Tag Archives: david horst

Our Needs in Defense

Posted on April 12, 2013 | 14 Comments

I am hesistant to make the following points. What I am going to say here in some respects amounts to a prediction. The world is exceedingly complex, and attempts to predict the courses in which it will run are generally vain. At least mine are. I’ve only made one or two veritably correct predictions in the whole of my public expressions, although I will say that I correctly predicted German re-unification about three months before it happened. A fat lot of good it did me. At all events, I am reminded of the old adage about the blind pig and the acorn. But even worse, I’ve come to suspect that there is some sort of quantum entanglement between my predictions and events in the real world. Translation: it’s all my fault.

Having offered this caveat, I will say that I’m not convinced either that we need to go out and acquire more cover at center half, or that we could get value for money by doing so at this point. sunshine has pointed out the historical fragility of Mikael Sylvestre, and his point is not without merit, especially given that the surface on which he will be playing at least 50 percent of his matches is going to be artificial. He’s also not getting any younger. After him, the cupboard is pretty bare in terms of experienced defenders. AJB is young. Tucker-Gangnes is younger. Futty is more experienced, but there is some question about whether, or how well, he can work into our preferred system.

These are all problems that can’t be ignored. The question that remains is: how do we solve them? sunshine’s preferred answer, and I suspect that many of you share this feeling, is that we should try to bring in someone else. Who would you suggest? This is not the time of the season when the marketplace is rich with experienced central defenders, much less those whose foot skills make them appropriate to the demands of Porterball. That is a rare breed indeed, and I simply don’t see a lot of prospects on the horizon. Which is not to say that the team oughtn’t to look. In fact, if I were going to feel around for such a player, the first thing I would do would be to announce to the media that I was not looking for such a player, if for no other reason than to prevent the prices from inflating immediately. In any case, I am dubious that a player that fits the bill and can be had on appropriate terms is available. I would love to be proven wrong on this score.

So, where does that leave us? For the moment, we have a viable pairing in Silvestre and AJB. If it were up to me, I would be tempted to put Tucker-Gangnes third on the depth chart, simply because his foot skills and instincts are, as far as I can tell, superior to those with which Futty is equipped. In a pinch, there are other players who can be shifted back there, in the way that Alex Song was occasionally forced to do for Arsenal. I could see Jewsbury, or even Zemanski, chipping in in a pinch. You may scoff at this, but in my view they are viable choices, for two reasons. Both are mobile and physical enough to handle the position, at least for short periods of time. Moreover, and this is for me the most crucial factor, both can handle the ball in a way that would make them fit into the systemic needs of the team in terms of our propensity to play out of the back. Would they be ideal? I have no illusions that they would. But, on the other hand, they have been playing with the team and working with the rest of the squad for months and probably have a base level of understanding with their fellows that someone brought in from the outside would have to take time to develop.

The other side of the coin is that we need to be playing in such a way as to limit the exposure of our defense. The match with Houston was a perfect example of this. By holding possession for long stretches of the match, and with our fullbacks playing effectively, we were able to keep one of the better teams in the league from mounting significant pressure. Not coincidentally, this was the first match of the regular season during which we actually executed the things that we are meant to do in midfield and attack. If we can play our system effectively (and consistently) it will have the effect of deflecting pressure from our (admittedly weakened) central defense.

One thing that I would hope is precluded by our current circumstances is a return to the defensive posture that we have adopted on the road so far this season. At this point, I just don’t think that we have the personnel to do it, even if it was a good idea, which I also doubt. We are just entering one of the most challenging stretches of the season, with back to back fixtures with San Jose followed by a trip to visit Sporting KC. One bit of good news that has surfaced lately is that Diego Valeri should be available for selection for our home game against the Quakes on Sunday.

If you put a gun to my head, I suppose that I would say that we should be looking to bring in a center half. But it needs to be the right one, and we oughtn’t to piss away a bunch of money on someone who is not an improvement on what we can field currently. I regard the match with Houston as a model for the way forward. Shorn of one of our best defenders and the guy who was meant to be our playmaker, we went out and played a team game and made ourselves extremely hard to handle. The question needing to be answered in terms of our next match is: can we show a similar commitment to playing our game, to avoiding the tendency to worry about what other teams are going to do to us and to focus on what we are going to do to them? Our first win of the season illustrated that this is within the realm of possibility. It remains for us to make it real.

Magadh

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the timbers may be on the defensive…

Posted on April 11, 2013 | 9 Comments

for all of his intelligence, magadh is a fella who often forgets important dates, moments in life when things went really bad, or even to do the dishes. as tempted as i am to trust his instinct on the run of games to come (the entire season), i simply cannot see this team accomplishing anything without hitting the market for another central defender. imagesCAILXZZIperhaps it is due to the fact silvestre was so appallingly bad at arsenal that magadh forgot he also suffered injuries. he suffered injuries at manchester united and he suffered them at werder bremen. and already this year he has suffered a minor adductor discomfort. so, whether magadh recalls those issues or not, i expect a near rookie pairing to start sooner rather than later. and that is a concerning reality to the efforts of this club going forward. it cannot be emphasized enough how the inclusion of mikael silvestre has stabilized the timbers back four. whether or not it is the calming effect of the rhum baron, the presence of any experienced centerback who has played top-flight football would obviously solidify a much maligned aspect of the timbers game.

sure, when pushed about the loss of horst, caleb porter suggested that the club was not as thin in the back as one would expect after losing david horst.

I think right now, we feel like we still have enough depth.

but that depth includes a rookie, a sophomore who spent a good majority of his rookie season on loan with the la blues, a central defender who is the cornerstone of the defense and has not had a season where he was injury free, and then futty. fatty. what have you.

if you did not watch the reserves match last weekend, you missed the opportunity to review why futty is not an option at central defense for this side. it may have been rust, but within the first minutes of the start of the game, futty gave the ball away cheaply in the tampa bay attacking third and nearly caused some blushes for the side (but for a quick recovery by dtg and alert play by jake gleeson). he did not improve from there. putting aside any maudlin reminiscence for the great work he has done serving this club, it should be clear that he simply cannot play comfortably within a system that requires touch and passing. futty is a hoofer–that is all. sure, he does present a threat aerially and can defend an aerial attack, but this is not basketball we are discussing, or that other, unmistakably bad sport called football, where time outs allow for multiple changes in player personnel. if it were, specialized players would be as common on the field as shin guards. luckily, what is the case in football is not the case in real football, which also means futty is a luxury this side can ill-afford and suggests another central defender is needed and the team is one injury away from competing without an experienced central defender who understands the system.

one thing is certain is that the overall defense has improved in that last few games. the balance in the backline has been found as has the perfect place for captain emeritus. last year, many of us begged that he remain slotted in at right back, not simply because the other two options were not very good at the position, but also because he showed that he played better there than at central midfield. armbandsit would seem porter is also persuaded by jack’s play to perhaps keep him situated in the back-right-corner of the formation, that is if his post-game comments from saturday night are anything to find hope in.

It wasn’t just the backs that were tremendous. I thought Jack Jewsbury did an unbelievable job. He played like I’d hoped he would; smart positionally, balancing our team out. He’s a mature player, and you could see that tonight…Michael Harrington has been very consistent. Again, it wasn’t just them, it was the entire team. The pressure that we put on when we got going was relentless.

the players have picked up the idea that defending is a team concept that does not just begin when the ball is lost and end when it is regained. even in attack the team is defending by preventing the opposition time on the ball. this concept will carry some of the responsibility that burdens the central defense and alleviate some concern for the thinning ranks in the back partnerships, but it will not cover the losses if the team forgets its primary goal–preventing the opposition from scoring.

which brings us to san jose. they come into the jw this weekend ranked one place behind the timbers in some power rankings. whoop-ti-shit. on their day, they are a tight and physical, counterattacking side that break down teams in the final minutes of games with aplomb. encouragingly, last season, the timbers were the only side that did not quake at the sight of the quakes. and while the timbers, who were the second worse defense in the league, did allow goals, they did not allow the quakes to score more goals than they did. the quakes did not beat the timbers once last year, and that was with a healthy steven lenhart and a healthy alan gordon. it is safe to say that this year the timbers overall defensive output is superior in stature to last year’s porous backline held together at times by david horst and steven smith.

finally, a bit about diego. not that diego, who was overlooked in a number of the teams of the week, but the other diego, the one who looked as if he went a few rounds with houston dynamo owner, oscar de la hoya.  as of now, it should not be news that he is undergoing the league protocol for head injuries. but every indication is that he did not suffer a concussion, which is heartening for his future play. obviously, the team’s efforts against san jose will be assisted with the inclusion of diego valeri, but that remains for the league to clear him for active duty.

and now i am cleared to get on with the day.

sunshine

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Midweek Chatter

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 3 Comments

It’s a sort of good news/bad news thing today. On the bad news side, and I suppose it really isn’t news, is the end of the season for David Horst. As those of you who follow us on Farcebook will know, sunshine (who always has his finger on the pulse of such things) texted me a couple of days ago with an early briefing on the state of Horst’s leg. It was confirmed yesterday that Horst had broken his tibia. I am just gutted for him, and I suspect that a lot of you are as well. He’s had a lot of injury problems, and this one is particularly sad because of its wholly freakish nature. It’s not the kind of thing that he could have prevented by better conditioning or stretching. Sometimes when one is running full out, one just makes improper context with the ground below.

After considering the human costs of this event, it should also be noted that this has sparked some discussion of how thin we are at center half. Frankly, I’m not that concerned. It looks to me as if Silvestre has been calming down a bit and AJB has looked pretty good as well. This turn of events probably means that Dylan Tucker-Gangnes will be more in the frame as well. I was impressed by his performances in preseason. He seemed have good positional sense, and his foot skills were as good as those of anyone we have in defense. Now, do I think that he’s ready to be chucked into the deep end of the pool? No I do not. But I do think that he’s close enough that he can take up some minutes as a change of pace for the other guys. And then there’s Futty. Not Fatty. Although we might start calling him Footy if he keeps picking up foot injuries. I haven’t been able to find solid information about how he’d doing, but my impression is that he’ll be available soon as well. For what it’s worth, we could always put Jewsbury back there. All of this is by way of saying that I don’t think that we need to try and bring someone else.

In better news, Ryan Johnson was named MLS Player of the Week, the second successive Timber to be so named. I don’t think anyone could reasonably disagree. He turned in a performance that was both energetic and effective. Both of the goals that he scored were the result of a center forward doing what center forwards do. In the first case, he ran the central channel when his teammate broke down the wing (and was justly rewarded for doing so). In the second, he burst forward onto a beautifully weighted through ball (helped by the fact that two Houston defenders played him onside) and then timed (and placed) his shot to perfection. Of course, Johnson’s performance facilitated by the fact that we were all over Houston’s midfield like a cheap suit.

Speaking of accolades received by the team, Donovan Ricketts finished as the leading point getter in this week’s Castrol Weekly Top 20. If you watched the match (or even if you didn’t) it might seem a bit odd that he would finish first while Ryan Johnson scorer of two goals and a guy who ran the socks off the opposition, would only finish third. He did keep a clean sheet, for which praise is just, but that hardly tells the whole story. The thing that one really notices about Ricketts’s performance on Saturday night was the lack of opportunities in front of goal that Houston managed to generate. This was a major change from our previous matches during which Ricketts was heavily engaged and in which the saves that he did make allowed us to come back and actually get some points. Even after Horst’s unfortunate departure, our defense was generally pretty solid. This, of course excludes the times that Silvestre got nutmegged at the top of the box and was only bailed out by the fact that the recipient of the pass was offside.

There are two things of note here. The first is that, in a general sense, we’re playing better defense. Saturday’s match saw much better integration between midfield and the back four, and both Jewsbury and Harrington did a good job of staying in front of people and of not getting caught out of position. Houston is not in the same league in terms of pace that Seattle is, so in that respect it was somewhat easier to keep our shape. But the big thing, and this is the second issue that I want to mention here, is that we had over sixty percent of the possession. There were times last season when we put up similar numbers, but quite often we lost those games. The reason being that there is possession then there is possession. When we managed to rack up big possession numbers last year, it was often a matter of us holding the ball deep in midfield and/or executing a bunch of negative passes around the back line. The was only slightly better than giving up possession altogether, and it often resulted in our giving up goals even when the opposition only got a small number of opportunities.

What was different about our approach against Dynamo was that we moved the ball quickly and played positive passes. We got the ball into the attacking zone, only backing it off when it became clear that one particular avenue of approach had been closed down. One thing that I noticed was that our switches across the back much more frequently resulted in a fullback or outside midfielder running into open space, rather than simply exchanging pressure and desperation on one flank for the same thing on the other.

I talked last week about the best defense being a good offense. While this phrase is much over-used and often applied inappropriately, the match on Saturday night was an illustration of a case when it was apposite. Even without Valeri (and of course without one of our starting central defenders) we were able to execute our system and to keep pressure on Houston consistently. The fact that we were constantly moving on the flanks meant that their wide players had to stay honest and to look to their defensive responsibilities. This wrought positive consequences for us all over the pitch.

That’s your lot for today. I’ll be back on Friday for a report on San Jose’s last match as a way of looking ahead to our next one.

Magadh

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the good, the bad, the broken: a timbers love story…

Posted on April 9, 2013 | 12 Comments

if you are not still basking in the glory of saturday’s win you are probably an overly obsessive malcontent, unlikely to find happiness even in a child’s smile. but really, it was just a win in a 34 game season. yes, it did display the type of football this team is capable of playing on their night, but the trick is to replicate the effort. this game does not relieve the timbers of putting an effort in for the next 29 games, it only shows them how the style of play can totally dominate the opposition and the game.

in his post game interview, porter was all too cognizant of those facts. stating the obvious, and what has become a platitude for every sports interview in the last several decades, that it is a long season and this is just one game. cp.yellingblah blah blah. you get the point, and this malcontent will not belabor it any more than necessary. but putting aside the future tripping and sticking in the present, the team did make that shift from simply playing a system with promise to earning the tangible results that are possible if they play their game. that was the most trenchant point made in his post game statement–that winning is a learning process as important as playing well within a system.

It really looked like what we want our identity to be. Tonight I think you saw what could happen when we get up on teams. They had a hard time getting on the ball because we kept attacking and kept moving the ball. It’s important to get results for the players to realize what they’re capable of doing. This was a big step in the right direction, this was that breakthrough that I was looking for. It is one thing to know you’re playing well and know you’re a good team, but to get three points, that reinforces it.

even the accolades accumulated over the last few weeks by individual players are not sufficient substitutes for that good, old-fashioned knowledge that accompanies kicking the piss out of another side. finally, the timbers have earned that to a degree.

still, the accolades are nice bits of recognition too. and, yesterday, for the second week in a row, a timbers player earned mls player of the week. ryan johnson, who is quickly showing the benefits of having a mobile stiker, who can not only latch onto a delicate pass and score but can also create his own goal, took home the honors for his brace. rj.hou.v.porin 5 games, johnson now has 3 goals and an assist and looks to be well on his way to topping his best mls effort in 2009 with san jose, when he scored 11 goals in 30 games.

johnson and porterball are an ideal marriage. where against some systems, defensive anticipation is as important of a skill set as positioning, but with the timbers new system, the ball movement does not allow the opposition to sit back and await the obvious because there really is no obvious next move. when on, the play will develop off of the defensive positioning and exploit any hole and any mistake, requiring not only that dreaded word “athleticism” but also intelligence and ingenuity. johnson has those qualities.

in my post match report i gave nagbe some stick. and it was deserved–he is one of the most frustrating players on the pitch. he has been imbued with gifts many players would suffer a removal of certain sensitive areas to have, yet he woefully misuses them, or, even worse, never tries to harness them. but the hyperbole used to describe his overall play may have been misunderstood. aside from his his cameo in daniel day lewis’s first oscar winning performance, my left foot, nagbe did everything he failed to do against colorado and seattle. his one-touch play was exquisite, and he sought to get forward and to put the defense on their heels. on his day, he can weave in and out of any three-man press drawn to him, open up teammates, and release them into the acquired space. unlike the prior two games, he did that on numerous occasions against the dynamo. fairly put, his effort to win the ball in the timbers final third and the interplay with kalif, before unleashing johnson for his second goal, typifies the way darlington is capable of performing.

finally, and on a sad note, it appears david horst is out for the season. after chasing down dynamo speedster, giles barnes, horst made a misstep reminiscent of those girls doing dumb things video compilations on youtube–he stepped wrong, over-corrected, and then rolled his right ankle in a direction physically impossible for most humans who are neither drunk nor doing stupid things. this is terrible news for a man already saddled with the misfortune of suffering serious injury after serious injury. horst had just returned to the starting eleven from a groin injury that forced him to watch from the sidelines since the second week of pre-season. over his career he has undergone hip flexor surgery, has had knee surgery, ankle problems, and now, he has had surgery on his right leg to repair a broken tibia. it might be convenient to say he suffers from bad luck, but the fella plays hard and always puts in a muscular challenge, which means these type of injuries are going to happen in his career.

with the announcement in colombia that hanyer mosquera and the timbers have mutually agreed to a contract termination, horst’s injury leaves the timbers well short at central defense. aside from the early season, favored pairing of mikael silvestre and ajb, the timbers have the promising, dylan tucker-gagnes, and the known commodity, futty danso. so, in essence, the timbers have 3 central defenders capable of playing within the system. if you disagree with that assessment, i would suggest you watch the reserve match and pay particular attention to fatty’s comfort levels on the ball against a tampa bay side that was anything but dynamic in attack.

that is your tuesday.

sunshine

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Player Ratings v. Dynamo Houston

Posted on April 8, 2013 | 13 Comments

There are a lot of things to be said about our performance on Saturday night. Too much to be lumped into one column. So let’s stick to some brief and straightforward truths, shall we? Our first victory of the season was well-deserved. We fought hard for 90 minutes and dominated midfield against one of the best sides in the league. There were excellent individual performances aplenty, about which more will be said below, but in an important respect this was a very high quality team effort. For the first time all year, we actually played our system from the opening kickoff, passing the ball and moving in ways that made us very hard to defend. In this we were abetted by Porter actually sending out a formation that could make this happen; in which Valeri was centrally located and thus able to maintain contact with Nagbe and Johnson. But it was after Valeri went off that the true quality of the system was fully illustrated. Deprived of their trigger man, the Timbers stuck to their guns, moving the ball quickly and attacking in numbers. It was a hearteningly resilient win under very difficult conditions.

Having talked about how we played as a team, let’s now move to the individual performances.

1. Donovan Ricketts: He didn’t really have that much to do, such was our performance in other areas of the pitch, but he looked much more assured than he did in Colorado. He made sensible distribution decisions and generally kept things tight on a wet and sloppy night. 5.5

5. Michael Harrington: Typical Harrington: he was all over the left hand side of the pitch, good in defense, and aggressive in getting forward. His performance was particularly notable given that he had Rodney Wallace playing in front of him, which hasn’t happened much. He was dynamic and effective and showed leadership from start to finish. 6.5

12. David Horst: He was going well until a misstep caused him to roll his ankle quite gruesomely. You know you’ve really messed yourself up when the opposing player is immediately waving the trainer on. This may be the last we see of him for a little while. 5

27. Mikael Silvestre: He was mostly pretty good, although had a couple of questionable moments. For instance, Horst got injured while chasing down a runner that Silvestre had allowed to get away. On the up side, he really put the reducer on Giles Barnes, for which he was not called for a foul, but still subsequently (and quite bizarrely) booked. This was, at the very least, a statement to Houston that physical play was a two way street. He also got up in Brad Davis’s grille after the latter clipped one of ours (Nagbe if I recall correctly) out of bounds. Overall, this was by far his most solid performance of the season, and that is at least good enough for even money. 5

13. Jack Jewsbury: I, like many of you, was not feeling very positive about things when I saw him in the pregame team sheet. But his performance was a perfect illustration of at least one of the things that I was saying about him on Saturday morning. He was put on to do a job: stabilize the right side of defense and keep Brad Davis (with whom he was college teammates) under control. He did both very effectively. He played excellent head up defense, and even got forward on occasion. Should he start week in and week out? I remain unconvinced. Does he merit a spot on the roster? Without a doubt he does. 6

21. Diego Chará: This was a spiky and effective performance from Chará. Pound for pound, he is the toughest defender in the league, and he showed it on Saturday, hassling Dynamo attackers and making midfield a barren place in which our enemies could find no purchase. And then, of course, there was the matter of the first goal. Chará seized upon a ball in midfield, drove forward down the right hand channel, and put in a cross that, in addition to being right on Ryan Johnson’s boot, was in a place where no Houston defender could touch it without putting it into their own net. Throughout the second half, when what was needed was for players to step up to fill the attacking void left by the departure of Valeri, Chará stood up to be counted. 7

4. Will Johnson: The captain lead from the front, bossing midfield, chipping into the attack, and generally letting Houston know that we were prepared to meet physical play with physical play. With all the things that have varied over the course of the first five matches of the season, the one constant had been Johnson’s leadership and it was never more crucial than on Saturday. Another excellent performance. 7

8. Diego Valeri: Allowed to play in the middle by the 4-3-3 formation in which we came out, Valeri looked in much better form than he had been in the last couple of matches. He was pulling the strings and making things happen, until he was nearly brained by a flying elbow from Jermaine Thomas. This was not called, nor was a booking subsequently issued (which was apparently a possibility given what happened to Silvestre). Seeing him stumble off with an inch long gash in his cheek and a look in his eyes that suggested that he was out on his feet was a sight to inspire fear in the Timbers faithful. I’ve yet to see a report on him and we’ve all got to hope that he doesn’t have a concussion. 5

6. Darlington Nagbe: This was his finest hour as a Timber. Moved into the center after Valeri’s enforced departure, he did all the things that we knew he could do, but so often hadn’t in the past. He was strong on the ball, he moved it quickly, and put himself into dangerous positions all night. His pass to set up Ryan Johnson’s second goal was perfection, and it is worth noting that after hitting it he continued his run forward thus preventing Houston’s defenders from being able to collapse on Johnson’s run. So now the secret it out. This is the kind of performance of which Nagbe is capable. The key now is to do it every time. 7.5

22. Rodney Wallace: He’s put in a number of good cameos so far this season, but I was still dubious when I saw him on the team sheet. Color me impressed. He went out and ran the left hand channel like a pro. He played the system perfectly, moving the ball quickly and running into dangerous places, thereby creating space for his fellows. Yet another guy who put in his best performance for the side so far. 6.5

9. Ryan Johnson: Man of the Match. He scored two absolutely emblematic striker’s goals. The first was the result of running hard when he saw that Chará was bursting forward. The second resulted from a beautifully timed run onto a slide rule pass from Nagbe. Outside of that he simply ran his socks off and put himself in dangerous positions all night long. 8

35. Andrew Jean-Baptiste: Came on for Horst and did a fine job partnering Silvestre in the middle. Between the two of them they did a fine job of keeping Houston’s pacey and agile strike force quiet. A good showing for a player growing into the job. 6

11. Kalif Alhassan: Out of the doghouse and into the spotlight, Alhassan came on in replacement for Valeri at a moment when there were grave doubts about how things were going to happen. These doubts were not allayed as Alhassan walked onto the pitch, but he did an excellent job. For the first time all season, Alhassan really seemed to understand how Porterball is meant to be played. He used his pace and strength to dominate in midfield and his game was mercifully of those moments of indecision that have had him in such foul odor with the manager in the last few games. I had my doubts, but he was just what the side needed. 7

10. Frederic Piquionne: Brought on for Ryan Johnson’s curtain call and brought his usual high quality to the match. He was only on for the last five minutes, but he made his presence felt, driving the ball forward and causing dangerous situations that prevented Houston from being able to get men forward to pursue the goals they needed to get something out of this match. 6

All in all, we did well. These ratings are a bit on the high side, and maybe on another day they might not be so, but I think this was a special night. Given the circumstances, the team would have had a readymade excuse for abandoning ship. The fact that they stuck to their guns and got a win is a very, very positive sign.

Magadh

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Player Ratings: Timbers v. Rapids

Posted on April 1, 2013 | 5 Comments

The above is a perfect illustration of how I felt around minute 18 as Dillion Powers’ shot was flashing into the back right corner of our goal. Truth to tell, we should have conceded in the third minute, as a combination of unpredictable winds and ball watching allowed the Rapids to hit the post twice in the space of three second. This is meant to be the player ratings column, and so it will be. I have a lot to say about how we played as a team, much of which should and will have to wait until later in the week. However, there are a couple of things that I want to lay out to clarify why the ratings are what they are.

This was a hard match to evaluate. There were a lot of competing factors that affected how individual performances could be evaluated. The conditions really complicated matters, and it was pretty clear that they discomfited Ricketts in a lot of respects. On the other hand, both teams were playing on the same ground, with the same wind, and if a team insists on putting the ball into the air in the face of swirling conditions aloft, the consequences are on them. This was a Colorado team at much less than full strength. The fact that Marvell Wynne was playing center half tells you a lot about what they had available. It should have been a real plus for us, since this really muted his ability to punish us with pace. Unfortunately, we played a game that worked well for them. Once again, we didn’t get into our system for a large part of the game. The formation that we were in, in which Valeri spent a lot of his time out toward the wing, really neutered our attack. The situation was not helped by the officiating crew, particularly the head referee who seemed unable to get out of the way on numerous occasions. There was a point in the second half when the camera went down to Caleb Porter just as he turned to the fourth official and said what many of us had been thinking: “You guys have really %@$#ed up a lot of calls tonight.”

Obviously, there will be more to say about this in the posts to come this week. For now, here are the ratings. Feel free to dispute.

1. Donovan Ricketts: I spent a lot of time during this match ruing the Ricketts-for-Perkins deal. Not that Perkins’ distribution was all that great, but Ricketts just seemed completely at sea, putting balls out of play on either side repeatedly. He seemed really uncomfortable with the wind. What can you say about the goals? The penalty wasn’t his fault, a) because he didn’t commit a foul, and b) because you can’t fault the keeper for not stopping the subsequent spot kick. On the first one, well, I think others are culpable, and the other 99 times that Dillion Powers tries something like that in his career the ball will certainly end up in Row Z, but I’m still not terribly impressed by getting beat from 25 yards like that. The bigger problem for me was in terms of distribution, and this is a theme you’re going to see a lot of in what follows. 3

5. Michael Harrington: He seemed to have a lot of problems keeping hold of the ball and, like the rest of the squad, he didn’t seem to be very determined in playing the short passing game for much of the match. For me, this had a lot to do with the formation, which was too defensive and left us without sufficient options for advancing the ball in midfield. That said, he is responsible for the number of times that he put the ball in the air in ways that slowed our attack cost us possession. 4

12. David Horst: Generally speaking, Horst had a good match. He was physically imposing in the middle and dealt well with balls in the air. He got fouled for the penalty that led to our equalizer, although truth to tell that had as much to do with Atiba Harris’s naiveté as anything else. It must be said that his skills do not mesh terribly well with the passing and movement oriented game that this team wants to play. Too often he simply humped the ball up field into the swirling breeze and in the majority of cases we ended up conceding possession. 4

35. Andrew Jean-Baptiste: He had a better game than Horst, but mostly because his skills set jibes better with what we are trying to do over all. 5

14. Ben Zemanski: He really looks tentative. On the one hand, I can understand not wanting to get beat on defense, especially given the pace of Deshorn Brown and Edson Buddle, but he needs to be a bit more decisive. Those who saw what I was saying on Farcebook during the match will know that I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give him a shot at right mid and play Ryan Miller behind him. That is a matter for another place. As far as his performance in this match goes, his indecisiveness made one nervous, but his did do a good job of stand up defending when called upon. 5

13. Jack Jewsbury: Others may disagree, but I think that he should have been a couple of steps quicker to close down Powers on the first goal. He had just tripped over the ref, and maybe his spatial thinking was compromised by the fact that the ref was still in the neighborhood. More generally, he did a reasonably good job of winning the ball in the middle, but his passing and possession were not the best. A lot of the problems that he caused were not of his own making, i.e. they had to do with the formation rather than what he himself was doing. Still, it has to be said that things improved when RodWal came on in his stead. 4

4. Will Johnson: Man of the Match. Who could really argue? He scored twice and spent the balance of the match driving us forward and letting everyone know that failure was not an option. He tried his best to encourage the rest of the squad to actually play the system, and he really can’t be blamed if others decided to hit looping switches time after time in a strong breeze. He really added guts and graft to the side and without him we would really have been at sea. 7

21. Diego Chará: He really seemed to have trouble finding himself in this match. He was off the pace for a lot of the game, and since he’s Columbian you’d have a hard time attributing it to problems with the altitude. He didn’t do a very good job of closing people down, although he did have to be careful after he picked up a booking in the 12th minute. One thing I can say with confidence: he didn’t foul anybody on the Colorado penalty. Once again, his problems had a lot to do with the formation that we were playing (or perhaps attempting to play). 4

6. Darlington Nagbe: He had a pretty anonymous game and, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, it had everything to do with our formation. As I’ve said about a million times, Nagbe is not the kind of guy who has the instincts or inclinations to thrive on the flanks. That he has done so at times so far this season is almost entirely attributable to Valeri’s bringing him into play. With Valeri positioned wide for much of the match, Nagbe was, quite literally, in the wind. He also looked really out of sorts, and I was not surprised to see him get pulled at halftime. 3

8. Diego Valeri: Spent about the first hour of this match trying vainly to get the ball in the kind of place where he could use it effectively. Playing Valeri wide is a disaster. He has to drop too deep to get the ball. He doesn’t really have the pace to beat fullbacks to the byline, and he spends too much energy once he does get the ball wide before he can get to a place where he can really do his thing. He looked a lot better after Wallace came on. Why? Because he was actually in a part of the park where he could actually provide some danger. 5

9. Ryan Johnson: Huffed, puffed, but all the houses remained standing. The combination of the formation and the conditions were always going to mute his effectiveness. He looked a lot better once Piquionne came on, and better still when Valeri got central and our offense started to function in the way that it was meant to. The ball that he put in to set up Johnson’s first goal was very slick, as was the turn that bought him the space to do it. For that I rate him even money. 5

10. Frederic Piquionne: He really added something when he came on for Nagbe at the half. He has very good touch for a bigger fellow, and he also seems to understand Porter’s attacking agenda more instinctively than a lot of other people. 6

22. Rodney Wallace: He was really a force for good when he came on, although that had a lot to do with the change in formation that his arrival effected. He continues to do well with limited minutes and he really seems to have grown into the role. 5.5

11. Kalif Alhassan: Still out in the cold, he was brought on as an afterthought in the last couple of minutes and didn’t really make an impression. NR

Some people might think that these ratings are a bit low, given that fact that we took a point on the road, particularly in a place where we’d had zero success heretofore. For me, this was a pretty mediocre performance, and if our mental toughness was once again illustrated by our ability to come back late, it is nonetheless the case that we put ourselves in a bad position for the umpteenth time this season.

Magadh

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timbers take one more for the road…

Posted on March 31, 2013 | 14 Comments

can we all agree that the jack jewsbury experiment is not working? after two weeks of ironing out the kinks exposed in seattle, one would think the timbers would have done something different when they entered dick’s sporting goods park to play colorado. but that was not the case.

we are four games into the season, and the fear of giving up the first goal seems to have worn away the devotion to the idealism behind a system of play. the experimentation with formation in an attempt to find a solid, frugal defensive showing in the early part of play, whether on the road or at home, has proven to be as frustrating as giving up the first goal. at this point, a novel approach would be to simply persist with the belief that the side will eventually prevail by employing the ethos of the system brought into this club on january 17, and playing that system on the pitch. Possession is as strong of a defensive tactic as sitting three defensive midfielders in front of the back four. and, if employed correctly by the players, possession can actually promote opportunities on goal. opportunities that were sorely lacking against colorado.

instead of looking towards a pressing form of play, the very play that saw the timbers fight back to earn a draw against the red bulls, the same eleven that slogged their way to a draw in seattle started in colorado. jewsbury was yet again positioned in front of the defense while the natural and more mobile defensive midfielder, diego chara, was slotted on the right side of midfield in a link-up role. and, again, diego valeri was assigned the right-wing, away from the middle of the formation where he could dictate distribution. out wide, valeri’s influence on play was limited–he completed only 26 passes and he never once–let me repeat–he never once entered colorado’s 18 yard box. in fact, he rarely entered the attacking third, and when he did it was on the right side, away from any area of influence.

throughout the game, pundits, and porter as well, complained of how much the wind affected play. the wind did blow, but there is a simple way to combat that force–play the ball on the ground. but, of course, until the second half, neither center back and certainly not donovan ricketts cared to attempt to play the ball from the back. and that frustrated the attack as much as the formational choices.

ultimately, a combination of environmental factors, over-thinking, and reversion therapy led to the timbers having the lowest pass completion and overall possession percentage stats so far this year. in a system that requires possession to be successful, retaining the ball 52% of the time while completing only 398 passes with 69% accuracy will not often support that endeavour. but neither does long ball, and the timbers played quite a few long balls on saturday. valeri, who works better with the ball at his feet, was forced to regularly challenge for aerial 50/50 balls. col.por.aerialit is not like hendry thomas is exceptionally good at breaking up play, but giving him the ability to challenge our attacking line in the air offered him simple opportunities to do so.

but it was not all bad. after they gave up the first goal, and then after they went down 2-0, the side showed the character that will turn them from a mediocre team to a good team. and that rests on the shoulders of the new captain. will johnson picked this team up in the second half and forced them to be accounted.

in the second half we also saw that porter does not find players to be precious when frederick piquionne came on for the hapless darlington nagbe. proving both that nagbe is no longer protected from failure and that this club has a centerforward, who has a cultured game and can hold up and distribute of the ball. nagbe did make some nice runs into the attacking third, but he still lacks the killer gene. frankly, he looks more at home with a plate of pasta than he does with an ice pick in his hand. i would be more concerned by nagbe’s contributions if porter had not pulled him at the half, but he did and he showed that even the golden boy is not above a public evaluation of his play (even if he is carrying an ankle knock).

but even the positives cannot account for jewsbury’s failure to close down dillon powers in the 19 minute. col.por.powersgiven the fact deshorn brown had attempted the same shot earlier in the 11 minute, i would argue that jack had time to address any positional issues before powers let fly his rocket 8 minutes later. however, this was not the disciplined jewsbury we saw against seattle. instead, this was the jewsbury who over-commits on defense and lacks the pace to recover his position. rather than trusting zemanski and chara to halt tony cascio’s run, jack slid out of position which opened a hole on the pitch wide enough for the entire german army to run an unhindered blitzkrieg through. yes, it looked like the polish front. better positioning could have prevented the shot, but nothing could have stopped it once it was in flight. that was a cracking goal.

the timbers took to the pitch in the second half with a greater conviction to remain within their game. but 3 minutes into the second half, drew fisher determined to demonstrate just how poor the officiating in the mls can be. i am of the school that a team must make their own luck in order to win, and because of that i typically do not gripe about penalties on this blog. that said: drew fisher is an idiot. in no way should a penalty have been awarded when donovan ricketts wins the ball without touching tony cascio.

and so the timbers determined to make their own luck. 7 minutes after hendry thomas’s conversion to put the rapids up 2-0, will johnson drew a goal back with a marvelous header that showed players other than jewsbury can be guilty of not marking the opposition. the play started after mike irvine punched out a diego valeri free kick. mikey mo money pushed the ball out to wing and then on to ryan johnson. johnson picked out johnson running to goal with a perfectly weighted lofted pass, which the captain faced into goal. with 35 minutes left in the match, the momentum had changed and a feeling developed that perhaps the timbers would actually pull this one out.

17 minutes later and after further internal review of his misdeed, drew fisher awarded the timbers their first penalty in over 3400 minutes of play. 37 games. on the second of two consecutive corners, david horst was kicked in the chest and brought down in the box as he went for a ball in colorado’s 18 yard box. oscar pareja may moan that it was not a penalty, but he thinks levis are appropriate sideline attire. they are not, and it was. the captain stepped into the ball and placed it past mike irvine, punctuating the goal with an impersonation of chong li after he broke some dude’s body in the bloodsport kumite.

col.por.kumite2that is a captain.

so, another draw. another road point. 3 points from 12 possible. blah blah blah. overall, not the most impressive display of football from either side, but i am still left with a feeling that once the balance is found within the formation this timbers team will kick on to good things.

happy easter

sunshine

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teaching soccer in portland…

Posted on March 30, 2013 | 2 Comments

yesterday, what appears to be a two-part expose on timbers owner and superfan, merritt paulson, was published on the league’s official site. it was an excellent article, but not very illuminating for those who had watched the introduction of the boss to the world of soccer as it happened. or so i thought. imagesCAZXHVZZas articles of this nature tend to do, comparisons were made between portland and seattle and their relevant success. paulson was quick to point out two things of which we are all aware: first, seattle received the benefits of a solo entry into the mls and those benefits extended to the expansion draft. and, second, the timbers were not as fortunate–they entered the leauge with the vancouver whitecaps. and then merritt made the admission:

And they got the coach right, which I didn’t.

that admission was a brutally honest appraisal of not only john spencer, but also of himself. spencer is a charismatic guy, who came with an impressive resume. he played for glasgow rangers, queens park rangers, chelsea, motherwell, colorado, the scotish national side, he scored alot of goals, and then he spent time with the houston dynamo as an assistant under dominc kinnear, winning back to back mls championships. on paper he presented that prototypical footballing brainiac, who could motivate players, and had the credentials to back it up if challenged. but if you recall, following the end of his playing days in colorado, he went back to england and took up a career in punditry for chelsea. coaching was not his calling, it was an afterthought. seven years later, that afterthought made for some entertaining commercials and post game banter, but it did little else.

there is an old saying that my wife and magadh find detestable: those who can, do, those who cannot, teach. well, spencer did. and like too many ex-footballers who find themselves outside the training grounds, looking in, reliving their glory days, he needed something to do during retirement. js.portland my apologies now: he should have remained either retired, sipping a pimm’s cup and playing the ponies at stamford bridge, or under someone who could actually teach, because he could not. and, so, it seems in the world of coaching, those who can coach, and those who cannot are shown the door. and that is what led the timbers to hire caleb porter–a coach.

porter has a system. spencer had a system, too, it just was not a good system–it was an old system, and little else. spencer’s system pumped the ball into the 18 yard box from the wings with a relentless zeal. it was predictable and easily defended. porter’s system relies on ball retention in order to create goal scoring opportunities. it is fluid, malleable, and unpredictable. the players are still getting used to the dynamic vision of the play, but it has given the team an identity and style of play that one expects from a professional footballing side. and it is still developing.

We get a notch, a level better each week. There will be a ceiling at some point, but we’re certainly not there. Our ceiling is a bit higher than most teams because we have so many new guys, so our potential to grow in training week after week is greater than other teams. I’m seeing that in training. The team we are, going into this game, is a notch higher than we were last week.

two weeks ago, the timbers went into the clink and came home with a shared point. they did so because porter got the tactics right. the team played surrounding and stifling defense that prevented seattle from exploiting any openings in the midfield. he then made the right substitutions at the right times. first, taking off jack jewsbury at the 70 minute mark, who was the pivot in back line that limited seattle to 7 shots, and he brought on frederick piquionne. this changed the positioning of the play, pressing the attack further forward, but also gave the midfield an additional body to assist in link-up play. then in the 80 minute, porter brought on the rod wall, which further increased impetus to get forward and the pressure on seattle’s back four. here is the point: had spencer been in the same situation, he would have substituted lovell palmer for jack jewsbury and kalif for nagbe. like for like for like for failure.

cp.themansomewhere in his vision, developed over years of coaching and as a student of coaching, porter has grown an ability to understand the flow of play. he makes adjustments within the game to harness that flow in order to increase the pressure on the opposition and increase the opportunities for goal. that is why those who can, coach, those who can’t, should sip on pimm’s cups. that is why when merritt said he did not pick the right guy to lead this team he makes an admission regarding his relative novice approach to ownership and to a game he was not as well equipped to understand as he is now. it appears the only person who learned a lesson from spencer was the man who hired him.

speaking of now, the timbers are playing at 3 pm. the denver post has run a piece suggesting that horst may make his debut. i highly doubt that, especially since this piece had likely taken on the life of an article by dan itel. a somewhat disingenuous title, leads to a good article that highlights the strong character of a player i really like–david horst. but the fact is the timbers issues at the back are not so much personnel issues as they are issues of a developing understanding between the back four and the crippled keeper. once they have been ironed out, i believe we will see a team able to shut out sides like did to seattle with more regularity.

all right, 3 points it is.

sunshine

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A John Nyen Exclusive: a tale of two Timbers defenses.

Posted on March 26, 2013 | 11 Comments

Back Line.

Defense.

Centerbacks.

Fullbacks.

Lose your association to these terms. Lose your association to the conventional method of understanding positioning, playing and where people are in a system.

Within the realm of Caleb Porter the new eyed man is king, and we must all accept that a learning curve is in place… even for those that attempt to analyze games.

The first thing to look at is that Porter believes in the ability of all players to play with the ball. You can see this when it comes to his choices for centerbacks, you can see this in his choices for fullback and midfielders. In a possession based system, the drive and impetus for attack begins with distribution from the center back position and needs to be kept in motion via all players on the field including the goal keeper.  This need to have distribution from the center back position shows the issue with holdovers from previous regimes.

While players such as David Horst and Hanyer Mosquera are players who have acquitted themselves well, at times, in the last two years and I believe both would be able to compete or start for a number of MLS teams, neither is a player that excels with the ball at his feet. Rather, both are players who tend to look for the opportunity to utilize physical means in their game. It has to be said, as well, that despite both players having the tools individually to be starters in the league, both were a part of a Timbers defense that was more porous than a full pressure fire hose spraying water through a piece of paper that was already disintegrating anyway.

The crux of good defensive performances is familiarity within the group.  It takes time at a professional level to figure out when to go together, when to stay, when to cover and where your partner is on the back line.

If you imagine that you need a replacement for a center back during a game, the idea of having a player skill set that closely resembles Jean-Baptiste and Silvestre would be the goal and thus the inclusion of Tucker-Ganges into the game day 18. While the return of David Horst to proper fitness may push Tucker-Ganges from the 18, I do believe that Tucker-Ganges or a player like Bryan Gallego would be the eventual replacement for Silvestre after his contract expires in 2015.

Now let’s look at lineups and defensive responsibilities. What we have in the Seattle game is a different lineup that some have called a 4-1-4-1. I tend to disagree with this as a blanket descriptor. I believe that Porter isn’t as set on a specific “formation” as he is on the idea of the responsibility of a player to show, play, move, and be available for the ball. Thusly, I would call Porter’s scenario against Seattle as a moving 3-2-4-1. My approximation of the lineup you can see on display against Seattle is Silvestre, Jean-Baptiste, Jewsbury in a defensive diamond three. The next two are Harrington and Zemanski on the left and right shuttling offensively between the back three and the” 4” midfield. The next four are Nagbe, Johnson, Valeri, Chara; and at the forward position you have Ryan Johnson.

PTFCLineup2013

If we look at the way that Porter instructs the fullbacks to play, he uses them more so as pulled back midfielders who frequently are pushing up the field providing the triangle and support play for the central midfielders and forwards. In the Seattle match, Porter deployed Jack Jewsbury to protect the back two partnership of Jean-Baptiste and Silvestre. The heat maps, video evidence and passing numbers provide an interesting comparison to the effect that Jewsbury had on the defense.

In the Montreal versus Portland game on March 9th, the player heat maps show a distinct right/left divide between Silvestre and Jean-Baptiste with the fullbacks hugging the touchline and the midfield mostly on the attacking side of the field. Part of this has to do with the system that Montreal deployed in sucking Portland into their half of the field, but (as well) part of this has to do with the fact that Portland deployed a fully attacking lineup with a high defensive line and cover provided by the central midfield pairing of Diego Chara and Will Johnson. Now Diego Chara’s heat map most closely resembles what you would expect to find in a cover for the two centerbacks, but he also spent quite a bit of time shuttling the ball on the offensive side of the field to Diego Valeri.

With the Seattle versus Portland game on March 16th, the player heat maps and video show Jack Jewsbury sitting slightly in front of and (sometimes) in the middle of Silvestre and Jean-Baptiste.  His pass attempts on the evening were 65 with 54 successful and 11 unsuccessful. Most of the passes were placed laterally to other players. The 65 pass attempts were second highest in the game for Portland to Michael Harrington’s 75 pass attempts. Interesting to note that Jewsbury had 65 pass attempts in only 70 minutes worth of play, showing his interplay and linking as a “defensive hub position” in Porter’s new diamond back three formation.

(Incidentally, Harrington’s 75 attempts were the highest in the game and topped Ozzie Alonso’s total of 73. Harrington completed 61 of 75 where Alonso completed 62 of 73. Pretty interesting totals from the left fullback position for the Timbers.)

With the fullbacks tasked to link and provide support to the midfield, the Timbers played a diamond, three-man back-line formation with Jewsbury deployed as a sweeper hub in front of Silvestre and Jean-Baptiste. Upon review of the game tape you can see that Jewsbury was tasked to stay back and would typically only join the attacking side of the field to try to pick up 50/50 chances and re-enforce the attack.  This had the effect of two things for the Timbers: 1) it attempted to prevent Seattle from being able to overrun the Timbers through the center of the field. And 2), it attempted to force the Seattle attack out to the wings, mostly on the counter with Zakuani through the Seattle offensive left.

The following pass attempt information shows (in my mind) the impact of the Timbers 3 man diamond back line with Seattle’s attempted tactics.

The first graphic we have is Seattle’s pass attempts against Tigres that resulted in a 3-0 win. Seattle attempted 493 total passes in the game. What you can see is that there is a pretty consistent pass attempts across the field with some up field attempts from the right and left side.

SEAvTigPassAttempts

The second graphic we have is Seattle’s pass attempts against Portland that resulted in a 1-1 draw. Seattle attempted 449 total passes in the game, only 44 less than against Tigres, however there is a bigger empty zone above the 18 yard box and more attempts from the left side of the field/Zakuani.

SEAvPORpassattempts2013

While certainly the game plan may be different for Seattle against Portland than it was against Tigres, this ability to push the passes to the outside and prevent goals from the fullback position shows progress from last year. Of course, if one looks at the pass attempts from last season’s 3-0 debacle in Seattle, the pass graph looks similar. The difference between last season and this season is the ability of the fullbacks, centerbacks and midfield to limit service into the box. You will notice between the two passing graphs that the amount of successful and unsuccessful distribution into the 18 yard box is lessened.

SEAvPORpassattempts2012SEAvPOR 2012

SEAvPORpassattempts2013SEAvPOR 2013

As well, another interesting wrinkle is that a few of the penetration attempts into the offensive middle of the field for Seattle in 2012 came in the form of Christian Tiffert, no longer with Seattle. (His attempts in 2012 are notated by the number 13)

Either way the argument is framed, it can be seen that Portland was able to blunt the impact of Seattle in a significant way through the middle of the field.

Another huge change comes when we isolate the distribution of the Portland centerbacks between both away games.

Distribution of centerbacks v Seattle away 2012

PTFC2012

Distribution of centerbacks v Seattle away 2013

PTFC2013

We can see that Silvestre and Jean-Baptiste cover the middle of the field as well as their own position; they also have 95 distribution attempts in 2013 versus 66 in 2012. Interesting as well is the fact that this was not specifically a fantastic game for the Timbers. Compared to their games against Red Bull and Montreal, this was a down performance. Against Montreal, the centerback duo had 106 distribution attempts, and against RBNY they had 107 distribution attempts.

If we include Jack Jewsbury in his pivot/shield/sweeper roll in front of the back two, the distribution attempts rise to 160 and the map shows that the defensive trio covered a good majority of the defensive third.

PTFCJJAJBMS

One more interesting graph to note is that with Jewsbury on the field til the 70th minute, the only completed pass in the middle of the field just outside the 18 yard box was at the 69th minute, and was a lay off completed by Mauro Rosales (indicated by the green 10) to Marc Burch who then attempted a cross into the box.

SEAwithJJ

We can also see that without Jewsbury on the field (and the Timbers pushing for a goal by transitioning to Piquionne) that they were able to maintain a bit of defensive solidarity in the middle of the field, but they gave up a bit more on the left CB (Silvestre position)  and left fullback (Harrington position)

SEawithoutJJ

Finally the heat maps show the common positioning of all three players.

Jack Jewsbury:

JJHM

Mikael Silvestre:

MSHM

Andrew Jean-Baptiste:

AJBHM

All of this information really underlines that the attack for the Timbers begins with the defensive players, especially the centerbacks. It also shows that Porter is willing to identify a potential issue, plug in a potential solution, and see whether it provides the impact that he wants.

The data shows the value in having a sure-footed, ball-retention specialists at the centerback position, and illustrates, in my opinion, why players with potential upside (Mosquera) but lacking the skills that Porter requires have not made the starting lineup. While certainly it could be argued that Mosquera hasn’t received a completely fair chance in competing for the starting lineup, it must be said that his performances in the pre-season did not show a great ability to be able to play the type of system that Porter demands.  As well, he may not display the requisite aptitude in training sessions that gives Porter hope of being able to adapt to this new system.

It is a new world in Porterland, and the ability to adapt in both analysis and playing style will be paramount.

John

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The Saga Continues

Posted on March 9, 2013 | 4 Comments

I’m just kicking around this morning watching the Soweto derby between Kaizer Chiefs and Orlando Pirates. I would never have imagined ten years ago (to say nothing of twenty) that a match between these two giants of South African game would be available on ESPN.

Game day for them; game day for us as well. There is just nothing better. How different it all seems now from the death march of the second half of last season. Back then the choices seemed to be between playing tough and coming up short one the one hand, and getting a serious hiding on the other. We spent a lot of time worrying about what other teams were going to do to us. At the risk of jumping the gun, I think that last week’s performance strongly suggests that opposing teams now have to worry about what we are going to do to them. And maybe they will be able to cope. but at least we’ve got a grip on our situation and our approach that last year’s squad never managed to achieve.

Just to finish off discussion of the match with the Energy Drinks, there’s been a little kerfuffle in the press between Porter and Drinks manager Mike Petke. You can read about it here and I’m not going to go into a lot of the details, since the post that I linked does a good job of laying them out. The part of Petke’s comments that really struck me was that he bridled at Porter’s claim that we “jammed it down their throats” in the second half. Sadly for Mike Petke, that’s exactly what we did. Petke claims that two of our goals had an element of luck to them, and that makes them in some way parallel to the two goals that we gifted them. Petke has to defend his players, but the fact remains that the first two goals that we gave up were both against the run of play. The goal that Nagbe scored came during a sustained period of pressure. The own goal too came during an extended spell of pressure. And then there’s the matter of the possession statistics. The fact of the matter is that from the opening whistle of the second half we were all over them like a cheap suit.

There is a piece on the Timbers website about Mikael Silvestre and how he won’t let the two blunders that he committed last week get him down. I think that’s all for the best. Given that we don’t really have any other serious starting options at center half, I am heartened by the fact that he hasn’t responded by curling up on his couch, binge watching Felicity, and weeping quietly. No, our Frenchman is made of sterner stuff than that. In all seriousness, if costly botches were going to bum him out severely, he would have been out of professional football long ago.

All kidding aside, my assumption at this point is that Silvestre will retain the starting spot even when Horst and Mosquera are fully fit. His bungling against the Energy Drinks aside, he’s got more experience than the rest of our defenders put together. He’s not as tall as Horst, but I don’t see him as physically inferior to him in other respects. I think that I would prefer that they pick a group and stick with it rather than experimenting with different personnel in defense. So much of defense is about understanding with one’s fellows. I really grew to like Horst last season, but that had as much to do with the fact that he wasn’t Brunner as with any positive qualities of his own.

On a more positive note, Diego Valeri has been getting a lot much deserved attention this week. In my humble opinion, Valeri’s goal ranks behind only Nagbe’s goal two seasons ago for the best ever scored in Timbers colors. Valeri was the consensus pick for MOTM. Ok, I personally gave the honor to Will Johnson, but that doesn’t mean that I think that Valeri wasn’t a reasonable selection. His performance was pretty much what was advertized in preseason. He was excellent on the ball in confined spaces. He played a host of dangerous passes and made sure that everybody was involved.

The match tonight will, I suspect, prove to be another opportunity for our young Argentine to showcase his skills. As they showed in their match with Seattle on opening day, they play a very defensive formation, packing back and looking to beat opponents on the break. They did this last season as well, although not so much against us. When we played them back east last season we were in a period of serious discombobulation. We were still in the process of sorting out our problems in defense. Our starting back line that day was Purdy – Brunner – Mosquera – Smith, with Purdy replaced by the ill-starred Freddy Braun on about 20 minutes. We simply didn’t have many ideas going forward, and that, coupled with the ridiculous surface on which the match was played, meant that Montreal found lots of opportunities take the match to us. In the end, the pressure paid as we gave up two goals in the last fifteen minutes. The thing that I remember most clearly from that match, aside from Perkins nearly getting his nose kicked off by Nyassi, was the recriminations among our defenders following Ubiparipovic’s goal. The following excerpt from the entry for Smith in the player ratings from that week sums it up well I think: “[I]n the wake of the goal you could see Bendik turn to him and say something like ‘what the f&%# were you thinking about?’ Good question.”

I think it fair to say that tonight’s match should be a different story altogether. We’ve shown that we’re going to play an attacking game. Unlike Seattle, who came to grief against Montreal last week, we’re going to present multiple points of attack and a dynamic system which is much harder to defend. Perhaps more importantly, we are going to present them with a much tougher situation in midfield. The pairing of Chará and Johnson have showed that they have the ability to control the middle of the park, and that should make it difficult for them to turn defense into attack in the way that they did up in Seattle. Make no mistake, winning in Seattle is no mean feat. Maybe they’re not quite as tough as they’ve been for the last couple of years, especially with the departure of Fredy Montero, so often central to their attacking prowess. But this is still a tough team (as we’ll get to sample in a week or so). Victory at the CLink shows that Montreal are a team that can play with discipline on the road. The question tonight will be: can we do what we do well enough to get a result. I think we can, but that’s why they play the games.

Magadh

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