Hey folks, want to sincerely apologize for the late Match Recap, and lack of discussion thread on the site this week. We do this because we love it, but we all work full time outside of Stumptown so sometimes things can get away from us. We'll do better this weekend for the big game and in the future, thank you for your continued support, and sorry again.
A true MLS After Dark classic. Frustrating on an objective level, fantastic on an entertainment level. Listen, I'm having a great time watching the Timbers this year. Two goals given up on set pieces is just cruel, especially the second one. How do we leave someone wide open back there? Then on the PK (I just went to watch it back) both fullbacks are in the attacking third, and Chara and Ayala are standing ten yards away from each other in support. One pass eliminates both of them, and Bravo and Mosquera are too far up to contribute. I don't think I've ever see Bravo overlap and get to the end line as much as he did this game. He was amazing, but we can't have both fullbacks bombing forward like that, especially on a pretty standard attacking phase. Then on the break, Araujo has to trust Zuparic and cheat a little towards Becher. He is way too close to Zuparic and then can't get over to Becher quick enough. Just a really rough play from a team that has clearly been told to not think about their defensive shape when they are on the ball. Phil wants them to play aggressive and free with the ball, and I appreciate that, but also we have to know when to be smart with the positioning of our players.
I think Moreno has been going underappreciated recently, and especially throughout the middle third of the season where we've been playing so well. He's finally taken the massive step forward this year that we've been hoping to see the past two years. This is the player we saw when he first stepped into the team: explosive, dynamic, getting on the ball and driving forward. His passing and ball control/skills have improved immensely. I love watching him so much, and he was incredible this game... except for the final product, which has been his weak spot all year. He has got to work on his finishing. It's funny, him and Rodriguez are almost complete opposites. I actually think Rodriguez has been a bit underwhelming since the start of League's Cup. He's been getting increasingly less involved in the game as the season goes on, and only popping up in and around the 18. That's where he shines, and it's where Moreno falters. Moreno is amazing in the open field, and Jonathan is not. Moreno's first thought is to combine, Jonathan's first thought is to score. There's no real point to this comparison, I just find it interesting. But finishing or not, Moreno has been excellent.
I see no reason to complain about the ref. In all honesty, on a scale of bad refereeing performances, he was fine. The Mora red card I disagree with, but he kicked a dude in the head. As much as my Timbers heart tells me, it's hard to entirely blame the ref for giving that a red (I do not think it is a red). Watching Instant Replay, Andrew Wiebe brought up a pretty good point: that pk challenge could've and probably should've also been a red card. Araujo goes in two footed, scissor legs, and makes contact with the middle of Becher's calf. That is dangerous and definitely endangered the safety of the player. We got lucky there. We also got a bit lucky on the foul on Evander that lead to the free kick goal. It was light. We didn't get a replay on the Antony play near the end, so I don't see any reason to get hung up on that. Rodriguez flopped and got a deserved yellow. Antony's goal was rightfully called off. Let's give the refs a break.
What I loved? The second half performance. We thoroughly dominated them. This is a common theme with this team, where we half these halves at home where we completely overwhelm the opposition. We should've scored 5 or 6 goals this game. Our counter-pressing was good, St. Louis barely had momentum into our half. It just felt inevitable that the Timbers were going to come back. No matter the score or referee decisions, I always felt like we were going to get a point, and honestly I thought we were going to win.
So now we're on to next game without Rodriguez and Mora. I'll be honest, I think those might just be the two least important players to our attack. Don't get me wrong, they're very important, but with Ayala, Moreno, and Evander out there, we have enough talent to beat the fish as home. Then add in Mosquera and Bravo still overlapping, and Antony being serviceable on the wing. Mason Toye will have to step up, this game might fall to him. He can finish well, but can he combine well? Can he open up space for others? He scored on his debut but hasn't done a whole lot after. With Evander on the field, it makes being a striker easier. At the very least, he's just gotta make runs constantly when Evander has the ball, and I'm excited to see it since Mora isn't as mobile as Toye. This will be the most energetic front line we can put out, and hopefully our defense improves too with Antony tracking back and Toye pressing from the front.
We have never been good on defense since mls inception except on rare occasion. Rarely in our clubs's history have we combined offensive and defensive efficiency at the same time. " We're going to play fast , exciting soccer.' they said It doesn't seem to be in the team's philosophy. how about make the team's philosophy, "winning.' It make me want to lose interest but the teasing is incredible. Scoring high amounts of goal to comeback in games is a waste of my enthusiasm. How many teams have we blown out with this high scoring juggernaut. I get not being a first half team but I mean like, forever. So, we don't play defense, forever.? I mean Phil and Liam were defensive players. I thought for first time in our MLS life, we were going to play defense. The only coach doing his job is apparently the Ajax guy. They're playing with my mind. Second in goals scored "to Miami,", 7th place. WT
So like I know people love heroic fightbacks, and I know the whole "great for the neutrals" thing, buuuuuuuuuut I hate the fact that the Timbers seem to be making a habit of the fightback. It's not a repeatable skill - they've done it a few times, for sure, but it's not something that should be relied on. Sometimes there's not 12 minutes of extra time added on. And sometimes Evander won't do an Evander thing. And sometimes you just run out of gas.
The Timbers do a lot of things well; defending is absolutely not one of them, hasn't been all season (and last season, and so on), and as Nicholas Garner mentions, that's structural. For one obvious example, they can't defend set pieces at all, and that's coaching. Ridgewell is not a good defensive coach; I know he's a Beloved Icon and all, but I'm not a nostalgist when it comes to staffing a team, and he's not nearly good enough at his current job to warrant keeping him in it despite his status in team history.
Still, even without Mora and Jonathan, I think the Timbers have a shot this weekend; Seattle's having basically the same season as the Timbers, and as long as the Timbers can score first, I think they can get a result.
Would love to know what is going on with the new rule requiring players receiving treatment to have to leave the field for 2min. This never happened during this game! Making it worse on 2 occasions the St Louis player didn’t even have to leave for the old cursory 10 sec. This frustrated our section more than the actual decisions.
I’m especially frustrated with Araujo. I dubbed him Zuparic’s number 2 in response to Jeremy’s article about best centerback pairings, but instead he was just number 2. However, I don’t think McGraw or Kamal would have been less likely to equally screw something up. In that at least, I can agree that our CBs are equal.
Still, I feel like a lot of these individual “mentality” mistakes, like the rash challenges or ball-watching are circumstantial and consequential, not endemic to the nature of the players involved. They’re screwing up because they aren’t well-prepared, which is a slightly nicer way of saying set up to fail. Since the same mistakes happen regardless of opponent, home or away, or which players are rotated into the lineup or subbed on, it seems more like a systemic issue to me. That’s not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t upgrade players at some positions. But we should set the players we currently have up to so the best they can. They don’t decide how we mark at pieces. I don’t think they consciously and consistently choose not to mark the far post, nor do they deliberately fail to move into space to create passing opportunities because they’re lazy or oblivious. Is there too much emphasis on maintaining shape that players don’t want to step to the ball or into a challenge? Is Zuparic tasked with being the only CB to organize an offside trap?
I appreciate that it creates a defensive vulnerability in its own right, that he’s a better defender, and that Mosquera is a better attacker, but did the two of them decide that Bravo always stays home? If a fullback pivot was well-organized and executed, might being less predictable and possibly getting the ball to Jonathan more help the attack and very the defense enough to compensate for the added defensive risk? Would it be good to see some evidence that this was a tactic being worked on, as we saw Mosquera continuing to get forward even though it’s taken many matches for him to start tracking back to defend? I’m less frustrated seeing players try things and fail than you not try things, though less than failing at the same things repeatedly with no sign of progress.
Do we know the status of any possible appeals for Mora or Jona? I don’t expect either decision to be overturned, much less both. I’d feel a lot better about Saturday with one of both of them back though.
Neville said they plan to appeal Mora’s card, but I don’t think that gets overturned. I disagree with the call, but when you kick a dude in the head, a red card is often going to come out. And when it’s given, I can’t see it being overturned. I hope I’m wrong though
As for Rodriguez, he made a clear dive in the box and was rightfully given a yellow. I want to see dives be punished as much as possible whether they’re on our team or the other team. Good on the ref for calling that, and Rodriguez not arguing at all tells us a lot
I think they have a case with Mora, but I also don't think that it'll be overturned. I hope they don't appeal it, because teams have a limited number of appeals and I would be surprised if they burn one on a case of a foot to the head, even this one which isn't nearly as bad as most foot-to-head fouls seem to be. Jonathan's shouldn't be appealed; he absolutely dove. On rewatch, there was contact, sure, but he made way more of it than there needed to be and I think the yellow was fair.
I think if a guy goes in rash on a challenge, and I would say Lowen went in rashly, then if you are fouled, you go down. I think it's ridiculous to give him a yellow card when he was fouled. I would be fine with ref's discretion on awarding a penalty or not, but a yellow card was harsh in my opinion.
Am I going crazy? I don’t see any contact at all. Just went and watched it back in slow motion and I don’t see a touch. There’s a tiny touch on the foot as Rodriguez kicks Lowen’s trailing leg but that’s after he’s cleared him and Jona is already going down. And it’s like the tiniest touch ever. I don’t see anything in the upper body either, Lowen runs right in front of him and maybe their clothes rub or something but other than that… just seems like he was expecting contact and went down preemptively, and was caught red handed when there didn’t end up being an contact. Clear dive and rightfully given a yellow. Again, I think Rodriguez’s face says it all. He doesn’t even try to complain, he knows he got caught
I haven’t re-watched the play but Jona is a diver and isn’t going to get the benefit of the doubt. It’s a common tactic in other leagues and it takes some time for players new to MLS to adjust. I don’t like the physicality of MLS much of the time. The refs let teams get away with too much persistent infringement. It slows the game down, makes things ugly, and risks injury. The league needs to find a happy medium and probably incentivize spending more on defensive players. I appreciate that we don’t let divers and floppers get away with as much but we shouldn’t let foulers run rampant either.
I guess my whole thing is "don't give the ref a choice to make". There's going down and then there's going down with flair, and I think in this particular case, Jonathan did the latter. I don't think he does it all the time, but I think he was absolutely aware of his position on the pitch and the game state, and was 100% trying to buy a penalty. There definitely was a foul, it's not like Jonathan was untouched, but Jonathan absolutely tried to get away with more.
Most players would do the same, and a non-zero percentage would get away with it - and with a different ref, Jonathan might. This time, he didn't. I don't blame him for trying.
If that foul/fall happens in midfield, I'm pretty sure the ref just laughs it off and tells him not to do it again. In the penalty area, though? Ref's gonna send a message almost every time.
I am in complete agreement with the idea that our backline is being set up to ship a shit ton of goals. For years we have consistently failed to close down opposing players at the top of the box and beyond, which drives me crazy. It appears that we play a zonal strategy, but without effective communication it is destined to fail. I'm curious if anyone is organizing the back line and defensive midfielders in-game. Does Crepeau communicate consistently and loudly? Zuparic? Anyone? Whoever is setting up our defense needs to go. Love Ridgey, but not enough to put up with this shit if it's him.
Hey folks, want to sincerely apologize for the late Match Recap, and lack of discussion thread on the site this week. We do this because we love it, but we all work full time outside of Stumptown so sometimes things can get away from us. We'll do better this weekend for the big game and in the future, thank you for your continued support, and sorry again.
A true MLS After Dark classic. Frustrating on an objective level, fantastic on an entertainment level. Listen, I'm having a great time watching the Timbers this year. Two goals given up on set pieces is just cruel, especially the second one. How do we leave someone wide open back there? Then on the PK (I just went to watch it back) both fullbacks are in the attacking third, and Chara and Ayala are standing ten yards away from each other in support. One pass eliminates both of them, and Bravo and Mosquera are too far up to contribute. I don't think I've ever see Bravo overlap and get to the end line as much as he did this game. He was amazing, but we can't have both fullbacks bombing forward like that, especially on a pretty standard attacking phase. Then on the break, Araujo has to trust Zuparic and cheat a little towards Becher. He is way too close to Zuparic and then can't get over to Becher quick enough. Just a really rough play from a team that has clearly been told to not think about their defensive shape when they are on the ball. Phil wants them to play aggressive and free with the ball, and I appreciate that, but also we have to know when to be smart with the positioning of our players.
I think Moreno has been going underappreciated recently, and especially throughout the middle third of the season where we've been playing so well. He's finally taken the massive step forward this year that we've been hoping to see the past two years. This is the player we saw when he first stepped into the team: explosive, dynamic, getting on the ball and driving forward. His passing and ball control/skills have improved immensely. I love watching him so much, and he was incredible this game... except for the final product, which has been his weak spot all year. He has got to work on his finishing. It's funny, him and Rodriguez are almost complete opposites. I actually think Rodriguez has been a bit underwhelming since the start of League's Cup. He's been getting increasingly less involved in the game as the season goes on, and only popping up in and around the 18. That's where he shines, and it's where Moreno falters. Moreno is amazing in the open field, and Jonathan is not. Moreno's first thought is to combine, Jonathan's first thought is to score. There's no real point to this comparison, I just find it interesting. But finishing or not, Moreno has been excellent.
I see no reason to complain about the ref. In all honesty, on a scale of bad refereeing performances, he was fine. The Mora red card I disagree with, but he kicked a dude in the head. As much as my Timbers heart tells me, it's hard to entirely blame the ref for giving that a red (I do not think it is a red). Watching Instant Replay, Andrew Wiebe brought up a pretty good point: that pk challenge could've and probably should've also been a red card. Araujo goes in two footed, scissor legs, and makes contact with the middle of Becher's calf. That is dangerous and definitely endangered the safety of the player. We got lucky there. We also got a bit lucky on the foul on Evander that lead to the free kick goal. It was light. We didn't get a replay on the Antony play near the end, so I don't see any reason to get hung up on that. Rodriguez flopped and got a deserved yellow. Antony's goal was rightfully called off. Let's give the refs a break.
What I loved? The second half performance. We thoroughly dominated them. This is a common theme with this team, where we half these halves at home where we completely overwhelm the opposition. We should've scored 5 or 6 goals this game. Our counter-pressing was good, St. Louis barely had momentum into our half. It just felt inevitable that the Timbers were going to come back. No matter the score or referee decisions, I always felt like we were going to get a point, and honestly I thought we were going to win.
So now we're on to next game without Rodriguez and Mora. I'll be honest, I think those might just be the two least important players to our attack. Don't get me wrong, they're very important, but with Ayala, Moreno, and Evander out there, we have enough talent to beat the fish as home. Then add in Mosquera and Bravo still overlapping, and Antony being serviceable on the wing. Mason Toye will have to step up, this game might fall to him. He can finish well, but can he combine well? Can he open up space for others? He scored on his debut but hasn't done a whole lot after. With Evander on the field, it makes being a striker easier. At the very least, he's just gotta make runs constantly when Evander has the ball, and I'm excited to see it since Mora isn't as mobile as Toye. This will be the most energetic front line we can put out, and hopefully our defense improves too with Antony tracking back and Toye pressing from the front.
We have never been good on defense since mls inception except on rare occasion. Rarely in our clubs's history have we combined offensive and defensive efficiency at the same time. " We're going to play fast , exciting soccer.' they said It doesn't seem to be in the team's philosophy. how about make the team's philosophy, "winning.' It make me want to lose interest but the teasing is incredible. Scoring high amounts of goal to comeback in games is a waste of my enthusiasm. How many teams have we blown out with this high scoring juggernaut. I get not being a first half team but I mean like, forever. So, we don't play defense, forever.? I mean Phil and Liam were defensive players. I thought for first time in our MLS life, we were going to play defense. The only coach doing his job is apparently the Ajax guy. They're playing with my mind. Second in goals scored "to Miami,", 7th place. WT
So like I know people love heroic fightbacks, and I know the whole "great for the neutrals" thing, buuuuuuuuuut I hate the fact that the Timbers seem to be making a habit of the fightback. It's not a repeatable skill - they've done it a few times, for sure, but it's not something that should be relied on. Sometimes there's not 12 minutes of extra time added on. And sometimes Evander won't do an Evander thing. And sometimes you just run out of gas.
The Timbers do a lot of things well; defending is absolutely not one of them, hasn't been all season (and last season, and so on), and as Nicholas Garner mentions, that's structural. For one obvious example, they can't defend set pieces at all, and that's coaching. Ridgewell is not a good defensive coach; I know he's a Beloved Icon and all, but I'm not a nostalgist when it comes to staffing a team, and he's not nearly good enough at his current job to warrant keeping him in it despite his status in team history.
Still, even without Mora and Jonathan, I think the Timbers have a shot this weekend; Seattle's having basically the same season as the Timbers, and as long as the Timbers can score first, I think they can get a result.
Would love to know what is going on with the new rule requiring players receiving treatment to have to leave the field for 2min. This never happened during this game! Making it worse on 2 occasions the St Louis player didn’t even have to leave for the old cursory 10 sec. This frustrated our section more than the actual decisions.
I’m especially frustrated with Araujo. I dubbed him Zuparic’s number 2 in response to Jeremy’s article about best centerback pairings, but instead he was just number 2. However, I don’t think McGraw or Kamal would have been less likely to equally screw something up. In that at least, I can agree that our CBs are equal.
Still, I feel like a lot of these individual “mentality” mistakes, like the rash challenges or ball-watching are circumstantial and consequential, not endemic to the nature of the players involved. They’re screwing up because they aren’t well-prepared, which is a slightly nicer way of saying set up to fail. Since the same mistakes happen regardless of opponent, home or away, or which players are rotated into the lineup or subbed on, it seems more like a systemic issue to me. That’s not to say that we can’t or shouldn’t upgrade players at some positions. But we should set the players we currently have up to so the best they can. They don’t decide how we mark at pieces. I don’t think they consciously and consistently choose not to mark the far post, nor do they deliberately fail to move into space to create passing opportunities because they’re lazy or oblivious. Is there too much emphasis on maintaining shape that players don’t want to step to the ball or into a challenge? Is Zuparic tasked with being the only CB to organize an offside trap?
I appreciate that it creates a defensive vulnerability in its own right, that he’s a better defender, and that Mosquera is a better attacker, but did the two of them decide that Bravo always stays home? If a fullback pivot was well-organized and executed, might being less predictable and possibly getting the ball to Jonathan more help the attack and very the defense enough to compensate for the added defensive risk? Would it be good to see some evidence that this was a tactic being worked on, as we saw Mosquera continuing to get forward even though it’s taken many matches for him to start tracking back to defend? I’m less frustrated seeing players try things and fail than you not try things, though less than failing at the same things repeatedly with no sign of progress.
Do we know the status of any possible appeals for Mora or Jona? I don’t expect either decision to be overturned, much less both. I’d feel a lot better about Saturday with one of both of them back though.
Neville said they plan to appeal Mora’s card, but I don’t think that gets overturned. I disagree with the call, but when you kick a dude in the head, a red card is often going to come out. And when it’s given, I can’t see it being overturned. I hope I’m wrong though
As for Rodriguez, he made a clear dive in the box and was rightfully given a yellow. I want to see dives be punished as much as possible whether they’re on our team or the other team. Good on the ref for calling that, and Rodriguez not arguing at all tells us a lot
I think they have a case with Mora, but I also don't think that it'll be overturned. I hope they don't appeal it, because teams have a limited number of appeals and I would be surprised if they burn one on a case of a foot to the head, even this one which isn't nearly as bad as most foot-to-head fouls seem to be. Jonathan's shouldn't be appealed; he absolutely dove. On rewatch, there was contact, sure, but he made way more of it than there needed to be and I think the yellow was fair.
I think if a guy goes in rash on a challenge, and I would say Lowen went in rashly, then if you are fouled, you go down. I think it's ridiculous to give him a yellow card when he was fouled. I would be fine with ref's discretion on awarding a penalty or not, but a yellow card was harsh in my opinion.
Am I going crazy? I don’t see any contact at all. Just went and watched it back in slow motion and I don’t see a touch. There’s a tiny touch on the foot as Rodriguez kicks Lowen’s trailing leg but that’s after he’s cleared him and Jona is already going down. And it’s like the tiniest touch ever. I don’t see anything in the upper body either, Lowen runs right in front of him and maybe their clothes rub or something but other than that… just seems like he was expecting contact and went down preemptively, and was caught red handed when there didn’t end up being an contact. Clear dive and rightfully given a yellow. Again, I think Rodriguez’s face says it all. He doesn’t even try to complain, he knows he got caught
I haven’t re-watched the play but Jona is a diver and isn’t going to get the benefit of the doubt. It’s a common tactic in other leagues and it takes some time for players new to MLS to adjust. I don’t like the physicality of MLS much of the time. The refs let teams get away with too much persistent infringement. It slows the game down, makes things ugly, and risks injury. The league needs to find a happy medium and probably incentivize spending more on defensive players. I appreciate that we don’t let divers and floppers get away with as much but we shouldn’t let foulers run rampant either.
I guess my whole thing is "don't give the ref a choice to make". There's going down and then there's going down with flair, and I think in this particular case, Jonathan did the latter. I don't think he does it all the time, but I think he was absolutely aware of his position on the pitch and the game state, and was 100% trying to buy a penalty. There definitely was a foul, it's not like Jonathan was untouched, but Jonathan absolutely tried to get away with more.
Most players would do the same, and a non-zero percentage would get away with it - and with a different ref, Jonathan might. This time, he didn't. I don't blame him for trying.
If that foul/fall happens in midfield, I'm pretty sure the ref just laughs it off and tells him not to do it again. In the penalty area, though? Ref's gonna send a message almost every time.
Rodriguez is cool like that, and doesn't argue. He did shake his head.
I am in complete agreement with the idea that our backline is being set up to ship a shit ton of goals. For years we have consistently failed to close down opposing players at the top of the box and beyond, which drives me crazy. It appears that we play a zonal strategy, but without effective communication it is destined to fail. I'm curious if anyone is organizing the back line and defensive midfielders in-game. Does Crepeau communicate consistently and loudly? Zuparic? Anyone? Whoever is setting up our defense needs to go. Love Ridgey, but not enough to put up with this shit if it's him.