In the 80th minute on Sunday afternoon, on the very final leg of their marathon season-opening road trip, the Portland Timbers were leading Orlando City 2-0 and headed quite satisfyingly for their first victory of 2018.

Seven minutes later, they'd thrown it all away.

First, Orlando rookie Chris Mueller flicked a near-post corner past Jake Gleeson. Next Sacha Kljestan slammed in a penalty, and then finally, fatefully, Dom Dwyer got free down the lefthand side, stumbled, recovered, cut, and fired home the winner.

For the Timbers, it was a head-spinning collapse. On the brink of a road-trip culminating result, they were again left, as they were in New York less than a month ago, trying to explain the inexplicable — heading home winless, the progress of the last few weeks drowned in this latest ignominy.

Giovani Savarese, who took "full blame" for what has to be one of the more painful defeats of his coaching career, has a long week in front of him.

The Timbers have let leads slip three times in their last two games, and are stuck on two points a month into the season. Only a vintage-quality slow start from Seattle is between Portland and the foot of the league table.

Liam Ridgewell, finally back on the travel list, hurt his calf in training on Thursday. Fanendo Adi — and the word inexplicable again comes to mind — didn't get into Sunday's game. A veteran player who did, Dairon Asprilla, was apparently fined for breaking a team rule midweek.

None of this is good news. It doesn't mean the sky is falling — the first 60 minutes of this game were the best we've seen from the Timbers this year — but the team's margin for error is shrinking and Savarese still doesn't have his house in order.

Success-starved Orlando should be able to commiserate. The Lions opened this season undermanned and underachieving, ratcheting up the pressure on Kreis and his team to a nearly debilitating level. That pressure and its effects were evident on Sunday, and for a long time, the Timbers appeared primed to take advantage.

The first big moment of the game, which foreshadowed an even bigger moment to come, happened after fifteen minutes when Sebastian Blanco went down in the box under a challenge from Orlando's Libyan fullback Mohamed El Monir.

Referee Baldomero Toledo blew his whistle, walked towards the penalty spot, and then gave a yellow card to Blanco for simulation — Blanco's second, having been booked in the game's first minutes for failing to move back ten yards on an Orlando corner.

It was the wrong call, and it didn't take long at the video review screen for Toledo to figure it out. He rescinded the second yellow card and gave the Timbers a penalty, which Valeri finished with relish past Joe Bendik to make it 1-0.

The rest of the opening period proceeded smoothly for Portland. Justin Meram got a look on the doorstep off a flicked-on corner right at the end of the half, but Gleeson reacted superbly to turn him away. Overall, it was all going to plan.

Orlando should responded in a big way trailing to start the second half, but they didn't. Instead, Blanco slammed a ball off the crossbar, Valeri hit the post a minute later, and finally the Timbers doubled their advantage when Bill Tuiloma rose highest to head a free kick past Bendik for his first ever MLS goal.

The game was coming awfully easily. Blanco was putting on a show as an advanced playmaker and getting plenty of support from the likes of Valeri and Cristhian Paredes. Thanks in large part to the phenomenal work of Diego Chara, as well as a dogged effort from Andy Polo, the Timbers' backline was fairly comfortable.

Orlando, meanwhile, looked dead in the water — checked out defensively, idealess going forward, and entirely frustrated. The stadium was quiet. Kreis was slumped into his chair on the bench.

But slowly, and then all at once, the substitutions from both managers changed the game.

Kreis, likely coaching for his job, made the right moves: two gutty, motivated players — the rookie Mueller and the repeat NASL Golden Boot winner Stefano Pinho — replaced, in Colman and Justin Meram, two of their well-paid, bottled-up teammates.

Savarese, on the other hand, made two completely confounding decisions. First, Lawrence Olum replaced Paredes, then Dairon Asprilla came on for Sam Armenteros.

Combined, the changes took the Timbers out of their rhythm and worked to drop them into a defensive shell. Outside of that, why Asprilla — a winger who in his Timbers career has played maybe a half hour at striker — was asked to play up top while Adi sat in reserve is hard to fathom.

If Savarese was trying to send a message to Adi by not playing him, Adi needn't have been on the bench. If he thought Asprilla at forward for the final half hour would give the Timbers a better chance to win, he was wrong in a very costly way.

The comeback started when Alvas Powell lost Mueller, who headed in his first MLS goal to make it 2-1, but it was doused in kerosene when, as Mueller sent in a deep cross two minutes later, Dwyer threw himself into Powell, fell down, and was awarded a penalty by Toledo.

It was a shocking call, but what made it inexcusable was Toledo's followup decision not to review it. And as bad as that was, it wasn't exactly surprising.

There are plenty of bad MLS referees, but Toledo is unique. Where Ted Unkel is penalty-happy, and Chris Penso is card-happy, and Mark Geiger is, well, you know, there's no pattern with Toledo. He's just guessing. Every time he takes the field, on nearly every call, he's just flipping a coin.

Sometimes it works out. When it doesn't, it doesn't in spectacular fashion. There is no logical reason why the first penalty decision would be reviewed and the second one wouldn't be, but there was no logic there. Today, the Timbers got burned.

Kljestan ripped the penalty in, and five minutes later — five minutes spent largely with the Timbers training staff on the field tending to an injured Powell — Dwyer would have the final word.

R.J. Allen sent a ball into the lefthand channel, where the Orlando striker had pulled off the shoulder of Bill Tuiloma. Dwyer ran onto the pass went charging into the box, stumbled as he pulled back, and then, just as Tuiloma went diving in for the ball, regained his footing, cut towards goal, and beat the onrushing Gleeson.

The Timbers had one last chance, when Chara put a dime of a cross onto Asprilla's head in stoppage time, but the Colombian winger-turned-striker headed the ball wide. When Toledo blew the final whistle, the Lions had their first winning streak in nearly a year.

The sense of relief in the stadium and amongst the Orlando players and coaches was explosive. Kreis said in his press conference that over the course of the game he felt like he'd "been to hell and brought back out to heaven."

It made sense. So far removed from his glory days with Real Salt Lake, Kreis needed that comeback in the worst possible way.

Come next Saturday, the stakes for the Timbers and their manager are going to be similarly drastic.