Chara’s play eclipsed LA’s expensive stars like Gerrard
By Niall McCusker
The Timbers rolled out a formation with more attacking players on the field for the second time this season and it worked better than most expected. But it wasn’t until they fell a goal behind that Portland really got going in the game. How much of that was down to complacency from LA and how much was due to the visitors lifting their game and having more forward options may become apparent if, as now looks likely, they progress to the play-offs.
As discussed here, penetration into the penalty box was key for the Portland goals. For the first, when Valeri was sprung by Nagbe, Portland had a 4 vs 3 situation, that simply would not have happened without the formation change. The second goal, Adi’s penalty, came from a fast counter attack that Portland have used a lot this season.
But maybe most interesting was the pass count on the third and fifth goals. These were not counter-attacks on an over-committed LA team, they were methodical build-ups, more reminiscent of the successful 2013 season. Chara’s header came at the end of a 17 pass move and Urruti’s saw 16 passes in the run-up to his strike. If they have really re-discovered that old ability to pick teams apart surgically and can combine it with the faster attacks of this season no-one will want to meet them in knock-out games.
Here are the individual ratings:
Adam Larsen Kwarasey 7.5: His best save of the game was a fingertip that kept Leonardo’s header on a corner from dipping under the bar. He had another smart stop on Rogers’ effort in the second half, but LA had surprisingly few shots on frame. The keeper’s fast roll-out to Nagbe, started the counter for Portland’s second goal.
He had no chance on Keane’s first goal but he might have got a hand on his second when he seemed to hesitate thinking Buddle (in an offside position) was going to redirect the header. The reinterpretation of passive offside for this season doesn’t seem to explicitly cover this kind of case. Law 11 just likes to remain frustratingly ambiguous.
Taylor Peay 7.5: Rogers and Lletget presented a formidable attacking combination on LA’s left flank, but Peay held them in check well. Lletget learned his trade in the fabled West Ham system, but when he did beat Peay the right back had the speed to recover. He made a few risky looking tackles in the box, but timed them well. On the offensive side he only had a few crosses but they weren’t especially well aimed – that’s the main area where Powell would be vulnerable to a challenge to his starting position.
A very competent outing for Peay.
Nat Borchers 6.5: At the beginning of the game when LA tried to break Portland down with intricate passing at the top of the box Borchers took some good positions to cut out passes. But it was the more direct route that caught out the center backs, Keane split them too easily for his first and again managed to pop up between them to head in his second.
Liam Ridgewell 6.5: On the offensive end he should have had his first goal of the season, heading wide, shooting high and finally hitting the bar with a nice header. But on the defensive side he and Borchers should have been able to marshal Keane more effectively.
Jorge Villafana 8.5: Zardes was non-factor in the game and that was down to excellent defending from Portland’s left back. Dos Santos drifted over to his wing on occasion as well with no more success. In the first half he was making runs forward but not being found as often as he would have liked, but he got his reward in the second half with a great assist for Urruti.
A flawless game from Villafana.
Diego Chara 9: “Yo trabajo solo“.- if only the translator had been around when Chara was repeating this in the locker room before every game. But no, they kept making him work with a partner. When you work with partner you spend more time worrying about mistakes they might make and less time killing the president of Paraguay with a fork.
Chara gave up a couple of early fouls in dangerous positions (one of which Gerrard tested the post with), but after that he won countless balls and prevented LA’s attack from building much danger on the edge of the box. Even before Fochive came into the game he had been sneaking forward on occasion, but the late run into the box for his header was perfectly timed.
Darlington Nagbe 8.5: Chara didn’t really work all alone, Nagbe has been covertly operating as an auxiliary defensive midfielder for some time. At the start of last season we noted
Nagbe looked good in the center and made some powerful runs from deep, with the abundance of attacking midfield options at Porter’s disposal, if Johnson or Chara are ever forced out due to injury or suspension, it might be interesting to see how Nagbe would fare in a deeper role, given the continued improvement to the defensive side of his game
In this game Nagbe set Valeri free on the first goal with a nice flick, launched the counter for the second and scored the fourth himself. Excellent work – but why did he stop after laying off the ball to Valeri on the second goal? He had lots of chances to make that run to the edge of the box and present himself as a secondary target. It worked out on this occasion and he might be coached that way to prevent counters, but lack of bodies in the box has hurt Portland all season. However, with an extra attacker on the field Nagbe can play this way and Portland might still find more goals.
Diego Valeri (off in 91′)7.5: He had a few nice short combinations with Nagbe in the first half that were a hint of good things to come. But he mostly seemed to be struggling early in the game, one bad giveaway in his own half and quite a few unusually errant crosses. He put that behind him in the second half, driving the move that led to Portland’s opener and operating at the center of the nice passing moves for the others.
He is pretty grumpy since returning from injury though, kicking the ball away on an LA free-kick earned him a yellow card that keeps him out of the last regular season game.
Lucas Melano (off in 72′) 7: He had a quiet first half in which he was mainly noticed for struggling to mark Leonardo on set-pieces. But when Portland had more of the ball in the second he popped up with a couple of assists (he gets one for the pass to Adi that drew the penalty). It looked like Portland would go into a defensive shell when he was withdrawn for Fochive but it didn’t quite work out that way.
This looks slightly illegal from Wallace.
Rodney Wallace 7.5: An unusual deployment featured Wallace on the right side of the attack. He beat Rogers nicely after 20 minutes, but then spent too much time trying to get the ball onto his left foot rather than picking out the available runners with his right. But when he did get a chance to use his left in the box he picked out Chara’s run with fine cross for the third goal. He also helped Peay out in defense and was industrious in Portland’s passing moves.
Fanendo Adi (off in 83′) 8.5: He has had busier games and ones were he had to work harder with less support, but he probably enjoyed this one. He got good service in the box, took a great goal, earned and scored a (terrible) penalty and displayed some great hold-up play for the third goal. Maybe he is saving the hat-trick for the play-offs?
No! I missed this penalty – oh thanks big guy.
Substitutes:
George Fochive (on in 72′) 6.5: Against RSL Portland’s chances dried up when he came in – not this time. He had one poor back-pass pass near the end that almost let LA in on goal, but pretty solid. It’s a hard position to substitute into, right in the middle and be expected to immediately get up to the pace of the game.
Maxi Urruti (on in 83′) 7.5: That’s the 2014 Urruti – on for the last ten minutes with an assist and a goal, no big deal. A great time to end his scoring drought.
Norberto Paparatto (on in 91′): No idea what inspired this change, but his auto-correct is ‘paratroop’ which is pretty cool.
