It’s been that kind of year. Rarely have the Portland Timbers played great soccer. Diego Valeri has been injured and bottled up. He’s provided little, and Darlington Nagbe has provided less. The Timbers have fewer goals per game than all but one team in MLS, and there aren’t any obvious answers in sight.
And yet Portland is comfortably ensconced in a Western Conference playoff spot because of nights like these. Twice previously this season, Jack Jewsbury has given the Timbers stoppage time winners. This time, it was Nat Borchers throwing himself at a corner kick to score the latest goal in Timbers MLS history — the team’s first against Nick Rimando in two years for a 1-0 win over Real Salt Lake.
These Timbers are cashing all their favors from all those years gone by in this double anniversary season, and it’s how they’re staying ahead of the wrath of middling performance after middling performance.
Borchers’ most comfortable resting place is stoicism, but even he was moved to tears by beating the team he spent the best years of his life with. It was simply a great sports moment from a great sportsman; a great Timbers moment from one of the pillars of the once-great team the Timbers could never beat.
It didn’t always look like the Timbers would be in position for yet another memorable moment. Portland was dominated in the first half, giving the ball away cheaply as Real Salt Lake misfired chance after chance after chance.
In the final reckoning, the Timbers would end up with only 35.5% of possession — the lowest number in the Caleb Porter era. Lucas Melano got his first start and was totally ineffective, looking unnerved every time play approached him unless he could turn and race a defender, while Will Johnson had a tough night in his old home and pulled up lame late.
But Portland, as they have so many times this year, held on and began to improve. Diego Valeri was stonewalled on a great chance by Nick Rimando, who could probably win the mayoral election here if he wanted to, and Maxi Urruti looked threatening with several sights of goal.
But the Timbers’ best chance came when Borchers rose up to power a header at the top right hand corner of the Salt Lake, only to see RSL’s shortest player, Sebastian Saucedo, clear it off the line. It foreshadowed a moment of even greater impact to follow, one that puts the Timbers a heady eight points above the red line.
Real Salt Lake, meanwhile, is just about cooked, and they’re cooked because their big signings — namely Olmes Garcia and Sebastian Jaime — are both absolutely abysmal. RSL have managed themselves into the ground. They decided they didn’t have room for Borchers after all, when he would have been the team’s best center-back and a defensive fixture this year. Salt Lake got exactly what it deserved.
Still, watching the aftermath of Borchers scoring against the club in his heart for the club on jersey was like spying on some sort of intense therapy session. Borchers’ raw emotion on the Rio Tinto Stadium grass, in the middle of not celebrating the biggest goal of his career, has to be one of the moments of RSL’s season — and the feeling here is that the goal was between him and them more than him and us.
Borchers will always have a home in Portland, but Portland will never really be his home. That’s what made his performance on Saturday night all the more admirable. He’s the best that’s happened to this Timbers side all year.
One look at the statistics will tell you that this Timbers team is about defense and magic dust. Portland has scored almost half its goals this season after the 75th minute, and as frustrating as this team has been this year, there’s no denying that it has considerable guts.
Improvement still has to happen before things get serious in the fall. Caleb Porter can bask in the glory of a win that he compared to the one LA clinched with Andrew Jean-Baptiste’s similar winner in 2013, but he can’t be satisfied. Portland continues to make hard work of MLS’ weaker teams.
August was always going to have to be moving month, with four games against non-playoff teams. So far, the Timbers have a solid seven points — but with just two goals scored. Borchers’ winner saves Portland the trouble of having to face up to another performance that felt underwhelming at best.
Figuring out how to get Melano more comfortable and in his best position will be key, and at some point Nagbe is going to have to show up around the eighteen yard box.
But for now, you just have to sit back, smile, and shake your head. Most teams get one moment like this is a season, maybe two if they’re lucky and good to boot. But the Timbers, who might not even be that good, have had three — so at what point do you say to yourself, well, maybe something highly unusual is happening with this team this year?
Only time will tell if the Timbers really have something special going on, or whether all the late magic from wily old veterans is just fool’s gold.
Borchers, of course, is solid. Pure gold. His goal was Portland’s gain and Real Salt Lake’s loss in a nutshell, and it will go down in Timbers lore as one of the most poignant moments in the history of this great franchise.
