Photo courtesy of Jeff Wong. Nice guy too.
It can take only a full ninety minute effort to win a game, but only one fleeting moment of disaster to lose it.
Soccer in many ways fails to make sense sometimes. After all, Caleb Porter said in his post-match comments last week that his Timbers had played one of their best matches of the season only to fall to an underwhelming NYCFC side; a team who would lose to a resounding 7-0 thumping a home six days later. like It’s like traffic headed into the Sunset tunnel; You know it’s going to brake to halt and your journey will go from 50 mph (Okay 60 mph) to 25 mph because you are at the mercy at the one person who doesn’t know how to drive in the rain despite the fact that it rains nine months out of the year here.
Sorry, now where were we?
The Timbers had lost three straight for the first time under Porter’s reign. The causes for the losses were not always so easy to pinpoint. The Timbers had leads in these games just to see them dissolve to heroics from their rivals and not enough from their own.
Entering Sunday’s match, the Timbers “flipped the triangle” back, so to speak with two holding and/or defensive mids (Diego Chara and Ben Zemanski) with the center pivot being played by Diego Valeri on paper, but for practical purposes interchangeably between Valeri and Darlington Nagbe.
Jack McInerney got the start up top on was the catalyst that the Timbers needed. In the opening minutes it was McInerney’s torpedo run for the ball that earned a penalty which Valeri converted with no issue.
After a see-saw battle in the first half, a through ball found Melano. Melano’s coross looked weighted and awkward. So much so that the Whitecaps defenders sagged off, expecting it to go any other place than where it actually wound up. McInerney pounced and placed the Timbers up 2-0 which is where it stayed exiting the half.
Vancouver would return though taking only four minutes to pull one back. The Timbers bid for their first shutout of the year evaporated like morning dew in a cyclone and groans of “Here we got again” could be heard throughout the terraces.
How is it that a team that had sipped RC Cola from the MLS Cup six months ago can’t string together consecutive halves of good play?
Indeed, the Timbers began the second half off-balance and off-kilter. The best defense in the early going was in 56th minute when Vancouver’s Jordan Harvey collided with a teammate.
Vancouver was not merely happy to try for a point; They wanted all three. Hence the double-substitute to bring on Blas Perez and Octavio Rivero on for the ineffective Cristian Techera and Erik Hurtado who actually had a good shift. The end of Techera era may be nigh.
It was not to be though. Pa Mouda Kah had a nightmare of game and in fact played a role in all three of the Portland goals including a handball to nearly finish the game off. Two pks (one for each side) would play out in the second half meanwhile Nagbe would score off a free kick outside the box.
Dairon Asprilla entered the match after a tumultuous few weeks of not seeing the field. He made his moments count and was rewarded with the opportunity to take a penalty.
There’s a lot of good vibes in a match that saw the game devolve in the final moments. The game was still on and a fracas was underway when the final whistle blew. Players from each side needed to be separated and we in the press box could offer only confusion.
Vancouver Whitecaps
Portland
