When the Sun Doesn't Shine

I’m going to start off this recap with a tweet that I sent following Montreal’s last-gasp draw against Houston on Wednesday.

Funnily enough, they certainly had momentum tonight. I could delve into a recap of the precise events that transpired on a rain-soaked field in Montreal, but Miles Joseph summed it up the best: “We conceded four goals on counters.” 

Cascadia FC's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Normally I nit-pick what the Timbers did and didn’t do that led to tonight’s result, but I’m oddly focused on the bigger picture. Except for the counterattacks. This is not the first time we’ve gone on the road and got shattered on counterattacks this season. This was a trademark Timbers road blowout. But, oddly enough, it really shouldn’t have been as bad as the final score showed.

In order to get a 4-1 scoreline out of this stat sheet, you have to be the opposite of clinical. That’s what the Timbers were tonight. They had the space to score several goals, but didn’t take it. Like when a couple corner kicks turned into scrambles in the box and they couldn’t get a shot on target. That’s one problem, but it wasn’t the only one. 

The second problem was effort. If you want to get a result on the road, you cannot be complacent. You have to show effort and try to win 50/50 balls. Montreal won the duels battle 54-46, and a lot of those losses for the Timbers came in terrible areas. Which led to acres of space for Montreal to counterattack into. They got outworked, which led to them getting outscored.

This game was played in a downpour, which meant that players were slipping all over the place. More Portland players slipped than Montreal players. There’s no legitimate number that I can find to prove this, but it seemed like the team that is from the rain could not play in the rain. With such hostile conditions, the Timbers literally couldn’t find their footing. Except they could, because the stat sheet says they had 2.25 xG.

It is very easy to overreact to tonight’s result. Especially when it comes to Miles Joseph’s case to get the full-time job when the season ends. That is the crux of tonight’s debate: do you believe that this team wasn’t prepared or do you believe that they didn’t execute properly? Based on what the stats are telling me, and based on how the Timbers’ shape looked, I think this loss was due to extremely poor execution. In the post-game press conference, Joseph said that the coaching staff stressed how important defending counters was. It was one of the biggest points of emphasis this week, and on a soggy pitch in a foreign country the team couldn’t execute. 

One of the main culprits tonight was David Bingham. Tonight he was directly responsible for two of Montreal’s four goals. One was due to not getting off his line quickly enough, and the other one I’ll chalk up to a wet ball. Despite that, he did show a ton of effort after he accepted responsibility for conceding Montreal’s first, only for a horror deflection to get by him for Montreal’s second. On a night where the whole team struggled, Bingham had his worst game of the season. Somewhere Aljaz Ivacic is chuckling, until he is reminded that he was in net for the previous road blowouts this season. Sigh.

Two absences really cast a dark cloud over the team tonight, and both players are frontrunners for Supporter’s Player of the Year. Cristhian Paredes left a hole in the midfield that couldn’t be filled. The Timbers struggled to defend anything coming through the middle tonight. Zac McGraw’s presence is a huge boost to defending counterattacks. Larrys Mabiala is just too slow, and Montreal had the speed advantage in truckloads. There are two weeks between today and the Decision Day match against Houston. Two weeks for both players to heal, because we desperately need them. 

Diego Chara and Evander both returned from injury today, and both were available for 45 minutes of game time. Like McGraw and Paredes, they have two weeks to continue to heal. Good to see them back on the pitch despite today’s result.

Franck Boli broke his goal drought, and it brought a smile to my face. He’s been putting in so much hard work whenever he enters games and now he finally got something to show for it. It’s bittersweet given the result, but it’s still a nice moment for him. 

Tonight’s Man of the Match belongs to Santiago Moreno. He continues to hustle his ass off and never give up. He deserves every bit of recognition after his re-emergence under Miles Joseph.

I don’t think tonight’s result affects Miles Joseph’s standing as a candidate for the head coaching job. The season has to end in order for his full case to be examined by the decision-makers in the team’s front office. While the result is very similar to the losses suffered this year under Gio, the stats do not lie. This team failed because of execution, not the game-plan. However, it is a bad loss at a terrible time. The Timbers could still clinch a playoff spot tonight with a loss, and this is how:

Let’s see how those games went.

Well, shit. How does the table look?

San Jose and Dallas tied tonight, and Dallas’ extra game in hand is against Colorado. That game got postponed due to weather, and it will be played next Saturday. RSL’s game in hand is next Saturday against an already-eliminated Galaxy. Odds are we will be in 8th heading into Decision Day. Luckily, our Decision Day match is at home. Unfortunately, it is against Houston. The goal remains the same: win and get in. The Timbers now have two weeks to prepare for the opponent that handed them their heaviest defeat in 2023. The play-in game argument is no longer relevant. This team needs to make the playoffs, and it doesn’t matter how.

Miles Joseph is now 5-2-2 as the interim coach, and is 1-2-1 on the road. The sky might have completely fallen on the Timbers today, but there is enough evidence to discourage those who might believe that our season is over. We haven’t won a game in the Eastern time zone since 2021. Tonight’s conditions plus a desperate home side made that streak continue. So ends the 7-game unbeaten run. They have everything to play for on Decision Day, and now the two weeks of waiting begin. Good luck to everyone.

Cascadia FC's Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.