Sunday night was, in a number of ways, another success for the Portland Timbers at Providence Park.
Brian Fernandez broke the record for most consecutive games with a goal to start an MLS career, Steve Clark and the team’s defense notched another clean sheet, and the Timbers picked up three more valuable points at the expense of a Western Conference playoff rival.
That they were able to gut out a victory at home, 1-0 against a highly competent FC Dallas team, is a positive sign. The Timbers aren’t going to score two and three and four goals every night for the rest of the year, but if they can see out results like this one, their rise up the table is going to be nearly impossible to stop.
More than any of that, though, more than Fernandez, even, the story of Sunday night begins and ends with Diego Chara. Anyone who saw the game has a pretty clear understanding of why. Chara is, of course, always somewhere between good and excellent. But this display was something else entirely.
The stats, in this case, convey plenty. Chara finished the evening an outrageous 24 defensive actions, including a game-high five tackles won, 15 recoveries, a pair of clearances and a block. He started almost every notable Timbers’ attack through the game’s first hour, made two key passes, and, most importantly, sprung Fernandez for the game-winning goal.
It was a dominant performance, perhaps the best by a defensive midfielder in MLS all season, and it needed to be: this wasn’t easy going for the Timbers, and thus it’s no stretch at all to say that Chara’s contributions, which multiplied by the minute at various stages, single-handedly swung the contest in their favor.
Giovani Savarese, given often to praise but almost never to hyperbole, said that it was Chara’s “best performance since I’ve been here.” He was dangerous with the ball, he was dangerous without the ball, he covered more ground than anyone else, and he thought and played faster than anyone else on the field.
That the Timbers leaned so heavily on Chara might have come as a surprise. Savarese had Diego Valeri, Sebastian Blanco, Jeremy Ebobisse, and Fernandez in the starting lineup at home for the first time, while Dallas entered having conceded multiple goals in their last four road games. It appeared to be a recipe for goals.
But the visitors hung tough. For a team under a first-year manager that started three teenagers and a 20-year-old, theirs was an admirably composed display. They were clean and organized defensively, they played the ball out of the back, and they very well might have come away with a point.
In the end, they just lacked a little bit of composure and a little bit of pop. It’s a story that Dallas fans, who saw their team reach the playoffs and fail to reach MLS Cup in four of Oscar Pareja’s five seasons in charge, are all too familiar with.
From the get-go, this game had a different feeling than the first several played at the renovated Providence Park. The teams spent most of the first half hour feeling each other out, trading spells of largely contained possession.
It was only at the end of that opening period on into the final quarter hour of the half that the Timbers began to take the upper hand. A hard, late foul by Dominic Badji on Blanco raised the game’s temperature by several degrees shortly thereafter, and the question became whether Dallas would make it to the locker room with the score level.
As it happened, Chara made sure that they wouldn’t. Three minutes from halftime, the Colombian started a counter deep in the Timbers’ half, sending a pass wide right to Blanco and continuing his run, tearing down the center of the field until Blanco curved a return pass directly into his path.
But instead of taking a touch, Chara, without breaking stride, let the ball run — straight to the feet of Fernandez, arriving on the backside of the play, who set himself, and sliced a shot with the outside of his foot that deflected off of Matt Hedges and left Dallas goalkeeper Jesse Gonzalez stranded as it flew in.
It felt, even with an hour to go, like a decisive goal — just as Marvin Loría’s strike at the end of the first half proved so decisive in the Houston game last weekend.
That Fernandez had powered the ball in off of Hedges’ face only made it that much more frustrating for Dallas. The Timbers’ taking a lead into halftime meant that, in the second half, the visitors would have to chase the game and likely leave themselves vulnerable in transition.
But while the Timbers started the second half in fine form, they couldn’t find the goal that would have killed the game off. The best chance to make such an impact fell to Ebobisse just more than five minutes after the restart, but he dragged a wide open look from a pinpoint Blanco cross wide.
Dallas manager Luchi Gonzalez had seen enough, and made a move that would begin to turn the tide — bringing Bryan Acosta, just back from Gold Cup duty with Honduras, on for Edwin Cerillo in central midfield.
The impact of the change was significant. Acosta gave Dallas a foothold in the center of the park while also helping to free young playmaker Paxton Pomekyl to find the game further up the field, and, after one more positive substitution, Santiago Mosquera for the feckless Badji, chances started to come Dallas’ way.
The best, the one they’ll fly back to Texas regretting having not taken, fell to rookie forward Jesus Ferreira. With 15 minutes to play, Michael Barrios chipped a ball over the top in between two Timbers defenders that sat up for Ferreria to hit, but he snatched at the shot and sent it high and wide.
Dallas would go on keeping the ball in midfield generating traffic in and around the Timbers’ penalty area, but they wouldn’t get another clear look.
Had Acosta or even Mosquera been in the lineup to start, Dallas almost certainly would have better positioned. Then again, Portland’s defense barely flinched all night. The veterans along the backline were solid, and Julio Cascante, playing every day with Bill Tuiloma hurt, is in the best form of his Timbers career.
And that — the Cascantes and Jorge Moreiras playing well — is what should terrify everyone else in the West. The Timbers have the elite players. Fernandez has a mind-boggling nine goals in seven games with the club. Valeri had three assists last weekend, Chara this weekend should be a shoo-in for Player of the Week.
But if everyone else is playing well too, the sky is the limit for this team. Dallas has good young players and a smart young coach, but they don’t have the elite talent. Few teams do.
June is in the books. The best from these Timbers is, almost certainly, yet to come.
