portland timbers

Game day: a few words before Timbers take on the Burn…

Posted on: June 15th, 2013 by sunshine No Comments

 

Well, it is back. Soccerball is back. Better yet, Timbers MLS soccerball is back. Ok, it is football, but “soccerball” sounds great and it has returned after 3 days. And today’s return is one of marginal importance, with only minimal implications for the season’s end. The Timbers take on the conference leaders FC Dallas.

 

FC Dallas stands even with the Timbers on games played and lead the conference with 28 points--5 more than the Timbers. Even though the Timbers have a 12 game unbeaten streak going it is pretty clear they have forgotten that winning games has a greater impact on the standings than not losing games. That concept makes great sense--you win, you earn more points. Simple.

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The Timbers kinda get Rowdy…

Posted on: June 13th, 2013 by sunshine 2 Comments

 

So, the Timbers beat the Tampa Bay Rowdies 2-0 and move on to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open Cup. nanchoff.rowdies.6.12.13That is as simple as it gets when writing a topic sentence. I could have left the post with only that sentence and you would be as entertained as many of us were last night. Player management and fatigue prevention were largely responsible for the team selection, and with the number of matches coming within the next 2 weeks being cognizant of those issues will prove to be a benefit. Still, saving some hamstrings and groins did not save our hearts from a few moments of exasperation.

 

Porter gave starts to Kocic, Zizzo, AJB, MacKenzie, Miller, Zemanski, Nanchoff, Kalif, Valeri, Valencia, and Piquionne. There were only two regular starters, last night, Valeri and AJB, with others vying for the manager’s attention. And the game played as if there were only two regular starters.

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The Shecky Green Column

Posted on: June 12th, 2013 by theaxepdx@gmail.com 1 Comment

 

The Timbers take on the Tampa Bay Rowdies tonight in their next step towards US Open Cup glory. Some friends of the axe wrote a great piece hipping us nOObs to the southern jive, which you can read here. With that covered I thought I might take on a wholly different subject, yet one that has been bandied about a bit on the internets in the last few weeks – the fallacy of the draw.

 

The Timbers played to their eighth draw of the season last Saturday night. In fact, they have drawn more games than any other team in the MLS. The San Jose Earthquakes have earned the second most draws this season with six and are currently floundering in eighth in the west. Even though the Timbers manage a tenuous grip on third in the west without being able to turn those draws into wins is just that - tenuous. I would put loads of money on the fact that another eight draws in the next fourteen matches will not see them in the top five in the west. Porter is right, again and some more – the west is tightening up and without earning three points the Timbers will once again be on the outside of the playoffs looking in.

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A Sporting Chance

Posted on: April 27th, 2013 by theaxepdx@gmail.com 1 Comment

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Magadh

A John Nyen Exclusive: does size really matter?

Posted on: March 6th, 2013 by theaxepdx@gmail.com 1 Comment

 

Let’s get the pre-rehearsed statement out of the way:

The Portland Timbers have the potential to be absolute assassins on a big field.

Ok, are you good with that? Let’s continue and examine.

With a 110x70 yard pitch for the first two seasons of MLS, the Timbers attempted to meld the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City philosophy into one team. John Spencer wanted his team to be a quick playing, defensively stout team that played frenetically to the forward position and wings on offense and, for a few months, the Timbers fit the methodology imposed by Spencer.

Portland used the lack of width of the field (ala Dom Kinnear) to attempt to congest the play defensively, and then spring the attack out to the wing.  This attempted playing style was often done in the empty bucket 4-4-2 formation which relied on Diego Chara and Jack Jewsbury (often) attempting to break up the attack and shuttle the ball to a streaking wing player who would then charge to the endline before humping a ball into the 18 yard box, where hopefully a forward would be standing.

The atmosphere of Jeld Wen, the size of the field and the players understanding the bounces of the turf allowed the Timbers to create a decent home record. However, the failures on the road of 3 wins in two years showed some of the issues with a narrow system built for a specific pitch size.

The Timbers were dependent on attempting to maintain defensive positioning, but on the large field of LA Galaxy (120X75) the center backs, fullbacks and central defensive midfield were all frequently pulled out of position leaving large gaps in the defense and players isolated one on one. With the skill of players like David Beckham, Landon Donovan and Robbie Keane on one side, these gaps would inevitably result in goals.

With the Timbers playing a quick trigger offense, too often the ball would be turned over and the team would then go back into a defensive shell of attempting to simultaneously stay physical (an attribute that the team tended to lack) and positioned correctly (another attribute that the team had trouble with).

Certainly teams like Houston (pitch size 115x70 or same width but 5 yards longer than Portland’s old pitch size) are able to positively implement their system with great result. However, Houston only won two games on the road in 2011 and 4 games on the road in 2012. Their key was a sterling home record that is one of the best in Major League Soccer. In 2011 Houston had the best home record in the East. In 2012 they never lost a game at home.  As a matter of fact, since moving into BBVA Compass Stadium the Dynamo have won or tied every single one of their games at home.  Houston, as well, have tried to move away from that extremely physical style to one built around the connections in midfield and the stellar left foot of Brad Davis.

Now, for the Timbers, enter Caleb Porter.

This offseason the Timbers began moving into a new direction of possession with purpose. After the dramatic tie against Red Bull New York, we can see the initial stages of the Porterization of the Timbers. We can also begin to draw some very basic conclusions from the match, and one of those is that this team is built for possession through their central hub of Diego Valeri.

With the new system of the Timbers, Portland should have the ability to make use of the “slightly larger than Jeld Wen” fields in MLS by paper-cutting teams to death. Slowly, link by link, pass by pass, PTFC can draw out opponents, create mistakes, pass the ball across the field, and make their opposition chase the play.  This was evident on the newly widened (110X74) field on Sunday as the Timbers were able to keep possession and simply tire Red Bull out by making them chase the ball.

When I say “the Timbers were able to keep possession” and we are talking about a home game it is worth noting that a smaller width pitch makes it easier for defenses of BOTH teams to press in an attempt to get the ball back in midfield. Visitor and home teams alike can obtain a benefit from this. There is just simply less room for individual players than there is in New York or Montreal. With the expansion of the field to a width more consistent with the rest of MLS, the Timbers should be more familiar with their team spacing on the road as it will be very close to their positioning and width at home.

The large fields in Montreal (120x77), Los Angeles, Salt Lake City, Harrison, and Kansas City (all 120x75) should give the new look Timbers even more room to move, both horizontally as well as from top to bottom. This should give them the ability, not seen last year, to compete on these fields and control the game.

The win that clinched the Cascadia Cup in Vancouver, British Colombia was highlighted by the aerial flight of the ball and the anti-soccer that, at times, Portland utilized. To be certain, Vancouver didn’t really attempt to play on the ground either, but Portland were simply content with stepping to a Whitecap player, stopping their forward momentum and then retreating.

This season, there can be a small amount of hope that, on the road, the Timbers will attempt to utilize their skill and movement to keep the ball moving and defenses running. As with anything written before it happens, this theory remains to be seen, but the mood can only be positive as the season rolls into the second week and beyond. Of course, the very first test of this new system on the road will come in very hostile environments as the first away game for the Timbers will be in their derby against Seattle (114x74).  However, what better environment to have as a test to the ability of your team to control the balance of play than in an environment on the road likely more charged than just about any other road game during the season.

In the meantime, the Timbers will attempt to ply their system on Montreal at home against an Impact side that spent a good solid 60 minutes cobbling together well organized defensive lines capable of thwarting Seattle’s attempts at goal.

There will be growing pains for Portland this season. There will be unexpected issues as well as those very expected issues. However the expectations get tempered, it appears that Portland are headed towards a very interesting campaign in 2013, especially with their road performances.

John

Player Ratings: Timbers v. The Energy Drinks

Posted on: March 5th, 2013 by theaxepdx@gmail.com 8 Comments

 

Well, that was a pretty boring game on the whole. Not much action. Just two teams that had decided to play it conservative and close to the vest the whole way. Ok, just kidding. For me this was an enthralling match. We gifted the Energy Drinks three goals (the first two of which were the result of some serious bungling) and still managed to take a point. I’ve talked a lot so far about the changes in this team in terms of style and composition, but another important change was in evidence on Sunday night: demeanor. So many times last year it was clear that after giving up a goal (to say nothing or two or three) that the team might just as well have headed to the showers because the just didn’t have the mental strength to make a fist of it. If that match showed anything (and it is of course still early days) it was that this group has the capacity to fight to the end and to take the game to their opponents. The fact that this team had 63% of the possession is also not unimportant. Anyhow, down to the individual ratings.

1. Donovan Ricketts: People will point to Silvestre’s role in the first goal. In fact, I will in a few lines here. But it is worth noting that Ricketts was also guilty of failing to use his head in that situation. You can talk about a failure to communicate (which there certainly was), but Ricketts had to see that Silvestre had an attacker right behind him and thus that it was not safe just to let the ball roll back. I wasn’t terribly impressed with his effort on Espindola’s second goal, but the fact that he was running in free on goal is certainly not down to Ricketts. He can’t be blamed for the third goal, which was the result of a full-spectrum defensive failure. Other than those moments, Ricketts did pretty well and made a couple of timely saves that kept us in with a shout for a point. 5

2. Ryan Miller: He played great, lockdown defense along the flank. His graft and aggression allowed Alhassan to express himself more freely. Truth to tell, he and Alhassan didn’t work perfectly together, but that had a lot more to do with the latter’s problems in terms of learning the system. Still, it was a very promising performance by Miller. 6

5. Michael Harrington: I never thought much of him when he played for Sporting, but he is really growing on me. Harrington absolutely ran his socks off all night. He got up into attack, but was also generally well placed to see to his defensive responsibilities. He was sure in the tackle and showed a lot of confidence when facing up against opposing attackers. He was caught upfield when Silvestre came to grief in the lead up to the second goal, but he could reasonably expect that a player of Silvestre’s experience would handle that ball. 6

27. Mikael Silvestre: I don’t fault him for kicking the ball back to Ricketts in the bungling that led up to the first goal. I fault him for not kicking it into Row Z if he was in any doubt about what Ricketts’ intentions were. As for the second goal, yeah, that was weak, but it’s not like he’s had a lot of experience on this plastic pitch of ours. Much as there has been a lot of gloom and doom talk about our defensive performance, and much as all of the goals that we gave up were avoidable, I’m not in panic mode just yet. The things that we got wrong are fixable. To Silvestre’s credit, he steadied the ship in the second half and even got forward a bit. His rating has to be low given his involvement in the unfortunate events of the first half hour, but I’m still pretty confident that he’ll get it together. 4

35. Andrew Jean-Baptiste: You could say that he was in large measure at fault for the third goal after he lost Olave in the scramble following the clearance. The fact of the matter is that there were a whole lot of contributing botches there; his was just the last (although the most catastrophic). Actually, I was surprised that Espindola didn’t get his hat trick on that play, since he was also completely uncovered in front of goal and only missed tipping the cross in by inches. However that may be, I thought JB's overall performance was quite good. His positioning was good and he kept things in front of him. It's weird to be so nice to the guy considering the back five as a whole gave up three goals, but this rating is about the full picture rather than a couple of unfortunate moments.  Oh, and he was denied a stone cold penalty. What is a stone cold penalty, you may ask? Well, when an opposing defender grabs your arm with both hands and pulls you to the ground in the penalty area that's a penalty, irrespective of whether you also manage to get a shot off.  6

11. Kalif Alhassan: Kalif looked better than he did for most of last season, but he’s still a work in progress. He benefitted from Ryan Miller’s willingness to get forward, which allowed him to cut inside and create problems for the Drinks in defense. He still holds the ball too long and gets into some unproductive areas, but he seems to be improving and that is a good thing for the side. 5

4. Will Johnson: Man of the Match. There were a lot of guys out there that could have gotten the honor, but Johnson is my choice. Starting at the opening whistle, Johnson set a physical tone, letting the Drinks know that they were going to get no time on the ball and putting in a series of strong physical challenges. He seemed to be everywhere, grinding people in midfield, covering in defense, and also getting forward for a couple of shots. Johnson is the kind of guy that opposing players absolutely hate to face. He's rightly claimed the captain’s armband and he gave this team the kind of guts and aggression that allowed them to drive forward and get a point out of this thing. Well played. 8

21. Diego Chará: With the arrival of Will Johnson, Chará must feel like the guys in the fort when the cavalry comes riding over the horizon. Freed from the worry that any missed tackle might result in catastrophic consequences, Chará was free to express himself in his most favored terms: aggressively hassling people in the middle of the park. This was a typically effective performance for Chará. He did a good job of not letting the Drinks get comfortable on the ball, and the dominance in terms of possession that we had during the second half was due in no small part to the pressure that Chará applied at every opportunity. 6

6. Darlington Nagbe: I have on numerous occasions adverted to the fact the Nagbe seemed to get lost in the wide areas of the pitch. And of course, his play last year was handcuffed by the fact that he was put in the role of trigger man, one which he clearly didn’t find all that congenial. The arrival of Valeri has wrought positive consequences on Nagbe’s game. With Valeri pulling the strings, Nagbe is free to use his pace and attacking instinct to get into dangerous places. He did this to good effect all night, harrying Drinks defenders and causing much confusion among our enemies. His goal was opportunistic and well taken. Overall, this was a perfect indication of what Nagbe is capable of if he is employed in the proper fashion. 7

8. Diego Valeri: Yeah, this guy can play a bit of football. Our Argentine import provided everything that was advertised in his preseason performances. He was good on the ball, he moved things along quickly, he saw passes and kept Nagbe and Johnson well supplied with service. And then there was the goal, which was fabulous. I would request that those of you who are Catholics please go and light a candle for his continued good health, because he lifts this team to another level. 7

9. Ryan Johnson: Johnson is going to score some goals this season. He was all around the area and he just missed potting a beautiful scissor kick. The most important point about his play from my perspective was that he was constantly putting himself into the kind of positions where Valeri or Nagbe could get him the ball. He’s going to be tough for defenders to handle, and I expect that his performances will start to bear fruit as he gets more competitive game time with Valeri. 6

7. Sal Zizzo: A typical Sal Zizzo performance. He came on as a change of pace late and ran hard. I think he’s going to get more joy this year, just because he’ll be able to come one once teams have been chasing our motion offense all game. Not too much to speak of in terms of profitable action, but at least a statement of intent. 6

22. Rodney Wallace: Came on for a late cuppa in place of Chará and did the job that he needed to do. Not spectacular, but he played the role that was assigned to him. 5

20. Adolfo Valencia: Did he mean to put that ball in off of Olave? Who can say, but it was well done either way. He came on late and showed energy and graft. If he can blossom in the way that Nagbe seems to have done this year he could add a real element of danger in attack. 6

All in all this was a very promising performance. After giving up a couple of soft ones, the lads fought back impressively and showed a kind of mental toughness that was seldom seen in the last campaign. I can't wait to see what we can do when we our defense tightens up a bit.

Magadh

mr enigma’s theory of productivity…

Posted on: November 29th, 2012 by theaxepdx@gmail.com 1 Comment

 

there is a workplace theory recently developed that suggests productivity is reduced by giving people more responsibility than they are currently or ever will be capable of handling. this places in contention many of the work motivational theories developed by a fella named maslow and his cronies in the late 40's with new thinking that, regardless of the expectations, achievement may just require a better person than the one currently in the position. you may or may not agree with social darwinian theories, but evident in this doozy is that herzberg's motivation-hygiene theory is bunk because the content of the job is not always enough to produce success. too often in the work force people are given advancements for their achievements in one area only to show that specific area was their zenith and the advancement was an anchor to productivity. no better place to suggest this newly created and hypothesized theory to be true than sport.

i assume while reading that little intro to the meat and potatoes of the post you were thinking of certain players on the timbers who struggled with their roles and finding their feet within the team. and, without question, you were also thinking that the fired manager and the interim manager did very little to help the players they had realize their talents and best positions because they asked others to take on jobs they were not suited to take on.

which brings me to one of the more enigmatic players on the side. as we have discussed through the last bit it is more than clear the timbers need a trigger man, whether he sits behind the two main strikers or he lies deeper on the pitch and unlocks players with an incisive and defense splitting pass, it really does not matter so long as they get him. but while they were looking during the regular season, if that is what the management was actually doing, there was a player on the side who led the team in assists and had the ability to open up play for his teammates. sure, the knock on him is ability to control the ball in tight places, but that is not the only requirement of a creative player. frankly, they just need to bring thier teammates into the game, and alexander did that when given the chance.

eric alexander finished the season with a team leading 6 assists, one more than franck songoo. which is a comparison of context--alexander started only 14 games (6 of which were at the first of the season before being benched following the 3-1 loss to the galaxy--a game where he provided a tasty assist to chris boyd) and songoo started 24. but for some untold reason, a reason likely buried with the remains of john spencer's unhappy attempt at a haggis party, it appeared he was given the tag of scapegoat for the loss against the galaxy and several others. oddly, spencer suggested to his media mouthpieces that alexander had some maturity issues and could not handle the big games. which was completely his prerogative, but not something observed by the masses who watch the games.

initially, when trying to recollect the reasons for the benching, i thought perhaps it may have coincided with franck songoo's return to fitness. i was wrong. rereading through my notes and the blog posts, quickly i was reminded that alexander and songoo were the prefered starting midfielders along with chara and jewsbury.

so digging a little further, there are two instances that became the  hallmarks of alexander's 2012 season. we can all remember the humiliation felt after the timbers were handed their hats in the 5-0 loss to fc dallas. well, no one felt the heat for the loss to dallas like alexander did--he quickly became well acquainted with the pine following july 21. whether the newly anointed interim manager felt that sacking jack jewsbury for the match was the wrong decision, or that he could overlook the abysmal play of mike chabala, alexander's playing time was sacrificed for the return of the captain.

that game had two effects on the side: it set the team on an incredible winless run and it made a substitute out of alexander. we here at axe central have banged on long enough for you loyal readers to know that we think using alexander as a substitute is as useless as lipstick on a pig--neither are worth taking to the prom. alexander is the type of player who grows within the game--he is not able to jump off the bench and impose himself because he simply is not athletic enough to do so. but what he lacks in athleticism he compensates with his intelligence, and intelligence wins out over the long haul.

the other instance for the change in alexander's role, and the one i find most compelling in the discussion of why alexander did not start for the second half of the season, was moving from the diamond/442 formation to a 433/451 type formation. as simple of an explanation as it is, in the opinion of the management, nagbe must play, and in the 433 he occupies the position alexander would hold.

now, this is where i return to the theories discussed above. nagbe is not a creative midfielder. end of story. no argument. but since he has been with the timbers he has played in a role similar to the creative midfielder. though he may grow into it, he may also grow into poor habits that eventually see him sold off because the timbers never actualized his talents. however, one thing we do know about nagbe is that he is much better when playing forward, waiting for the ball, than when asked to work around defenders while looking to set a teammate upon the opposition. but because he must be in the starting eleven, he starts in alexander's role. and the side looked constipated when he did.

i am not certain what the entire formation is going to look like once porter arrives, but one thing i do expect is more emphasis on midfield play. at 24, alexander is at the prime age to develop into a creative force. but all of that is contingent on whether or not he starts. will he become another scapegoat for the failings of the timbers management to recognize the team's needs? or will he be given the chance within a better system? or will he be used as trade bait and the last thing we remember of him will be is his drive into the 18 yard box against san jose and how he dinked the ball over to dike for the smash and grab goal?

december 2, 2012 looms.

sunshine