Rapids and Timbers Play to a Stalemate

Rapids and Timbers Play to a Stalemate by Chris Brown

July 4, 2016 – The 2015 Major League Soccer Champion Portland Timbers came to Commerce City, Colorado, to take on the league leading Colorado Rapids.

Tim Howard, Jared Watts and Fanendo Adi watch as Adi’s shot bounces off Colorado’s goal post. (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)

Tim Howard, Colorado’s newest designated player, was listed in the starting lineup for Colorado and would see his first action between the sticks for the Rapids after his signing officially went through on July 1st.

Besides Tim Howard starting, Colorado started one of their strongest lineups of the season. Shkelzen Gashi returned from his spell with the Albanian National Team at the Euros to start the match as did Jermaine Jones, who missed time with the Rapids while serving the U.S. Men’s National Team during Copa America. Kevin Doyle started up front while usual starters Marc Burch and Marco Pappa started on the bench.

Dillon Serna missed out on the match, as well as the rest of the season, after tearing his ACL during training last week. Sean St. Ledger and Marc Burch are still out while recovering from knee surgeries.

Portland was without two of their designated players as Liam Ridgewell missed out due to inflammation in his knee while Diego Valeri was unavailable with a knock.

Colorado was loud and excited to see Tim Howard, the Secretary of Defense, in goal for the first time. Howard’s every touch was greeted with cheers by the capacity crowd at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.

Tim Howard played well in his Rapids debut, keeping a clean sheet against the Champions (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)

Jermaine Jones was impressive early in the match, roaming from sideline to sideline with freedom and found himself in attacking positions early on.

Portland struggled to apply pressure during the opening stage of the match and found themselves defending deep throughout the opening 15 minutes.

Colorado was able to possess the ball easily, using Jermaine Jones as a high pivot, and attacking in numbers. Final balls into the box were lacking in quality, but Head Coach Mastroeni had to be pleased with the Rapids bright start.

At the 20th minute mark Colorado fans thought they were 1-0 up when Shkelzen Gashi was set free and was one on one with Portland keeper Jake Gleeson. Gashi went through on the right side of the box and tried to get the shot off with his natural left foot but saw his shot saved by the left leg of Gleeson.

In the 25th minute Portland saw a penalty chance turned away by referee Ricardo Salazar as Fanendo Adi fell over easily after some pushing and tugging with Colorado’s Jared Watts.

In the 30th minute the Rapids won a free kick high up Portland’s left wing and Shkelzen Gashi sent in a lovely out-swinging ball. The ball was cleared to the top of the 18 yard box where Marlon Hairston found himself with time and space to shoot, but sliced the ball wide to the right of goal.

Although Colorado was the dominant team in the first half the best chance of the match fell to Portland in the 44th minute. Fanendo Adi used his physicality on the right wing to get past Axel Sjoberg and Jared Watts to find himself in a one on one opportunity with Tim Howard. Howard did his best to make himself big and Adi’s curling left footed shot careened off of the post.

At halftime the score was 0-0.

Colorado had the better of the possession throughout the first half but their passing tempo was far too slow to cause Portland any trouble. When switching field the slow passing allowed Portland to set up their defense before Colorado could launch any attack. If the Rapids wanted to find the penetration that would cause Portland trouble they would need to up the tempo and abandon some caution in the second half.

In the 54th minute Colorado had their best chance of the match through an improved tempo and Shkelzen Gashi. Tim Howard distributed the ball to Michael Azira from goal and three passes and a few seconds later the ball was already in a dangerous area. A quick throw in saw Gashi through on goal and a wicked curling shot was saved with two strong hands from Gleeson.

Portland countered quickly after the Rapid chance and Howard was called into action to save a hard driven shot from Darren Mattocks.

When the Timbers had chances they came from transition play but it was difficult for the Champs to find the final pass against a cautious Colorado defense. There were several times when an extra body making a run would have made a huge difference, but that player was missing whenever Portland launched their speedy counters.

Darlington Nagbe began to find space to influence the game in the second half, pinging balls in to the top of the 18 yard box and moving around in the space between the Rapid midfield and defense.

As the match crept closer to the 70th minute Pablo Mastroeni brought on Marco Pappa for Shkelzen Gashi, who looked sluggish on the evening and Dominique Badji for Marlon Hairston. Hairston, naturally a full back, found it difficult to impact the game in the attacking half and the speed of Badji was a natural selection considering Portland’s tired legs.

Howard was rarely called upon on the evening with the Rapids stout defense protecting the keeper well. Colorado’s new number one offered plenty of encouragement to his defenders congratulating his new back four anytime they kept him from having to work too hard.

Nagbe continued to have an impressive second half and was Portland’s driving influence. His first touch and his pace gave Colorado problems and there were several occasions where Nagbe lifted his head to find a teammate in dangerous areas, but had no one to play a fatal pass to.

The torment is clear on Fanendo Adi’s face as his shot bounces off Tim Howard’s goal post. (Photo Credit: Corbin Elliott)

In the 92nd minute Portland had a great final chance to snatch three points when substitute Ned Grabavoy fired a shot from the top of the box toward the bottom left corner of Tim Howard’s goal. The shot beat the diving form of Howard but ricocheted off the side of the post and went behind for a goal kick.

The match ended as a scoreless draw.

Caleb Porter was happy with the result saying “One point on the road keeps us rolling and that’s six games unbeaten.” Porter pointed out that with two designated players missing in action it was a great result, over the past six games the Timbers have averaged two points per match, which Porter was happy with.

Pablo Mastroeni was less happy with the Rapids performance saying he was disappointed to see the attack “play in front of the back four” and lamented the fact that the attack could only “shove the ball down the middle” of defense, lacking creativity.

Mastroeni was happy with Tim Howard’s performance though saying, “He had a very good game, managed his box and came up trumps on the breakaway.”