In the aftermath of the Timber’s 2-2 draw with the Chicago Fire on Sunday, I had a couple different reactions. As a Timbers fan, I was disappointed to see them throw away a two goal lead in the last 15 minutes. Had they won, it would have been the first time the Timbers won back-to-back away games in the MLS. I sat back and thought about this little unassuming statistic, and got excited for what it means not just as a Timbers fan, but as an American soccer fan right now. There’s so much history to be written, and we’ve barely begun! We’re still in a world of firsts, of records made to be broken.
It had the look of an easy victory. The Timbers were up 1-0 against the Chicago Fire at halftime, courtesy of an elegant strike by Diego Valeri, and they’d hit the post several times. A narrow lead and interfering woodwork can make for nervy second halves: sometimes it seems like there’s a quota of chances allowed your team, and once they’re up, luck falls solely to your opponents, who will shin the ball into the net, eyes closed, offsides but uncalled, in stoppage time, from an impossible angle. But, around the 60th minute, Frederic Piquionne took the ball up the right wing, artfully avoided his defender, and angled the ball backward to the unmarked and oncoming Ben Zemanski who blasted in from 20 yards on his first touch. It looked like it’d be pure frosting from then on out.
Until, that is, the ball was put in play again. The Fire kicked off, woke up, and battled back against a suddenly snoozy Timbers. Time after time the Timbers conceded possession playing the ball out of defense, and the game unraveled. It ended up 2-2. Another draw. The team isn’t on the most direct route to greatness.
However, if you step back from the dullness of a draw and the disappointment of throwing away a 2 point lead, and remember what is going on in the grander scheme of American soccer, there’s some pretty cool stuff at work, which as spectators and fans we’re lucky to be a part of. What a simple statistic: two away wins in a row! And it hasn’t happened! The unremarkable nature of winning twice makes this that much crazier: it won’t be a cause for celebration. And the reason the Timbers aren’t there yet isn’t because they’re comically bad (well, the less said about last season the better) but because the team in its MLS incarnation is extremely new. Hell, relative to most professional leagues, the MLS is extremely new. There’s so much time ahead of us, so many generations of players and iterations of coaches and strategies, and so little behind us. Here in the US, with soccer, the future side of the seesaw is much, much heavier than the past, and that’s something to celebrate. The English celebrate the invention of the game and their storied FA. Their clubs are draped in aging glory; much of the abiding passion their fans have is the fruit of recollection. We’re in the process of building that now, and we’ve just barely started. I think the potential is staggering.
The steps are hilariously small… like winning two away games in a row. No one but the nuttiest staticians will ever remember this pedestrian milestone once it comes and goes. The glory now is to be a part of the beginning, which we all as fans get to partake in. Lucky us: we get glory whether or not our beloved teams win.
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