Three weeks in, the Portland Timbers have hit the ground running, even managing to get a road win in their first try in Los Angeles. The weekend’s fixture against Columbus Crew (Saturday, March 25th, at 4:30 p.m., Root Sports) will not only be a rematch of the 2015 MLS Cup Final, but a good test against a resilient Columbus Crew, a team much better than their 1-1-1 record would suggest. More than any other team, Columbus is a study in contrasts. Look no further than their last match.
Going into Saturday’s match without defender Jonathan Mensah (red card suspension), Columbus placed homegrown center back Alex Crognale into the fold and experimented with a three-man back line. The move was to parry and snuff United’s direct approach and it worked; Columbus earned the clean sheet in the 2-0 win.
Then again, who is leading the league in clean sheets? That would be D.C. United opponents. D.C. deserves some credit here, they were found offside nine times on Saturday.
D.C. wasn’t content to only help stymie their own offense on Saturday. They, specifically defender and team captain Steve Birnbaum, actively helped Columbus here too, with both of their goals coming from the penalty spot thanks to Birnbaum.
Tangent: It does not speak well of United’s season that the player who twice created penalty shots for his opponents was named Toyota Team Player just days after the match.
So what does Saturday’s match tell us about Columbus? That’s the sort of question that lies between the Rob Lowe robbing Lowe’s conundrum and this one:
.@Reddit makes it to a #SCOTUS hrng: Gorsuch asked if he’d rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck: https://t.co/xr4aV2fAAi
— Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) March 21, 2017
Instead: Will Columbus stick with the three man back line? I admit to having a fascination with this sort of lineup. It’s the soccer version of a monster truck rally: it’s destructive, chaotic, and more than likely someone is getting their butt kicked. Even Chivas USA did away with it ten games into 2013. Which is why this sort of formation is like Pearl Jam drummers prior to Matt Cameron: they’ll appear competent enough, but they’ll be replaced when the time the next album comes out.
Perhaps gamesmanship, but Columbus Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter has not said he’s going straight back the usual 4-2-3-1: “I think any time a team wins, it’s tough to change the team.”
Portland’s David Guzman kisses the Timbers crest after scoring his first goal for the club.
It’s true that Columbus did experiment with this line up in preseason but it was circumstance, i.e. the Mensah suspension, which ultimately brought the change. What must be in Berhalter’s thoughts though is Portland is the opposite of D.C. United in many not-so-subtle ways. D.C. United plays a goalless, direct style. Meanwhile flooding the midfield pretty much plays right into Porter’s hands.
No, the biggest change on Saturday in Columbus is that, according to Debotehzombie, the infamous Capo Free Zone is getting a Capo. So that’s good.
Portland, meanwhile, is flying high in the standings, the laurels, and even the ESPN Power Rankings, but are grounded according to head coach Caleb Porter who correctly adds they’ve got 31 more games to go.
Injuries continue to mount, but the team has prospered which Porter insists is the product of the Portland’s determination to raise the level of the team’s depth.
If Portland’s front six are the Death Star, the back four are M*A*S*H. With Vytas already sidelined and Marco Farfan hospitalized (flu-like symptoms), Zarek Valentin was the third left back deployed for Portland in three games. Liam Ridgewell’s foot sprain has his “looking unlikely” to play in his third straight game.
Much like the first game of the season, there was plenty of green and gold smoke.
Losing both of starting center backs, and going to the third string left back could be disasterous for many clubs. Yet, Lawrence Olum and Roy Miller have been solid and Valentin got himself on the scoresheet with a pretty looking (left footed!) assist.
Now it’s time to lose players to international call ups with David Guzman and Darlington Nagbe getting the call. Guzman’s spot on the team will likely be filled by Ben Zemanski with Amobi Okugo also a distinct possibility. Sebastian Blanco has been billed as a player who can capably play either wing, however a more likely scenario is Blanco stays put and Dairon Asprilla gets his first start of 2017.
With Guzman out, that may signal a shift in Diego Chara from being a box-to-box guy to a ball-winner destroyer. It remains to be seen if Chara will still have his license to get forward. Also, missing will be Guzman’s ability to keep possessions alive if that means recycling or passing. Guzman had 83 successful passes (nearly 20% of the team’s successful passes) on Saturday. And this too.
Guzman will be missed. Nagbe as well, but Asprilla is a capable winger and may be useful stretching the field and, one hopes, keeping Columbus’s full backs home.
Porter maintains that, regardless of the formation the Crew play on Saturday, he doesn’t expect Columbus to necessarily deviate from their form. “It doesn’t change their style a ton,” Porter said.
It’s more important, Porter believes, that the Timbers instead focus on their strengths instead. In Porter’s words:”Play the way we want to play.”
