I don't understand how MLS & Apple pay for such incompetent announcers. 80% of the time, I feel like they'd be better off with random fans grabbed out of the bleachers. Just in the opening minutes of the game, they told us:
1) That they don't know how to pronounce "Yimmi". Guys! This is literally your job. How do you not know how to pronounce the name of every player on both teams. Solidly unprofessional again. A little later they started mangling "Zuparic". Yeesh.
2) They told us how, right up until this year, Niezgoda was a star. Do these announcers refuse to read the research given to them or is it that the support staff hates so many of these announcers? Way to show us you have no idea what you're broadcasting.
3) They believe that 17,000 miles is half the distance around the world. They were only off by 1/4. The Earth isn't 34,000 miles in circumference, you dummies.
Later on in the game, the announcers strongly implied that Diego Chara had played for other MLS teams during his career.
MLS on Apple+ has been terrible since the beginning of the season. At least they've mostly stopped losing the feed but the announcing hasn't gotten any better. They should be embarrassed about the product they put out.
I found out not too long ago that you can actually listen to local radio broadcasts of games as the soundtrack to Apple broadcasts, instead of their announcers. It's always the home team, so for road games you're at the mercy of whoever the other team's broadcasters are, but at least for home games you'll get announcers that know the team a little bit.
Go to the game you want to watch, and in the bottom right corner of the feed there's a button that looks like a little radio. Click it and you can choose your audio feed and forever say good bye to the Apple commentators.
I go the extra step and sync up the radio feed on my phone for the away games. It's a little tricky, about 30 seconds behind, but worth the trouble of pausing the game a bit because, yes those announcers make me sad. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't keep the feed for replays, only the live stream. Boo.
I'm so glad someone else wrote this. I know that when you lose the local TV teams, of course you're going to lose some local color. But this was bleached bland with no salt or butter. There aren't that many teams in MLS. You see them again and again. You listen to a few podcasts. And then you know some story lines. Heck, I could probably spontaneously talk about DC United for 90 minutes, and I've got a different day job. They need announcers who can at least fake living and breathing MLS. However, if you're listening Apple, the first thing I need you to fix is your god awful website / app / streaming interface. It is just completely impossible to watch an old game without having every single scoreline /development / aspect spoiled by the mass of online content. I've turned everything off, and still scores peak through. Why do I have to search through forty five cliplets of Mora scoring a goal, and then click through three screens or whatever to find the button that says 'play the damn game'? I literally have had to learn how to cover some portions of the screen with paper so as not to see the score. It's like they think we pay for Apple TV to see their clever You Tube snips and get a million different chances to know the scores. (Newsflash Apple: if I want to know the score, I can Google, and that's free.) Rant over.
I’ve actually found navigating the interface without spoilers to be fairly easy on the TV. I go to select a club (Timbers), the matches are right at the top starting with the most recent one so I hit that, then the match replay option is right at the top under the Recap button. Yeah I have to stop myself from looking down any further with my hand but that’s doable
I broke down and got the free month of Apple MLS and forgot for most of the game that I could switch to the radio broadcast. Those guys were amazingly bad. At least the video quality seems better than earlier in the season, but the weird camera angles and replay cuts were still there. I'm guessing that Apple and MLS aren't making the $ they thought they would on this and probably can't afford to hire people who have watched soccer before. Now that Apple has paid Messi whatever they did under the table they're probably even less likely to spend on any game that Messi isn't playing in.
Apple paid MLS $2.5B for 10 years, but MLS is responsible for all broadcast production - games and other MLS related programming - that appears on Apple TV. So MLS is responsible for creating, writing, staffing, and all the technical aspects of MLS content Apple streams on its platform.
So all the camera angle weirdness, replay cuts, and bad announcers are an MLS problem, not an Apple one. And it's entirely possible that MLS can't afford/doesn't want to afford better announcers, given that their $250M/year from this deal has to cover every aspect of production and broadcast.
If you believe Inter Messi FC's owners, Apple TV subscriptions have doubled since Messi showed up. Even if we take that as truth, which I probably don't, what we don't (and never will) know is: doubled from what? One of the other provisions of the deal is that MLS would get a cut of subscription revenue once subscriptions reached a "certain level", but that level, just like the number of subscriptions sold, is not made public.
My hunch is that most of that money is going to Messi under the terms of Messi's revenue-share with Apple, but we'll never know because that info is not made public.
MLS announcers rotate around from week to week, which I guess is fine, but if you're one of those broadcasters, you're certainly not taking a deep dive into any one team, because you may not even see the two teams you're announcing today for 6-7 more weeks.
So it's really hard, as a broadcaster, to prepare in any sort of depth when you're not dedicated to a single team, or maybe two; you just do a bit of surface-level research, hope you figure out how to pronounce all the names right, and then do that again for two totally different teams the next time.
I can figure out how to find the proper pronunciations of every player's name and that's not even my job. Why can't they be bothered to even do the minimum? It's just not that hard.
Not to defend the MLS broadcasters, because outside Zivin and a handful of others, they're not that great, but: it actually is pretty hard to do sports on live TV. It's one thing to sit in your hotel room the day before a match, memorizing phonetic pronunciations of unfamiliar names and numbers in preparation for the broadcast; it's a completely different thing to be able to recall that memorized name (which you may never have seen before two days ago) and pronounce it correctly in the heat of a game, with a producer barking directions in your ear and all sorts of other things going on as well, all while the game is still happening in front of you, demanding that it be commented on as it goes. You don't have time to think, it's all about reaction.
Mistakes are gonna happen. Clearly it can be done; most broadcasters do it pretty well. But those broadcasters are probably also dedicated to one team.
Take this week, for example; there were MLS games Saturday, Sunday, and the entire league is playing on Wednesday. If you're an MLS broadcaster, under this current broadcast arrangement, that's six teams that you'll have to learn names for, learn facts about, and come up with time-filling anecdotes for, all in the space of the week or less prior to the first of those three games, after you finished your last game, which you also did that research for.
Doing live TV sports well is definitely a skillset that has to be developed, and it's not as easy as people seem to think it is. And it's doubly hard when you're covering multiple games in a week.
For sure it's a skill that needs to be developed. But if I, as a fan, can find out how to pronounce every player's name I don't think it's too much to expect the pros to be able to do it, too.
If the Timbers can put together performances like the last 20 min of this game, the rest of this season will at least be entertaining. If they stick to the first 70, though, it's gonna be a long nine games. Either way I'm still curious about how they'll do - I'm not worrying about results, really, I just want to see more of the cohesion and team-based play that they showed in the late stages of this game.
Well, if we can spot the opposition two goals then I'm sure the game will open up to our advantage as the other team is packing it in and simply trying to see the game out.
I personally think the team (and organization) needs to be torn down to the studs in the offseason. Entertaining or not, I don't know if I can stomach watching whatever Evander is doing out there anymore. He annoys me like no other in the history of the Timbers. My memory is kind of bad so maybe I'm forgetting someone more annoying, I don't know.
How quickly we all forget the Lucas Melano Experience....hahaha
Yeah, a pretty significant rebuild is required this off season. The opportunity is there, a lot of expensive guys are out of contract; we'll see if the Timbers step up and do the work or just tinker around the edges.
Disappointed with the starting line-up…the first 70 minutes was nothing to get up in the middle of the night and shout about. Maybe MJ is thinking rotation with Wednesday coming up. He sure ain’t thinking out side the box. I liked the fight to try to salvage a point out of it.
Shake things up a bit?….no way. Could have started Blanco and get what you can, if 20 minutes, 30 minutes out of him, so be it. With Seba you know you’re going to some fire, barking at the ref, barking those other guys, something to help get the team going. Who hell knows, maybe the Timbers score first and get on the front foot for a change. But, in Timbers world, this probably is seen as outlandish, even radical. Yes, I am frustrated.
I love this, too. Unfortunately, this isn't basketball when we can call time out or sub him back in on a dead ball situation.
He literally said this winter he had a hard time walking up the stairs in an interview. I'm just going to relish the 20 minutes he plays and does Blanco things for the next 10 games and wait for the Ring of Honor celebration in a few years.
I appreciate what you are saying but that was the winter. If he's not feeling well still, then fine, go 20 minutes. He looks like he's good to go. He's played 45s. It pains me to see a guy show how it's done and yet can't get on the field.
Think what you will about the Timbers' medical staff (and I have thoughts!), but I can almost guarantee that they're managing his minutes with a view not just towards playing more, but towards preserving his quality of life.
By Blanco's own admission, as MindfulCyclist said, he couldn't walk up or down stairs (not just "couldn't walk without pain" - literally couldn't do it) after practices for most of last season. I would be willing to bet that the med staff is managing his workload pretty closely at this point, both in training and during games, so that he'll still be able to walk once his playing days are done.
He is a part of the gio trash staff. He is running the same system as gio. He even said he wasn't going to change anything. Nothing will change with the same people in charge.
But also, I don't think anyone was expecting anything substantial to change the rest of this season? we're essentially watching the human version of a bookmark right now. If they start to play a bit better, that's a bonus, but expending any further energy getting mad at the 2023 Timbers is kinda pointless, because they're all just playing out the string - coaches, players, staff - until the offseason comes and the house gets cleaned.
On another thread I put out my preferred lineup for this game, and for the last 12 minutes it came somewhat true and the Timbers looked damn good.
It took awhile, but the coach actually did what I have been crying for forever - play Moreno at the 8/10. He's born to play there. Rewatch the second goal from the time they win it back. He's involved in the buildup and of course delivers the dime through ball to the ageless wonder Blanco for a delicious cross. Nice finish from Evander, who likes to score and is a nice late arriver. But back to Moreno. Checking to the ball, spraying it wide, offering support. It's obvious in the middle is where he wants to play and where he is most suited. The Timbers are really missing the boat trying to make him play wing. It's almost criminal. Now that Antony is here, perhaps I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Speaking of Antony. I think he is a real find. He is not selfish, unlike some players I know, and his speed is unreal. I hope he starts. He played well. Who should he start over? Yes, Asprilla. For once in a couple of years, Asprilla actually sent in a cross. The thing about that besides the rarity of the event, is the way Mora dealt with it. He showed true class. But back to Asprilla. He's selfish, doesn't work to get the ball, and definitely does not do things a winger should do on the regular, like send in crosses. The offense often breaks down because of him. I could go on. I'd like to see his completed passes in the final third statistic and his actual assist numbers. I just think the Timbers would be way better off without him starting.
Why did Mora come off? If they are saving him for Wednesday, ok. Or maybe he had a knock, then ok. He's just playing really well.
Final thoughts:
Bravo needs to take a seat. Bring in Miller for some sure D. Bravo isn't even really providing any offense, so I don't know what's the point.
Araujo is horrible. His defense inside the 18 is paper soft. I don't know how he'll be after "getting up to speed." All I know is that right now, he's costing us goals.
Bingham? Why? He looked kinda shaky a few times, but he also had one really great outlet to Antony I think it was.
Again - my preferred lineup:
Blanco .... Mora .... Antony
.......Evander ......Moreno
................D. Chara (or Paredes)
Miller .... McCraw .... Zup .....Mosquera (the weak link)
Watched without comment since I hate kicking a dog, er team, when it's down. The team showed heart and spirit but it also showed its dire defense. If I was in the club's shoes that's where I'd spend my energy this offseason. McGraw being out has hurt but it's on the wings where they suffered last night. almost had to laugh as I listened to the radio feed about how talented this team really is. Just then Mosquero was left for dead over on the wing leading to their first goal. They have some talent but most of it is replacement level at best. Much work to do and I don't know if the club's current leadership is up to it.
Better...than a national team coach who has won 60% of the games in his coaching career, spanning 12 seasons, including both the women's and men's national teams?
I'm not saying Herdman should have been automatically the choice, nor would he have maybe been my first choice. But, he was a good candidate and belonged on the shortlist. A coach with his track record shouldn't be dismissed out of hand just because he didn't come from the youth ranks in the coaching system of some European powerhouse or whatever.
I mean, who exactly do you think is lining up to coach the Timbers? As you yourself have pointed out repeatedly, Portland isn't exactly an elite destination right now, so I'm not sure a knee-jerk rejection of a successful national team coach is a reaction that makes a whole lot of sense for a team who will probably have to overpay for a coach of the level that most of us want the Timbers to be hiring at.
I will only comment on the men's side of his coaching as the women's side is not the same thing.
On the men's side of coaching, I think his tactics were heavily dependent on his world class players. It was essentially, give it to player A, B, or C and let them go and see what happens. Where I could see that working on the international game. It needs to be simple because you have limited availability to work within a system and structure.
It reminds me of gio. He rode the coattails of blanco, Valeri, and chara (not his guys) to get to two mls cups finals. Then those players left, aged, or got injured, now he has to rely on his players and his tactics, and he was about to miss the playoffs for consecutive years. Like I view gio success under Valeri and blanco. I think same about Herdmen. His success was not about his tactics or game plan, but about the players he had to make the minimum work.
We need a structure and system based coach. I think he will do good for the first two years because he is known as a locker room guy (sound familiar) but after watching the world cup (I watched all 3 of Canada's games) it showed me that he can't adjust. He is a one trick pony. We will see with Toronto I guess, but I don't have faith he will be successful consistently. I also don't think he will even be able to be successful no matter what, as long as insigne is at Toronto. The guys is a cancer of epic proportion from what I have read. Even getting in a fight with the interim coach most recently.
"His success was not about his tactics or game plan, but about the players he had to make the minimum work."
If they hired a Herdman-type coach now, for the rest of this season, that would be incredibly valuable. If they hire a Herdman-type coach in the off season, it would also be valuable, because it would allow that coach to build a roster that would allow him to be more systemic, because he'd have "his guys", or at least a few of them, from day one, while also being pragmatic enough to know when that wasn't working and thus shifting to a "get it to the best"-type coach for a while.
I also have my doubts anyone can fix that Toronto mess until Insigne's gone, but I'm not sure that I would dismiss Herdman's abilities as a coach overall after watching three games of a 166 game career.
Unclear! The rule is a one game suspension after accumulating 5 cards, but one card is deducted from the total counting towards that suspension for every five games without a card. Evander's first card came in the first game of the season, and his second didn't happen until June 11th, which means that that 6/11 card was effectively his first card counting towards the five card suspension trigger. Which makes yesterday's his fifth.
So by rule, yeah, he'll be out Wednesday night, but what I don't know is how his one-game suspension for violent conduct after the NYCFC game plays into this. That suspension was also the result of a yellow card (#2 of the 5 needed to trigger a suspension), so I'm not sure if that resets his clock or if, because that suspension wasn't for accumulation, he'll still be suspended for Wednesday.
The MLS Disciplinary Committee will probably make an announcement tomorrow since it looks like almost everyone's playing this Wednesday.
I don't understand how MLS & Apple pay for such incompetent announcers. 80% of the time, I feel like they'd be better off with random fans grabbed out of the bleachers. Just in the opening minutes of the game, they told us:
1) That they don't know how to pronounce "Yimmi". Guys! This is literally your job. How do you not know how to pronounce the name of every player on both teams. Solidly unprofessional again. A little later they started mangling "Zuparic". Yeesh.
2) They told us how, right up until this year, Niezgoda was a star. Do these announcers refuse to read the research given to them or is it that the support staff hates so many of these announcers? Way to show us you have no idea what you're broadcasting.
3) They believe that 17,000 miles is half the distance around the world. They were only off by 1/4. The Earth isn't 34,000 miles in circumference, you dummies.
Later on in the game, the announcers strongly implied that Diego Chara had played for other MLS teams during his career.
MLS on Apple+ has been terrible since the beginning of the season. At least they've mostly stopped losing the feed but the announcing hasn't gotten any better. They should be embarrassed about the product they put out.
I found out not too long ago that you can actually listen to local radio broadcasts of games as the soundtrack to Apple broadcasts, instead of their announcers. It's always the home team, so for road games you're at the mercy of whoever the other team's broadcasters are, but at least for home games you'll get announcers that know the team a little bit.
Go to the game you want to watch, and in the bottom right corner of the feed there's a button that looks like a little radio. Click it and you can choose your audio feed and forever say good bye to the Apple commentators.
Or, better yet, turn off the volume. Most of us know more about our team than these posers. I’m becoming a champion of “silent soccer.”
I go the extra step and sync up the radio feed on my phone for the away games. It's a little tricky, about 30 seconds behind, but worth the trouble of pausing the game a bit because, yes those announcers make me sad. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't keep the feed for replays, only the live stream. Boo.
Thanks for that tip! I don't get how Apple puts out such a low quality product.
I'm so glad someone else wrote this. I know that when you lose the local TV teams, of course you're going to lose some local color. But this was bleached bland with no salt or butter. There aren't that many teams in MLS. You see them again and again. You listen to a few podcasts. And then you know some story lines. Heck, I could probably spontaneously talk about DC United for 90 minutes, and I've got a different day job. They need announcers who can at least fake living and breathing MLS. However, if you're listening Apple, the first thing I need you to fix is your god awful website / app / streaming interface. It is just completely impossible to watch an old game without having every single scoreline /development / aspect spoiled by the mass of online content. I've turned everything off, and still scores peak through. Why do I have to search through forty five cliplets of Mora scoring a goal, and then click through three screens or whatever to find the button that says 'play the damn game'? I literally have had to learn how to cover some portions of the screen with paper so as not to see the score. It's like they think we pay for Apple TV to see their clever You Tube snips and get a million different chances to know the scores. (Newsflash Apple: if I want to know the score, I can Google, and that's free.) Rant over.
I’ve actually found navigating the interface without spoilers to be fairly easy on the TV. I go to select a club (Timbers), the matches are right at the top starting with the most recent one so I hit that, then the match replay option is right at the top under the Recap button. Yeah I have to stop myself from looking down any further with my hand but that’s doable
I broke down and got the free month of Apple MLS and forgot for most of the game that I could switch to the radio broadcast. Those guys were amazingly bad. At least the video quality seems better than earlier in the season, but the weird camera angles and replay cuts were still there. I'm guessing that Apple and MLS aren't making the $ they thought they would on this and probably can't afford to hire people who have watched soccer before. Now that Apple has paid Messi whatever they did under the table they're probably even less likely to spend on any game that Messi isn't playing in.
Apple paid MLS $2.5B for 10 years, but MLS is responsible for all broadcast production - games and other MLS related programming - that appears on Apple TV. So MLS is responsible for creating, writing, staffing, and all the technical aspects of MLS content Apple streams on its platform.
So all the camera angle weirdness, replay cuts, and bad announcers are an MLS problem, not an Apple one. And it's entirely possible that MLS can't afford/doesn't want to afford better announcers, given that their $250M/year from this deal has to cover every aspect of production and broadcast.
If you believe Inter Messi FC's owners, Apple TV subscriptions have doubled since Messi showed up. Even if we take that as truth, which I probably don't, what we don't (and never will) know is: doubled from what? One of the other provisions of the deal is that MLS would get a cut of subscription revenue once subscriptions reached a "certain level", but that level, just like the number of subscriptions sold, is not made public.
My hunch is that most of that money is going to Messi under the terms of Messi's revenue-share with Apple, but we'll never know because that info is not made public.
MLS announcers rotate around from week to week, which I guess is fine, but if you're one of those broadcasters, you're certainly not taking a deep dive into any one team, because you may not even see the two teams you're announcing today for 6-7 more weeks.
So it's really hard, as a broadcaster, to prepare in any sort of depth when you're not dedicated to a single team, or maybe two; you just do a bit of surface-level research, hope you figure out how to pronounce all the names right, and then do that again for two totally different teams the next time.
I can figure out how to find the proper pronunciations of every player's name and that's not even my job. Why can't they be bothered to even do the minimum? It's just not that hard.
Not to defend the MLS broadcasters, because outside Zivin and a handful of others, they're not that great, but: it actually is pretty hard to do sports on live TV. It's one thing to sit in your hotel room the day before a match, memorizing phonetic pronunciations of unfamiliar names and numbers in preparation for the broadcast; it's a completely different thing to be able to recall that memorized name (which you may never have seen before two days ago) and pronounce it correctly in the heat of a game, with a producer barking directions in your ear and all sorts of other things going on as well, all while the game is still happening in front of you, demanding that it be commented on as it goes. You don't have time to think, it's all about reaction.
Mistakes are gonna happen. Clearly it can be done; most broadcasters do it pretty well. But those broadcasters are probably also dedicated to one team.
Take this week, for example; there were MLS games Saturday, Sunday, and the entire league is playing on Wednesday. If you're an MLS broadcaster, under this current broadcast arrangement, that's six teams that you'll have to learn names for, learn facts about, and come up with time-filling anecdotes for, all in the space of the week or less prior to the first of those three games, after you finished your last game, which you also did that research for.
Doing live TV sports well is definitely a skillset that has to be developed, and it's not as easy as people seem to think it is. And it's doubly hard when you're covering multiple games in a week.
It is also possible that MLS doesn't have as sophisticated live feed technology necessary to make on the spot informed commentary as other leagues.
For sure it's a skill that needs to be developed. But if I, as a fan, can find out how to pronounce every player's name I don't think it's too much to expect the pros to be able to do it, too.
If the Timbers can put together performances like the last 20 min of this game, the rest of this season will at least be entertaining. If they stick to the first 70, though, it's gonna be a long nine games. Either way I'm still curious about how they'll do - I'm not worrying about results, really, I just want to see more of the cohesion and team-based play that they showed in the late stages of this game.
Well, if we can spot the opposition two goals then I'm sure the game will open up to our advantage as the other team is packing it in and simply trying to see the game out.
I personally think the team (and organization) needs to be torn down to the studs in the offseason. Entertaining or not, I don't know if I can stomach watching whatever Evander is doing out there anymore. He annoys me like no other in the history of the Timbers. My memory is kind of bad so maybe I'm forgetting someone more annoying, I don't know.
How quickly we all forget the Lucas Melano Experience....hahaha
Yeah, a pretty significant rebuild is required this off season. The opportunity is there, a lot of expensive guys are out of contract; we'll see if the Timbers step up and do the work or just tinker around the edges.
Disappointed with the starting line-up…the first 70 minutes was nothing to get up in the middle of the night and shout about. Maybe MJ is thinking rotation with Wednesday coming up. He sure ain’t thinking out side the box. I liked the fight to try to salvage a point out of it.
Shake things up a bit?….no way. Could have started Blanco and get what you can, if 20 minutes, 30 minutes out of him, so be it. With Seba you know you’re going to some fire, barking at the ref, barking those other guys, something to help get the team going. Who hell knows, maybe the Timbers score first and get on the front foot for a change. But, in Timbers world, this probably is seen as outlandish, even radical. Yes, I am frustrated.
Love this. Gee, Blanco comes in and starts whipping in crosses and has a great assist. Can he please start? What the hell!
I love this, too. Unfortunately, this isn't basketball when we can call time out or sub him back in on a dead ball situation.
He literally said this winter he had a hard time walking up the stairs in an interview. I'm just going to relish the 20 minutes he plays and does Blanco things for the next 10 games and wait for the Ring of Honor celebration in a few years.
I appreciate what you are saying but that was the winter. If he's not feeling well still, then fine, go 20 minutes. He looks like he's good to go. He's played 45s. It pains me to see a guy show how it's done and yet can't get on the field.
Think what you will about the Timbers' medical staff (and I have thoughts!), but I can almost guarantee that they're managing his minutes with a view not just towards playing more, but towards preserving his quality of life.
By Blanco's own admission, as MindfulCyclist said, he couldn't walk up or down stairs (not just "couldn't walk without pain" - literally couldn't do it) after practices for most of last season. I would be willing to bet that the med staff is managing his workload pretty closely at this point, both in training and during games, so that he'll still be able to walk once his playing days are done.
OK - It sounds like he is giving as much as he can and I am a pain in the kazoo fan who wants more, so, I'll mellow out on that one.
Not a pain! I wish I shared your optimism and I hope Blanco can prove me wrong. I would never be happier to be wrong.
#MilesOut 😂
He is a part of the gio trash staff. He is running the same system as gio. He even said he wasn't going to change anything. Nothing will change with the same people in charge.
(methinks timberDT was joking a bit)
But also, I don't think anyone was expecting anything substantial to change the rest of this season? we're essentially watching the human version of a bookmark right now. If they start to play a bit better, that's a bonus, but expending any further energy getting mad at the 2023 Timbers is kinda pointless, because they're all just playing out the string - coaches, players, staff - until the offseason comes and the house gets cleaned.
It can't come soon enough. Just like next year can't come soon enough for so many reasons. Lol
welp #gioback
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.........no
On another thread I put out my preferred lineup for this game, and for the last 12 minutes it came somewhat true and the Timbers looked damn good.
It took awhile, but the coach actually did what I have been crying for forever - play Moreno at the 8/10. He's born to play there. Rewatch the second goal from the time they win it back. He's involved in the buildup and of course delivers the dime through ball to the ageless wonder Blanco for a delicious cross. Nice finish from Evander, who likes to score and is a nice late arriver. But back to Moreno. Checking to the ball, spraying it wide, offering support. It's obvious in the middle is where he wants to play and where he is most suited. The Timbers are really missing the boat trying to make him play wing. It's almost criminal. Now that Antony is here, perhaps I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Speaking of Antony. I think he is a real find. He is not selfish, unlike some players I know, and his speed is unreal. I hope he starts. He played well. Who should he start over? Yes, Asprilla. For once in a couple of years, Asprilla actually sent in a cross. The thing about that besides the rarity of the event, is the way Mora dealt with it. He showed true class. But back to Asprilla. He's selfish, doesn't work to get the ball, and definitely does not do things a winger should do on the regular, like send in crosses. The offense often breaks down because of him. I could go on. I'd like to see his completed passes in the final third statistic and his actual assist numbers. I just think the Timbers would be way better off without him starting.
Why did Mora come off? If they are saving him for Wednesday, ok. Or maybe he had a knock, then ok. He's just playing really well.
Final thoughts:
Bravo needs to take a seat. Bring in Miller for some sure D. Bravo isn't even really providing any offense, so I don't know what's the point.
Araujo is horrible. His defense inside the 18 is paper soft. I don't know how he'll be after "getting up to speed." All I know is that right now, he's costing us goals.
Bingham? Why? He looked kinda shaky a few times, but he also had one really great outlet to Antony I think it was.
Again - my preferred lineup:
Blanco .... Mora .... Antony
.......Evander ......Moreno
................D. Chara (or Paredes)
Miller .... McCraw .... Zup .....Mosquera (the weak link)
..................Ivavcic.............
I didn't even mention Yimmi in this post, which I think speaks volumes.
Yimmi and Asprilla really offer no wing action for the most part.
Watched without comment since I hate kicking a dog, er team, when it's down. The team showed heart and spirit but it also showed its dire defense. If I was in the club's shoes that's where I'd spend my energy this offseason. McGraw being out has hurt but it's on the wings where they suffered last night. almost had to laugh as I listened to the radio feed about how talented this team really is. Just then Mosquero was left for dead over on the wing leading to their first goal. They have some talent but most of it is replacement level at best. Much work to do and I don't know if the club's current leadership is up to it.
McGraw not starting basically cost Gio his job.
Welp, John Herdman's off the board. He took the head coaching job in Toronto.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/aug/29/john-herdman-must-revive-a-fallen-mls-dynasty-at-toronto-fc
Good. We need better.
Better...than a national team coach who has won 60% of the games in his coaching career, spanning 12 seasons, including both the women's and men's national teams?
I'm not saying Herdman should have been automatically the choice, nor would he have maybe been my first choice. But, he was a good candidate and belonged on the shortlist. A coach with his track record shouldn't be dismissed out of hand just because he didn't come from the youth ranks in the coaching system of some European powerhouse or whatever.
I mean, who exactly do you think is lining up to coach the Timbers? As you yourself have pointed out repeatedly, Portland isn't exactly an elite destination right now, so I'm not sure a knee-jerk rejection of a successful national team coach is a reaction that makes a whole lot of sense for a team who will probably have to overpay for a coach of the level that most of us want the Timbers to be hiring at.
I will only comment on the men's side of his coaching as the women's side is not the same thing.
On the men's side of coaching, I think his tactics were heavily dependent on his world class players. It was essentially, give it to player A, B, or C and let them go and see what happens. Where I could see that working on the international game. It needs to be simple because you have limited availability to work within a system and structure.
It reminds me of gio. He rode the coattails of blanco, Valeri, and chara (not his guys) to get to two mls cups finals. Then those players left, aged, or got injured, now he has to rely on his players and his tactics, and he was about to miss the playoffs for consecutive years. Like I view gio success under Valeri and blanco. I think same about Herdmen. His success was not about his tactics or game plan, but about the players he had to make the minimum work.
We need a structure and system based coach. I think he will do good for the first two years because he is known as a locker room guy (sound familiar) but after watching the world cup (I watched all 3 of Canada's games) it showed me that he can't adjust. He is a one trick pony. We will see with Toronto I guess, but I don't have faith he will be successful consistently. I also don't think he will even be able to be successful no matter what, as long as insigne is at Toronto. The guys is a cancer of epic proportion from what I have read. Even getting in a fight with the interim coach most recently.
"His success was not about his tactics or game plan, but about the players he had to make the minimum work."
If they hired a Herdman-type coach now, for the rest of this season, that would be incredibly valuable. If they hire a Herdman-type coach in the off season, it would also be valuable, because it would allow that coach to build a roster that would allow him to be more systemic, because he'd have "his guys", or at least a few of them, from day one, while also being pragmatic enough to know when that wasn't working and thus shifting to a "get it to the best"-type coach for a while.
I also have my doubts anyone can fix that Toronto mess until Insigne's gone, but I'm not sure that I would dismiss Herdman's abilities as a coach overall after watching three games of a 166 game career.
I must admit I have only watched him with Canada men's team. So I have only seen those games. But I have watched Canada for years.
I see Evander got his 6th yellow card, does this mean he is out for RSL?
Well at least he can't cost us points again if suspended.
Unclear! The rule is a one game suspension after accumulating 5 cards, but one card is deducted from the total counting towards that suspension for every five games without a card. Evander's first card came in the first game of the season, and his second didn't happen until June 11th, which means that that 6/11 card was effectively his first card counting towards the five card suspension trigger. Which makes yesterday's his fifth.
So by rule, yeah, he'll be out Wednesday night, but what I don't know is how his one-game suspension for violent conduct after the NYCFC game plays into this. That suspension was also the result of a yellow card (#2 of the 5 needed to trigger a suspension), so I'm not sure if that resets his clock or if, because that suspension wasn't for accumulation, he'll still be suspended for Wednesday.
The MLS Disciplinary Committee will probably make an announcement tomorrow since it looks like almost everyone's playing this Wednesday.