The Portland Timbers third loss in a row comes with a very different feel from the defeats to Los Angeles FC and FC Cincinnati. Whereas those were deflating, lopsided performances that forced head coach Giovanni Savarese to go back to his drawing board, tonight’s 2-1 loss to LA Galaxy at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, felt much more like a typical MLS game on the road. The game was close. Both teams had positive moments. The home team ultimately won out.
Expecting to build on last year’s Western Conference title, the Timbers’ standards need to be higher than that, but in terms of progress, Sunday an undeniable step forward. Beyond reversing the course of 4-1 (LAFC) and 3-0 (Cincinnati) losses, the team just looked better to the eye, switching to a new formation that curbed the group’s pattern of being exploited in key moments. The quality of open-play chances were in the Timbers’ favor, and while mistakes in the Portland penalty area gave the Galaxy a deserved victory, the Timbers’ body of work was much more encouraging than two weeks ago in Ohio.
Portland is now 0-3-1 on the season – one point worse than they were though four games, last season – and while each game that passes without a breakthrough win makes this season-opening, 12-game road trip loom larger, the realities of the now demand a more positive outlook. Seen as part of a 34-game season, Sunday’s game gets the team closer to where it needs to be, and while it’s unfortunate they started from where they did before kickoff, Portland will leave California with more solutions than questions.
The key, now, is applying those solutions next week. The San Jose Earthquakes represent another winnable game, but as trips to Colorado and Cincinnati showed, winnable games become dropped points without execution. Tonight, the Timbers executed well, for the most part. Whether that’s remembered as a turning point depends on how the team builds on this performance.
Here are the other ways we’ll remember the Timbers’ 2-1 loss in Carson, from the team’s best goal of 2019 to their first prolonged look at a global icon:
The best goal of the season, so far
On a day of silver linings, the thickest comes from what happened just before halftime. Taking advantage of a Galaxy defense which, for a moment, turned off, Portland strung together a pattern of play from Tuesday morning on the training ground, making LA’s defenders look like stationary poles as an equalizer found nylon.
Diego Chara to David Guzmán, then to Diego Valeri and back before a square ball, across the face of goal, to Jeremy Ebobisse – it marked the best span of play we’ve seen from the Timbers attack this year. For the season, it was a well-deserved fifth goal.
Perhaps some would take exception with the “well-deserved” part of that description, given replays showed Guzmán might have been offside. If so, it might help to remember that no Timbers opponent would give that goal back, and sports are largely about creating and taking advantage of errors from others. We would all prefer a world where officiating mistake don’t happen, but they do, which is why you have to play as if nothing is assured. Galaxy defender Diego Polenta had a strong day, in general, but in that moment, he allowed Guzmán to muscle him off the ball.
Regardless of the night’s ultimate result, the goal will give the team confidence. There may have been a feeling from some that going to a 5-3-2 formation would be too much of a sacrifice in attack, but as Guzmán’s high positioning early in the phase showed, the team had thought of how to make up for the lost number. Collecting four shots on target to the Galaxy’s two (none from open play), Portland showed their new formation need not leave them out-chanced by opponents.
More errors, different kinds
If you’re looking for more silver linings from Sunday’s game, consider the defense’s performance; well, at least parts of it. With two penalty calls fairly ruled against them, Portland’s back six has new things to work on. But the fact that they are new, and not a repeat of the problems that befell the group over the first three rounds, is worth a moment’s note.
The Timbers were beat repeatedly in wide spaces over the season’s first three games, but on Sunday, the team was able to contain play on the flanks, leaving the Galaxy dependent on crosses rather than being able to work play deep, or back to the middle. Some of those crosses were too dangerous, but that’s where numbers in the middle helped. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is a dangerous target, but playing three central defenders, Portland had the numbers.
Still, defending has to be a bottom-line business, and ultimately, the number under “LA Galaxy” on Dignity Health Sports Park's scoreboards read “2.” It was the fourth game in four in which the team allowed multiple goals; the fourth time this season they’ve given up the first goal. At some point soon, those things have to stop.
In general, though, this week’s issues feel less overwhelming than the ones Portland took out of Cincinnati. They are issues, no doubt, but now, they feel more manageable.
The Timbers’ first full look at Zlatan Ibrahimovic
Two Major League Soccer games against the Galaxy last year, and for the most part, Ibrahimovic was absent from both. The 2018 season opener came before the new Galaxy captain’s arrival, while LA’s summer visits to Providence Park (one in league play; one in U.S. Open Cup) saw Ibrahimovic held to an 18-minute substitute’s turn.
That meant one question leading into tonight’s game, as so aptly asked by a Soccer Made in Portland listener, was whether the Timbers would get “Zlataned” – put on the wrong end of one of the legend’s SportsCenter-worthy goals. It nearly happened in the 14th minute, too, as Ibrahimovic kept Julio Cascante pinned to his back while, on one leg from the penalty spot, nearly putting a Rolf Feltscher cross inside Jeff Attinella’sright post.
That, along with an 89th-minute chance steered just wide, was as dangerous as Ibrahimovic was from open play. Numbers both behind (three central defenders) and in front (three central midfielders) helped keep MLS’ most-dangeorus player in check.
Ultimately, though, Ibrahimovic was able to score twice – both from the spot; both on fouls he drew. Since it’s fair to ask whether Claude Dielna, in the first half, or Attinella, in the second half, would have acted with as much urgency had they not be challenging Ibrahimovic, it’s also fair to ask whether the Timbers were, in the end, Zlataned, albeit not in a way that will becoming one of his career-defining moments.
