Leagues Cup Recap & Reaction: Portland Timbers @ St. Louis City SC
The Timbers road woes continue: Leagues Cup edition.
After topping group West 5 with wins over Club Leon and the Colorado Rapids the Portland Timbers crashed out of the Leagues Cup at the round of 32 stage for the second consecutive season with a 3-1 road loss to St. Louis City SC.
Match Recap
Portland started the game similarly to the way they did against the Rapids, with St. Louis rattling the post (forcing a save from Max Crepeau? I couldn’t tell) inside the opening two minutes. It was the first of what turned into a wave of chances for the hosts, who racked up three corners in 10 minutes of play.
The Timbers’ task became even more difficult when Evander went down with a lower leg injury that required treatment on-field, and ultimately a substitution. David Ayala replaced the Timbers’ talisman. Post-match, Phil Neville told media members that it was a right calf strain and that the team didn’t want to take any risks aggravating it, but obviously losing an All-Star and potential best XI player ain’t a good thing when you’re trying to advance in a knockout match.
St. Louis continued to put pressure on the Timbers throughout the first half and struck the post a second time through Chris Durkin in the 25th minute. Phil Neville spoke about how important it would be for the Timbers to hold a strong defensive shape at a tough place to play like St. Louis City in media availabilities throughout the week, so the slow start from the team was a bit underwhelming.
The only real chance of note in the first half hour for the Timbers fell to Juan Mosquera, who drew a strong save from Roman Burki with an outside of the boot strike on a layoff from Felipe Mora. After Evander was forced into an early exit the Timbers really struggled to get anything consistent going in the attacking third — Eryk Williamson failed to grab hold of the #10 position, Jonathan Rodriguez was wasteful when he received the ball, and Felipe Mora barely got a touch.
Inversely, I thought Santi Moreno, David Ayala, Dario Zuparic, and Mosquera all stood out as positives in the opening 45 minutes.
HALFTIME: St. Louis 0 - 0 Portland
Remember when I said Jonathan Rodriguez was wasteful with the ball in the first half? The best chance for Portland fell to him at the back post four minutes into the second after the ball was recycled back into the box following a Felipe Mora strike that was blocked, and Jona got it all wrong — wide open, Rodriguez scuffed his volley into the ground and it bounced harmlessly over Burki’s net.
Knockout tournament soccer is a game of taking your chances. Rodriguez failed to convert his, and two minutes later, St. Louis took the lead through summer signing Cedric Teuchert. Marcel Hartel’s strike took a deflection that looped into the path of Teuchert, and he made no mistake in front of goal, slamming the ball past Max Crepeau to open the scoring.
Then Claudio Bravo happened.
We’ve seen countless shots from Bravo on the edge of the area land in all manner of places inside of stadiums across the country, but in the 54th minute of this match, the ball arrowed past an outstretched Roman Burki and into the side-netting.
As Sam mentioned on the STF Twitter feed, the goal was befitting of his name.
Rodriguez came close again in the 68th minute, sending one of his signature curling strikes just wide of the far post, but a reversion to bad defensive habits saw St. Louis pull away with a late lead. After playing a part in the host’s opening goal Marcel Hartel ghosted past the Timbers’ backline and fired home the go-ahead goal in the 83rd minute. Slack set-piece defending. Again.
St. Louis put the final nail in Portland’s coffin in the 88th, this time it was former Vancouver Whitecaps striker Simon Becher that applied the final touch — An improvisational first-time chip over Max Crepeau to make it 3-1.
So just as they did in 2023, the Timbers get knocked out of Leagues Cup at the round of 32 stage. It’s unfortunate that they had to travel after topping their group, and definitely something that needs to be changed about the competition, but the fact of the matter is if the Timbers want to accomplish their goals of winning silverware again they have to fix the struggles they have with winning on the road.
Funnily enough, the Timbers first match back in MLS action is against? That’s right, St. Louis City SC, this time at Providence Park on Aug. 24. With two weeks between now and then, it should give Evander time to recover from the knock he sustained, and allows the team a much-needed break after a busy summer of soccer.
If you want to hear the Stumptown Footy crew’s immediate reaction to the match, be on the lookout for the newest episode of Stumptown Radio, where the boys were joined by a very fiery Jeremy Peterman to break it all down. Also, check out something new the entire crew tested out: Stump it or Boot it: Volume 1. “In a special episode of Stumptown Radio, the whole STF gang is all together to debut Stump it or Boot it! In this “evaluate the take” style game, the gang runs down a number of takes/statements/topics/predictions for both the Timbers and Thorns. Which takes will make the gang say “Stump It”, hop on the stump and defend the take, or “Boot it”, and kick the take out of here and disagree? Who makes the strongest arguments? Listen on and find out!
I never like it when our team loses but to be honest, this time I'll make exception. If I had to choose between the team doing well in MLS vs this tournament, I'd always pick the former. The thought of them having to play multiple extra games if they'd progressed through the tournament worries me. Evander's injury is exactly why I didn't want them to play in this tournament in the first place.
On the bright side, my guy Bravo scored a great goal! Too bad the Timbers didn't do a better job closing down on two of St. Louis's goals. Though I'm still not sold on Maxi over Pantemis I don't know if the latter would have been able to save those goals.
Our back of movement off the ball killed this team once again. We had so much possession but just passed it around the back as the rest of the team looked at each other like “are you gonna do something?” “I don’t know are you gonna do something?” “I’m not gonna run to the ball, you should be doing that” “no this is my position I’m good.” These guys need to run around and move the ball quickly! Yes, Evander being out sucks. But we have more than enough talent to beat a pretty mediocre St. Louis team, our guys just don’t want to work until the ball is at their feet. Moreno and Ayala are the only ones that know how to do that, they were both easily the two best players for us, but it wasn’t enough. Those two guys deserve high praise, they were really great.
Now we just have to hope that Evander isn’t badly injured. I still have no idea what happened. This was the worst possible outcome for this tournament