Tag Archives: kris boyd

From the fury of the Northmen release us, O Lord!

Posted on February 23, 2013 | 1 Comment

I can breathe again. I’m really enjoying it actually. It seems like such a little thing when you can do it without much effort. When it’s a problem, well, it’s really a problem. Anyway, I think I’m actually going to live, which is relief to many (although a downer to some, I’m sure).

I start with a bit of news that I know sunshine doesn’t care about, but is of passing interest to me. It appears that Kris Boyd has signed on with Kilmarnock in the SPL. I know that many of you out there will just be glad to have got shot of the guy, but I feel a certain human sympathy for the guy. Granted, I feel this more so now that he’s off our payroll. I do think that he can provide value for money for Kilmarnock. Their style is much more likely to suit him. More likely than ours was, that is. Really, we didn’t have a style.

In other news about players who won’t be suiting up for us this season, Nigel Reo-Coker has signed for Vancouver. As sunshine adverted to yesterday, we had right of first refusal on the guy, having discovered him. According to CP, we never really had an interesting signing him. sunshine really ran the guy down in his column, I think partly because of his association with Martin O’Neill, for whom sunshine has little regard. I tend to agree that moving his rights along for a couple of superdraft picks was a good bit of business. sunshine is right that he never lived up to the billing in terms of his potential. He’s not the biggest man in this business and he never quite seemed to be able to handle the sort of punishment that the EPL deals out up and down the line, but especially to those of smaller stature. I think the main reason that we weren’t really interested in him is that he doesn’t really do anything in central midfield that Valeri or Chará doesn’t do better, while the latter both are younger and less likely to crumple up like a gum wrapper at the first heavy contact. According to some press out of Vancouver, they might play him at right back. Given a choice between Reo-Coker and Ryan Miller at that spot, I think I’d go for that latter on the basis of what I’ve seen so far this preseason.

Tonight we play the final match of our preseason tournament against AIK. They are a decent side in the Allsvenskan. They haven’t really played terribly well in the tournament so far, managing only a couple of scoreless draws. The interesting questions about this match mostly surround who is going to play for us. I would think that they will put out something that pretty closely approximates a starting 11, unlike the other night against Dallas. If I had to guess, I would expect to see a 4-3-3, with Nagbe, Ryan Johnson, and Alhassan up top, with Will Johnson, Diego Valeri, and Diego Chará in midfield. The back four has been unsettled and will continue to be. Mosquera picked up a knock against Dallas and will apparently miss this match, although not a whole lot of time after that. I think that Horst picked up some kind of niggle down south and so he might be out of frame as well. The likely suspects would seem to be Jean-Baptiste, Danso, and Tucker-Gangnes. JB has been getting a good hard look so far, and I would expect that to continue. The obvious partner for him would be Danso, just to have a bit of experience on the pitch.

We’ve been quite unsettled in defense so far this preseason, and that seems set to continue in this match. It’s a bit unfortunate that not everyone is fit because this is something that we very much need to get sorted in short order. Attacking football is something that, to a certain extent, can be organized on the fly. This is not so much the case in defense. For reasons that are probably obvious to anyone who is taking the time to read this, it is essential that a defensive line plays as a unit and the each knows what the others are going to do in any given situation. At best, we are likely to have only one player out in the back four who was a even close to a regular figure last year. JB has looked a lot more like a viable regular than he did in his appearances last season, although his performance in the match against the Quakes will not provide many candidates for his highlight reel. I really liked Danso last year, but he provided just about the same thing that Horst did, while the latter worked better with Mosquera. That was the pairing the worked best, and it might have worked better if we’d managed to get more consistent play from our fullbacks. It’s worrisome that Mosquera has looked so mediocre so far this term. I’ve seen some argue that he doesn’t have the skills to play in the way that Porter’s system demands. I haven’t seen things that would necessarily convince me that that was the case. On the other hand, he has really looked out of sorts thus far and I don’t think that it’s absurd to suggest that the new system has something to do with this. The question comes down to this: does he have what it takes in terms of skills to adjust in the long term? To my mind he’s the most physically gifted of our center backs, and he’s young, so you’d think that he’d be as likely to be able to adjust as at any point in his career. In any case, we won’t be sorting this out tonight.

If I had to guess, I would think that when the season starts the first three choices at center half are going to be Horst, JB, and Tucker-Gangnes. I know the rookie is a bold guess, but he’s got a lot to recommend him physically and he’s a guy who seems to be comfortable playing within his limits.

Ok, that’s all for now. But just to give people a heads up, I’ll be posting some stuff on Farcebook in the hour or so leading up to kickoff. Generally I’m only going to be doing this for road matches this year, but I thought I’d do it tonight just for the hell of it. See you later then.

Magadh

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Since Our Last Deal With New York Worked Out So Well…

Posted on February 12, 2013 | 4 Comments

I really don’t understand MP sometimes. Or rather, I feel that I understand him all too well. He’s probably a good guy when you meet him in the flesh (I have never had the pleasure) but he simply must stay off of Twitter. There are some humans whose consciousness is simply unsuited to that particular mode of communication. I mention this because he put up a tweet the other day which seems to be a joke about Sigi Schmid’s weight, or his love of food, or whatever. As a goof it’s just not very funny. But, more importantly, much as the green slime from Sodo inspire the same kind of feelings in me as the prospect of French kissing a badger, there is just no point in this kind of thing. I’m all for saying nasty things to an opponent. I’ve certainly been chucked out of a few places for doing so. But to be effective it has to be either a) obviously very funny or b) backed up by some show of actual superiority.

Much as it was pleasant to take a little piece of the Sounders down in Tucson, that and $2 will just about get you a cup of coffee. Not only have we had rather more preseason game preparation, but it was also a match in which we played a lineup that was rather closer to what our actual regular season setup in going to be (aside from the fact that Tucker-Gagnes played right back). I know the whole issue of the tweet is a minor thing and will, in all likelihood, soon be forgotten. But one never wants to give an opponent the opportunity to deal out some comeuppance. There are those of you out there who will say that this doesn’t really merit our attention, and you’re probably right. Still, it’s just the kind of thing that one generally oughtn’t to do.

Speaking of developments with our northern rivals, they seem to have taken Mikael Sylvestre on for a trial, now that his cuppa with us is done. I never thought that I would be uttering the following words, but I really wish that the Timbers would sign Sylvestre. It gives me only a modicum of comfort to know that sunshine and I have friends among the Seattle Arsenal mob who will feel the same sort of discomfort at his proximity that we do. However that may be, I think it’s pretty clear that he showed the requisite level of skill and ability during his brief stint in our camp. I understand that bringing him in creates a bit of a log jam at center half, but perhaps a bit of serious competition for playing time wouldn’t be such a bad thing. I have confidence in Horst and Mosquera, both individually and as a pairing. I’m less sanguine about the prospect of Jean-Baptiste getting significant time, as he would do if either of the aforementioned picked up an injury. Tucker-Gagnes could also chip in, but who among us could view the prospect of throwing someone straight out of college into the setup? Sylvestre might not be available on terms that we will work for us financially. I simply have no way of knowing. The thought of seeing him lining up in a Sounders jersey causes my gorge to rise.

Whatever it is that we decide to do in terms of personnel, we will have some extra cash with which to do it. This is a result of the fact that Eric Alexander has been shifted to the Energy Drinks for…wait for it…allocation money. Those hardy souls among you who have read what I have to say with regularity will remember that I have not exactly been the president of the Eric Alexander fan club. He’s who reminds one of those motivational posters that one sees at work about unspectacular people working unspectacularly to get a job done. You can’t fault the guy in terms of effort. But he simply is not quite good enough to assert ownership over a starting spot at left wing, and the number of times that he came off the bench to any good effect can be number on one hand. Mayhap I would have preferred to see him go somewhere besides New York. In my heart of hearts the Kenny Cooper thing still rankles. Admittedly, he was moved on when there was still some prospect of getting a reasonable return out of Kris Boyd. But Cooper went on to pot 18 goals for the Drinks, while Boyd turned out to be the footballing equivalent of a handful of magic beans.

While we’re on the subject of strikers, I would like to say that I am feeling intense guilt about the situation with Bright Dike. The other day I made some idiotic comment about the possibility that he might be able to come back from injury in a matter of weeks rather than months. I should know better than to say things like that, especially when it refers to someone who is having surgery to repair a knee injury. As it turns out he’s done until August (at least) and I have a feeling that I put the whammy on the guy. I take full responsibility for this.

Dike is another guy of whom I’ve been pretty critical. Or perhaps it would be better say that I’ve been skeptical of his ability to be the kind of guy who can carry the scoring load for a team with serious aspirations to contend. I talked a little the other day about what the loss of Dike might portend for our attack. Clearly, this is a time when other players have a chance to make their case for a more extensive role. You would think that this would be the time that Danny Mwanga would make play for more time, if only on the basis of the tools that he has. Still he hasn’t impressed, and moreover it’s not really clear to me that he represents the way forward in terms of the offensive style that Porter wants this team to play. The answer could be Ryan Johnson, who had at least a modicum of success during his time with the Quakes (less so up in Toronto). The fact that we’re now taking a look at the young Belizean striker Deon McCauley may render some clues about which direction things are going to take. He’s a player less in the Dike/Mwanga mode (big, hold up player) and more like Nagbe (small and mobile). With the improvements that have been effected in midfield this might portend a full commitment to an offense that attacks the top of the penalty area using running and through balls. To my mind this fits well with the overall attacking approach that we are building now.

Ok, I’m off. I promise to do my best not to jinx any more of our players.

Magadh

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Oh…My…God…We’re No Longer Undefeated. :( :( :(

Posted on February 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

I’m going to try to write something coherent this morning, but I’m not making any guarantees. I admit it. I over did it. I so thoroughly over did it that when I woke up this morning opening my eyelids felt like pulling to pieces of flypaper apart and the taste in my mouth makes me think that a ferret must have expired in there somewhere. I feel like a walking afterschool special: yes kids, this is why you need to consume alcohol in moderation…or not at all. I feel at sea, literally. I mean like the room is bobbing back and forth. I suppose I have no one to blame but myself.

sunshine got through most of the news about our game with KC the other day. It was a tale of two halves, not least because we started different teams for each of them. One of them actually looked pretty good. This isn’t surprising due to the fact that the team that was out there in the first half featured a lot more of the senior players in the side. The game was a pretty typical affair in terms of what you’d expect in early preseason. Lots of errant passing from both sides and a few moments that showed the actual qualities of the players involved.

There is a lot that could (and has been, and will be) said about this match, but the most impressive thing for me as a fan of the Timbers was the level of physicality that the team brought. As I mentioned the last time that I talked to you, KC is a very strong side. Even without Kei Kamara they are a team that is going to come out and test your capacity and your will to hold your ground. There were a lot of falling bodies, especially in the first half. It seemed like the physical dimension of the match dropped off a little in the second half, although you might be forgiven for not thinking so given that Soony Saad spent 15 or 20 minutes on the turf.

The goal that we gave up was one of those moments the significance of which will be colored one way or another by whether one is an optimist or a pessimist. For those glass-half-empty types, it was probably a ball that Danso should either have dealt with (and here I mean dealt with better) or left alone. On the other hand, it was kind of a fluke. Overall the team played pretty solid defense on the night. Our new recruits in defense really stuck to their tasks and stayed close to the KC attackers. This was crucial. KC’s game is very much about getting balls into the middle and the muscling opposing defenders. It’s extremely important for fullbacks defending this system to get up tight on the wings and not let them pick out easy crosses.

As far as individual performances go, I thought Valeri was the standout once again. For all the time that we spent watching Nagbe learning the trade last year, Valeri looks like he’s the genuine article right now. He’s got better field vision than anyone else in midfield for Portland, and he can pick out a pass. He wasn’t put off by KC’s physical play in midfield. Given that he’s played in the Argentine league, which is pretty rough and tumble, that’s not totally surprising. All in all, he is about the most promising figure in the team right now.

Another guy who looked pretty good, pace sunshine’s intense loathing for him, was Mikael Sylvestre. He reads the game well, much better than he seemed to during his days at Arsenal. This probably has something to do with the fact that things in MLS don’t move at quite the frenetic pace that they do in the EPL. Also, having had to try to slow down people like Didier Drogba in the past, Sylvestre is a guy who knows how to cope with attempts to muscle him. To me he looked like a guy who could slot right in and make us better. That said, there are two downsides here. One is that, if we kept him, we would have a logjam at center half. The second, and to my mind more compelling issue is that keeping him in the team would result in a wave of hateful griping from sunshine. Unlike you like, I’ve been exposed to his venom on this particular topic for a long time now. There was perhaps never a happier day in my life than that on which Sylvestre was released by Arsenal, both because I thought he wasn’t up to the task and because of sunshine’s constant stream of aspersions against him. [After I wrote this I went back and reread sunshine's commentary on yesterday's match which, given the current state of my brain, was barely more than a mist shrouded memory. I find that was actually pretty complimentary about the Frenchman, so maybe my concerns are misplaced.]

The one sort of worrying sign that I saw was the isolation of Darlington Nagbe. I looked to me like he was spending a lot of time out on the left wing. This is not the sort of position that suits him generally, and this case was no exception. Partly it seemed to do with the fact that the ball was being advanced up the right for much of the evening. But generally speaking Nagbe does not thrive when he is not located centrally. This is going to be a problem if Valeri’s good form continues. I discussed this prospect at length in a post a few weeks ago, so I’ll let it lie for now, except to say that it is something that is going to need to be resolved.

Finally, I read with some relief that we have now comprehensively parted ways with Kris Boyd. I assume this means that the issues over the money that he was still owed have been resolved (although given the arcana surrounding the money dealings in this league I have no way of being certain). This is one of those things that simply had to be put to bed before the season got going. Boyd was the footballing equivalent of an appendix. He probably has some kind of use to someone, but what it is is unclear and the last thing you want is some sort of inflammation. Well, he’s moved on now and I say good luck to him. The sun has well and truly risen, chasing away the last vestiges of long nightmare that was the end of John Spencer’s tenure at the club. Like real life nightmares, this one has left traces behind that unsettle. We can only forge ahead in the new day and hope that these will fade in time.

Magadh

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A Note on Moderation

Posted on February 1, 2013 | 5 Comments

If you ever have the fortune (good or ill) to meet me in person, you will notice that my chat is liberally laced with a certain word beginning with the letter f. It is probably a matter of some surprise to people who know me and who read this blog that it is absent from my many posts here. In part, this is due to a conscious decision taken by the editorial staff that we were going to make this page the kind of thing that younger fans could read without getting their (or their parents’) sensibilities discomfited. But it also has to do with the fact that my dear mother reads this thing with regularity. Now, truth be told, this particular word that I’m talking about is something that I learned at my mother’s knee, but she has since tried to impress upon me the importance of judicious usage. Sadly, her admonitions have mostly been in vain but I feel that, at the very least, I can demonstrate the ability to use some restraint in the case of the written word. This brings me to my main point, which is not, as you might think from the first hundred and fifty words of this post, the question of profanity, but in fact my New Year’s resolution. I come from a family of teachers and I know that it is a matter of consternation that my posts are so often riddled with typographical errors. I hereby do solemnly resolve that in future I will do a much better job of proofreading these things before I post them.

MLS is in many respects a weird league. This is not just because of the loopy schedule, loopy both because it happens over the summer and because it is not balanced. The latter is just plain wacky, while the former is a response to a perception about the commercial environment. Aside from the considerations of weather in the northern tier states of the U.S. and in Canada, there is the fact that the NFL, NBA, and NHL all have winter centered seasons. Soccer is growing rapidly in the North America and, as this story suggests, MLS is getting onto terms with both the NHL and the NBA. Still, that’s a long way from a situation in which MLS could compete directly. After all, both the NBA and the NHL allow fans to sit indoors out of the elements, in addition to which MLS has achieved its current position precisely by not being in direct competition with those other leagues.

MLS is still weird. I am put in mind of this by the story that I saw reported on Stumptown Footy to the effect that Kris Boyd’s proposed move to the Greek side Panathinaikos might be off because he is still owed money by the team. I don’t know if this is true and, in fact, neither do the people over at SF, savvy operators though they are. We are all information challenged in no small part because the league plays its financial cards pretty close to the vest. Admittedly, they are not alone in doing so. Teams in the various European leagues can be very cagey about what information they release about player contracts, salaries, and signing bonuses (to say nothing of the bungs that they are paying out to agents). But MLS takes this tendency to a whole other level. The rules about salaries and allocation money and such are so arcane that it would take the Gnomes of Zurich years to sort it all out. I have a suspicion that this has something to do with the league’s desire to keep under wraps how little (or how much) certain people are getting paid. I also offer as a caveat the proposition that I am just not sharp enough to understand it. What I do know is that there is a hitch in getting Boyd on the books somewhere else, and that can hardly be regarded by any Timbers fan as a positive sign. I don’t wish Kris Boyd ill, I just wish he was playing for another team…any other team.

In more positive news, today will provide another chance to see how things are shaping up under the new regime as we get a run out against Sporting KC. Yeah, I know that this is still preseason and that firm conclusions are difficult to draw. Even an experimental lineup from them will provide some real resistance against which we can assess the progress of our side. As with the game with Colorado, the standard is really going to be the standard of play rather than the result itself. Of course, it would be nice to get a result as well, but it is much more important to see how the team is playing and the degree to which they have managed to adopt Porter’s new approach. It will be interesting to see who exactly KC sends out there. Unlike Colorado, KC were the real deal last season and look to be again this year (even though Kai Kamara has been brought in by Norwich City in an attempt to stop what looks like an inevitable slide toward relegation). They are big and physical, and I get the impression that even if they sent their ball boys out for this match it would still be pretty challenging. On the other hand, one of the few really bright moments of last season was the night on which we worsted them at our gaff. Not the prettiest win in the league last year, but a great night for us and one of the rare signs that the team had some fight.

I wouldn’t say that I have high hopes (or great expectations for this match), but it seems to me that there is one matter of interest about which some evidence might be gleaned. Last season one of our biggest problems was that we were neither fish nor fowl; we couldn’t really execute our lateral crossing game, and we didn’t have the personnel or the organization to play the passing and movement game. Now we have distinctly shifted toward the latter, and there are some indications that we actually have the people to do it. This is the kind of approach which, if done right, can give a large but not terribly speedy team like KC some problems. In this respect this might be the sort of game that can tell us something, if only in the broadest terms.

Magadh

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Goodbye to All That

Posted on January 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

It is probably all for the best that the world at large does not have access to the text exchanges between sunshine and myself. I have trouble maintaining the respect of serious people as it stands, and too many iterations of things like the following would not help matters at all.

Magadh: The Guardian says that Kris Boyd is on the way out. Do you know more about this?

sunshine: I sent you an email about this yesterday. Didn’t you read it?

[Ok, in point of fact sunshine doesn’t capitalize in texts anymore than he does in blog posts. I just cleaned it up for him a little.]

And in fact I had read the email that he’d sent. Just not the first line, in which the relevant information about Boyd was contained. I think I’m starting to get senile.

Well, Boyd is out. I sent sunshine a note basically saying that, whatever else one might say about Boyd, at least his departure would provide us with fodder for the next few days. sunshine had a nice little “thank you” type blurb that he put up as a supplementary post yesterday. I thought I might sign off on the Boyd era a little more extensively.

Boyd arrived with a lot of promise, but with a lot of questions as well. He had long since proven that he knew where the goal was. His record in the SPL was stellar and while that league is rightly not numbered among the very top leagues in Europe, it’s not the East Neuk Thursday Night Pub League either. What can be said about the SPL is that there is a certain sort of style that tends to be successful there. Some critics of the league say that it’s mostly about just humping the long ball up the pitch and trying nick goals by winning the ball on the forecheck. The importation of the hockey terminology is intentional here. Although the tendency to lob long balls over the top in that league is much overstated by critics, it is true that one will seldom some more aggressive battles for ball in the corners than in the SPL. It is true that SPL games tend to feature less of the complex build up play than one sees in the EPL. Moreover, if you watch SPL matches I think you will agree that they do tend to feature a lot of poached goals. Kris Boyd was the king of the poachers. He was (as I have said before) kind of like a poor man’s Gary Linaeker. He was extremely opportunistic and made the very most out of a minimum number of touches.

All of that was to the good. But it was clear when Boyd showed up in town that his halcyon days in the SPL were well behind him. Since that time he had suffered injuries and a general run of poor form. It was hoped that a change of scenery and the SPL-inspired stylings of John Spencer would inspire him to recapture some of the old magic.

It didn’t happen. Boyd scored some good goals. But he also missed some sitters. It was rumored that he was the most clinical of finishers on the training ground, but that and $2.50 will get you a cup of coffee. There are a lot of ways that you could diagnose Boyd’s problems. They have been discussed to death on this blog, so I will simply say that the fault was his, but not only his. It’s not like he was being presented with chance after chance, but when chances are at a premium you’ve got to make them pay.

So Boyd is gone now. One thing I will say about the guy (and there are people who will disagree) is that I never thought he lacked for effort. Personally, I don’t think he’s got a whole lot left in the tank. I saw him on many occasions tracking back in a desperate attempt to get some time on the ball. He was certainly discouraged from doing this by the coaching staff, and if fact it wasn’t a very good move given his skill set. He’s just not one of those guys who is going to dribble about four opponents and lace one from distance. But he tried. It was emblematic of the way that the team was playing at the time (i.e. poorly). Ultimately, he had to go. There was just no way that he was ever going to fit into a Caleb Porter run team, so it’s best for all concerned that he gets a chance to play his trade elsewhere.

milerIn other, more positive news, it seems that the move for Ryan Miller is on. At least Ives Galarcep thinks enough of the rumor to tweet about it. I think you’d have to say that this was a good thing. Although Miller didn’t really cut it in his last stint in the league, he’s spent time with some decent teams in Sweden (Halmstads BK and Ljungskile SK) and the league itself is comparable to the MLS in a number of important ways. Miller is 28, so he’s had some time to learn the trade. The key thing now is to get this thing done and dusted so that he can get over here and start working with our current playing staff.

I have to say, the prospect of Miller’s addition to the team is the sort of thing that gives me confidence. Unlike Kosuke Kimura, Miller is more of a defense oriented defender, but he can also keep up his end of things in terms of getting up the pitch. Kimura’s problem with defense was pretty simple: he just wasn’t that good at it. His role had really been one of supplementary midfielder rather than that of a guy who was going to lock down an opponent in the corner. I am rather more confident that Miller will fill the needed role.

Things seem to be moving along for us. Last season it really seemed like the team was lacking direction coming into things. There was this general idea that we should improve from the previous season’s performance and that Boyd would be the way forward, but even from the outset there were (or should have been) questions about how Boyd was going to fit into the personnel that we had. If I’m honest I must admit that I should have asked those questions. While the approach now is more critical, I think it’s also fair to say that there are objective signs of improvement and direction in the team. But it’s just a start.

Magadh

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kris boyd

Posted on January 19, 2013 | 3 Comments

outside lifting the cascadia cup there are few moments from last season worthy of registering space in our memories, but if one existed it would be this moment:

sea062412-14

boyd may not have been the success story we had hoped for, but that was not entirely his fault. in the end it was a group effort at failure. but despite all of that disappointment, boyd gave us this moment to remember for years to come. i know when i have the joy of welcoming my spawn into the world i will spend hours discussing this moment with them.

thank you, kris.

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but out in the field he is part of a team…

Posted on January 11, 2013 | 2 Comments

if there is one thing that binds all of us timbers faithful together it is the fact that we support a football club–we cling to an idea that our lives are enriched by watching 11 men kick a ball around a field. for us, our collective character is defined by one undeniable fact: we support a club through good, bad, rain, sun, ugly, pretty, fun, and boring; we support a club that has never lit the world on fire, never will light the world on fire; we support a club that represents the blue-collar roots of an odd and esoteric community. we get that. for all the differences we share or do not share, we have a team and that team is the timbers. sure, many of us follow other football sides, even sports, but to the core of us all we know we support the timbers.

when you see a rctid sticker, a 107ist sticker, a green and white bar scarf, a vest with hundreds of patches, even a fella in a skirt wearing a mocked-up hard hat, you know that they belong to your people–as embarrassing as the affiliation may be. we have this thing that simplifies a complex aggregation of individuals. that is an identity.

but over the first two years of its mls inception, the team we support and have supported and will continue to support has had an identity in name only. their style of play has been random, frustrating, and evolving into something that i am still unable to describe. let’s face it–the timbers were not a good club because they did not know how to become a good club. sure, there were moments of brilliance, as there will always be with any team, but overall the club was directionless. that is a result of the old manager, the general manager, and, ultimately, the owner. over the course of the last two years it was clear that not one of them knew how to put together a team. a team–a bunch of individual parts working together.

our new manager understands the concept of team. indeed, he has some distinct and personal ideas of what that concept looks like and how to obtain that goal. but before we even look at what those are it is important to look at why he has developed such opinions. not that it is a novel concept for a coach to have opinions on how to win, it is simply new to the timbers. in an interview with the mls extra time crew, porter described what motivates him–and thank god it was winning. i would be remiss to suggest spencer and gavin did not want to win– they did, but did not know how to do it. a specific moment in that interview struck me as the most important lesson for any coach to learn. porter described the difference between a team in the mls and a team that wins in the mls:

A philosophy allows you to win games…Successful teams in the MLS, the teams that win, they have a formula, a philosophy, an identity. They build the team around that philosophy. If the team has no identity, no idea of the players they are looking for, they are going to be stabbing in the dark…I plan to build a style of play unique to Portland.

obviously this is a theory that can extend beyond the mls and into any league or any sport. the timbers really were a bunch of guys corraled on the pitch, and, without any direction on how to do it, they were told to go win a game. some of the pieces may have had individual talent but they did not work together–players had limited to no idea of where their positioning should be, what runs they should be making, and how to retreat to assist in key areas like defense. i know that he has yet to have a single practice with players and has yet to make his first step to winning the pre-season championship, but everything i read or hear instills me with a confidence that things will eventually improve in soccer city usa.

ultimately, that comes down to the fact porter can articulate what he expects of a player and how a player fits within his system and style of play. running the risk of wedding porter to the demise and degradation of the esteem in which we supporters hold kris boyd, his assessment of boyd’s fit within the team is rather clear and very condemning–he does not have the skill set to perform what porter expects of a striker–but is also a barometer of how he views the contribution of players not as individuals, but as integral parts to a system. as caleb said, he is looking for specific things from a number 9 and they include the ability to move, attack defenses, place defenders off-balance, think tactically, as well as be technically sound. boyd may be able to think and sometimes display technical acuity, but he surely cannot move, cannot create his own options, and is, for the greater part of a game, a lump waiting to be set free. in a system that requires possession to create chances all parts need to be active, interactive, and supportive–this does not describe the million dollar man. which does bring me to pause. if the million dollar man does not fit the side, and money is now an issue, not to mention the glaring absence of open designated player slots, why is he still with the team?

let’s face it, boyd was a glamour purchase. he really did not improve the team and certainly did not do anything more than kenny cooper. but his place in this club is a stark reminder that through the guidance of john spencer and his  foolish and impressionable neophyte exuberance, the owner purchased a wow-factor. the implicit message within any of his interviews or articles written on his system and theories is that wow-factors do not exist in porter’s world–the team does. that could not be made any more clear than by his description of newly acquired designated player, diego valeri:

We’re looking for in him something very specific, a guy that can come in and be a playmaking midfielder, a guy that a lot of our attack will go through.  And I see him as that guy. He’s a very creative player, but also very intelligent, cerebral, smart, understands how to dictate the flow of the game but also a final third player.

I believe he will produce goals as well. And like a good playmaker does will make players around him better, and we have some very good players in the midfield that will I think complement him.

recall the description of boyd–he is a guy who scores goals. nothing more. there was nothing about how he could open up play, support other players, bring other players into the game, release other players into areas that cause great danger for opposing sides. none of that. but more importnatly, porter’s description of diego, a player sought out to fulfill a role, includes reference to the team and the team’s identity.

ok, enjoy your friday!

sunshine

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as old blue eyes said: he’ll do it his way…

Posted on January 9, 2013 | 4 Comments

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After watching him play – and I have watched this team play quite a bit – Kris Boyd is a player that I think will have a hard time playing in the way that we want to play. And that’s no knock on Kris – he would fit in a lot of different systems. But with what I want out of my strikers, it’s going to be very difficult for him to offer what I’m looking for in that position.

with that statement, new timbers head coach, caleb porter, announced the fact he had arrived in portland and in doing so he laid claim to the team. as the recent roster moves have suggested, the players are his type of players, playing his system, and he will make certain to impose his evaluations on talent, not accept the evaluations made by anyone else.

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from the time porter took to the microphone, it was immediately clear that we are dealing with a different animal than we have come to expect in soccer city usa. porter is intelligent, thoughtful, and articulate. he knows what he wants from a team and can describe that to others. this is a quality that goes unnoticed by many who watch sports but is essential to success–any coach can be as savvy with x’s and o’s as a greeting card, or understand tactics as well as basic algebra, but if he does not comprehend how to explain those things to others they will never grasp his concepts and he will fail. this seems a rather unlikely result with porter. porter described more of football in two minutes than i think i heard over an entire year and a half of spencer, or the entire post-playing career of gavin wilkinson.

one thing that was not addressed at the new coach’s first press hearing was the question of who will be the captain come march 3, 2013. given his assessment of kris boyd’s abilities and how they fit within the new system, i cannot help but be convinced he views jack jewsbury in much the same light. as good of a character guy he is, jack is not the most mobile of individuals and hardly sets the footballing world on fire with his pace and an eye for a pass. lending further support to this theory was porter’s own admission that nagbe will not receive deferential love from his old mentor. players will have to earn their place in the eleven–an old, but forgotten concept within the composition of the timbers for the last two years.

and if we thought he was the type of manager to only hold players accountable, leaving it to them to shoulder the blame for failure, he quickly disavowed that misconception. he is a motivated man, conscious of the need to continually improve and to be challenged. he amassed the highest winning percentage of any coach in division 1 ncaa soccer, yet he felt uncomfortable with the legacy he could have built had he remained in akron.

if there was any doubt about his need to challenge himself, little else proof is needed than the fact he left a record of 128-18-17 to take over a project that was run by two coaches with limited vision or understanding of how to build a winning side. the team porter found was a fractured team of uncomplimentary parts saddled with a few overpaid players and one player whose salary amounted to one-quarter of the entire team budget. but let us not worry about past mistakes, porter has been cleaning up the dross from the roster and seems an astute if not opinionate judge of what fits his system.

getting rid of a useless rights ownership today was another step towards repairing the damage down by spencer and gavin in the last two years. as sad as it may make some of you, robbie findley was traded to real salt lake for…well, we do not rightly know at this moment but if ives galarcep is to be believed it would be one of either allocation money or a draft pick in the super draft. i have my doubts regarding the draft pick given the timbers already traded away their pick. that indicated to me that porter, a fella who i recall knows a thing or two about the college game, felt the exiting class was not worthwhile. there have been some developments in that regard since the trade toronto, but whether they are of any interest to porter i could not speculate.

another thing porter did make clear in his press hearing is his desire to see a greater reliance on homegrown talent. as if to underscore that desire, the timbers made a move to add another player to the first team roster–homegrown talent, steve evans. evans left the university of portland early to join his hometown team and fulfill a dream:

I have always wanted to play for the Timbers; this is something I’ve been working toward since I started playing the game. I grew up watching the Timbers, and the opportunity to play professionally in my hometown is a dream come true. I couldn’t be more excited.

evans is a versatile player, having the size to play in central defense but also the speed and foot skill to score 8 goals during his time with the u-23 squad. considering the need for a rightback, i would not be surprised to see him duel with several other unconventional, prospective candidates at that position. but that is a story for another day. needless to say, it is exciting to see homegrown talent come into the first team. this aspect of the club needs to and should improve in the future to reduce the reliance on multiple trades and drafts to fill the ranks. i know mags and i have written about this many time before, but nothing can replace the benefits of a strong academy and youth system. hopefully soon the timbers will subsume some of the elitist club affiliations and create a relevant and distinct youth academy.

so that is a round-up of much of the news from yesterday. given some of the loose lip action in the presser i would expect a few further moves in the transfer market in thenext couple days. gavin indicated a trade is likely. and the way porter described boyd i am sure he has a limited shelf life in portland; so, expect him to be leaving soon, too.

have a great day.

sunshine.

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Thar She Blows (A Weak Attempt at Mobi Humor)

Posted on December 19, 2012 | 1 Comment

This is going to be my last column for a few days. The thought crosses my mind that it may be my last column ever, given the vicissitudes of winter time travel, but even on the most optimistic estimate I’m going to be out of position for several days. To tell the truth, I am slightly bummed about this. It’s not like to don’t look forward to the opportunity to see my family. It’s just that the older I get the less I like traveling. There is a certain amount of irony in this. In my younger days I slept in unheated squats populated by complete strangers without thinking twice about it. I would go anywhere at the drop of a hat without caring too much about the particulars of travel and accommodations. And, in the old days, air travel used to be kind of fun. Now, aside from my ever present fear that the plane is going to drop out of the sky like a gigantic dart, the whole experience has been transformed. To travel by air is to be charged extortionate prices (with the prospect that you’ll lose your whole reservation if you miss one leg of it), to be channeled like cattle to be mocked by a bunch of jobsworths from the TSA, and packed into a seat that would have been a close fit on Hervé Villechaize. I think in future I’m going to insist that all members of Mr. and Mrs. Mags immediate families must move within driving distance of where we live. Full stop.

Ok, having given some column space to my inner Grinch, it’s now time to move to some slightly more positive matters. We won the Mobi Fehr lottery yesterday, and there was much rejoicing. Granted, we had a somewhat better than 80% chance of doing so, but this is not an organization that has had very many balls bounce right for it in the last 12 months, so it was at least nice to find that we were properly aligned with the universe. I talked a bit about Fehr yesterday, and pretty much exhausted my minimal store of knowledge about him. He’s 18 now. He’s played extensively for the United States at U17 level and he’s trained with Swiss “giants” FC Basel. He’s definitely a player with a lot of upside, and I’ll just reiterate that it’s no bad thing getting some young players of quality into our system. However, as is generally the case with 18 year olds, it’s going to be a couple of years before we find out what he’s all about. He still has some developing to do physically, and learning to play the game at a higher level than one is used to is the kind of thing that takes a bit of time. At the very least one has to learn that there are moves that will work on even very good junior level players that simply will not fly against seasoned pros. Anyway, this is the kind of thing that should make people guardedly optimistic, but in terms of getting the team into playing shape for next season it’s kind of a push.

In other news, the date and opponent of the home opener was announced yesterday. On 3 March we will host the New York Energy Drinks at the friendly confines of the JW. Well, the confines won’t be quite as confining, as the field is set to be widened by 12 feet for next season. This is very much in line with (at least what one takes to be) Caleb Porter’s new approach to the game in the Rose City. Smaller pitch dimensions tend to call for a more muscular sort of football. They allow bigger players to get close to quicker opponents and to make the size tell. 12 feet doesn’t sound like much, but trust me you will notice the difference. The Caleb Porter style is not quite the tika taka approach characteristic of Barcelona (and occasionally Arsenal). But it is much more oriented toward passing and movement that the Timbers offense under John Spencer (and GW) was. I like our chances of making this work, and I think that at the very least it should provide a game that’s a bit more entertaining to watch than the often dour and Scottish product the Spencer era.

I’ve been trying to figure out how Kris Boyd fits into this equation. On the face of it you would be tempted to say: not terribly well. Boyd has not shown himself to be a tremendously dynamic player since he’s been here. Still, it seems like he’s going to be with us for at least another year (I haven’t heard any rumblings portending his departure anyway). Perhaps the bigger dimensions can work to his advantage. They could result in some added space in the box for him to operate. Moreover, with more territory on the flanks and a team committed to more motion oriented approach, the result might be that Boyd actually gets the kind of service that would allow him to thrive. There are really two situations in which it is certain that Boyd will not function well. When he gets the ball far from goal and has to make some moves it quickly becomes obvious that he doesn’t have the pace or foot skills to be effective shifting the ball around in midfield. He really needs to take one touch and either pass or shot. The other suboptimal situation is when we try to play balls over the top to him. He’s not fast enough and unless the opposing defenders have recently been lobotomized en masse there is just no chance that he is going to get to a ball played in this fashion.

Sadly for Mr. Boyd, these were the two types of ball that he received most last season. Our lateral service to him was so bad that he eventually started tracking back into midfield to try to get the ball. This was unfortunate, since he seldom did anything useful in possession near the center circle. Or, during our long periods under the kosh defensively, someone would try to clear the ball over the top to let him run on to it. This was also a losing proposition. Given the large proportion of our salary limit that Boyd is taking up, it would be nice if we could put him in position actually have the kind of success that his skills make possible. And it would be nice in human terms for the guy to get some payoff for his efforts. This is yet another question for which we will have to wait until opening day to answer.

Magadh

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Tragedy and Beyond

Posted on December 12, 2012 | 11 Comments

First of all, I’m sure I speak for everyone here at Axe Central when I extend my condolences to the victims of the events at Clackamas Town Center yesterday and to their families. There are a lot of things that could be said about it, but that is for other times and places. I talked to sunshine last night and we were both thinking of all of the times that we’d visited that space and how jarring it was that such a thing should happen there. We wish those affected strength in their grief and peace.

It seems somewhat paltry to go on with talk of football at a time like this, but I will endeavor to do so. There are wretched individuals who can only find solace in destroying the happiness and settled lives of others. What I have to say in the following blog, and even the very fact that I am writing it, is an expression of my unwillingness to concede anything to such people.

If you go over to Newsnow.co.uk, or as I like to call it, the Lazy Blogger’s Friend, you will find that there are about 38 stories about how we resigned Danny Mwanga. So it should come as no surprise that we have actually resigned Danny Mwanga. I think this is a good thing.

Yesterday’s guest columnist offered a pretty severe critique of Kris Boyd. Frankly, a lot of it was spot on. I have a lot of sympathy for things Celtic, but the fact of the matter is that if Boyd ran into David Horst on the street it’s unlikely that they would even recognize each other. Boyd is the poster child for the British adage about horses for courses. Sometimes he’s also the answer to the frequently posed question about who ate all the pies, but that’s another matter. Boyd was successful in the SPL for two reasons. One was that, at his best, he can be a clinical finisher. The other is that the style of that league tends to deemphasize building from the back and dynamic play in the middle of the field. Success an environment was about as favorable as could be imagined for a player like Boyd to accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative.

MLS is a rather different environment. That is certainly one reason why Boyd’s talents have appeared to decline. And of course he’s older. He was just never the spryest fellow on the ground, and age and injury have not made him any pacier. As a consequence, there is about one thing that he can do to be successful: he has to score on the Lineker model. That means getting the ball and kicking it into the goal with a minimum number of touches. Much as Lineker was a star in the eighties, it had to be said that each successive touch after his first one resulted in a logarithmic decline in the probability that anything positive was going to happen.

This description fits Boyd to a t. You can’t kick the ball over the top and have him chase it down. He’s not quick enough and will either get beaten to the ball by whatever defender is nearby or by the keeper if he is paying attention. One interesting result of this is that teams can actually play a higher line against us because one doesn’t have to have blistering pace to catch up with our point man. This has cascading effects for our efforts to work through midfield, but as I have battered these dead horses into submission in a dozen previous posts I will spare you further nattering. In any case, Boyd is probably making too much money to be moved easily, so I have a sneaking suspicion that he will be with us again next year.

But back to Mwanga. I didn’t see a lot of him last season. Nor did most Timbers fans as he seemed to take a while to work himself into the rotation. Even then he didn’t get a huge number of minutes. The fact that Dike was getting as much time up front as he was sort of made me wonder if there was something catastrophically wrong with Mwanga. He has a lot of promising attributes. He’s big, but reasonably quick too. Other than that it’s hard to draw firm conclusions given his paucity of on field appearances for the team. But I have to think (and perhaps this is doing a bit of an injustice) that if Bright Dike can make it in this league, Danny Mwanga can too.

Dike certainly worked hard to get himself into consideration and his time in the nether world of the developmental leagues seems to have been well spent in terms improving his touch and tactical nous. My feeling after having seen a bit of both guys is that Mwanga does pretty much everything that Dike does, but slightly better. I freely admit that this is a judgment based on rather superficial evidence. If someone from the team were to come to me and say that their respective performances on the training pitch made the choice of Dike over Mwanga a clear one I would be ready to concede the point. But it looks to me that Mwanga is both stronger than Dike as well as being better able to cope with dynamic, attacking football.

We’re all on the cusp of finding out what Caleb Porter will make of this team. From the view times that I was able to get a lot at his University of Akron side I expect that we will be moving in the direction of quicker and more rhythmic passing and more consistent development through the middle of the park. It’s hard to know whether the personnel that we have now, or any that we are likely to bring in, will be able to execute such an approach. My guess is that Mwanga can make a positive contribution to such a project, but the relevant sample size of performances is too small to draw firm conclusions.

Magadh

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