences. Alan Gordon has received the three match ban that was predicted for him by Will Johnson. Having really ripped the guy in a column earlier this week, I will say that he has started the process of trying to make amends. Started, mind you, not completed. His actions in the coming weeks will speak louder than his promises in the last one. He actually has the power to do a lot of good in this situation. Does this mean that I forgive him? I am not the wronged party, so it is not my place to give (or to withhold) forgiveness, but only to document the actions that he takes and the manner in which he accepts responsibility. This is, or should be, a step along that road toward the defense of human dignity in public life. Only time will tell in which direction things have gone.

Further consequences have accrued to the 1906 Ultras supporter group. Stumptown Footy has a nice little blurb about this. The sanctions applied to the group by the team are as follows:

• The 1906 Ultras have been placed on indefinite probation
• The 1906 Ultras’ travel privileges have been indefinitely suspended until further notice
• The 1906 Ultras will not be allowed to utilize controlled smoke at any match
• Due to the probation, language within the group on matchdays will be strictly monitored

While I applaud the willingness of the Earthquakes organization to take action in this matter, I think that Geoff Gibson (who posted the info on SF) gets something really right about this: the sanctions seem to be a little out of synchrony with the offenses committed. Indefinite probation is probably the right move, and suspension of travel privileges also makes a certain amount of sense. But taking away the smoke and swearing privileges during home matches? I have a hard time figuring out exactly what that is meant to accomplish. Is it to chasten them by adding punishments not directly connected with the offenses ostensibly committed? Or is the premise that their transgressions resulted from to accretion of too much libidinal energy, and that this must be brought under supervisory control?

Clearly this is a case in which the organization feels that it has been dealt a black eye by the supporters and is intent on clamping down. This in itself is kind of a rarity in the footballing world, at least as it exists outside of North America. I recall an incident a few years ago in Germany in which the DFB accused the Berlin club BFC Dynamo (who at the time were in the third or fourth tier) of having overtly racist fans. The club responded by saying that if they tried to clamp down on it they would lose half their support base. Obviously, the context under discussion here differs in myriad ways. The clubs in MLS have to exist and make their way within the sporting and law enforcement cultures of the US and Canada. They are in the process of building something, and they see their path to enhanced revenue as promoting the game as appropriate for middle class families. They are not wrong to do so. But as a member of the group that in this case was the wronged party (i.e. Timbers supporters in general) I hope that the club has the sense to address the problem without sucking the life out of the supporter culture. This is another one of those things about which only time will tell the true significance.

Well, on to the matter of the match at hand. With all of the other stuff going on surrounding the last game, it is easy to lose sight of where we really stand. We are riding a two game winning streak (which hasn’t happened all that often in the last couple of years). More impressively, we’ve kept two successive clean sheets. That hasn’t happened since May of 2011. We seem, and I hasten to emphasize “seem”, to have put a lot of the defensive jitters of the first few matches behind us. There was a lot of discussion on the boards about whether our performance was mostly about our defense or about better play in midfield. I came down on the latter side, but I think it’s fair to say that it was a little of both. Effective defense in a league of this quality must be a team effort. It cannot simply be down to the efforts of the back four and the keeper. That said, we have seen some very promising signs in that department. I think there is broad agreement that Silvestre has his best game in a Timbers shirt on Sunday night. He looks to be finding his feet in this environment. Also heartening was the work done by Futty, who very much looked the part coming back from injury to step in for AJB.

I have a suspicion that we will see AJB back in the lineup tonight. Perhaps more importantly, Diego Valeri is going to return, and that is a good thing for a number of reasons. Not the least of these is that, with him in the lineup, we present a rather different defensive challenge for our opponents. They can’t simply plan for this match as they did for last week’s, since Valeri offers a dimension in terms of passing and technical ability in the middle of the park that is rather more challenging than that presented by Nagbe, impressive though his skills are. The means that San Jose has to come up with a different defensive arrangement to cope with this and can’t simply look to tweak the one that (mostly) kept us out of the danger zone last week.

This is a match rich with interesting story lines. Will San Jose try the tactic of physical intimidation again? You’d have to think they would, since it’s really their bread and butter. How will we respond? And can we translate the positive play that we have seen so far at home into our first road win of the season? Tune in tonight and find out.

Magadh

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It Begins…

Posted on April 14, 2013 | Leave a comment

Apropos of nothing, I watched Arsenal’s match with Norwich City yesterday and I will say that, with a match coming up in a couple of weeks with Sporting KC, I am very pleased to see him playing in the EPL. Although Arsenal managed to see Norwich off in the last few minutes of the match, Kamara didn’t look at all out of place. He’s a remarkable physical presence, and quite a smart footballer as well, let it be said. He kind of got victimized by a questionable penalty call (not that I’m complaining mind you). At all events, he’s a guy that I can do without seeing against Portland any time soon.

It is on now. In case you were wondering. After playing pretty indifferently through the first weeks of the season, the time when anything less than an A grade effort would suffice is over. The two matches that we have against San Jose, followed by another against Sporting will go a long way to separating the sheep from the goats, as the proverb says. True, San Jose has not really managed to replicate the form that saw them rack up a +29 goal differential on the way to claiming the Supporters Shield last season. But it is early days yet (for them as well as for us). This is a team that is loaded with talent and getting a result tonight (to say nothing of next week) will take some doing.

Having said all this, I think we’re catching them at a pretty good time. They only managed a draw at home last week at home against the Caps. Wondolowski (who else) got an early one, and while controlled long stretches of the balance of the match, they were unable to really put the boot into Vancouver. The latter managed to draw even after about an hour and the Quakes just couldn’t seem to turn their possession into the requisite end product.

The week before, of course, the Quakes lost on the road the Houston in a match about which I wrote in the lead up to our match with Dynamo last week. That match illustrated quite clearly that San Jose can be shut down by the appropriate tactical approach. The Quakes aren’t quite a one trick pony, but their attack doesn’t feature a great deal of variety. As you might expect from the 27 goals that he scored last season, their main option is Chris Wondolowski. They like to put balls into the middle for him to work with. When it’s not happening for him, the hope is that he will exert enough gravitational force to create space for other attackers. The key to defending against this, as the Houston match showed quite clearly, is to clamp down on the service coming in from midfield. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a terrible idea of we kept hold of the ball for long periods of time as we did against Dynamo (and as Dynamo did against the Quakes). Houston really got up strong on the Quakes midfielders, forcing them to retreat and to make negative passes. Wondolowski was forced to drop ever deeper to get touches, and even then he didn’t see it much. If Wondolowski is working with the ball in the center circle, that’s a win for us.

Apparently we’ll have to do this without the services of Diego Valeri, not yet recovered from getting his brains scrambled by Jermaine Thomas’s elbow. Anyway, that’s how things are going to shake out if this story on the MLS website is to be believed. Obviously, it would be better if he was in the lineup. But the discovery of this news didn’t give me the sort of sinking feeling that it might have a couple of weeks ago. We showed last week against Houston that we can be a team that doesn’t rely on the skills of one individual, but rather works together to become more than the sum of our individual parts. Last week’s match was a perfect illustration of how difficult it can be to defend against a team that passes the ball and moves to space, and that is comfortable passing it around in tight spaces. The instances in which effective, short, rhythmic passing allowed us to get out of positions that would simply have been dead ends for us last season were too numerous to count. If we can do that from the opening whistle week in and week out, we’re going to be in with a shout against any side in the league.

It’s a little hard to predict what our lineup will look like tonight. Well, except for the pairing at center half. Whatever else could be said about that (and in particular with reference to the move we seem to be making for Michael Thwaite), Silvestre and AJB are the best thing that we’ve got going there. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Jewsbury get another run out at right back. He has his limitations, but he seems to add stability to the side. The real questions for me are at the outside midfield spots. Alhassan looked better than he had all season when he came on last week. Will that have been enough to convince Porter to start him? On the other side, I tend to think Rodney Wallace will get the opportunity to reprise his excellent outing of a week ago. Of all of the positive things that we say in the last hour against Dynamo, Wallace’s growth into the role was among the very most promising. But doing it once is one thing. Getting it right week after week is another.

On a wholly unrelated note, it seems that the term Porterball has grown legs. I think I first used the term sometime in January. No, I’m not claiming to have coined it. The people over at Stumptown Footy have been using it since at least March, and probably before, and I bet I could figure out where I got it from if I cared to take the time to look. But I was surprised to see it appear for the first time (at least so far as I am aware) in a story on the MLS site. It seems as if the larger world is taking notice of the changes that are taking place around here, and perhaps this franchise is on the way to getting a bit more props from the national media. Not that such things matter all that much. When this team consistently plays up to its potential, the recognition will come.

Magadh

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Match Preview: Portland Timbers v. Houston Dynamo

Posted on April 6, 2013 | 4 Comments

Let’s hope this doesn’t happen to our attack…

Just a couple of comments about disconnected bits of news this morning. There’s a story on the MLS website suggesting that Hanyer Mosquera’s indefinite leave of absence might be turning into a permanent departure. Does this surprise anyone? I’m trying hard to think of a case in which someone has come back from something designated an indefinite leave of absence. It’s really just a nice way of saying “you’re fired” (or “I quit”). Porter and the Timbers brains trust have shown very little patience with people who haven’t the skills or the inclination to play the game that he wants to play. And, in truth, I think that Mosquera looked a bit better than he was last season because the overall level of our play in defense was so low.

I’ve talked a lot about our lack of organization and systematic approach in attack last season, but our defense was pretty ragged as well. Partly that had to do with a persistent failure of coordination between central defense and midfield. Mosquera is a good athlete, and his athleticism often times allowed him to make good on situations where either he or one of his mates had made a poor decision. But even at the best of times, Mosquera was not the kind of guy who looked terribly comfortable with the ball at his feet. In the new system, there is a real premium placed on defenders being able to move the ball forward and pass the ball positively. In like of this, it wasn’t surprising that he tenure under the new regime was short (if not nasty or brutish).

Our match tonight will, as I said yesterday, be a challenging one. They played quite well in midfield and they have some very potent attacking options. That said, they are not a team that tends to travel particularly well. Our one meeting with them last season was a 0-0 draw away, which doesn’t indicate much, and they’ve only played one away match this season, in which they conceded three goals to FC Dallas. Looking back to last season, they only won three away matches, losing nine and putting up a goal differential of -12. They still have some injury issues to cope with. In addition to Calen Carr they’ll also apparently be without the very industrious Will Bruin for tonight’s match. There is an outside chance that we could see the return of some of the dead wood that we cut away in the off season in the form of Chewie and Eric Brunner.

The team’s official site has a piece highlighting a matchup between Will Johnson and Oscar Boniek García as crucial. Those who saw yesterday’s column will recall that I rated Boniek García, and it’s not inconceivable that he will tangle with our captain in midfield, but for me the more likely candidate to shadow him will be Michael Harrington. Boniek García likes to get wide and prowl the right hand channel, so I suspect that it will be Harrington who will end up facing up on him most of the time, although Johnson will most likely be there in support as well.

This prospect presents an interesting challenge for us. When we attack effectively, it most often starts on the left. Whatever else you can say about Harrington, he tends to do a good job of pushing to ball forward and creating width. He will need to be very careful tonight about looking to his defensive duties, so it will be interesting to see to what degree this limits his effectiveness in getting up the park. It may be that our attack is going to need to work more through the middle or, dare I say it, up the right hand side.

This is going to be one of those games where the team sheet will tell us a lot about how it’s going to go. If the name Jewsbury is among the starters I’m really going to worry. I feel a little remorse about writing this. Jewsbury seems like a good guy. He is not someone who can be faulted for lack of effort or commitment. And he’s certainly a guy who is worth keeping around. He can play a range of positions around the park, and he’s smart, experienced guy who can lend stability to the side when it is rocking. But, and this is a big but, he simply does not have the quality to merit a starting place in this side. Moreover, he has now become the poster child for a formation and an approach that guts or capacity to attack effectively. Playing Jewsbury over the top of the back four sends out a message from the opening whistle that we are afraid of getting punished in defense. It sends this message out to our opponents, and it changes the thinking of our own guys as well.

After a couple of matches on the road, we’re now back to the friendly confines of the JW. This should be the kind of match in which we attack from the off and try and take the game by the scruff of the neck. We seem to spend too much time worrying about what other teams are going to do to us, and not enough time focusing on what we are going to do to them. We have the personnel and (when we choose to play it) the system that should allow us to dictate the pace and tempo of the match. We owe it to ourselves not to concede this. Not doing so is one of the main reasons, so far as I can see, that we spend so much time out of system, and that we take so long to get back into it. Perhaps this is the match where we find out if we are who we thought we were, or something else. I fervently hope for the former.

Magadh

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the impact of valeri…

Posted on March 8, 2013 | 5 Comments

can it be that we are already at the weekend and game two is just a day away? well, yes. that means the montreal impact are up tomorrow. dreams of fois gras, poutine, and the season’s first home win have tortured me over the last few days. but now our cravings of food and football can be assuaged. still, the timbers do have a formidable task ahead of them tomorrow and we should not assume because of the team’s new circumstances and personnel that we are to be treated to a win simply by showing up. if you recall, it was that same attitude that resulted in disappointment in montreal, last season.

on to montreal. impactnot since the crusades has a group of french and italian hard men been consolidated in one side (ok, hyperbolically speaking, but it sounded great as i wrote it). i would not suggest battling against them makes a side feel like the saracens defending the levante, but after 90 minutes a team is certain to have suffered some beatings when trying to breach a defense that allows .89 goals every 90 minutes. their back line is fortified by italian international alessandro nesta and the algerian fullback come central defender, matteo ferrari, and is patrolled by defensive midfielder, patrice bernier.

last week the impact took on the northern scum, battling to a deceptive 1 nil victory. against the scum, the impact employed an unconventional 4-1-4-1 formation and worked the sounders on the counter. the first thing i observed while watching that match was the impact’s overall team discipline–they held a solid formation, which presented a large obstacle for the sounders when they attempted to penetrate the impact’s final third. often the impact stifled any movement at the circle and immediately countered.  the impact attempted to push andrea pisanu down the right flank to spread a severely weakened sounders back four and to allow felipe martins and davy arnaud the room to switch direction of play with relative ease. whether the italian pisanu had much “impact” on motreal’s overall play, the impact’s formation worked quite well. adding to the definition of deceptive, the midfield was able to start multiple counterattacks, many of which should have resulted in goals but for providence did not. i am not certain how the scum were left licking their wounds to only a 1 nil defeat, but the game itself could have ended 4-0 and still have been an unfair representation of how well the impact pressured the sounders. for an excellent review of how that game broke down and how the timbers might match up against the quebecois i suggest you give our friends over at slide rule pass a read.

over the last week digeo valeri has received quite a bit of attention. from the spanish version of the mls online pod suggesting he will be the best player in the mls and is already the likely mvp to taylor twellman doing the same, people have fallen in love with the timbers new magician. even Magadh has suggested to me that he is intent on picking up a valeri number 8 kit. i do caution against placing him up too high too soon. there is no doubt he is a wonderful talent, and likely the best player to have pulled on the green and white, but over the years i have seen timbers supporters place so much hope and faith on the shoulders of one player that disappointment often followed.

that admonishment now out of the way, valeri earned every bit of the accolades received this week. both he and darlington nagbe were honoured with selections to the mls team of the week, and deservedly so. we have seen nagbe receive this honour before, so it should not be a shock that he received it again. but the telling thing about his game on sunday is that it was improved not by his maturity, but by the creative foyle in the middle. because attention has now been shifted away from nagbe to valeri, darlington is open to make his mazey runs or pull defenders to the touchline without breaking down the overall offensive push of the side. last year, too often when nagbe would receive the ball he became isolated, immobile, and unable to think his way out of the attention provided by the opposition’s defenders. with the addition of valeri, as well as team tactics that anticipate ball movement, nagbe was able to take advantage of the space given in order to express himself creatively and positively–i counted only one back pass from the liberian.

but back to valeri. imagesCABH9A8Voften when people suggest a person is without a conscience, it is done so negatively. in valeri it is a gift. he tries. he connects. he tries again. he fails. he tries again. he connects. this was the pattern of his game. he did not care whether the last time he attempted a pass it went straight to olave or to dax mccartey, he would attempt that same pass again if it could unlock a teammate to increase the pressure on defense. that is without conscious and something this side has lacked–a creative player who was not afraid to fail and fail miserably in order to succeed ultimately. call it a lack of conscience or an immeasurable amount of confidence, valeri has it. as porter mused:

He’s gifted. He’s capable of pulling a rabbit out of the hat at any given moment. He’s very clever in tight spaces and he can unlock teams. He’s going to be a handful this year.

we shall see. but by the results of last weekend, i would suggest that is a strong possibility. perhaps that was the impetus behind the song for valeri movement? well, ok, it was. we supporters follow a club, not each other. we sing for the club and the players, not each other. yet, there is not one song designated for a player (aside from the boring repeat of a player’s name). perhaps it is time. now, i do not involve myself in the politics of the masses, but i must say, if he continues to amend our view of how football can be played in portland, surely this fella deserves a creative song.

sunshine.

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The Final Chapter

Posted on October 27, 2012 | 3 Comments

Usually it’s the first day of the season that’s like the last day of school. When you’re in school, the summer break brings the prospect of long empty days to be filled with the things one enjoys. Similarly, the opening of the season brings the prospect of weekly entertainment. That’s how it is under normal conditions, but this season has rather reversed this. The season has had so many painful moments and has featured such a long period when we were effectively out of contention for anything of substance. Perhaps it’s all for the best that it will finally come to an end.

There is an important sense in which this season has been on hold since the middle of the summer. The firing of John Spencer was a necessity when it happened. The team had no consistency, no guts, and no sense of an approach that would lead to better results. Then we entered the netherworld of the interim manager. I can remember a discussion of the topic between sunshine and myself in which the conclusion reached was that Gav had made his bed and was now going to get a sideline view of what it was like to sleep in it. Sadly, this meant that we all had to snuggle up as well.

The hiring of Caleb Porter in midseason was always going to be inconclusive, since there really wasn’t that could be done with the personnel on hand. Porter’s decision to fulfill his commitment to the University of Akron could be read as speaking well of his character. On the other hand, one could also imagine that he mightn’t have wanted to wade into the swamp of this current season. Certainly, we’ve all seen just how bad things could get under the current regime, both under Spencer, and in the interim. Perhaps Porter thought it best to allow the supporters to drain this cup of the old regime to its bitterest dregs. At least now when he arrives he will have a certain amount of goodwill, and perhaps the honeymoon will last a bit long.

If the latter was part of his thinking, I expect that he will quickly be disabused of that notion. One thing that can be said with certainty about the Timbers fan base is that the standards are high. This team needs to be turned around, and quickly. There is the basis of a competitive side (we can talk later about just who is comprised therein) but changes must be made, both in terms of personnel and approach.

Well, that is for a later time. The task at hand is to finish strong and to compel the best team in the league to enter the playoffs on the back of a loss. It will be very interesting to see what kind of side the Quakes send out for this match. On paper it is meaningless, but there is the matter Chris Wondolowski his challenge to the single season record for goals. Wondolowski, for those who don’t know, is only one goal short of tying Roy Lassiter’s record of 27 goals in a season, set during the league’s opening season in 1996. The Quakes have said that they are going to give Wondolowski every chance to tie or break the record. This suggests that they are going to start a real first team side for this match. There is a certain logic to this. At times like this the risk of injury to key players has to be balanced against the goal of maintaining playing rhythm going into the postseason.

I tend to think that they are going to go for it for real. Organizing things in such a way as to provide their star with an opportunity to achieve a major personal milestone is the kind of thing that is read by players as a gesture of earnest and support from the club. Moreover, all too often we have seen teams limp through a “meaningless” game at the end of the season only to carry that form with them when the playoffs actually start.
And then there is this little tidbit: there is every likelihood that Andrew Jean-Baptiste is going to play at centerhalf for the Timbers tonight. Jean-Baptist made four appearances early in the season (the last of which was his start in the Independence Day loss to Chivas) and has featured as an unused substitute on four other occasions. Personally, I thought he looked pretty good against Los Bimbos in March, but his other appearances made it pretty clear that he has a ways to go before he can really claim to be ready to make the jump to this level of football.

At 6’2” and weighing 200 and change, one can read his style of play pretty clearly from his dimensions. In a lot of respects, Jean-Baptiste is a shorter, rawer version of David Horst. He’s noticeably bigger and less mobile than Mosquera, and this (in addition to his lack of experience) could really spell trouble against one of the most prolific offenses in the league. On the other hand, this is probably as good a time as any to get him some time on task and see what he can do. There is not much at stake here, and this is an opportunity for him to cross swords with about as high powered and attack as he is ever likely to see in this league.

It would be nice if we could finish this season with a win. We’ve certainly showed that we can beat them on our day. Moreover, we’ve finally broken the duck on the road and demonstrated that, if we play together and stay organized, we have the capacity to get a result. I win today won’t necessarily mean much, but it would be a nice way to go into the off season, during which some rather unpleasant decisions will have to be made.

Just for scheduling purposes, the MAC schedule runs through the beginning of next month, with a couple of further matches possible depending on how the NCAA soccer finals work out. For whatever it is worth, the Zips are 12-1-2 this season, with their only loss coming away to Notre Dame. We should get Porter’s full attention starting around the beginning December. Hopefully he can bring this level of success to this level of the game.

Magadh

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the long and winding road ends tomorrow…

Posted on October 26, 2012 | 1 Comment

i am getting a rather late start to this post but if magadh can do it i guess i am allowed. it is not that he is a lazy fella–he is not. the reason for his tardiness is that he has found new employment after leaving the agency and his schedule is no longer as flexible as his use of the english language. at the agency he had more freedom for his expressive nature. now, he wipes noses and yells too often to realize he is yelling, which complicates our conversations.

moving on to things less personal and more personnel. tomorrow brings the end of what has been a disappointing season.  and as much as i would like to wrap the season in newspaper and drop it in the urinals at the silver falls trailhead, i am going to miss timbers football come sunday morning. but i should not get ahead of myself–san jose arrive to help the timbers kick off the off-season. obviously the two teams have separate agendas for the match–the timbers look to set the tone for next season and the quakes look to prepare for the post-season.

the last time the timbers played san jose they were left with the bitter taste of chris wondolowski’s athlete’s foot infested boot and his now consistently embarrassing post-match behavior. regardless of the fact the timbers have been successful against san jose, the quakes are without question the better side by a country mile driven by ben gazara on his way to the roadhouse where sam eliot awaits to get into a fist fight.

and like ben gazzara san jose has a flair for the dramatic, winning the 2012 supporter’s shield by leaving it late. of the 26 goals wondo has scored this season 11 were game winning goals. what makes that factual tidbit even more impressive is that san jose has 19 wins on the season. in the last meeting he scored two late goals to draw even with the timbers, who had taken a lead through 2 excellent, danny mwanga strikes. but as we know the quakes are not a one man team. in addition to wondo, they also have steven lenhart and alan gordon. the two strikers have combined for 23 of the 71 goals scored by san jose this season. combined the three have 70 percent of the quake’s 2012 offensive output. gordon did suffer an ankle knock last friday, but looks desperate to play tomorrow.

the quakes are not as stout on the other end of the pitch. even though victor bernardez has been nominated for defender of the season, the 42 goals allowed by the quakes does not suggest they are a defensive juggernaut. in the 2 games played against the timbers this season san jose has appeared to quake more than  stand firm in the back. but when a side has the arsenal san jose has and the will to use it, maybe they do not need to defend effectively. when discussing the upcoming match, sean mcauley indicated san jose’s character is the element that distinguishes them from other sides, in particular the timbers

to go two-nil down and then fight back the way they did, it shows you the fighting spirit they have in the squad and it also shows you are own…

as much as i would like to continue the discussion of why san jose is a side worthy of our admiration, we all know that is not the case and that they are a bunch of thugs. what bothers me about mcauley’s comparison of the two sides is the implications regarding the timbers mentality. what does it say about the timbers when they are up two-nil against the best team in the league and allow them to score late? now exclude the words “best team in the league” and read that question: what does it say about the timbers when they are up and allow the other side to [equalize] or [win] late? obviously the character of the timbers will not be addressed in the one remaining match but it is something that must be addressed in the off-season.

until then we can concentrate on the side that will likely face the quakes tomorrow. if practices are any indication of the intended squad for a match, we can expect to see the usual suspects with a few new additions. this year’s first mls entry draft choice, andrew jean-baptiste is certainly to feature unless mosquera discovers the resemblance of the virgin mary in his tub of i cant believe it’s not butter butter substitute and then spreads the butter substitute on his toast only to find the virgin mother in his jar of cherry preserves. it will take that sort of miracle, or not. but a miracle indeed.

joining ajb could be the assists leader, eric alexander. when i first read his name as mentioned among those practicing with the usual eleven i wondered if the mls had sanctioned the use of trialists in regular season matches. having been shut out of the starting eleven and living on the side lines, alexander has now found cultlike status for his exploits on twatterverse and the simple fact he retains the lead for number of assists. end even though the name rang a bell, i had to look up alexander in the official team roster to make certain his name was still on the official team sheet. it was there, as was his photo next to the assists leader column. hopefully his name will be there with the usual names like songoo, nagbe, dike (cough), smith, horst, and captain forever. after all, in the limited time that he has played he has created goals, and goals are nice to score when playing for reals.

with that, i will say enjoy every moment tomorrow–four long months await.

sunshine.

 

 

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speaking of a matter of pride…

Posted on October 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

while one can have too much of a good thing, too much of a bad thing is never better–it is likely to drive one close to insanity. because of that threat i am going to attempt an interim ginger free post. after all, this is the day before the day that defines the timbers season. and while i feel like have written that bit before, tomorrow really is the last hope for a hopeless 8 months. 8 months! if this last cascadia match did not remain i too might say stick a fork in them.

sunday sees the timbers arrive in vancouver. no, not the vancouver where large trucks and romney ryan signs litter the front lawns of the neighboring homes. no, this is the vancouver with robson street, stanley park, and where people say eh! it is also the vancouver with a side that is still in the running for the mls playoffs. unlike the timbers, the whitecaps can secure a first post season birth in their short existence. the timbers? well, they are playing for pride and the hope of bringing the cascadia cup back to portland.

the timbers have several obstacles to overcome. but none greater than the road duck. that animal will have to be shived, gutted, skewered, and roasted on an open firepit of robert bly proportions, because winning on the road is the only, let me repeat, ONLY way the timbers travel home with the cup. the timbers, with a game in hand, rest at 8 points against seattle’s 9 points. unfortunately, they have a goal differential of -1. unless some funky maths are performed, where quantum leaps are made across folds within the fissures of the universe, a draw will not close the 5 goal gap between the timbers and seattle. of course, all of this calculus could have been avoided had a side worthy of the cause been started against seattle two weeks ago. woulda. coulda. shoulda.

the timbers face a legitimately better side in the whitecaps. vancouver look to have the majority of their regular starters back and in contention to make the push for post-season. while kenny miller has returned from the embarrassment he and scotland suffered during the interlull, the greater concern is that dane richards is fit and bouyant after jamaica’s qualification for the next rounds of concacaf world cup qualification. darron mattocks is fit again and will likely feature in some way on sunday. i am sure he will have something to prove after suffering the humiliation of a quick red card against the timbers last round. sure, mattocks can be a douche, but he is deadly. he leads the whitecaps with 7 goals on 16 shots on goal, a conversion ratio better than 1 in 3. that is math i can do and it suggests we need to break his leg when he comes on. mattocks has been suffering from the old “tight hamstring” and will likely start from the pine. that means the threats will come from either camillo sanvezzo or, well, camillo sanvezzo. encouragingly, camillo has a mere 5 goals from 23 shots on goal–a conversion rate similar to that of kris boyd.

the timbers are likely to still be without their leading scorer. not that playing the leading scorer was ever an option these days, similar to the option of starting the assist leader. for some reason, or reasons, or non-reasons, eric alexander has fallen out of favor and sees more time on the pine than he does as a hopeless and useless substitute. as we all know, in order for alexander to play effectively he must be involved from the outset or his inclusion is pointless. mags has argued this until his fingers automatically type the keys upon first thought of alexander. aside from those two, it looks as if the regular starters will be included tomorrow. smith’s “tight hamstrings” have loosened. i expect kimura to get the nod now that facepalmer has shown that being a passenger on international duty is far easier than being a passenger domestically. the rest of the starting eleven writes their own names on the lines for the simple fact the timbers have nothing better.

one thing i am interested in seeing is whether fucito actually makes the trip north. he was more effective at pissing off every timbers supporter in 2 minutes than he was playing for 45. based on his performances in seattle, i cannot conceive any reason other than market window shopping to put him on the pitch. if i were to remove my emotions from my assessment i would still not include him in the plans for vancouver away. the whitecaps have a physical side with brutes in the center of their back line who will likely walk of the pitch fucito stuck to the bottom of their boots. his impish play may cause problems, but we have yet to see any results from his reputed tenacity other than a missed chance from an offside position two yards out.

regardless of who actually starts and who actually makes the bench, it seems the message that this match is important has been communicated through new technology in order to avoid the mixed messages of seattle away. evidently, the side did not realize that match was important and that the objective of playing football is to win at playing football. as the interim ginger said “something was lost in translation going into the seattle match.” my high-strung mind cannot grasp the difficulty faced when standing amongst 18 footballers in order to embolden them with gipper like speeches when bill murray singing karaoke while clutching a pokemon doll has more respect than the manager, but it must be hard. so, expressing the importance of winning, something those 18 footballers are paid by the club to do, something that the interim manager is paid to do, must be made even more difficult when the best 11 are not considered an option for success. what does that say to those 18 players? hopefully the same message is not conveyed tomorrow.

alright, football is back! enjoy your day.

sunshine.

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