Instant Reaction: Portland Timbers at San Jose Earthquakes
A sloppy match punctuated by a few moments of magic down in the Bay
The Portland Timbers escaped San Jose with a 2-1 win on the road on Saturday night. Evander opened the scoring in the 22nd minute by forcing a turnover from the ’keeper, and San Jose answered with a laser from Paul Marie in the 50th minute. Jonathan Rodriguez scored the winner and bagged three important points for the Timbers.
Phil Neville rolled out a strong first choice lineup (with absences accounted for), with Felipe Mora returning to full fitness and the starting XI and Evander — sporting a clean haircut — pulling the strings in the midfield.
Portland came out more fleet of foot than the home side, and even managed to get off three shots before the clock even struck six minutes. In fact, the opening stages of the match were defined by the Timbers being the more aggressive and dangerous of the two sides.
That aggression would yield the match’s first goal — courtesy of an absolute howler from the home side in the 22nd minute. Jacob Jackson, making just his fifth career start for San Jose in goal, took a heavy touch with his feet and Evander closed down and blocked the clearance. With shades of Diego Valeri in the 2015 MLS Cup final, the Brazilian stole the ball and drove towards goal, tapping home with Jackson scrambling back in vain.
The goal came after a spell of Timbers possession, and with the first quarter of the game gone Portland enjoyed a 1-0 advantage.
Being at the other end of that scoreline, San Jose tried to work their way back into the game. The hosts primarily sought to attack down the wings and send in crosses to the middle. However the likes of Zac McGraw, Dario Zuparic, and yes, even Juan Mosquera were up the task in clearing the danger.
Well… except for the time they weren’t when Costa wiggled free and had an open look at goal — but he sent his shot well off-target and into the LOBINA (Largest Outdoor Bar In North America, according to the Earthquakes) behind the goal. The flag went up for offside anyway to negate the play — but it was still a whopper of a miss.
San Jose still controlled possession and the flow of the game in the second half of the opening frame after the Timbers scored, and despite a handful of decent attacking opportunities, they couldn’t find the back of the net.
The Timbers went into the locker room with a one goal lead courtesy of their magic man, and with some help from the defense chipping in eleven clearances. Diego Chara in particular turned back the clock in the first half, putting in a sterling defensive display in midfield.
San Jose must have eaten a bowl of Wheaties at halftime, because they came out flying in the second half. Hernan Lopez in particular posed some problems for the Timbers all night, as the crafty midfielder sparked many key attacking moves for the hosts.
Portland’s defense cracked not long into the second half. After a missed clearance from McGraw (sigh), Portland only partially cleared a corner kick and failed to close down Paul Marie (sigh), and the ‘Quakes fullback fired a laser into the top corner, leveling the match with an absolute screamer (SIGH).
San Jose very nearly grabbed a second goal a minute after the first, after Amahl Pellegrino found himself in behind one-on-one after the entire Timbers backline switched off after an unfortunate or inadvertent raise of the flag from the AR (which was quickly lowered) complicated matters.
Pellegrino skied his shot, saving both the defense and the refereeing crew blushes. It may have been because of an officiating error, but the Timbers did themselves no favors by failing to play to the whistle on the play.
The Timbers continued to do themselves no favors as San Jose started to turn the screw, and found space in behind Portland’s backline with several routine balls over the top. James Pantemis was called into action several times when he stormed off his line — one of those he, uh, missed, and the other he acrobatically dove to head away a dangerous ball.
With this blogger’s blood pressure starting to rise, Portland started to wrestle back control of the game. They started to gain back more of the ball, and generate more attacking opportunities.
None of those seemed to have much urgency however — until substitute Antony started to generate some penetration. A flowing attacking move saw Evander ping a cross-field ball to Antony on the left wing, and the young Brazilian drove across the top of the box to find his compatriot.
Evander whipped a ball in for Jonathan Rodriguez right in front of the goal, and Jona’s powerful header spun into the goal to restore Portland’s advantage in the 72nd minute. The maligned Jackson was in position to make the save, but his body was in all the wrong places and the San Jose ‘keeper could only once again helplessly watch as the ball found the back of his net.
The Timbers continued to press and almost found the clincher nine minutes later after Rodriguez gave Antony a golden chance — only for the winger to shank his shot well high and wide.
With San Jose throwing the kitchen sink forward in search of an equalizer, Portland had several counter opportunities that they unfortunately failed to convert. San Jose saw themselves win two golden chances at the death to equalize, but couldn’t turn either of them on target.
With a huge and deep exhale, the final whistle blew, and the Timbers escaped San Jose with a 2-1 win on the road.
Despite being on the road this was still a match against the bottom team in the league, and it was one the Timbers needed to win in order to prove their bonafides as a potential playoff team. Thankfully they did — but my goodness was it way harder than it needed to be.
Portland’s offense was never quick or ruthless enough to keep an inexperienced and inept backline on their heels, and a lot of their own defensive bad habits showed their face again. The Timbers were perhaps saved on the night by some poor finishing and equally poor goalkeeping from the home side. It could be argued that on a different night, perhaps facing a more experienced keeper, the Timbers could have been shut out.
But they weren’t, and the biggest reason they weren’t was once again Evander. He had somewhat of a quiet night in the flow of play — and still tallied a goal and an assist. The Brazilian magic man is now up to eight goals and nine assists on the year, and could be the reason Portland keeps their place above the playoff line.
It literally doesn’t get any easier than tonight though, and the Timbers will need to be sharper soon if they want to stay in the thick of the fight.
Scoring Summary:
Portland: Evander (22’), Rodriguez (72’)
San Jose: Marie (50’)
Next Up:
Portland comes home for a huge Cascadia clash against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Kick from providence Park is set for 7:30 p.m. PT
A couple trivial notes:
That Marie goal was brilliant, made more brilliant by whoever runs the smoke machine. Timed beautifully.
Bummed about Evander's hair. Always looked forward to what he was going to do with it.
Less so, but still pretty lucky against SJ again. They must hate playing us.
I get to frustrated with this team in possession. They still don’t move off the ball enough but it’s not hurting as much with the buildup running through Ayala, who consistently progresses the ball through midfield. But so, so often we just play it back and then launch it long to nobody. Mora isn’t winning headers up there, and even if he did, what good does it do? It’s like we’re playing redbulls soccer where we hit it long just to play the second ball. And to be fair, it works like 35% of the time, but man we look so much better when we actually try to build up. We have good players who can pass! If they just moved around a bit, we could cut through teams so easily (you know, how easily teams cut through us). This was not helped by Pantemis’ distribution, which was not only long but often not to a player at all.
Defense wasn’t great. The team was just a bit lazy. More of the same, really. Mosquera was pretty good like I think he has been for a month or so. McGraw had a few shaky moments but was otherwise an absolute beast in the air. Bravo had an up and down game, more down than his standard. Ayala and Chara both played very well in the midfield and Ayala was very close to scoring, I am desperate for him to get a goal, he deserves it. Moreno was also very up and down but I’ll easily take him over Antony right now. Both seem to falter in the final third but Moreno is much better in the buildup and creates some dangerous moments, even if the execution isn’t there. His toolbox is more versatile than Antony’s too.
Overall glad we’re getting points despite bad performances, but the luck will run out against good teams. This was a bad performance and the team needs to improve a LOT is we’re to compete with better teams