Though they were resting starters ahead of an all-important U.S. Open Cup semifinal, and though they’d only won on two of their previous 13 visits to the Northwest, as the second half heated up on Saturday night at Providence Park, the Philadelphia Union were holding the Portland Timbers at bay.
Then, in an instant, with a touch of class from the imperious Diego Valeri and an explosion from Alvas Powell, that all changed.
And so, a slog for an hour, this turned into one of the feel-good nights of the season so far. Dairon Asprilla and David Guzmán both scored their first league goals in more than a year, and the Timbers surged to their first multi-goal victory for more than three months.
In that final half hour, the Timbers turned on the style in a way that we’ve rarely seen even during this wonderful, now 15-game, unbeaten run. That meant a proper sendoff for longtime assistant Sean McAuley, Orlando City-bound after seven years in Portland, and another sign that this team is very much for real.
Before the good times started to roll, however, the Timbers again started slowly. Philadelphia owned the opening period of the game, swinging the ball around midfield and taking aim at Zarek Valentin on the Timbers’ left flank with Keegan Rosenberry and Fabian Herbers.
But while the Union had some amount of success driving at Valentin, they couldn’t quite free CJ Sapong in the middle to convert any of numerous crosses they flighted towards him. Sapong himself created his best chance after 20-odd minutes, but his curling effort resulted in an easy catch for Jeff Attinella.
By the end of the half, the game was turning. Diego Chara set up Andy Polo for an excellent chance ten minutes before the break which the Peruvian midfielder smashed over, before Valeri went close after being sent through by Samuel Armenteros.
All the while, Savarese was pushing Powell and Valentin higher and higher up the field until the 5-3-2 was unequivocally a 3-5-2. With the game 0-0 at halftime, the Timbers were in a comfortable position.
And yet, it was the Union who should have had the lead after the restart. Just five minutes into the second half, their best cross of the game fell on the backside to second-year midfielder Derrick Jones. He took a touch, set himself, and smashed a volley towards goal — that Attinella met and pushed behind.
It was an incredible save, at extremely close range, and it took the air out of the visitors. Five minutes after that, it’d be Powell, his aggressive positioning and blinding pace, that would finally break the game open.
Valeri received the ball in the midfield as the Timbers came forward, turned, and tucked a pass just behind Fabinho to where Powell was flying down the wing. The Jamaican charged onto the ball, and was gone. All the Union fullback could do was run him down for a stone-cold penalty.
The Maestro stepped up, and, having converted in a shootout in the MLS All-Star game midweek, tucked it down the middle to give the Timbers the lead.
Valeri’s composure, both in playing the pass and converting the spotkick, was characteristically suave. But it was Powell, again unshackled from his defensive responsibilities and again playing out of his skin, who the Union couldn’t handle.
Their manager Jim Curtin called Powell the Timbers’ “most dangerous player,” and he wasn’t wrong. The 3-5-2, if only because Powell is almost unrecognizable in it, might be Portland’s top formation as they advance into the season’s final stages.
The Timbers continued to control the game as it moved along, and then got another break late on to put the game away. Valeri received the ball on the corner of the penalty area at a jog, took one touch, took one touch inside, and was tripped by a retreating Warren Creavalle.
Then, just as he did more than two years ago in a game against Vancouver, Valeri gave Asprilla, who had replaced Armenteros as a substitute several minutes previously, the chance to take the penalty.
It was a lovely moment, and Asprilla, also as he did in that game against the Whitecaps, responded: Andre Blake got a hand to his shot, but its power was enough to carry it in anyway. Valeri was the first man over to congratulate the Colombian, joined in an instant by half of the rest of the team.
The outsize response to the goal was no mistake. Relegated to T2 at the start of the season, playing a completely foreign position, Asprilla — not for the first time — refused to go away.
He’s made tremendous strides as a striker over the last two months, and as he’s gotten more comfortable in the role, the physicality and workrate that made him such an integral part of last season’s team have returned in abundance.
This opportunity, then, considering how close he twice came to scoring in his start last weekend, was a just reward. If Asprilla is this team’s second option at striker for the remainder of the season, they’ll be absolutely fine. That’s saying something — about the player, and the coaching staff that has helped bring him along.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, another Timbers player in desperate need of a positive performance got himself on the scoresheet.
Guzmán hadn’t started an MLS match since the March 11 debacle at Red Bull Arena — a game in which he both played miserably and was injured — and had only appeared once, for a six-minute cameo at Colorado, in the intervening months.
But with Sebastian Blanco suspended, and Cristhian Paredes and Andres Flores both badly underwhelming two weeks ago against Montreal, Guzmán got his chance.
It took him a half hour or so to find his feet, but once he did, he looked very much like the player who so impressed when he arrived in Portland last spring: keeping the game simple, covering ground, moving the ball, and hanging tough defensively.
When it was all said and done, Guzmán attempted 65 passes — a sign of the level of his involvement in the game — and connected on all but three.
The piece de resistance of his evening, however, came just before the beginning of stoppage time. Chara won a deep free kick, which Valeri looped towards the back post, where Guzman — all five-foot ten of him — adjusted his run, leaned back, and flicked a header back across goal and into the side netting.
Alejandro Bedoya, who’d entered as a substitute, claimed a push. There wasn’t one. All there was was one of the sweetest, most intelligent headers of the year from a player whose only previous contribution at set pieces in his Timbers career had been delivering them.
Guzman ran towards the far sideline to celebrate close to his family. Bedoya, meanwhile, stewing, would be booked for an ugly tackle in stoppage time.
But that would only momentarily halt the party. The coaching staff assembled on the field after the final whistle for a group photo, bidding McAuley farewell, which the Timbers Army did several minutes later by inviting him onto the same central capo stand that Fanendo Adi said goodbye from last weekend.
Adi credited McAuley for a significant amount of his drastic improvement at the beginning of his stay in Portland, and there’s no question that the affable Englishman — who worked for three different managers during his long run at the club — was a much loved, appreciated figure.
As he said in his postgame remarks, though, he’s leaving a team in very good hands. Savarese’s orchestration this season has been sublime, and as good as the Timbers have been already, you get the feeling that there is still much more to come.
