Category Archives: post match rant

a sad state following a good win…

Posted on April 30, 2013 | 18 Comments

if you have not yet figured it out, this is a blog about the portland timbers. when mags and i set out to write this blog we did so with the intent to inject a daily dose of opinion, humour, and fact into the daily conversation about a team we love. because we talk about football all the time we thought others might also desire to talk about football all the time. or even some of the time. or just a little bit more than they did before we came along. that is because we have a passion for the sport that surpasses anything but the passion we have for our marriages. we live football–we sleep well when our sides win, poorly when they lose, and think entirely too much of how this sport can change your life for the good, or for the worse. and we want others to feel something akin to what we feel for the timbers.

most supporters are not as fanatical as we are, yet they are receptive to the conversation and the ideas from which the conversation develops. but when you give them drama they assume the advancement of the conversation. yesterday, when i was made aware of allegations involving an unnamed, portland timbers player, rather than immediately disclosing through social media of what i had become aware, i chose to investigate. some media outlets have no concern running a sensationalized story without having checked the facts because it brings hits, views, followers, friends, money. those media outlets understand the simplest of concepts regarding people and market towards that concept: people like drama. unfortunately, drama is never positive. but that is not my practice.

there is a grave responsibility when dealing in the business of facts. facts change the landscape of lives forever, especially when they are used by solicitous and reckless individuals concerned only with the production of responses. reported incorrectly, facts destroy. mark twain, who was once a newspaper man, flippantly suggested that in order to sell a story you should get your facts first and then distort them as you like. if a reporter wanted to attract readership all that would be required is to introduce a little hyperbole to controversy and the equation would be fulfilled.

but being the type of person who holds the belief that facts are sacred, i am also bound to an imperative obligation to ensure those facts are secured before reporting them. sources are witnesses, firsthand or secondhand, who have information that has been verified. they are rather easy to speak with, all you have to do is pick up a phone and call. i did that and i confirmed that allegations were made that a timbers player had committed a rape, that those allegations were investigated, that neither the police nor the prosecuting attorney believed the allegations were founded in truth, and that charges were not to be filed.

determined through a couple phone calls that authorities believed nothing criminal had occurred, i felt that nothing worth reporting had occurred. and so myself and the others involved in the investigation of the facts sat on the story. and i would still be sitting on the story had the furor not developed over the sensationalized reporting by local media outlets. this is not football. this is not the portland timbers. and whether or not something happened in a bedroom between consenting adults, that is not for us to be concerned about, and certainly not something we should be discussing 3 days after a road win against the best team in the eastern division of major league soccer.

but we are. and i am. because some news agency wanted to report something that, at this moment, is purely conjecture, not fact. shunning their responsibility of objectivity, that hack journalist likely subscribes to neitzsche’s belief that there are no facts, only interpretations and feels justified that his interpretation of some police blotter is sufficient explanation of the facts for his uneducated audience. and that is wrong, because all that was required to avert this drama was to make those phone calls to kansas city, missouri, ask a few questions, listen to the answers, follow up those answers with a few more questions, say thank you, and then say good bye. which is what i would like to say to this drama–good bye.

there are far too many good things surrounding the timbers to be fixated on drama. how often do we read jimmy neilsen say that the wizards did not have an answer for the game played by the timbers? he said that, and he said that because the timbers were that good. look, here it is:

We’ve been begging for teams to come here and come at us. They did, and we didn’t have an answer for it.

those words are facts–they are a firsthand observation and description of how well the timbers played on saturday night. but today people do not care about that or firsthand observations, they care about something else that, even in an article written by one of the more maligned timbers reporters, is declared unfounded and described as something that “doesn’t meet the bar.” but still, like opportunistic media-vultures, people want to comment about a situation without knowing anything about it. i did the investigation and i did not want to comment on something i believe strongly in because i did not believe the evidence was worthy of any comment.

sunshine

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no ball when you play long ball…

Posted on April 23, 2013 | 9 Comments

normally, the day after the day after the match magadh drops some controversial numbers on the player ratings and then i field the frustration directed towards him on the twatterverse. not so today. today you get a response to the questions about why sunday’s game looked so forced.

whether because the timbers have played the quakes two weeks in a row, or because of the continued stupidity that seems to develop from that organization and its supporters, it feels that anyone associated with the timbers has spent entirely too much time discussing what san jose did or is going to do out on the pitch. we get it: they are thugs. we get it: they play some incredibly physical football. we get it: they are going to bombard you with ball after ball launched into the 18 yard box. and after a while, i guess you can say that they are predictable. so why has everyone spent so much time attempting to break down what is easily broken down into 3 sentences? namely, that san jose is so good at what they do other teams forget about the fact that they are or can also be good at what they do too.

at times, this one concept caused quite a bit of frustration during sunday’s match. best way to beat a team like san jose is to keep the ball away from them. yet, unlike the match a week ago, the timbers were not as successful at the gig we have seen them be so successful at. as was the case against colorado, the timbers succumbed to over thinking and underappreciating.

it has been suggested that the timbers tactics were chosen and set in place before the match, indicating that porter did not trust his system. this seems a stretch. possession works against san jose–compare the statistics between the two games and you can see that holding the longer, attempting more passes, switching the ball within open play, reduced san jose’s chances on goal by half. if as a team you know what san jose is going to do and you have the key to break them down, why choose to switch the tactics? the simple answer is that it was reactive–when under fire and the fear of conceding a goal takes over, launching the ball into the opposition’s half seems an easy solution to the continued pressure. however, that reduced the likelihood of retained possession. porter acknowledged this in his postgame comments, stating:

I thought there were times when we could have controlled it a little bit better. It’s tough, when [san jose are] hitting it long all game … It’s hard to settle the game down and find much rhythm when you play San Jose. They’re a team that makes it choppy.

at the risk of being redundant, the system requires some simple adjustments to play in order for it to work. positioning, movement, and awareness. eventually, when a player is trained and steeped in the model long enough those actions become secondary. but this is a side still developing. they are going to forget their prime directive now and again, especially when  put under the kosh.

shea salinas did an exceptional job at forcing the game to mikey mo money, which explains, not justifies, why Harrington resorted to the long ball at times. salinas is quick, mobile, and slick in one on one situations–he turned harrington in 6′s and 7′s on several occasions in the match. harrington has been one the most consistent players for the timbers this season, but desperation will at times force a new approach to saving your bacon.

similarly, when the quakes switched their formation from 4-3-3 to a 4-4-2, they placed additional pressure on futty. last week, futty was exceptional at handling the main centerforward–he had little else to worry about than preventing the ball from connecting with alan gordon or steven lenhart as they speared the front three of san jose’s attack. not this sunday. if futty was not marshaling lenhart, he was dealing with wondolowski. granted, he made an exquisite challenge on wondo to prevent rickett’s from making save of the week number 3, but all too often his anticipation of what wondo and lenhart would do next left him unaware of what his own teammates were doing at the present. then add the additional flavours of play from ramiro corrales and raphael baca and you can see why futty also resorted to the occasional long ball.

some would suggest that the timbers issues were caused by sitting deep and playing the ball from their final third, allowing san jose more time to pressure and force turnovers. that is a good theory, but the majority of the passes made by the centerback pairing were made from the middle third of the pitch, not the final third. as were the majority of defensive interceptions. that does not suggest playing deep. what caused the timbers difficulty was the penetration by shea salinas, who spent the majority of his time in possession pushing into the final third. any defensive involvement at that point was clean up.

returning to the distribution of both centerbacks, you will see that long balls were on special. again, shea salinas had mo money in his pocket and that occupied one of the timbers preferred lanes of distribution. the result was a congested midfield pushing into san jose’s half. the centerbacks still held a high line, they simply had no avenue of distribution other than dumping it long. again, i return to the things players resort to. in situations like that, with this system the obvious cure would be to drift back, spread the lanes, and thus open the playing field for precise passing. that did not happen. see futty.

unfortunately, the long ball game was also reinforced by donovan rickett’s, who played the ball from the back only 3 times. 3 times. he had a total of 23 unsuccessful passes in the game, and all of those were long shots. as great as he was on the night at stopping the ball, his distribution gave little incentive to the other timbers players to retain possession. possession play often starts with playing the ball from the back. playing from the back, means just that–playing from the back–and it requires all parties to participate.

overall, the difference in this sunday from last was shea salinas. which might just require a small adjustment of the positional nous of the side in order to assist when next faced with a winger of his caliber. regardless, this sunday was not a disaster, but merely another step in the learning process. caleb said the houston game was the turning point, which means may iswhen this side should really kick into gear.

sunshine

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It’s All Happening Again…

Posted on September 25, 2012 | Leave a comment

Sorry for the failure to post yesterday. I spent the whole day being chased from pillar to post by a host of problems which started in the early morning and which each seemed to need immediate action to prevent utter catastrophe. Now I’m on sunshine’s you-know-what list. Which is bad. As a result, I’m having to post this from by safe house on an island in the Baltic Sea. I won’t tell you which one (out of concern for the safety of the locals) but I will say that there is a thick-necked guy named Günther wandering the grounds with an HK-91 and orders to shoot anyone who even vaguely resembles sunshine on sight.

Now down to business. There is an article currently running on the MLS website under the headline “Timbers Show How Far They’ve Come Since Last Loss at RSL. ” There is a certain amount of truth to the idea that we have improved since we were absolutely chased off the park by them in early July in a match that heralded John Spencer’s move to greener pastures. Still, this is an idea which, for me, only arrived in retrospect.

The first goal that we gave up is the kind of thing that has burned holes in my stomach all season. The thing that was most annoying was Horst’s failure to step up. Jewsbury also made a mistake: he touched the arm of one of the most notorious divers in the league, and no one can then be shocked that Morales threw himself to the turf. It’s a little like that guy who jumped into the tiger enclosure at the Bronx Zoo the other day. You can’t blame the tiger for trying to eat him. In the same way, expecting an inveterate flop artist like Morales to stay on his feet in a situation like this is really to rail against the forces of nature. Of course, he then also had the class to get up and start whining to the ref about how Jewsbury should have been booked. In that respect, at least, civilization won out, as the ref simply told them to get on with it and let Espindola pot the resulting free kick.

Perhaps I seem like I’m always coming to the defense of our keepers, but it really looked to me that the ease with which Espindola ended his goal drought (which at the time had extended to almost nine full matches) had a lot to do with the fact that the wall was completely static. The tendency of players to encroach at times like that is so well established that I was shocked to see our lads standing there passively as Espindola fired the ball through the middle of the wall.

Having set up their first goal by throwing himself to the turf, who could then blame Morales for feeling that he had a sympathetic audience in the officiating crew on the night? Who indeed? About twenty minutes later, he ran the same game and got just about the same result. He drew a feather soft touch from Jewsbury and then threw himself to the ground in a sobbing heap. This time he left it to his teammates to cry to the official for a booking (if you watch the match highlights you can see Espindola doing the honors). Unlike the case of the first free kick, this one was the keeper’s fault, at least in part. It was pretty well struck, but personally I thought that Bendik should have done a bit better than getting beat to his near post like that. In any case, it was a pretty just result for Morales who showed exactly the kind of benefits that can be reaped when you haven’t got a conscience or any integrity whatsoever.

Now, much as we were once again down early on the road, and remembering that it took FSL an hour to break down our resistance the last time we played them, can it really be said that our performance had improved? The match in July was a low point for the team in terms of the way that the offense was functioning or, more properly, not functioning. I think we could have been locked in the ground alone for that entire night without troubling the goal unduly. Our performance on Saturday night was better in a few respects. Jewsbury partially atoned for having been the straight man in Morales’s con job by stinging Rimando’s palms with a well-taken header in the period between the two goals, and in general it seemed like we had much more going for us in terms of attacking ideas that we’d had in the earlier match.

As for Dike’s goal, well, full marks to him for taking it. It came at the end of a pretty considerable spell of pressure from FSL which nearly ended up with Paulo potting their third after he ghosted unobstructed through our defense onto a through ball. That would have made it 3-0, the exact scoreline by which we lost the previous encounter, and it would have been achieved rather earlier in the match as well. It is for this reason that, taken as a whole, I have trouble looking at this game and seeing it as a massive improvement over the previous effort. Clearly, we did a lot better job of winning the ball and keeping it. If I recall correctly, one of the biggest problems from the earlier match was that FSL had something like 60% of the possession. Still, I don’t see that we were a whole lot closer to a road win this time around. Sure, Dike scored, and that did put us within one goal of a point. But I think the larger fact to consider about Dike is the degree to which his play showed him to be a “B” grade attacker. He’s not fast enough to blow by most defenders, or big enough to muscle them. He’s got decent technique, but my feeling is that he doesn’t bring anything to the team that Mwanga doesn’t do better.

Strange to say, but with four matches left and with only a game in hand over Chivas keeping us out of the cellar, we still have something to play for. A win and a draw versus Vancouver and Seattle would do it for us. Or a win away to the Sounders, but I’m kind of not holding my breath on that score. There are a few other permutations, but you get the idea. This season has been dire, but taking the cup would be a nice consolation prize.

Magadh

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the ghost of timbers past has nothing to do with this loss…

Posted on July 16, 2012 | 6 Comments

one of the benefits of having a writing partner is the break between posts. and today i could certainly use a break from writing after having composed yesterday’s monolithic piece. unfortunately, magadh is on some hush-hush operation for the bundesnachrichtendienst as they look to prevent covert movements of spanish and italian nationals looking to free themselves and their countrymen from the economic dependence on the eurozone. from what i have been informed, and i am rarely informed of anything regarding his international intrigues, angela merkel personally requested professor magadh to head a one man operation intended to introduce some slackerdom to the spanish population. evidently his past efforts have been so succesful the current 40% unemployment rate is attributable to magadh’s wonderbong techniques.

these are the things i must accept as normal when sharing duties with an herb-friendly savant, who is well schooled in modern german history and politics.  how can he refuse angela merkel, really? offer the man a couple brownies, a few free pints of spaten, a couple rare bootlegs of some nordic death metal band, and he is as defenseless as the timbers were against david beckham’s right foot, or his left foot (to mis-quote hugh grant).

clearly some things need to still be addressed a week on since gavin undertook a percopious effort to usurp the coaching position. as strong as the timbers came out against the gals, it really cannot be a surprise that they lost. these are the same players who played underneath spencer, and the same players brought in by gavin. and gavin is the key. as contrite as he may be, and he should be because the tactics were his as much as the players were his, he still failed to see the overreaching issues before the match began.

if after watching the first 17 matches of the season he did not realize playing jewsbury or palmer in front of the defense would not work, he certainly did not realize playing them together would fail as miserably as it did. 45 minutes into the match was the recognition we all wish had occurred 50 minutes prior to the end of the first half. pulling palmer was an acknowledgement, but it was too late. though it did not require an explanation from gavin, we understand where the finger was pointed when in his post-game presser he said:

There’s no way we should be walking out of here having given up five goals at home. It’s just not right. I think we had some key players not play as well as they could. In individual areas we got stretched. The lines between the back line and the midfield allowed Donovan and Keane to drop off and pick up the ball and cause us tremendous problems.

throughout the season i have placed great emphasis on the poor play of palmer. i have been unforgiving of his near guaranteed position in the starting eleven. but to write any further on the subject would be redundant. instead i am going to direct you to the exceptional post and analysis of saturday’s match written by the scotsman over there at slide rule pass. i think that post finely reiterates every thought i have had on the palmer dilemma. which really is not a dilemma.

while his post-match assessment of blameworthy individuals was crystal clear, gavin still used the difficult week excuse. whether an attempt to gain sympathy or another week of “good will” in the court of public opinion, gavin said that he will “take the blame for [the loss], there’s been a lot happening in the last week.” which is all well and good, but he should have instructed his captain of the party-line jingoism. because when jack was asked about the lingering spencer effect he was candid that it had limited to no effect on the outcome of the game.

The reality is the majority of the guys in this locker room have been through changes before. Obviously it’s difficult the first two days, but then you get on with it. I thought we came out and played pretty well and then the key guys that we talked about before the game, Landon and Keane and obviously Beckham, when you give them space and free kicks it’s going to be dangerous. And they took advantage of them tonight.

oops! in black and white, audio, and likely visual, the answers are there and they are painful. jack acknowledged the midfield failed to close down the key players. and he acknowledged that their failure was the cause of the loss, not john spencer’s ghost.  i think gavin is going to have to find a new party-line, because that excuse is as dead as the day is long. even jack, a member of the midfield that gave too much space and time on the ball to beckham and landycakes, recognized the issues were defensive, not emotional. though emotions do cause some people to be defensive…

the question is whether or not gavin will make the adjustments, or be as reluctant as his predecessor was to remove certain players from the side. yes, he pulled palmer–but he also started palmer. of the two defensive midfielders available to him, jack was the better option. had palmer remained on the bench, or at home, gavin could have pushed alexander into the middle of the formation. this would have invigorated his creative talents, given kalif more support, and allowed for another attacking player to be positioned on the left. instead, gavin opted for palmer and anti-player anti-football. after the match, i was left to wonder whether gavin would make that choice in the future.

for his sake, that decision may have been made for him once the final whistle was blown. that moment meant the miniature, colombian attack-dog will be back in the side, bossing all people, places, things and ideas. i believe there are two positions that need immediate attention in the off-season (no, not spencer’s and gavin’s, but that would be great). the timbers still need a creative midfielder, but in addition to that player they also need a reliable deputy for chara. without one, the timbers are limited in their choices of no and no.

all right. ok. that is the post. i hope you all have a great monday.

sunshine

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Doubts Even Here…

Posted on June 22, 2012 | 3 Comments

This column may not be as long as usual. I got my schedule all messed up and forgot that I have to head off to the doctor in a few minutes to get an allergy jab. The pollen count is currently so high where I am that I can barely see the keyboard. Normally, I might consider just punting and passing the thing over to sunshine, but that would be kind of a crap way to start one’s Friday, now wouldn’t it?

In preparation for Sunday’s tilt with the Sounders, we have a column coming in from our colleague Anfield89. He is a really sweet fellow, well-mannered and sound in all respects except for his devotion to the Sounders. Well, de gustibus non desputandem est I suppose. I know he’s sent us a draft, but neither sunshine nor I have had the time to edit it, and as you might expect with dispatches from the enemy camp, it’s simply not the kind of thing that we want to just dump in here in the raw.

From reading yesterday’s column, you might get the impression that I am like Mr. Spock to sunshine’s Dr. McCoy. Well, you wouldn’t be far wrong, at least in terms of the way that we related to each other. Which is not to say that I’m some bloodless pedant. I would point out that I have threatened to glass United fans on more than one occasion, and that I was once chased out of the George and Dragon in Seattle by an angry mob of them, but that’s a different matter. In any case, it is probably fair to say that in the thousands of conversations that sunshine and I have had about the game, it has often been my role to tamp down his passions.

I thought the points that he made in yesterday’s post got to some important home truths. If you want to look for the reason that we are currently at the bottom of the standings, the first place to look is at the on field staff. In a lot of the cases where we have lost late, there is a particular botch or bungle to which one can point as the source. The match on Sunday was a case in point. Lots of people have pointed to Perkins’s failure to react properly to getting blocked off the cross. People who read my columns from earlier this week will know that I don’t see him as quite as culpable as others do. On the other hand, I think that there is pretty broad agreement that Jewsbury really cost us by not tracking Dunivant’s run.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the thing that I found most distressing in the last thirty minutes or so of that match was the sort of air of it’s-all-happening-again that seemed to afflict the team. It didn’t really seem like they had the emotional wherewithal to get back into the match. For me, this is worse than the failure to concentrate. The only way that this team is going to make anything out of what remains of this season is by resolving to fight for every inch of territory.

Sunshine and I have argued a lot over the last few years about whether Arsene Wenger should have been let go as manager of Arsenal. I bring this up because it may surprise old sunshine to know that I am starting to come around on the question of Spencer and his future with the club. So far this season I have focused my criticisms mostly on the playing staff and on those elements of management (i.e. Gavin Wilkinson) both above and below Spencer. I’ve said before that I’m dubious about the positive effects that managerial changes can have. Having said that, I think one might also look at this season and say that a pattern has developed. This team just can’t seem to put 90 consistent minutes of football together week in and week out. I’ve been watching matches from earlier in the campaign, and the thing that really strikes one is that it is a rare thing for this team to put two good halves together in the same match.

There is a significant difference between the reasons why teams like L.A. and Seattle have underperformed so far this season and why we are where we are. Both of the former have suffered a lot of injuries and have been thus prevented from properly expressing the quality in their teams. It just doesn’t seem that we have that level of quality, especially in attack. But, and this is the more worrisome matter from my perspective, the real basis for the current malaise is a lack of heart in the team. Once again, this has a lot to do with the individual and collective orientation of the on field staff. These guys are professionals, and should be expected to approach the game in a manner consistent with that fact. I’m now starting to wonder, though, if it might not be time to consider a change of direction.

There are two reasons why I suggest this. On is simply that, as Samuel Johnson is supposed to have said, “[w]hen a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.” One thing that a change at the top can do is impress upon the players that nobody’s position is sacrosanct. At a more prosaic level, I have really begun to question lately if this team has, as a practical matter, any idea about how they are going to score. They have wings who don’t really get to the byline that often and don’t do much to attack the back post when the ball is on the other side of the pitch. The result is that the attack is generally funneled up Route 1 and we simply to don’t have the players, in terms of either style or technique, to make that happen. At a certain point you have to say that this is a failure of managerial organization.

Just to be clear, the point of this column is not: off with his head! Now! Rather, I’m just interested in opening a discussion about where the problems really lie. Maybe you disagree, and with the team sitting where it is there is probably blame to be spread around. For those who think that managerial approach has contributed significantly to what has gone on so far, I ask the following question: What is it that you think Spencer should (or could) have done differently?

Magadh

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i’m a good enough footballer, and, dog gone it, spencer likes me…

Posted on June 21, 2012 | 4 Comments

if you have not gathered yet, the writers of this blog have disparate personalities. i wear my heart on my sleeve and mags is the professorial guru, who is concerned more with heady and measured advice than actually feeling anything. you could say we are the yin and yang, the felix unger and oscar madison, the starsky and hutch of the blogosphere. clearly there are times when we do not agree, but there are certain things to which i say word and he says d’accord.

i have watched too many games of football to remember every exciting event, or even care to remember every event. i cannot return to games two, three years ago and recount the exact number of touches so and so took before he megged the keeper, or the tackle that set up a free kick in a game during winter of 2007, but i do remember the attitudes and the commitment of players. i remember those things. i remember whether a footballer cares. i remember whether he sells everything he has to the cause. this is what mags and i will always agree on–the commitment of the players on the side. i can overlook errors, missed opportunities, even loses, as long as i am convinced that after the match is complete everything was left on that pitch.

i walked away from sunday’s match against the galaxy carrying a sense of disappointment not because of the result, but because i believed the majority of the players appeared satisfied at being less than mediocre. if there is one cliche football writers love to spread it is the unimaginative headline or theme of a tale of two halves. as displeasing as that cliched description is to read it conformed perfectly to the events of last sunday’s game. i watched the same timbers as everyone who reads this blog did, knowing that in the first half they dominated every statistical category known to statisticians only to choose to accept being punched in the nose in the second half. how is it acceptible to not try when down a goal? the purpose of this game is to win, right?

as much as i disapprove of spencer’s continued existence at this club, he cannot play on that pitch during the game. the people out there are the professionals who receive a check to try–you know, the players. however, during a conversation the other night, it was suggested that perhaps the poor performances might be due to the fact spencer cannot remove himself from his days as a player in order to become the manager and motivator these players need.

i thought about that concept and the more i considered it, the more i understood that the basic precepts of accountability could very well be issue. to be honest, i am indifferent to the idea but for the sake of this post i will assume a stance consistent with belief. work for you? cool.

in the history of sport, the most succesful managers are not always the most popular personalities. while revered, successful managers are also feared. brian clough, ferguson, george graham, even kenny dalglish (at one point in his career), held the esteem of their players without being besties. being in that position allowed them to question the heart of their players, where being buds would only confuse the descriptions and requirements of their roles and lead to bruised feelings.

consider the recent comments made by the gaffer during training earlier this week:

I’m dissapointed that we never came out the second half and jumped on them a little bit better with more intensity.

whenever spencer discusses the result, good or bad, it is in terms of we. “we” may be the most criminally under-used word in relation to your significant other, family, and friends, but it should always remain unused by a manager when discussing the on-pitch accomplishments of his football squad. he was not out there–the players were out there. evidently spencer is more concerned about fragile egos and being everybody’s politically-correct pal than holding the team accountable for their feckless, second-half display. what harm can come from actually calling out the team, the individual players? why not say jewsbury blew the corner, rather than saying:

eventually you get done by a set piece from the best free kick taker, dead ball taker, in the last twenty years of the game. You can’t give up chances like that.

he is correct–you cannot give up chances like that, but jewsbury failed to mark his man. he either experienced a lapse in concentration or was completely inept at his job. regardless, he screwed up. what harm comes from either calling him out, or sitting him the next game? this unreasonable insistence that a captain must play because he is the captain is a pathetic form of athletic induced, brody jenner bromance, man-love. let me describe it a different way. my dad loves me. i know this. i knew this when i was a kid. but there was a time in our relationship when we were not friends, we were father and son because he had to make unpopular decisions about my behavior. failing to acknowledge my poor behavior would have simply condoned and reinforced that behavior. when i did not live up to his expectations, he informed me. calling a person out indicates that you believe they are capable of more. for me, that form of support is more effective than burning candles and listening to yanni records, while watching oprah reruns–the last time i checked, stuart smalley was still un-loved and unsuccesful despite all the positive reinforcement.

still, spencer persists expressing his disappointment to the media through verbal hugs and kisses:

I say it on a daily basis, you see the quality. I said to the guys this morning, we’ve got to have that belief in ourselves and there is no doubt about it, the team need to show more confidence in thier ability, individually and collectively, when they are on the field.

perhaps nothing will change with the performances of the side until the approach to the players changes. while i was never good enough to do much more than play rec-league, i know from experience that i fought harder for my coaches when they defined their expectations of the team and of me as a player.

this theory does not suggest the players are without fault. they should have pride enough in their game and the kit they wear to expect more of themselves than the second half of the galaxy match. considering that, i still do not accept the “we have quality, but lack belief” excuse for the second half. that let down was a resignation, an acceptance of the inevitable. and here is where the proposed theory may have weight. if the players were exposed to the threat of losing their position rather than a session of “positive reinforcment” that promotes the belief they will play week in week out, something more positive than that second-half might arise from their efforts when going down a goal.

sunshine

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It’s All Happening Again (In Lieu of the Player Ratings)

Posted on June 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

When I was ten years old or so, I spent a couple of years being coached by a guy named Michael Kaye. He was a Royal Navy pilot who had been seconded to the U.S. Navy to teach their pilots how to fly Harriers. He was really great as a coach, a great teacher of the game and a person who always maintained the proper demeanor. After a bad call cost our team a goal one day, he said something to us which has always stuck with me: “Don’t worry about the refs. The calls will generally equal out over the course of the game.”

This was a good thing to tell a bunch of eleven year olds, and something that I have tried to take to heart ever since. Be that as it may, I just cannot resist saying something about the officiating in that game down in L.A. It was, without a doubt, the most incompetent officiating crew that I have ever seen in a professional match. I’ve seen matches all over Europe and up and down the professional divisions, and this was simply the worst. The linesman on the far side seemed to be unaware that, on a throw in, one is allowed to stand wherever on the pitch that suits you. You cannot be offside. Similarly, he also did not understand that you can’t be offside when the opposition plays the ball backwards. The head official made himself complicit in his assistant’s ignorance, failing to wave off three or four clearly erroneous calls.

The total effect of this would have been a minor irritation if it hadn’t been for the extremely annoying non-call on the Galaxy’s goal. The Galaxy ran a pick play, pure and simple. As the kick was being taken, Donovan sauntered into a position where he was going obstruct Perkins’s path to the cross. He did a similar thing in the first half when he obstructed Chabala without making any serious attempt to play the ball. Now, I think we all know that obstruction in the modern game of football is a bit like travelling in the NBA: it’s generally overlooked with a nudge and a wink. But the sequence that led up to the goal was clearly a play that the Galaxy ran.

If you watch the replay, you’ll see Donovan clearly taking a position in front of the keeper and, once again, making absolutely no attempt to play the ball, or even to move in the direction that the ball is going. Honestly, this is extremely annoying. Granting that the Galaxy’s record this season is pretty dire, they still have as much or more talent than any other team in the league. A team starting Donovan and Beckham shouldn’t have to employ gamesmanship of this sort.

Having said that, I now want to turn to a little bone that I have to pick with sunshine. His assessment Perkins’s role in the goal was as follows:

chabala stood still, players were pushed into middle of the box, and perkins ran towards and into them. he made claim that he was obstructed, and he likely was. unfortunately, he mis-timed the complaint. rather than playing to the whistle he threw a hissy as the set piece was ongoing.

He and I argued about this for about twenty minutes yesterday without coming to any consensus on the matter. I’ve watched the goal ten or fifteen times on the replay and it looks to me as if Perkins never sees Donovan until he runs into him. On the replay, you can clearly see he is looking to the right, following the ball as it comes into the box. He starts to move forward to make a play on the ball and at that point he runs into Donovan. His arms go up in the air, not throwing a “hissy fit,” but as much out of surprise as anything else. Almost immediately, he starts moving to his left to try to cover where the shot is likely to come from, and he nearly makes the save on Dunivant’s header.

Let’s be clear about the time frame in which all of this occurs. From the moment that Perkins makes contact with Donovan to the point at which Dunivant’s shot hits the back of the net, to total time elapsed is just over one second. In that time, Perkins manages to recover from the surprise of running into a stationary body where none should be, and to shift to his left to try to save the resulting shot. For me, it is unrealistic to expect that Perkins should have done anything other than he did. According to sunshine’s account, Perkins stopped playing in order to protest, but I just don’t think that that interpretation is borne out by the video. I think it comes down to how you interpret Perkins throwing his arms up in the air. For sunshine, it’s protest. For me it’s surprise. In any case, it was a bit shocking to me that the ref, who was looking directly at the play in question from about fifteen feet away, did not call Donovan even though his actions amounted to a blatant attempt to block the opposing keeper.

Having said all of that, there was one thing that sunshine and I did agree on. He and I (and everyone else) would not be having this conversation if Jewsbury had not gotten beat to the back post by Dunivant. There are plenty of people in this world who understand the game of football better than I. But I do know that it is crucial for the fullback on the off side to make sure that he doesn’t allow an open shot from the back post on a set play.

That was not the first time that Jewsbury got caught ball watching. Within three minutes of the opening whistle he’d given up an open header to Marcelo from about five feet in front of goal. On the play in question, he’s tasked with covering Dunivant. As the ball goes in, Jewsbury stands rooted as Dunivant heads for goal, then makes a futile attempt to come over his back to prevent the shot.

Ok, that was my whinge. The non-call and the poor defending were irritating, but let’s be clear: the reason that the Timbers lost that match was that they didn’t score any goals. They had some good opportunities in the first half but didn’t convert. After they gave up the goal there just didn’t seem to be a lot of fight in this team, and that isn’t acceptable.

Normally I would have done player ratings today. I’ll do them tomorrow. I just had to get this off my chest.

Magadh

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notes from the underwhelmed: a complainer’s guide to happiness

Posted on May 22, 2012 | Leave a comment

sitting down at 930 to write a post after suffering one of the more frustrating days of my career which included a sinus headache that still lingers behind my left eyeball is not the definition of a good time. those combined conditions certainly do not create the ideal mental atmosphere for a successful blog post. so, for the first few moments of this post you will read about my complaints, suffer through them, and draw some rather harsh comparisons with certain complainers in the world of football.

i suffer from migraines, and have done so for as long as i can remember. but every so often i am blessed with a pain similar to the pain i would feel if i took a screwdriver, jammed it into my eyeball, twisted, and then left it there inserted rather closely to my medula oblangata. i must work under these conditions. i cannot take the day off. no one else can care for my responsibilities. i cannot use them as an excuse for any mistakes. and i make mistakes, but when i do i take responsibility for them and i amend them. i move on.

unlike certain managers and footballers, i do not use my physical conditions as an excuse for poor performances. the number of times i have heard arsene wenger use the pitch conditions to excuse the arsenal’s lack of plan b, or their inability to break down the bus when the bus has been parked, is incalculable. i still do not buy that excuse. nor do i buy spencer’s excuse that montreal had an advantage playing on velcroed astroturf that would have difficulty meeting the standards of a trailerpark porch, let alone the superior standards of the mls. so when i read today that dan gargan has a little sand in his nether regions because the jw is too small, i am without sympathy.

dan gargan, a gargantuan douchebag, complained following the match against the timbers that

[The Timbers] play in a shoe box that one team is used to playing on and one team is not. By no means do I think that’s going to determine the outcome, but it’s something that the league should at least address.

i understand his frustrations. steven smith and the rodwall effectively neutralized any attack from his side of the pitch. the rodwall exploited gargan on a number of occassions, but that was due to gargan, not the pitch size. if anything, the pitch size should have helped gargan and the fire remain compact in the defense. the fact is, gargantuan did not have a good game, certainly understandable due to his left foot, but there are other left foots in history that suffered from injuries and were perfectly successful–i am talking about you, daniel day lewis.

neither pitch size nor pitch condition has anything to do with losing, but complaining about them has everything to do with being a sore loser. i hate losing. i hate it. hate. hate. hate. hate it. but i cannot abide people who do not acknowledge when they were beat fair and square. when spencer went on about the condition of stade olympique up there in montreal i turned off the volume because he failed to acknowledge the actual reasons for the loss. the timbers lost in montreal because their defense was toilet and they could not create chances. similarly, gargantuan can cry about the pitch size, chabala’s dodgy haircut, or even those god-awful shoes sal zizzo wears, but it will not change the fact he is a sore loser.

however, too much attention has been afforded to gargantuan than really should have happened. the jw is not a spacious venue. so what? from what i saw when we played houston, neither is the bbva. if every team in the mls adhered to a cookie-cutter measurement scale the league would be rather boring. so long as the jw meets the league specifications, gargantuan can cry all he likes–we still won.

moving on with my thoughts about the weekend…for all the joy that win brought, i still have concerns that the timbers have not scored a goal from open play since boyd’s goal against the galaxy. we did look to threaten more in this match than we have in the last several matches, but nothing materialized. however, the gaffer did appear pleased with the side’s overall performance

We’ve been asking the guys for a couple of weeks now to put better service in the box, and I think we got that today; I’m happy…I felt the guys were pretty much in control of the game.

when the gaffer is happy, everyone is happy. i am happy. are you happy? good.

one person who certainly appears to be enjoying his play is the rodwall. i gave the rodwall a good amount of abuse when he was forced into leftback. leftback was quite clearly a position he uncomfortable playing. however, i have been impressed with his recent form. it is amazing how a player can affect a side when he is playing in his proper position. the move to the leftwing has benefited his game and the team. i imagine he will eventually drill one of the efforts from outside the 18 yard box soon enough. thank god for square holes and new defenders.

aside from an errant pass which lead to the fire goal, the defense cleared every threat on goal. rather than giving the credit where it was due–brunner and mosquera–spencer chose to commend his chosen two.

the midfield players have been protecting the back four and not giving away too much.

both palmer and chara were guilty of their usual mistakes. they were caught watching when perkins was forced to make that spectacular save in the 36 minute. and minutes later, chara failed to close down marco pappa, who intercepted that smith’s errant clearance/pass. chara stood 30 feet off the fire midfielder, giving pappa enough room and all day to pick his pass. the only effort chara put in was to lift his leg to block the pass. i may be mentally delayed, or this screwdriver in my frontal lobe is causing some whacky effects, but when has lifting your leg ever blocked a ball? that is not protection, that is plain lazy.

final note: some german from bayern munich 2, who recently played in the austrian second division is a trialist at the timbers. stefan reiss. he is a creative midfielder. i have not performed a youtube scouting endeavour, so that is about all i know of him. make of it what you will.

with that, have a great day.

sunshine

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streaks, slumps and the law of averages continue to remain, well, average…

Posted on May 7, 2012 | 2 Comments

the term meh is about all that can be used to describe my feelings about the result from saturday night. the fact remains we have not scored a goal since our trip to a galaxy far, far away. and as much credit people want to give the timbers for the win over sporting, i say this: we did not win against sporting, sporting lost. regardless of the outcome, you cannot consider an owngoal a goal created by the side, nor can you attribute that win to anything more than blind stupid luck. the timbers created nothing then, and have created nothing still. and so the goalless streak continues.

do not get me wrong, a draw is better than a loss and a goalless draw shows more about the team’s character than say a 2-2 draw, where we gave up the 2nd goal at the 85 minute.  it appears we have learned what an important platform an assured defensive performance can provide the attacking portion of the game. aside from some glaring giveaways courtesy of mssrs chabala and palmer, the defense did most everything right. i was especially impressed with futty–what a solid performance he delivered, and a solid post-game interview.  the real mark of the defense is that columbus were limited to 3 shots on goal the entire 90 minutes. though mosquera does look suspect at covering an onrushing player, which is an issue of speed not quality, his partnership with futty is one that i look forward to seeing again.

in a moment of consternation to an awarded free-kick expressed through 20k groans, i had to agree with a call made by the ref. a neighbor to the rear was inconsolable and dismayed by that fact. i looked at him and said, hey, man, you know i may be a loudmouthed jerk, but at least i am fair (or something to that effect). we had a group knuckles and the line became the reference to every joke made the remainder of the evening. so, in an attempt to be fair, i must say that rodwall and jewsbury were better than their usual on saturday.

i have been very hard on captain jack, and deservedly so–he has not performed well throughout the first seven games. when he is engaged in the game he plays like a crab, or he is either out hustled or just not interested. but credit where credit is due: excluding a few moments venturing into prime dungeness waters, jack was assured in the back and looked to push the ball along the touchline. i am sure his inclusion in the side as a rightback was as much a surprise to many as it was to me, but there was that time back in 2007-08 when he played that position, and was named the wiz’s defensive player in the process. i am not excited to think he may be our new rightback, but anything is better than reverting to palmer, or returning to steve purdy. so, for now, we can only judge him on what he does going forward.

the rodwall was finally placed in a position intended to exploit the only things he is good at: getting forward and playing offensively. however, somewhere in his time at leftback he learned to track back and assist on the defensive end. this came especially useful given chewy’s reluctance to contribute defensively. offensively, the rodwall also contributed some good interplay with the striking force when going to the byline, put in some crosses that were reasonably good, and had a very nice strike from 30 yards out parried away by gruenebaum. to summarise, i thought rodwall played a passable game in a position i felt best suited for him.

maybe relenting to increased pressure to change, or maybe he realised the timbers do not have the personnel to play a variation of 4-3-3, spencer not only made positional changes, he also employed the 4-4-2–a formation i believe plays to the current team’s strengths. post game, the gaffer was pleased with the improvement, stating

We look back to ourselves, and as I say, it’s a positive step. Obviously not the result we hoped for, but a positive step.

you know, he is right. we showed positive signs and it appeared that our creativity is on the mend and hopefully to return. nagbe was very lively, turning the opposition left and right, causing them some serious problems; it is amazing what a position change will do for a player. nagbe is not a player who excels at pushing to the byline and lofting crosses. he is not a winger and is typically marginalized from the game when placed in that role. spencer got that one right, putting nagbe in the number 10 and slotted behind boyd. he was direct, influential and lacked only the finishing touch. i am sure if he remains in that position, rather than fall subject to spencer’s ever-changing and whimsical formations, he will get on the board again.

though there was an improvement in our creative output (we created 6 shots on goal against columbus, equalling the output of the last two games, combined) and in the pressure we placed the opposition under, as the scoreline and the streak indicates, our final ball was non-existent. the gaffer also addressed that issue, stating:

We’ve got to have a little more quality in the final third. We need to get Kris Boyd better service, that’s for sure

boyd did not get perfect service, but he did get service. perfect service will not happen when players like songo’o complete only 50% of the passes attempted. a creative player of songo’o's caliber and position should have a pass completion percentage closer to 75. on saturday, songo’o was frustrating; he seemed to exchange his direct and silky play for the ever exciting, but never reliable, step over after step over after step over. while some ball skill is cute, like street dribbling is cute, in my opinion it should be limited to weekends when football is not being played–unless you are christiano ronaldo. songo’o has shown that he can be effective when taking on players, not running into them–unfortunately, the step-over forces one’s field of vision to his feet, not the players ahead of him. consequently, i felt he was one of the most wasteful players on the pitch.

had diego chara not been playing on saturday, i would likely have given the booby prize to songo’o. thankfully, chara was, or, rather, it is too bad that chara was playing. the twelve-year-old is increasingly frustrating. i doubt he knows how to make a challenge without fouling, committing 7 during this match. i think i may be correct in this one, but no player in the mls committed more fouls than the midget and it appears he is working to ensure he does not lose that distinction–he has collected 25 total this season. i am fine with a midfielder who fouls, but i do not have patience for one who continually places the team in peril due to the position of the fouls. i may believe that he is the best defensive midfield option we have, but he is not an option worthy of designated player status nor 500k per annum.

not all that exciting, but that is the state of things at the timbers.

with that, have a great day and enjoy the sun.

sunshine.

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please, stay here and try not to do anything…

Posted on April 30, 2012 | Leave a comment

the great thing about the timbers continued poor performances is as the number increases so does the threshold of acceptance. i can shake off a loss in a matter of minutes where it used to require several days of gestalt therapy assisted by cold compresses, a cocktail of ibuprofen and sodium naproxin, and a bowl of jellied pears. during those incipient days of humbling my expectations, mrs sunshine was forced to listen to the continued discussion of how i was feeling about football at any particular moment and what attitudes were needed to accomplish anything worthwhile following a loss. but with the help of the timbers, i can safely say that i am ok with losing and i have no further expectations for this year.

i think the cocktail has eaten away my stomach lining and i am suffering from bleeding ulcers, because that last paragraph is a load of hooey. personally, i believe i would not be a football supporter, a timber supporter, if i did not care about failure and defeat. i can think of few things that hurt more, perhaps driving a nail through my foot or eyeball, but very few other things, indeed. which is why i do not accept the current rationale that consistency is the issue. the timbers are consistent, just not good. which suggests the issues are threefold: lack of talent, poor discipline and absent leadership in certain areas.

while you cannot reasonably expect your captain to be the best player on the pitch (often that does not work out) , you can expect your captain to do the hard work, to pick players up when they are not pulling their weight, to lead, whether by cussing and yelling or by example, and to say the hard things when it is necessary. cue the typical, vacuous captain jack quote:

I think consistency has been an issue for us on the road. We came out last week again Kansas City, at home, we were winning second balls and had a great game. It’s just a matter of finding that consistency on the road now.

did you learn anything there? yeah, neither did i. neither did jack, otherwise he would understand that the team is consistent on the road–consistently poor. i get the need to remain upbeat, semi-positive, but why not take some responsibility? why not do something novel rather than press the rewind and replay buttons? why not look geoffrey c. arnold in the eye and say, hey, i stunk it up and so did the team–you know, something similar to what boyd did.

Montreal played better than us, they worked harder than us, so they deserved the victory. I think the penalty decision changed the game. But we need to look at our performance. It wasn’t good enough on the road.

there you go, jackie boy, a substantial quote that considers the possibility of personal and group stinkitude. unfortunately, you have been indoctrinated into the ostrich school of media interaction.

i have been thinking of all the famous captains throughout history and fiction. there was captain horatio hornblower, captain kirk, followed up by captain picard, captain america, captain bligh, captain cook, captain hook, and captain francesco schettino. yes, that is the guy i am thinking of…the one who excused his abandonment of his multi-million dollar, luxury cruise liner in the mediterranean on the fact he tripped and fell into the life raft. the lack of consistency response is as absurd and insulting as the “i left my sinking ship and the hundreds of passengers aboard because i am a clutz” response. we get that the side cannot put two games together that are worthy of a winning team, but inconsistency expresses an unpredictible nature of play–5 loses out of 8, a -4 goal differential, and the inability to find the back of the net in the last two games, suggests something more than inconsistent play is at the heart of the issues. jack is there in the side, boyd is there also, why minimize the problem when punching it in the mouth is often the better approach.

merritt paulson tweeted for the umpteenth time that the side does have issues, but talent is not the issue and they will be working on righting the ship. whether it is talent, an unbalanced side, or players who have limited to no footballing intelligence, the one thing i have seen to be consistent other than the timbers poor play is the inability of the manager, gavin, and the front office to address the ballasts and the issues. it is comforting to know the owner recognizes there are issues pervasive within the side, but when, and more importantly, how will he address them?

an option would be to dismantle the underperforming and ill-disciplined central midfield. after contemplating the contributions of certain players, i would like to officially announce that the lovel palmer experiment has failed. i know i handed him a get out of jail free card for his performance against sporting, but that was more due to a fine collective, defensive effort than to the fact he was outstanding. against the impact he suffered from the same issues of hesitation and wanderlust that plagued his days at right back, which either forced him to make ill-advised passes or to chase players rather than crunch their nuts when first confronting them, which is the job of a defensive midfielder. while i can sacrifice palmer for the good of the team, and would do so yesterday, his play against the impact characterized the disciplinary problems abounding the timbers in general–players either do not have a distinct idea of their position or they just do not care. i would suggest it is the former, not the later.

our poster child for on-field, disciplinary problems, diego chara, is an enigma. my initial evaluation of diego against the impact was unkind, to say the least. i have been unable to determine whether he is an important figure for the side, or just fouls so often that we are led to believe he is an important figure for the side. early on, he committed some fouls against the impact but then decided to go to recess as all good twelve-year olds do. i know i was bored enough during the match to contemplate sleeping, but i did not sleep, and, honestly, i cannot remember him playing aside from the fouls he committed. however, his increasingly enigmatic play coincides with the change in positions on the field. placing him on the wing does provide the team a defensive barrier, but is that not what jack and palmer are required to provide? when diego was placed in the creative role, and captain jack in the defensive role, we actually scored goals. the last two games where jack has been given freedom to get forward, diego has been marginalized and we have scored 0 goals. zilch. zero.

two games may not be a trend, but it does indicate where the imbalance in the side resides. maybe, but unlikely, that is the issue merritt indicates he will correct–the removal of jack from the side. there have been enough changes in formation and tactics to suggest it is personnel issues. clearly, when the changes have been made to pander to a particular player’s opinion of his own talents, the common denominator is easily observable.

with that, have a great day.

 

sunshine.

 

 

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