PORTLAND, Ore. – If the rest of the season goes as planned, this will be the most dramatic victory of the season – a level of suspense and payoff that isn’t that uncommon for this group.
The playoff victory last season in Seattle. Then the same dramatics in the next round, in Kansas City. The core that the Portland Timbers refined two years ago has gotten used to seeing their backs pushed to the wall and then responding. Perhaps Saturday night’s stakes weren’t as high as last year’s postseason, but the drama was equally profound.
Finding themselves down to a flukey Benny Feilhaber goal after 65 minutes, the Timbers nearly saw a night of patient control go for naught, only to have late goals from Jeremy Ebobisse and, four minutes into added time, Brian Fernandez salvage victory. Over the span of half an hour, the Timbers went from a 1-0 loss that would have pulled Sporting Kansas City into a tie for eighth to a 2-1 victory, one that not only leaves the team above the Western Conference’s playoff line but allows them to turn the page on three weeks of uncertain results.
“It gives you the chance to believe that we’re on the right track,” head coach Giovanni Savarese said, of the importance of Saturday’s victory, “that when we put the work that we put in today and the confidence to play, that we can achieve something good, even at the last second.
“These are the wins that give you the strength to keep on working and get closer to where we want to be. But now it’s important to understand that this happened today; now, we prepare for the next game that is coming. We need another strong effort to continue to do well.”
Saturday’s victory was not without its problems; most prominently, an inability to get the ball over Sporting’s goalline over the match’s first 82 minutes. The offense will have to become more potent. But in the response Portland showed after their guest’s shock goal, the team has what was lacking after last week’s victory over Real Salt Lake. Even in the silver linings of the preceding games, losses to Atlanta United FC and Seattle Sounders FC, there was nothing as resounding as the fortitude Portland showed to turn Saturday’s result.
That mentality, as well as the comeback it produced, will undoubtedly be What We’ll Remember most. But, like the Timbers themselves, let’s leave that late as we run down Saturday’s memories.
Depleted, and improvising
A three-man middle, with Andy Polo and Eryk Williamson in the XI? And a three-pronged attack of Jeremy Ebobisse and Dairon Asprilla flanking Diego Valeri? Whatever we were meant to hypothesize before the game, when the lineup came out, it would have been difficult to predict what we saw. Forced to improvise by 10 injuries and absences, Savarese and company came up with a new look.
“We felt that (playing) this way, with the group that we had, we could do very well,” Savarese explained. “Having Asprilla and Jebo a little bit higher, a little bit wider with Valeri in the middle and then playing with three in the middle (gave us) better support, and I thought the guys executed very well.”
The underlying style, though, didn’t change much. Portland was quicker to move the ball into certain areas, looking to take advantage of the matchups Ebobisse and Asprilla could create from their wide spaces, but the team largely looked the same it has over the last month. There was patience, often compromised. There was inventiveness, occasionally too soon. There was also, eventually, a breakthrough.
Ultimately, the goals the team scored leveraged their approach, finding room to create from wide as the defense was forced to stretch. Providence Park just had to use some patience of its own to get their payoff.
Feilhaber … what?
What was this?
