This act was a good one: Get drawn into a wild, rain-soaked, first-half shootout with a last place Montreal Impact team starring Futty Danso, go behind, come back to take the lead with a penalty, concede before the break, and lean on another moment of magic from Diego Valeri to win it late.
Apparently, that’s the kind of party we like in Portland. The win vaults the Timbers into a tie for sixth place in the Western Conference, just one spot below the red line. So despite those pesky four games in hand the also sixth-placed LA Galaxy have on the Timbers look like they’ll complicate the race a tad, we’re saying there’s a chance.
I mean, who knows with this team? They’ve now won their sixth game of the year, their second in a row, and they still only have one win in which they didn’t have to come from behind. Maxi Urruti, inexplicably, cannot stop scoring. Suddenly, the Timbers are getting penalties almost as frequently as any other team in the league. Darlington Nagbe continues to enhance his reputation despite going 21 MLS games without scoring, and Diego Valeri is making a serious late run at the MVP award.
It’s mayhem out there, ladies and gentlemen.
That defense that Liam Ridgewell anchored? They gave up multiple goals to the Impact, who had only achieved that feat a handful of times last year. Remember, this Montreal team hadn’t won in four games, had just played three days before in Salt Lake, had their coach suspended, and had fans leave in droves in a driving rainstorm. Of course Portland should have won.
And win they did, but not without entertaining the masses as they have done all year. You try to figure this team out – Caleb Porter puts out the same lineup that set the world alight in the second half against the Colorado Rapids, and they can’t manage to see off the Impact until a late shift involving bringing off Diego Chara for Rodney Wallace is employed.
Timbers TV color analyst Ross Smith fawned over Caleb Porter’s gung-ho tactical attitude like a teenage girl meeting Justin Timberlake, but the Timbers had to go for the win.
It wasn’t that Portland never had the game under control – as a matter of fact, they always looked a good bet to go on and win it, and Montreal’s best chance at a third was a skillful turn and volley by Futty himself – it was just that nothing would have surprised anyone the way the evening was going.
Valeri’s game-winner gives him five goals on the year, but three in the last five games. Urruti, meanwhile, has eight goals and a better per-game strike-rate than Dom Dwyer.
It’s up to Porter to figure out how to get the best out a team that is approaching unprecedentedly enigmatic levels. Why can’t Gaston Fernandez make the same impact starting as he does off the bench? Where is Diego Valeri’s best position? Who is the best striker on the team? When and where is Pa Kah coming back to and fitting in? How about Rodney Wallace – or the totally forgotten Kalif Alhassan? Is it going to be Jorge Villafana or Jack Jewsbury? And why can’t the Timbers take care of business the way they’re supposed to?
You can’t have any complaints with the performance. The offense was terrific, and Montreal’s goals were well-taken. It’s just that these kinds of games happen to the Timbers. They seem to bring out the best in teams.
The Timbers will take the points any way they can get them, with a massive trip to LA coming up on NBC next weekend.
We may never completely understand what happened to Portland this year, but as long as they keep winning, the feeling will stay more bemused than enraged.
And there are a few players that make you proud. Valeri, classy as they come, said of Nagbe after the game, “We know that Darlington is the best player on the team.”
Jewsbury, who made his 300th MLS appearance, put another notch in his belt as the uber-professional. Meanwhile, Donovan Ricketts floored Jack McInerney in response to the Impact forward chipping him almost five seconds after an offside whistle just minutes before.
And spare a thought for poor old Futty, living out of a hotel in Montreal, being dragged down with the worst team in MLS while his own team starts racking up wins a world away. This business can be tough, and it was at its toughest with that trade. One day Futty will be back in Portland, and it’ll be a moment to savor. Hell, maybe the team should retire his jersey – it’s not like anyone would notice #98’s unavailability in thirty years.
In Montreal, the Timbers were the better team by miles and miles and miles. They were so dominant that at the end of the first half, the Impact had committed fourteen fouls, and Portland not one. Of course it was entertaining, and of course Portland had to come from behind. Is that a sustainable recipe for success in the long-run? Probably not. But it is a recipe for making things interesting. And that’s what the Timbers do best.
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