Portland Timbers interim coach Miles Joseph (Photo: Diego G Diaz)
Interim coach Miles Joseph gives his first press conference as Timbers head coach at the media room in the Portland Timbers training facilities in Beaverton, OR.
These are testing times to say the least for the franchise, parting ways with coach Giovanni Savarese has shaken the club deeply. Miles Joseph had a look between the grief of somebody who had to say goodbye to a good friend, and someone walking in to a cockpit of a plane after answering to the PA, “are there any pilots on this flight?”
The Thursday press conference lasted for about ten minutes and Joseph had prepared enough for his debut with the local media. Miles Joseph spoke about preparing for Saturday’s match, when the Timbers will face a very important test against Vancouver Whitecaps, not just for the race to not fall off the playoffs for a second year in a row, but also to win the Cascadia Cup, a supporters sponsored regional rivalry cup that also include the Seattle Sounders.
Joseph immediately stated that his objective is to still make it to the playoffs “one game at a time”. He spoke of continuity, keeping a 4-3-3 system he endorses, and about a fluid locker room with players going back and forth to the infirmary, and with new players still coming in. In that regard, yesterday the team lost Jaroslaw Niezgoda, the polish striker suffered a season ending knee injury. Jopseh also gave an update on Anthony, a 21 year old Brazilian winger that comes in the last stretch of the regular season. He is finally training with the team, and in Joseph’s words “He is adapting very well to the team”.
A signing of a international under-21 player from Brazil is usually a center story. Unfortunately, the team is still suffering from the aftershocks of Savarese’s premature departure.
Ned Grabavoy, technical director and lead soccer operations director for the Portland Timbers, at the Tuesday August 22 Press Conference at the Training Facility in Beaverton, OR. (Photo: Diego G Diaz)
The news broke on Monday, August 21, when it was announced that Giovanni Savarese was parting ways with the Timbers after six years. The news release praised Saverese’s work and attributed the departure due to the string of bad results. The larger story was reserved for Tuesday press conference, when the sporting director, Ned Grabavoy, faced a full room of local and national press to announce, where he elaborated it was his decision due to the team suffering a dismal season.
“It was the hardest decision I ever had to make,
but I feel the club needs a new voice”
—Ned Grabavoy, lead soccer operations, Portland Timbers
The prepared statement failed to throw light to the many rumors, about a locker room that may have lost respect for Savarese, public spars with some players, lack of attitude of players in the field, and what is obvious, is the string of bad results that put the the team in the brink of another early season ending.
The 5-0 slaughter at Houston last Sunday, was too hard to stomach, and the club took action. Little light has been thrown at the conversations and ultimate reasons to call the relationship off, especially murky after the coach had signed and extension of his contract in 2022 that was supposed to carry him over until 2025. As often is said in football, it is easier to get rid of one guy than 22, and changing the coaching seat has been always a preferred way of shocking a team back in to competition.
Giovanni Savarese led the Timbers to victory of the 2020 MLS is Back competition, and won the Western Conference in 2018 and 2021. Both times failing to conquer MLS Cup, against Atlanta United in ’18, and New York FC at home in Providence Park in ’21. It is true that this team have seen important players come and go, but it has remained the same chore, that cohesion and continuity has been an advantage at times over better funded rivals. With it all, results this season have raised the question of a project that might be exhausted. But the questions shouldn’t stop at the coach’s seat, and begs for deeper insight at the club management level.
The team has been battling crisis last few years far away from the pitch that cost them names at the top tier of leadership, some of it was international news, plus obviously, the pandemic. There has been questions about players’ health and fitness, with an unusually high toll of injuries dating since the days of coach Caleb Porter, that have rendered the team at times unable to fill a full bench on match day. Many times resorting to cover the gaps with MLS Next youth players from Timbers 2 squad.
The policy of player signings has been of mixed results at best, apart of the club signing of Diego Valeri in 2013, one that may be one of the league’s most successful in the pre-Lionel Messi MLS era. Some of them very gifted players like Felipe Mora, but failing to have continuity due to injuries, for example.
“We haven’t been able to tie three wins together”
– Diego Chará, Portland Timbers midfielder
Team leaders Diego Chará and Sebastián Blanco followed on the media bench after Grabavoy on Tuesday. They acknowledged the team’s lack of results and luck luster season, as Chará admitted, “We haven’t been able to tie three good results together”. The players representing the team didn’t dodge criticism, a were harsher in their self judgements than the media questioning. Their looks expressed sadness, and massive respect for Savarese.
Midfielders Diego Chara (left) and Sebastián Blanco at the Tuesday August 22 Press Conference at the Training Facility in Beaverton, OR. (Photo: Diego G Diaz)
Chará and Blanco vowed to work hard and change attitudes. They feel that the team has the talent, passion, and professionalism to turn things around. After all, they are the ones playing for the points in the pitch, “the only ones that can turn things around”, noted Blanco. “We need to do better”, they concluded, lacking specifics, as in the club’s narrative of the Savarese-Timbers break up. All parties wished Savarese the best.
“We need to do better”
– Diego Chará and Sebastián Blanco, Portland Timbers players
Teams usually get a reaction out of a coach change, and the perspective of new talented players adding to the squad is always a sign of hope. The 21-year old Brazilian winger will join Peruvian international center defender Miguel Araujo, and Honduran international midfielder Bryan Acosta as Portland Timbers acquisitions in the MLS secondary transfer window, and joining the fray with still 10 games to go in the regular season.
The question is “is it too late?” The Timbers have 10 finals ahead of them if they want to earn that spot in the off season, the answers start with what level of reaction we will see against Vancouver this Saturday at 7:30 PM at Providence Park, or in Apple TV, on your TV, computer, or Mobile device.
