What’s Wrong With The Portland Timbers?

Draw City USA is alive and well but the fans are sick to their collective stomach. Just what is wrong with the Portland Timbers though is not an easy fix. The poster child for this year’s Timbers team was the derby versus bitter rivals Seattle Sounders.

The match against Seattle held such promise for the first 70 minutes. Maximilliano Urruti finally scored. Diego Chara doubled his total career goals in one game from two to four. Diego Valeri scored from an impossible angle. Pa Modou Kah didn’t get another card. Backup goalkeeper Andrew Weber had two great saves—including a nomination for MLS Save of the Week. The Timbers played a wonderful, flowing offense like they did last season. But they still managed a tie.

Let’s be clear, Portland didn’t choke this one away, Clint Dempsey asserted himself, and we saw the Deuce Sounders fans thought they would get the second he stepped on the pitch for them last August. The Timbers didn’t lose this so much as the Sounders took the game for themselves. But that itself should be concerning. Portland played well and was still outplayed. This isn’t typical Portland or at least what Portland was last year. And that’s the problem. This could be the real Timbers of 2014—close but not quite.

The new additions haven’t been overly thrilling. Yet another Argentine in Timbers colors, Gaston Fernandez, has given Portland two points with two late goals but has more or less been invisible in games other than some fortunate bounces. “Better to be lucky than good” but Chelsea in the 2012 Champions League can only happen so many times and for now it appears Fernandez’s luck seems to have left him—and shouldn’t have been so necessary for the Timbers for a meager two points either.

Norberto Paparatto—billed as Futty Danso with passing ability—has been somewhere between bad and a catastrophe. He was supposed to make Portland’s defense even more formidable with the addition of a boot that could help build from the back but as of now, he hasn’t lived up to expectations and has been a massive liability in front of goal, unable to properly mark opponents.

Former Sounder Steve Zakuani has spent much of the year the way he has the last several seasons—injured. He’s a winger with speed to match Darlington Nagbe down the opposite side but has made minimal impact when he’s been games. Injuries are unfortunate but can’t be discounted.

However, it can’t be pinned all on the new additions. Will Johnson isn’t playing well (goal against Chivas USA notwithstanding). The midfield has looked out of sorts, and he’s the leader, the captain, and that falls on him. Keeper Donovan Ricketts made an idiotic, kung-fu cleats up challenge in the box and got himself suspended for two games (two match suspensions seems to be a theme in Cascadia this year with Dempsey also getting a ban for a “groin check” during a dead ball). Urruti spends more time on the ground than he does on his feet. This was especially bad against Dallas where his speed could’ve killed in the more open match once the two mysterious red cards were issued and shows poor match awareness to not recognize his advantage.

Right now the Timbers appear to have a lack of concentration and 2014 has found a disappearance of the killer instinct that drove the team in 2013. Head coach Caleb Porter knows what he’s doing—witnessed by last year’s incredible turnaround—but Portland had looked flummoxed during far too many of their games. Portland is incorporating many new pieces and competing against teams that have had an entire off-season to watch tape of the Timbers and make adjustments, so perhaps a slow start shouldn’t be unexpected.

There’s plenty wrong with the Timbers. Last Saturday’s draw against Chivas USA was an unacceptable result and not because “it’s Chivas” (they’re actually not awful for the first time this decade!) but because of the nature of it. Another last minute goal with poor marking and an aimless second half attack. New players aren’t performing, returning players are out of sorts, and the whole team just doesn’t seem to have the same collective ability they possessed last year. How to fix it is a completely different task and one Porter will—hopefully for Timbers fans—figure out quickly.