Portland Timbers 2, LAFC 3 - Instant Reaction
Five goals, a red card, another second half comeback, and a stoppage time backbreaker dooms Portland in LA.
The Portland Timbers fell 3-2 to LAFC on Saturday night at BMO Stadium. An own goal and Timothy Tillman strike gave the hosts a 2-0 lead, but then Portland fought back in the second half yet again with goals from Jonathan Rodriguez and Santiago Moreno to level affairs. Portland was handed a pair of cruel blows however when Diego Chara was sent off in the second half, and when Denis Bouanga won all three points for the home side however with a strike in second-half stoppage time.
Phil Neville made two changes to his starting lineup, with Santiago Moreno moving into the middle to replace the unavailable Evander, and Antony returning to the wing.
With his start tonight, Diego Chara broke the record for the most regular season appearances with a single MLS club, making his 377th regular season appearance for the green & gold.
The Timbers had to weather an absolute storm from LAFC’s attack in the first half, with the opening minutes looking particularly dangerous. The dam appeared to break in the 25th minute when Denis Bounga finished past Maxime Crepeau, but after a video review revealed Timothy Tillman committed a handball in the buildup the goal was called back.
Still, Portland’s right side has problems with the speed and movement of Bouanga for the entirety of the first half. Juan Mosquera especially struggled to track Bouanga, and his proclivity to have a more advanced position left a lot of space in behind for the LAFC attacker to exploit.
Exploiting that space resulted in the game’s opening goal in the 44th minute, when Kamal Miller knocked the ball into his own net trying to clear a Bouanga cross after the forward had sprinted in behind. Things went bad to worse five minutes later, when an LAFC counter in first half stoppage-time resulted in Timothy Tillman firing a laser to double the hosts’ lead.
The sequence was unfortunate because just a minute before the scoring started, Jonathan Rodriguez had a golden chance to put Portland ahead via a header blocked right on the line.
Coming out of halftime, with his team trailing by multiple goals on the road (again) Phil Neville pulled Juan Mosquera for Eric Miller, which helped to settle Portland’s right side and keep Bouanga more in check.
In fact, the whole Timbers team seemed more settled, as they came out with more determination — as we have seen them do way too often this year. It eventually paid off, as Jonathan Rodriguez netted his second goal as a Timber in the second half to bring Portland back into the game.
Santiago Moreno, who admittedly didn’t look fully comfortable on the night playing in the number ten role, was first to react to a loose ball and leveled affairs midway through the second frame.
It appeared that Portland was on their way to another “points low, vibes high” draw on the road — but then things took a turn for the worse.
In the 76th minute, Diego Chara was shown a rare second yellow card, cruelly sending him off in his record breaking game.
And so just as they did two weeks ago, the Timbers were defending a 2-2 result against LAFC with ten men. They appeared to set to do that successfully, with some spectacular saves from Crepeau in his return to BMO Stadium staving off more waves of LAFC attacks.
However, it would all prove for naught in second half stoppage-time. Bouanga finally struck and got his goal after a great save from Crepeau wasn’t fully cleared. The Gabonese attacker fired home the loose ball, and ultimately won all three points for LAFC.
For the Timbers, their hot-and-cold play during games returned again, only this time they don’t have any points to show for it. You could argue that they played good enough to get a draw, but you could equally as argue that LAFC winning was the just result.
It leaves Phil Neville still searching for answers, as his side still can’t figure out how to prevent their opponents from scoring multiple goals a game. The loss brought Portland’s streak without a win to seven games, and continued a worrying trend of Portland scoring multiple goals yet not winning games.
If there is anything to take away from this game, it’s that Portland truly needs Evander. Despite scoring two goals, the attack looked bereft of ideas and disjointed for most of the night. The absence of Evander’s creativity and wizardry in the final third was felt in a massive way.
But Portland won’t be winning any games anytime soon, with our without Evander, if they can’t figure out a way to stop conceding goals. I feel confident saying this team can score, but I don’t feel confident saying they can defend. And that’s not the recipe for a return to the playoffs.
Scoring Summary
Portland: Rodriguez (65’), Moreno (73’)
LA: K. Miller (OG, 44’), Tillman (45’+4), Bouanga (90’+2)
Next Up:
Portland’s three-game road swing continues as they head to Charlotte to face Charlotte FC next weekend on May 4. Kickoff is set for 4:30 p.m. PT.
We as fans tend to get very focused on individual players and their strengths and weaknesses. Great teams are better than the sum of their players - they have cohesive strategies on both offense and defense that covers for weaknesses, maximizes strengths plus the combination of players available to them allows that to happen. I will add that they generally have at least 1, if not multiple players who dominate their position and their opponent.
The Timbers roster largely looks put together by a fantasy league manager who is looking for upside and statistics, not winning soccer.
I did a lot of complaining about Evander last year and still there are times when he seems switched off, but they are a lot less frequent now. It is very clear that this is his team and everything runs through him offensively - he has grown into the Valeri role and I think will continue to do so even more with time. He is becoming one of those dominant players, but he is the only one on this roster.
Looking from back to front:
I am not concerned about goal keeping. Crepeau is a starting MLS keeper, Pantemis a reasonable backup though I would prefer to see Crepeau 90% of the time.
Our back line is a shambles. Bravo is the best player by far but is prone to the occasional brain fart often because he is too aggressive. Mosquera's primary upside was what he brought offensively - he has never been a great defender and it feels like his offensive threat has become less and less since he has been here - watching him frequently just look like he isn't flowing, massively overthinking and you can see it with how he passes and dribbles. I honestly thought he would end up getting converted to a wing. E. Miller is a backup outside defender, limited offensively and slightly below average defensively for the league. That isn't a criticism, just his ceiling - everyone needs backups though who don't cost an arm and a leg -- right now he is a better player both ways than Mosquera though. Then we move to the center backs who are slow, communicate poorly, clear the ball poorly, mark intermittently. None have speed and reliable physical presence. McGraw looked pretty good much of last season and has taken a huge step back. Zuparic has apparently moved to bench/out of 18 role, senior citizen and while he is the smartest of our CBs, age and physical limitations seem to be catching up to him. K. Miller plays balls out, but seems way too emotional for a CB who mostly needs to keep their head no matter what happens, also slow, not very communicative. Araujo, in limited looks, appears to be a 30th percentile MLS CB. It isn't just that we are individually a mess, but there is no combination of defenders here that I think we are going to get clean sheets with, we are always going to have to score 3-4x to make up for their collective inadequacies if we want to win, 1-2 might get you a draw vs loss.
Moving to the midfield. Talisman Diego Chara is starting to look his age (and has for 2 seasons now). He still has amazing plays in him, but they are getting fewer and fewer. Paredes is a very different style of DM than Chara, as is Ayala. While together those two are much more mobile than Chara, they are also much more likely to get caught up field or misread the field defensively. Until those two mature, we are going to struggle on counters with them on the field. Williamson is on and off (has always been on and off, but before his knee injuries would have long stretches of looking dangerous). He is a reasonable backup central midfielder / box to box, but the kind of guy you want to bring on at 70 minutes to try to get a goal or kill the game. Sorry to say, not a regular starter and probably won't be in the future. Out on the wings we have Moreno who reminds me more and more of Kalif Alhassan every week. Slight of build, easy to push off the ball (and frequently is because he tries to dribble too much), not a great passer, average to poor defender - average to below average MLS wing. Apparently our new #9, Rodruguez, is really a wing (should be no surprise since that is what he was playing before he came here) and is good, but still has a while to acclimate to this team, certainly isn't fast and going to beat anyone 1v1, but he is obviously smart and has a nose for goal. I so wanted Antony to be the answer, and still seems like he can be so much better than he is, but he has many of the same faults as Moreno - gives up the ball too easily, not a great defender, and I thought after game 1 this might be a huge diamond in the rough, he has regressed to the mean. Asprilla I love due to his history, but he isn't the player he was 2-5 years ago. Clearly backup that you bring on late also. As a unit the midfield has some problems with age and weakness/strengths that don't mesh. Evander is able to paper over some of that and be the facilitator, but I am not sure he can glue this rag tag bunch together to get results especially when our defense digs a 2-3 goal deficit in the first 45 minutes every single week.
Up front - Mora is an accomplished poacher, has good off ball movement, reasonably good passer and is in a lot of ways what Evander, Rodriguez, Antony and Moreno need up there, but isn't what the back 6 need as they are so frequently pinned back and need a target. He isn't going to beat anyone off the dribble or in a foot race, he isn't going to win headers or even be a lay-off target forward. While the attack with Mora is good, I do worry about his durability and then the options are essentially playing someone out of position (Rodriguez or Evander or even Antony / Moreno) because the dropoff is so very steep to his backups (Asprilla - again, not his ideal position, Focaga - the consumate backup, I think Ikoba is still on the team, right?).
I think the only thing a different coach could do with this group is pressure MP and NG to just make some trades for expiring contracts to make the rebuild happen faster. I am fine with rebuilding around a core of Creoeau, Bravo, Paredes, Evander and Rodruguez ... but literally everyone else on the roster can go to the bench (where I would want Chara) or off the team at this point and construct something that makes sense for 2025 with a much higher ceiling. I doubt that happens because leadership believes they still can do something with this. If that is true, then at least completely rebuild 3 of the 4 starting back line positions and see if we can get better results if we just give up fewer goals (I have a bad feeling that the reason we look so good in the 2nd half is the pressure of being behind though, and other teams mentally thinking they have it in the bag).
The majority of the problems on the defensive end have been said over and over again by a couple folks here, and were laid very bare by the Kamal Miller own goal. Just look how high the line - which, to be fair, looks to be a pretty solid defensive line - was playing on that goal. A high line like that only works if you have guys on that line that are athletic enough to get back FAST when a ball inevitably gets behind them and teams break that line.
The Timbers, as currently built, do not have guys that can do that. At all. They have good defenders, objectively, but they are not even remotely constituted to play a high press, and Neville/Ridgewell's insistence on them doing so is absolutely killing this team. They're almost to the point of being asked to play out of position, it's so unnatural.
The world's most annoying broadcaster, Max Bretos, kept bringing up the good point last night that the Timbers are very close to being a good team; they have the pieces, especially going forward. But until they solve the defense, they'll keep having games like this, and they'll keep losing games they should be competitive in.
On the plus side, I was happy to see Jonathan finally get rewarded with another goal - he should have had at least two last night, but his goal was good to see and hopefully will lead to many more.