Three-nil over New York City FC. Three-two at Seattle. The 2-1 victory in May over Los Angeles FC. The Portland Timbers have had a number of victories, this season, that felt important, but no result may have been as important as the team’s first draw of 2018.
Back then, on March 24, the Timbers had spent two weeks thinking about the pain of being punched in the mouth over the season’s first games. Losses at the LA Galaxy and New York Red Bulls left them without a point, on the wrong end of a minus-5 goal difference and looking like a group who, for all the changes they had made this offseason, slipped behind the pack before the new season.
That made the year’s only visit to FC Dallas all the more important, even if, in the 36th minute, it felt like little had changed as Roland Lamah put Dallas up. But two minutes after halftime, the season’s sign of life came into view, and when Sebastián Blanco scored to even things in Frisco, Texas, Portland had enough to get their season’s first result.
Since then, Portland has averaged 1.70 points per game, a rate that puts the Timbers at a similar level as LAFC (1.72, for the year) and the Western Conference’s second-place team, Sporting Kansas City (1.76). The 4-3-2-1 formation head coach Giovanni Savarese installed for that trip to Texas has proved foundational in this, Savarese’s first MLS season. And the return of midfielder Diego Chara, who missed the season’s first two games recovering from a foot injury, has added a player proving to be the Timbers’ most valuable.
Yet as was the case when the Timbers ventured to Dallas, there is a level of uncertainty around the team, now. Perhaps that uncertainty isn’t about whether Portland can be good or not -- their fourth-place standing in the West after 30 games is enough evidence of that – but the uncertainty does speak to worries, worries about how good the team can be.
Those three big wins we listed at the top of this post? None came after June 30. Over the last three months, the only wins the Timbers have over playoff-bound teams were at home against a heavily-rotated Philadelphia Union (3-0, Aug. 4) and at home against a heavily-rotated Columbus Crew SC (3-2, Sept. 19). Matches with Sporting, LAFC (Open Cup) and the Sounders gave Portland a chance to notch another trademark win, yet despite strong performances against LAFC and Seattle, the team has come up empty.
It’s as if the close calls that defined the team’s record, 15-match MLS unbeaten run from April 14 until Aug. 11 are starting to even out, and while that is both fair and expected, it also captures the team’s reality going into this telling four-match stretch at the end of their regular season. With the three-games-in-eight-days stretches that plagued late summer now in the distance, Portland’s path gives them five weeks before the playoffs to decide what they are. Are they the team whose lost momentum has left them searching for answers come the season’s final months? Or, have they established enough of a base so, free of the learning experiences from their congested schedule, the Timbers can surge amid calmer waters?
In that way, this Saturday's match against Dallas is a perfect test (7:30pm PT, FOX 12 PLUS), with that March 24 result serving as a benchmark. The 1-1 draw the team forged from that urgency, when it was trying to established its foundations, should be improved upon at Providence Park, right? The Timbers are better, now, have the virtues of home on their side, and have a different kind of urgency and perspective. This meeting isn’t about proving the team isn’t bad, as the game in Frisco was. This game is about proving what Portland can be.
And yet, Dallas is a markedly different team than they were seven months ago. The principles of how the team defends and wants to attack are still the same. The team’s defensive organization is still outstanding, and in the athletes that their attack offers, they can still hit you at any time, after any turnover. Dallas is still a team that is often most dangerous when you have the ball.
But Mauro Diaz, the attacking midfielder who was the focal point of the team’s attack for so long, is gone, having moved to the Middle East. Kellyn Acosta, the up-and-coming U.S. international in central midfield, is gone, too, having been traded to the Colorado Rapids. What’s left is a group that’s less of a 4-2-3-1, build through a playmaker than a two-forward look – with Maxi Urruti and Dominique Badji leading the way – that has to establish a new identity. You can’t build around Diaz for so long, extract him from the equation, and hit the ground running in the months that follow.
Dallas’ ups and downs have been evident over the last two weeks. A fortnight’s past, the team was tied up by a Columbus team who, knowing exactly when to press them, highlighted their hosts’ questions in the middle. Last week at B.C. Place, though, Dallas got the best of Vancouver Whitecaps FC, converting on two set pieces to snare a 2-1 win. The lack of open play goals was noteworthy, but so was the result.
Like the Timbers, Dallas may still be evolving. Even if they sit first in the Western Conference, there is another level which, given time to work through in this post-Diaz world, they may reach before the playoffs.
But in this time that Dallas is still finding themselves, Portland has their chance to step forward. This, the first of four games in five weeks, gives the Timbers a chance to resume an ascent that was blunted by the summer’s challenges. And with three months passed since their last victory over a top opponent, there’s no time like the present for Portland to prove they can be dangerous come the postseason.
