The Case for Antony
Has Portland's Brazilian speedster found his proper role yet?
The 2025 Timbers are beginning the season without two of their top attackers: Jonathan Rodriguez and Santiago Moreno. Their absences have already been felt throughout the first few games of the season. Moreno has already returned to the matchday squad, but Rodriguez is guaranteed to miss another month at minimum. In order to properly cover for his absence, the Timbers need to find another goal-dangerous winger. Fortunately, that player is already on the roster. Unfortunately, due to other injury problems, he was forced to begin the season playing wingback.
Welcome to the 7th installment of my “The Case For” series. Previously, I’ve profiled Diego Gutierrez, Santiago Moreno, Jaroslaw Niezgoda, Zac McGraw, Marvin Loria, and Evander. Now it’s Antony’s turn. However, before his best 2025 role can be established, let’s take a look at his Timbers career thus far.
Dripping with Potential
In the summer of 2023, Antony was bought from FC Arouca in Portugal for a fee of $3.5M. The 21-year-old Brazilian signed until 2026 as a U22 Initiative player. During his first season, he played in 9 games (3 starts) and ended the campaign with one goal. It’s safe to say that the expectations for season number one were fairly low as the player adapted to a new league and country. 2024 was going to be a big season for the young Brazilian, and he entered the season opener with a ton of praise from new head coach Phil Neville, who identified him as one of the preseason standouts.
33 games, 20 starts, 6g/4a in 1,886 minutes. That’s a solid season based on counting stats, but the eye test disagreed. Defensively, Antony was lights-out.
Last season’s Timbers struggled to defend from the front. Antony’s tireless work rate was a big positive, and was highlighted in the 2-2 draw against LAFC in April. During that game, the combination of Antony and Juan Mosquera locked down Denis Bouanga. Because of Antony’s excellent defense, Neville turned to him often as an emergency fullback due to Portland’s dearth of depth at the position. However, as a winger (the position he was supposed to play), he has left a lot to be desired.
There’s a lot of green here, but the red bars are brutal. Antony’s best trait is his lightning speed, which has been noted as “the fastest in Timbers history.” However, it doesn’t translate to successful dribbling. He’s downright awful in terms of successful take-on percentage, times tackled during take-ons, tackled during take-on percentage, and miscontrols. This doesn’t prelude him from moments of magic, but it means those moments of magic are few and far between. The potential is absolutely there, but he’s losing the ball 6 times out of 10 when he attempts a dribble. I’d classify 3 of those remaining 4 times as solid but unspectacular dribbles that usually end in the Timbers losing the ball. However, for that remaining 1 time, his brilliance shines.
You could make the case that this goal is his biggest moment in a Timbers shirt. But plays like this were few and far between. That set up 2025 as a make-or-break season. How has it gone so far?
