Portland Timbers 1, Seattle Sounders 2 - Instant Reaction
Portland's listless offense dooms them to derby day defeat.
The Portland Timbers fell 2-1 to the Seattle Sounders under the sun in a heated rivalry game in Providence Park. Felipe Mora opened the scoring, but Seattle scored two unanswered through Cristian Roldan and Raul Ruidiaz to send Portland to their third straight defeat, and extended the winless run to nine games.
The Portland lineup was limited due to injury, as Claudio Bravo and Julian Araujo both missed out. Eric Miller and Dario Zuparic got the starts, and Evander started the match on the bench.
Minutes before the match began, the crowd was whipped into a frenzy by the unlikeliest of sources: cheese. The pregame hype video played in the stadium turned out to be a backdoor announcement for the team to announce Tillamook as their new jersey sponsor. After the teams walked out, the Timbers honored Diego Chara for breaking the all-time MLS record for most appearances with a single club, which the Godfather broke with his start against LAFC on April 27.
In the cauldron of a loud and raucous Providence Park, the opening ten minutes of the match were fairly stretched with neither side finding any real rhythm. The Timbers found their most amount of the joy on long switches to the fullbacks, usually Juan Mosquera, and the visitors were able to maintain higher possession.
Five minutes after that opening spell, Felipe Mora busted the roof open.
Dario Zuparic collected the ball at the halfway line and launched an inch-perfect ball forward to meet the chest of Jonathan Rodriguez, who had made a run in behind the entire Seattle backline. Jona laid the ball off for Felipe Mora, who had made a patented Pipe run to meet the ball and fire home past Stefan Frei for the opener.
Jubilations ensued, and for four glorious minutes the Timbers faithful enjoyed an early lead against the Sounders.
And then the most unfortunate of unfortunate deflections leveled the match.
A sustained period of Sounders’ possession ended in Cristian Roldan launching a low long-range effort from outside the box. The ball took a deflection off Kamal Miller on the way through, wrong-footed Maxime Crepeau, and settled into the bottom corner.
The rest of the first half was marked by Seattle winning the possession battle, and forcing Portland’s defense to work by working the ball from side to side and generating moments of danger. The Timbers meanwhile continued to find their most dangerous opportunities with long direct balls. One of those long balls nearly resulted in a second goal for Portland, when a Crepeau to Rodriguez to Antony passing sequence had Antony in on goal, but the Brazilian skied his shot well high and wide.
The teams went into the locker room locked at one goal apiece, which on the balance of play was probably fair. But while fair, it wasn’t pleasant viewing for Timbers fans. Portland struggled to string any kind of sustained passing moves together, and failed to execute any kind of plan of an attacking pattern (if there was one in the first place).
The Timbers came out of the locker room flat as a pancake. Their energy was low and their movement was slow, and subsequently Seattle was able to grab hold of affairs and work the ball around at their leisure.
It resulted in Seattle taking the lead in the 50th minute through Raul Ruidiaz. The noted Timbers-killer curled a first-time effort into the top corner after no Timbers defender did nearly enough to close down space at the top of the box.
Down 2-1, the Timbers continued to still look absolutely lost on offense. Portland didn’t come close to threatening Frei’s goal, and despite the introductions of Evander and Eryk Williamson there was no real purpose or direction with the Timbers’ possession. Seattle was content to sit and absorb pressure, with Portland not showing anywhere close to enough urgency with the ball.
The Timbers’ second half malaise was punctuated by Santiago Moreno generating just Portland’s second shot on target in the 80th minute — 65 minutes after their first one (Mora’s opener).
And that was the story of the rest of the match: the Timbers not doing nearly enough to get themselves back into a game that they desperately needed. The full-time whistle blew with the Sounders emerging victorious 2-1.
It was Seattle’s first win over the Timbers since 2021, which ironically also occurred in Providence Park.
With an opportunity to pump some badly needed positive vibes into their season with a result over their biggest rival, the Timbers instead shrank away from the challenge with an absolute faceplant. A relatively decent first half deteriorated into a slog in the second half, with all of Portland’s bad habits on full display.
Portland’s penchant for failing to close down attackers at the top of the box cost them two goals on the day, including the winner. Because of their inability to keep Seattle off the board, the onus fell on the offense — which for the second week running by and large failed to show up. Plodding and slow possession with no discernible direction or purpose to passes sucked all of the life and energy out of the game, and by fulltime it was the Sounders' fans whose voices rang out through Providence Park.
And make no mistake — that was the fault of the men wearing white on the field and not any of the passionate and committed fans who packed the stadium, who brought the energy a rivalry game deserved from the opening whistle.
A week after a result that felt like rock bottom for this team, Portland hit a new low — both in the season and in the standings. Portland is winless in nine straight games, and sit dead last in the Western Conference.
Any semblance of hope that was generated earlier this season feels fully dead and gone. With the time for moral victories long gone, if this team wants to even get close to the playoff line it feels like there is quite a mountain to climb.
Scoring Summary
Portland: Mora (15’)
Seattle: Roldan (19’), Ruidiaz (50’)
Next Up:
No rest for the weary, as Portland plays another MLS game in just over 72 hours. The San Jose Earthquakes come to town on Wednesday, May 15, with kickoff from Providence Park set for 7:30 p.m. PT.
Gotta put in another request for Stumptown Footy to not publish the score of the game in the title of the Instant Reaction article, at least not for a day or two??? It functions as a spoiler, especially for those of us who are getting email or other notifications... thanks
9 games with no win. Conceding multiple goals in nearly every match. Zero identity and zero urgency to get results. This is not only on Neville but it’s on the jackass leadership of the club that hired him with a poor mls record and no real other record to speak of. They knew there would be at least an initial bad reaction to his hire due to his sexist remarks in the past. Yet they hired him because they thought he’d be the best candidate to get wins here. The team is not well coached and the organization as a whole has been terrible. Poor off-seasons and questionable signings or just putting a team together in march two years straight (if not more). Time for Merrit to step out and resign and get some new leadership and a new coach.