The highlights will paint it as a night for the spectacular, with Diego Valeri’s late free kick into the right side of Andrew Tarbell’s goal following a number of clutch saves and reads from Jeff Attinella. Portland Timbers’ full 90 minutes in San Jose, though, played out like two novice acrobat walking the same tight rope; both wary of their next steps, reluctant to surge forward, lest they send themselves to the net below.
For the Timbers, it was a reflection of MLS’ road reality, where points on away from home should be savored, when in reach. And for the Earthquakes, a draw would have been a step forward after successive one-goal losses. But when Valeri’s 88th minute winner curved over a lunging Tarbell, the rope snapped beneath the Quakes, leaving the Timbers to admire their 1-0 victory from above.
"We’re very content to get three points here, in a very difficult place," Portland head coach Giovanni Savarese said after the match, cautioning that, despite his team's three-game winning streak, the approach is still, "One game at a time."
"This is a team that we knew was going to battle the whole match," he said. "After a fantastic goal, great unity and a great three points for us."
It was the closest of margins, and against a team that’s now 1-5-2 on the season, Portland’s wasn’t an overwhelming performance. But within the bigger picture -- one that extends beyond the 90 minutes that transpired at Avaya Stadium -- Saturday’s win furthers a number of upward trends; and in those trends, the Timbers can continue to be encouraged.
The victory was the third straight for Portland, further separating the team from the 0-3-2 start it accumulated on the road. It’d be too much to say that, now four weeks without a loss, the team’s first five games are a distant memory. That slow start doesn’t actually seem so long ago. But freshness of that memory helps highlight a contrast with where the team is now. Over the last three games, Portland’s proven itself capable of digging out of a hole.
Saturday’s win also pushed the Timbers into a tie for sixth place (on points) in the Western Conference, an irrelevant ranking so early in the season, but a reminder of the team’s ultimate goals. During the season’s first month, it almost felt unfair to mention that Portland should be thinking playoffs, or that the team finished the regular season first in the West a year ago. In light of the slow start, Savarese and his staff needed time to implement a new approach. Now, though, with the Timbers touching the conference’s postseason spots, thinking of the team’s potential – that of a playoff team, one hoping to build on last season – can’t be avoided. 2018 will still be a process, but it’s a process that’s starting to yield improved results.
Perhaps the biggest reason for those improved results is the team’s performance in front of goal. Come fulltime at Avaya, Portland had gone 189 minutes without conceding. In his second start of the season, Attinella kept his second straight clean sheet, while Liam Ridgewellproduced his second strong performance since returning to the starting lineup two weeks ago. With their help, the late concessions that dogged the Timbers against the Chicago Fire, Orlando City SC, and Minnesota United FC have a new context. Having proved capable of keeping clean sheets, April’s concessions now seem like merely a poor, perhaps uncharacteristic spell.
"It was very good from the back four," Savarese said. "Defensively, we looked solid. There were moments, yes, where [San Jose] found some space, but I don’t think they were very dangerous ... the key factor was forcing them to play in wide spaces, to keep them a little more predictable."
That the Timbers had two weeks between games was a cause for worry in the buildup to San Jose, but in the face of what lined up as a trap game, the Timbers put in one their most professional performances of the season. Against New York City FC, the team had the virtue of being the hunters, free to take their shots at a league-leading target. Against the Earthquakes, however, Portland was in a position to get caught. Although chances by Valeri Qazaishvili and Danny Hoesen on either side of halftime nearly sprung the Quakes’ trap, the Timbers reached fulltime having preserved their momentum.
It’s something that, in the past, had proven difficult in San Jose, with the Timbers having previously failed to win in the South Bay since 2014. In the four games since that 2-1, Oct. 4, 2014 victory, Portland had been outscored 7-2 in San Jose, taking only one point out of a possible 12. As Saturday’s match wound down, Portland seemed destined to replicate that total, but with one great shot around an ill-placed wall, Valeri delivered a rare, three-point result from the Timbers’ Northern California sojourn.
For most MLS fans pursuing Saturday’s results, Portland’s one-goal win over their conference’s 11th-place team will feel like a mundane result. And perhaps, once 2018 fully plays out, it will be three points the Timbers should have expected all along. But within the arc of the team’s 2018, as well as their recent history the Bay Area, a 1-0 win at Avaya is bigger than it sounds. Preserving the momentum they started cultivating three weeks ago, Portland leaves San Jose with a fortifying result.
