Well, at least it was functional. Not uplifting, not particularly helpful, not particularly horrible. Just functional. The Portland Timbers traveled south for their final meeting against the San Jose Earthquakes and played out soccer’s cardinal sin: The slow, monotonous, dreaded 0-0 draw.
The Timbers will take it, though, especially considering the 15 goals shipped in their last four road matches. The plan, clearly, was to end that trend. Portland played compact and composed in defense, didn’t take any chances, and got a first away clean sheet since mid-April.
But they couldn’t get anything going offensively, save for Fanendo Adi hitting the post early in the second half, and the game’s key play: Diego Valeri taking a chunk out of the Avaya Stadium grass and slamming his penalty off the crossbar. The lesson as always? No one makes penalties hard like the Portland Timbers, who are simply too cavalier with the highest percentage scoring play in the game.
Because of that penalty miss, and Adi’s close call, Caleb Porter claimed that the Timbers should have won the game. The Earthquakes, thanks to their early dominance and overall superiority in the run of play, felt like the frustrated and aggrieved party themselves. No one can complain too vociferously, though. It was just a 0-0 draw. Nothing more, nothing less.
The was the Timbers’ final meeting with the ‘Quakes this season, and that’s a good thing. 180 minutes between the two sides this year has produced nothing but that Jack Jewsbury miracle goal in Portland, a couple of flying elbows from Jordan Stewart, and some hellish refereeing.
These two teams aren’t made for each other. The spark that turned this contest into a mini-rivalry in 2013 is mostly gone. The only thing left to really despise about this Earthquakes outfit is the recently renamed San Jose Ultras supporters group, but considering that the Ultras are quite a bit less popular these days than the massive bar in their stadium, not even they can make much of an impact anymore.
To be clear, San Jose needed to win this game. They’re sitting in ninth place in the Western Conference, a long ways away from relevancy. The ‘Quakes haven’t won since July, and time is running out to make a big move. For them, at this point in the season, winning conference home games against the likes of the Timbers is a must.
Portland just needed not to lose. The Timbers aren’t a great road team—there are very few of those anyway—and they aren’t one of the Western Conference’s better sides. Consolidating a playoff position is the biggest priority right now, and drawing conference road games is good enough for that.
In reality, the Timbers can’t afford to look beyond that. It was telling enough that Caleb Porter went into this trip—against a team whose best attempt at offense appeared to be running career center midfielder Shea Salinas at Alvas Powell—and instructed his side to sit back and play with maximum caution.
The defense did play well, especially the central defenders and the central midfielders ahead of them. San Jose’s Matias Perez Garcia is terrific, but Diego Chara was in his head by the end of the proceedings. But it was the ‘Quakes season-long attacking struggles made Portland’s frugal approach work more than anything else.
On offense, where the Timbers only have one true run-of-play goal in over a month, things are getting ugly. Diego Valeri’s understandable rustiness notwithstanding, the Timbers are simply impotent. Nothing is coming easy, from making runs, to decisions, to finding the type of urgency that is crucial to any type of ambitious soccer.
Rodney Wallace continues have a frustratingly useless season. Darlington Nagbe is being outscored by Pa Modou Kah, and the personnel decsions have been perplexing. Fanendo Adi has been the only consistently worthwhile attacker this summer, but he appears to be on the shortest leash—and just when Porter convinced everyone of Gaston Fernandez’s value, the mercurial Argentine has fallen out of favor again. He didn’t even make the trip to San Jose.
Lucas Melano wasn’t as bright in this one as he was in Dallas, but he’s a winger in any case—not a true forward. Adi’s presence is vital going forward.
The Timbers have been frustrating this season. Outside of beating up on severely under-manned teams at home in late May and June, the Timbers haven’t been able to string together wins or inspiring performances. August is the month the Timbers have to win. They play all four of their matches this month against non-playoff teams. After that? It’s seven straight playoff teams before the season finish at home against Colorado.
The Timbers continue to believe in themselves more than anyone else, starting at the top with the ever-combative Merritt Paulson, and continuing on through Caleb Porter and the team. That’s a good thing, too—until it veers into denial. We’re not there yet, but if this season ends with another dud, it’ll be interesting to see how the franchise responds.
On the field, Porter and Gavin Wilkinson have filled every position. The Timbers’ starting lineup to finish this season is filled with eleven players that have either been handpicked by the current regime, or, in the case of Nagbe and Chara, standouts in their own right.
It’s their team. Totally and completely. Year three is always the landmark year for coaches and GMs in any sport. I think Porter is a good coach, and I don’t believe that the Timbers’ 2013 success was a fluke. But the rest of the league is getting better around the Timbers, and the jury is out on whether Portland is keeping up.
The Timbers proved on Sunday that they could defend against San Jose. If they had won, either through Adi or Valeri’s spot-kick—and seriously, the day the team decides that Will Johnson has recovered enough to take penalties can’t come soon enough—it wouldn’t have been totally deserved.
Results like these just postpone the final day of reckoning in this 2015 season. But that day is coming, and one way or another, it will be a referendum on how good this Timbers franchise actually is.
