On a night when Giovani Savarese was called away from his team to attend to a serious health matter concerning his father, the Portland Timbers did their manager proud.
Very proud. Three days after handing NYCFC their first home loss of the season, the Timbers traveled to Los Angeles to play an LAFC team also unbeaten at home and already being considered alongside the best in MLS history, and knocked them out of the U.S. Open Cup.
In a vacuum, this 1-0 victory has to rate as one of the most impressive, one of the most fantastic, in the club’s recent history. If the Timbers go on to win the cup — and they’re now just two games away from the trophy — it will without a doubt take its place in the annals of Timbers lore.
Of course, there’s plenty of competition in the pantheon of great Timbers wins, even great Timbers wins in the Savarese era. This, though, was a thing of beauty: the Timbers went toe-to-toe and end-to-end with the league’s best team, on their home turf, and took them down.
It’s payback for LAFC beating the Timbers on the night they re-opened Providence Park and then some. This, for both clubs, was the more important game — one that LAFC had to have to continue their pursuit of a domestic treble, and one that Portland valued just as highly.
It’s also a huge result for what it portends for the rest of the season. When LAFC held off the Timbers in Portland just over a month ago, it was a statement win, confirming their status as the team to beat in the Western Conference and the league at large.
Now, the tables have turned. Since that game against LAFC on June 1, the Timbers have won six times, kept five clean sheets, gotten five more goals from Brian Fernandez, and only lost once — and with a second-string team in Montreal at that.
If these were the best two teams in the country heading into Wednesday night, the takeaway this morning must be that the Timbers are the side to beat.
It’s not that they dominated LAFC by any stretch of the imagination. But they held the league’s most potent offense to one shot on target, and had, by far, the better chances in what was an enormously entertaining, intense, up-and-down affair that lived up to its considerable billing.
From the opening whistle, both teams got after it — LAFC building methodically and smoothly through their midfield, interchanging and probing, and the Timbers sitting deep, defending resolutely, and breaking forward with relish.
The Timbers got the better of the early exchanges, and generated opportunities from open play and set pieces, but couldn’t get on the scoreboard.
There was one major reason why. Bob Bradley, who’d suffer physically as well as emotionally before the end of this evening, had started his best available eleven — except for one player: starting goalkeeper Tyler Miller, back from the Gold Cup, who had to make do with a place on the bench.
In his place, Bradley opted to start the backup Pablo Sisniega, the young Mexican goalkeeper who took the reins in Miller’s absence, and watched him turn in the performance of his burgeoning career.
Around the half hour mark, Sisniega made a trio of outstanding saves: first a fingertip stop on a drive from Cristhian Paredes, then two remarkable saves on Larrys Mabiala, the first on a volley from six yards out, the second on a free header from the same distance.
Marvin Loría had a great look on a counter just minutes after the Mabiala chances, but he dragged his best chance of the game narrowly wide. When halftime arrived with no score, Carlos Llamosa, filling in for Savarese, had to be the more disappointed of the two coaches.
The deeper the game went at 0-0, the more LAFC poured players and energy forward. But unlike in the previous two meetings between these clubs this season, the Timbers never suffered a lapse in their defensive concentration.
They were plenty physical — to the tune of 20 fouls, a number that looks even bigger considering that the referee was Alan Kelly — but they didn’t cross the line at any point like they did trying to slow Carlos Vela in the June match.
Instead, they were just plain effective. Vela was magisterial but largely corralled in and around zone 14. Jorge Moriera did an outstanding job on Diego Rossi, while none of the home team’s central midfielders could come up with a game-breaking intervention.
All the while, the threat of a deadly Timbers’ counter attack loomed. With 20 minutes to go, Jordan Harvey gave the ball away after a long spell of LAFC possession around the Timbers’ penalty area, springing a break that appeared as though it would culminate with a clean chance for Fernandez — only for Harvey, tracking all the way back, to shut it down with a sliding block.
It was Loría’s pass that set up the Fernandez chance, and he’d set Sebastian Blanco up just a minute later with a lovely reverse pass, but Blanco fired his shot straight at Sisniega.
A goal was coming. This game wasn’t heading for extra time — and with seven minutes to go, courtesy of a deflection, the moment arrived. Fernandez picked up the ball on the right wing and cut inside with a big touch that Harvey, again tracking back, deflected straight into the path of Jeremy Ebobisse.
And after a fairly quiet night, the forward sprung towards the ball, and, while turning, lofted it over Sisniega’s shoulder and into the far corner.
With that, the Timbers braced for LAFC’s final push. Predictably, they gave it plenty. Adama Diomande got free down the byline before seeing Steve Clark come out to cut off his close-range shot and Vela sent a free kick whistling just past the post in stoppage time, but LAFC’s best chance would come right at the end.
That’s when a back-flick header from Diomande sent Rossi through on the lefthand side, where he centered the ball just behind Vela — who lashed a bicycle kick that might have been goal-bound but for Zarek Valentin, who stood tall, and blocked it.
It was a sensational last act. Vela and Clark, after bantering throughout the night, shook hands. Blanco, having been substituted, sprinted onto the field to celebrate. For the first time since 2013, the Timbers will play for a berth in the Open Cup final.
Valentin, several minutes later, would call this the best collective defensive performance of his Timbers career. Considering LAFC’s attacking record at home, it was no stretch. That Portland won considering the chances they missed, considering the pressure they absorbed, without Diego Valeri in the starting lineup, or Jorge Villafaña, is nothing short of extraordinary.
The Timbers are on some kind of run. They are, once again, some kind of team. With their leader so far away, they couldn’t have picked a better time to prove it.
