Making the right connections: How the Portland Timbers are answering one of 2018's biggest questions

The Portland Timbers entered 2018 knowing they’d have to change some aspects of their style, perhaps nowhere more so than how they built play out of their defensive end. Incoming head coach Giovanni Savarese had new ideas and in the departure of Darlington Nagbe, Portland was faced with challenges in the middle of the park.

The impact of those changes manifested when the Timbers struggled over the first two games of the season, posting a 0-2-0 record and minus-5 goal difference after losses at the LA Galaxy and New York Red Bulls. During the bye week that followed, though, the team reset, got back to basics, and visited FC Dallas on March 24 with a simplified approach. They switched style and formation (going from a 4-2-3-1 to a 4-3-2-1), added a player to deep midfield, and got back to a few core principles.

Since then, Timbers have scored eight goals and posted a 1-1-2 record. After going the first three games of its season without having a lead, Portland’s scored the first goal against the Chicago Fire, Orlando City SC and Minnesota United FC. In the process, the Timbers have begun moving on from their early struggles.

Finding solutions in the buildup phase has been one of the most important parts of that move. Over the season’s first two games, it was unclear who was going to take up the slack in the middle of the park, something complicated by the early-season absence of an injured Diego Chara. Diego Valeri was trying, but in the process, he was also being pushed into less and less dangerous places, something we documented, before. Through its first 180 minutes of the 2018 season, the Timbers were still trying to discover their best way to build through the middle third.

Crudely, we try to capture that, here, by looking at both Valeri and Sebastián Blanco’s successful passes in Portland’s half of the field. Prior to the season, the thinking held, one of the team’s Argentine playmakers would have to make up for Nagbe’s loss. Valeri’s has spoken to this point multiple times, taking the responsibility on himself. That may be too selfless of a view, but the bottom line remained these same: Nagbe averaged 17.5 of these own-half, connecting passes per 90 minutes, last season. On its own, the Blanco-Valeri duo has only slightly dented that number.

This, however, is a strange way to look at the Timbers’ transition game. Perhaps it always was. To focus on two players, already playing full-time minutes, to pick up the slack ignore the more obvious solutions. What about the players who are going to be soaking up the vacated minutes?

That’s where we really start to see why, over these last six games, the Timbers have improved. Against the Galaxy and Red Bulls, the team’s fourth-most attacking player (we’ll just call is the “next midfielder,” from now on) was connecting far less than last year’s next midfielder, Nagbe, had last season. Since then, thanks in part to the team’s change in formation, those connections have been more prolific, as have the goals and the team’s results.

Dairon Asprilla’s numbers in New York skew this, slightly, not only because he played part of that match as the team’s No. 9 but also because that game, in general, is a severe outlier. If you throw that game out and look at the Galaxy game as a type of best-we-have, 4-2-3-1 baseline, the number of own-half connections from the team’s “next midfielder” have started to reach last year’s levels.

Even including this weekend’s Minnesota game -- one severely influenced by the Timbers’ lead, as well as the second-half switch to a 4-4-1-1 -- Portland is getting 15.7 of those connecting passes per 90 minutes from its “next midfielder.” Though that’s slightly lower than Nagbe’s numbers last year, but also higher than what Nagbe is producing this year (15.3).

Beyond the team's results, consider what we've started to see on an individual level. Over the last three games, Valeri has three goals and two assists. Blanco has "only" one goal and one assist, but he's hit the crossbar in each of the last three contests, the only shots during he's failed to put on target (seven shot, total). Fanendo Adi is coming off his first goal of the season, putting up five shots, while Andy Polo has completed 80 of 85 non-cross passes.

Andy Polo passing vs. Orlando City (April 8, 2018) and Minnesota (April 14, 2018)

There are some obvious limitations to looking at things this way, not the least of which is the small number of games (six), something that becomes a bigger problem when you’re splitting the sample to pre- and post-4-3-2-1 groups. Examining own-half passes in this detail feels weird, in and of itself. But if you’re looking for where and how the Timbers’ fortunes have changes since the Red Bulls’ result, this isn’t the worst place to look. The need to find a new connecting presence is starting to be met, and although it’s unclear whether Polo or Cristhian Paredes will ever be connecting savants, it’s often better to throw numbers at a problem.

Those numbers of players also speak well to the Timbers’ ability to grow from its current place. Remember: We’re only here because of the team’s need to reset after the Red Bulls result. The foundations needed to be secured. That happened in Dallas. After that, the team could start to grow, but it’s through the options that they develop that the Timbers can reach their full potential.

Over the last four weeks, the team has continuously added to the base it built in Dallas, and while that hasn’t led to consistent results, it has led to progress in the underlying performances. And to be sure, as Saturday’ second half showed, there is more progress that needs to come. But as time goes on, and the team continues to build, talents like Paredes and Polo will give Savarese more ways to vary his approach.

Intuitively, it’s obvious that having more, deeper midfielders would lead to better numbers in your own half of the field, but what’s less obvious is that the approach would be producing more goals. Over the last four weeks, the team has done exactly that, not only solidifying its foundations but also starting to answer one of the biggest questions it carried into the 2018 season. Over the last month, the Timbers have figured out how to connect through the middle of the park.