The Portland Timbers pummeled the Houston Dynamo by a score of four goals to nil on Saturday night at the corner of 18th and Morrison. It was a rout by every measure. The Timbers fired off 24 shots, completed more than 500 passes, and had over 55 percent possession. Houston managed just a single attempt on target.
But what the numbers can't themselves communicate is just how scintillating, how fabulous, the Timbers' soccer was.
Giovani Savarese's team put on a show. Diego Valeri led the charge, finding his rhythm, gliding around the field like a gazelle, and dropping dime after dime on a Dynamo defense worn, eventually, to the point of exhaustion. He'd finish the night with a hat trick of assists and a goal of his own, a penalty conversion.
It wasn't just the Maestro: Brian Fernandez capped a tireless performance with another goal, his eighth in six appearances with the Timbers, tying in the process the record for consecutive games on the scoresheet to begin an MLS career.
Marvin Loría scored a sensational goal on his MLS debut, Jeremy Ebobisse got his first goal in nearly two months, the defense finally clinched its first clean sheet of the year — it was just one of those nights. You couldn't have drawn it up much better, and the 25,000-plus there to witness the display couldn't have enjoyed it much more.
From the get-go, the writing was on the wall for Houston. So often a formidable opponent for the Timbers, the Dynamo were without a bevy of key players on international duty — and one star who was present, striker Mauro Manotas, arrived in Portland late and had to make do with a place on the bench.
With a severely shorthanded attack unable largely unable to hold the ball or generate chances, the Dynamo's defense was left to try to absorb pressure from the Timbers' attack.
Through the game's first half hour, they did okay: Portland dominated the game and had plenty of action in and around the box, but Dynamo goalkeeper Joe Willis made two strong stops, one on Fernandez and one on Jorge Moreira, to keep the Timbers off the board.
Houston's best stretch, in fact, came towards the end of the first half. That's when they were first able to slow the game down, winning several fouls and drawing a yellow card on Diego Chara, and even coming close to scoring themselves when a deflected Marlon Hariston shot clipped the outside of Steve Clark's post.
As it turned out, Hariston's chance would be the high point for the Dynamo. Just a minute later, the Timbers sprung forward, Valeri carrying the ball down the left wing, cutting inside, and lofting a long switch towards the righthand side of the box where Moriera, ever eager to bound forward, had made a huge attacking run.
The fullback's play was to cushion a header backwards into the path of the oncoming Loría, who, as he was falling to the ground, lashed a volley that snuck inside of Willis' near post to give Portland the lead.
The look on the young Costa Rican's face was pure joy. On the occasion of his first MLS appearance, a product of Sebastian Blanco's suspension and the international committments of both Andy Polo and Andres Flores, he'd scored a better goal than most players do in their entire careers.
In the second half, they would do just that. Barely more than ten minutes after the restart, Fernandez fed Valeri at the top of the box, who, instead of shooting, dinked a little pass right to Loría — who got to the ball, knocked it forward, and was cleaned out for a penalty.
Old man DaMarcus Beasley, playing his final match in Portland before retirement, was the culprit, and, after a lengthy delay, Valeri stepped up and buried the spot kick.
The floodgates were open. Five minutes later, the Timbers struck in transition again — Valeri sending a dream of a pass towards Fernandez who had broken just onside behind the right side of the Dynamo defense. Fernandez took one touch, then another to set himself, and then fired the ball into the corner.
At 3-0, the Timbers were a sight to behold, passing and moving with style, and looking a threat to score every time they broke past halfway. Fernandez nearly set the table for the fourth goal just a handful of minutes after the third, but Willis came up with saves to deny Chara and then Loría on the rebound.
In fact, the fourth goal would be a solo effort. Moved out to the wing to accommodate Fernandez, Ebobisse had played a fine game — but had missed two decent chances from close in, one in each half.
With a quarter of an hour to go, he didn't miss anything. Found by Valeri on the righthand corner of the box, he faced up AJ DeLaGarza, cut him inside, and then, from an extremely tight angle, curled a shot into the side netting.
It looked like a goal Carlos Vela would score. From an extraordinarily tight angle, Ebobisse made it work with his weaker foot, his right foot, cutting in from the left. From a player whose immediate future was thrown into doubt by the Fernandez signing, it was a statement of a finish.
Valeri got his curtain call shortly thereafter, and the Timbers played out the time remaining on the clock without difficulty. The four goal margin of victory was the largest at Providence Park since Caleb Porter's team thrashed DC United 4-0 on the penultimate day of the 2017 season.
That Portland was so lethal without Blanco in the lineup — with two rookies in the front six, no less — made their achievement that much more impressive. Loría grabbed the headlines in his debut, but Renzo Zambrano, in his first MLS start, was no slouch in central midfield either.
Everything went the Timbers' way. The young players, handed opportunities by Savarese, looked like they belonged. The defense was clean, the fullbacks, especially Moreira, effective going forward. And Fernandez, Valeri, and Chara? They were in a league of their own.
Clark didn't have much to do during the game, but he stole the show after it ended — raising his log slice in a Michael Myers mask, a move, he said, designed to illustrate that Providence Park will be a "house of horrors" for visiting teams throughout the summer.
That, at least, is the idea. After a performance like this one, it's not hard to imagine that it will be.
