After three months and 14 games, the Portland Timbers’ unbeaten run is over — gone in a 3-2 reverse in Los Angeles on Wednesday night that ends the Timbers’ U.S. Open Cup pursuit at the quarterfinal stage.
The Timbers’ 12-game MLS unbeaten streak is still intact, but this loss stings. It comes on the heels of a 0-0 result with LAFC on Sunday night that portended well for this second of back-to-back encounters, and deprives the club of a serious shot at silverware.
But unlike that 0-0 draw, played in the midday heat, this was a night game, one which required a winner, and one which both clubs went after with gusto.
In the end, though, it was the first-year side — and, not coincidentally, the team that started more of their top players — that prevailed. This is LAFC’s first win ever over the Timbers, and one of their young franchise’s most consequential.
The game crackled with energy from the opening whistle, with the Timbers getting the first major chance when Dairon Asprilla was played through on goal by Sebastian Blanco. Asprilla’s initial shot was tame, but he stung the rebound — and forced a phenomenal, one-handed reflex save from LAFC goalkeeper Tyler Miller.
After that, the home team began to assert their authority.
Vela took a free quick short to Lee Nguyen and eventually had the ball cycled back to him, at which point he swung a cross into the penalty area that David Guzman — making his first start for the Timbers in more than three months — headed it backwards and in under pressure from Marco Ureña to give LAFC the lead.
Five minutes later, it’d be 2-0. Marc-Anthony Kaye fizzed a cross over Jeff Attinella that hit Walker Zimmerman and ricocheted to Vela, who gathered the ball on his lethal left foot, took two touches inside past Diego Chara and Julio Cascante, and curled his shot into the far corner.
It was a sparkling finish from the Mexican star, and it might have put the game out of reach. Instead, just before halftime, Portland punched back — Julio Cascante stooping to nod home his first Timbers goal from a lovely Guzman free kick to make it 2-1.
But if the goal gave the Timbers a boost going into halftime, it didn’t last. LAFC would restore their two-goal advantage shortly after the restart, when Attinella palmed a hard from Diego Rossi back into the penalty area to the benefit of Jordan Harvey, whose mishit shot skewed directly to Ureña for a tap-in.
It was the Costa Rican’s first goal for the expansion club, and it was celebrated richly. It was also, then, immediately answered by Vytas of all players, who burst forward from left back and smashed in a terrific Asprilla cross to make it 3-2.
With the Timbers in the ascendency, though, Bob Bradley went to his bench for Benny Feilhaber and then Adama Diomande and watched his team retake control. They were aggressive moves, and the right ones.
As a rule on this night, Bradley held nothing and no one back. Giovani Savarese did, which meant that Blanco, Diego Valeri, and Samuel Armenteros, the attacking trio that has so terrorized MLS defenses over the last month, never got on the field as a complete unit.
The Timbers’ offense thus lacked a certain sharpness, even with Blanco bright and Diego Chara doing his utmost to contribute, but it was the defense — missing Larrys Mabiala for just the second time all season — whose regression was most damaging.
The Timbers weren’t nearly as well organized as they were on Sunday, especially on that side of the ball, and the result was an altogether less tactical, more open game.
That favored LAFC, if not the team with the better players then certainly the team with the better players on the field. Vela, deployed wisely in a central position, was superb all night and ended up drawing a pair of yellow cards on Guzman and Cascante that helped to kill the game off. Rossi and Latif Blessing were similarly effective.
A fourth LAFC goal would have expedited that process, and while the home team had the ball in the net twice in the game’s final quarter hour, both goals were ruled out for offside: the first a very narrow call against Diomande, the second a more comfortable flag on Rossi.
Ultimately, those calls mattered not. Save for a Valeri header swallowed by Miller, the Timbers didn’t get a clean look at an equalizer — and suffered a defeat very much understandable, but equally disappointing.
Had the Timbers won this game, they would have stood on the cusp of a second major trophy in club history — facing first a semifinal against Houston, and then, potentially, an eminently winnable final against either Philadelphia or Chicago.
So while Savarese has pushed all the right buttons since March, he might rue his approach to this game on multiple fronts.
On one hand, after playing a back-five on Sunday, he opted for a more attacking system anchored by a player at the base of his midfield in Guzman who is not nearly the defender that Chara or even Lawrence Olum is. The Timbers consequently had more of the ball, but couldn’t corral LAFC’s playmakers in transition.
More broadly, his decision to leave the likes of Mabiala, Valeri, and Armenteros out is worth interrogating. Given the stakes of the two games, wouldn’t you rather have had those players in the lineup tonight than against Montreal in an intra-conference midseason league game on the weekend?
And lastly, perhaps most importantly, there’s Fanendo Adi’s situation. The big striker was on the bench on Sunday, but conspicuously absent on Wednesday night. He appears to be on his way out of the club, which, even considering Armenteros’s form, seems like a colossal gamble from the Timbers.
Without Adi, the club’s backup striker is Asprilla — who, as hard as he works and as much as he’s improved in the position, cannot be counted upon for goals. Had Adi started in Asprilla’s place, with the chances that Asprilla got, he might have made all the difference.
Perspective is, as always, key. This is the first serious setback the Timbers have suffered in months, and it comes just before a long homestand that should see the club shoot to the very top of the Western Conference table.
And yet, we’re entering a pivotal stretch of the Timbers’ season — one that will change the roster, and set the course for the club’s playoff run and future, in hugely significant ways.
