Back to Basics: Portland lose 3-1 to Philadelphia Union
Jonathan Rodriguez shines in his debut, not enough to move past Union.
The Portland Timbers lost a disappointing match against the Philadelphia Union, losing 3-1 in Jonathan Rodriguez’s first match as a Timber.
Philadelphia was playing with mostly depth pieces and this loss proved to be an upset for the surging Timbers.
Rodriguez got the start in the first match, with three players out for international duty including Maxime Crepeau and Kamal Miller for Canada and Miguel Araujo for Peru. The line up is here:
POR: GK Pantemis, D Mosquera (Asprilla, 75), D Zuparic, D McGraw, D E. Miller (Ayala, 65), M Chara © (Mora, 65), M Williamson (Paredes, 75), M Moreno, M Evander, F Antony, F Rodríguez (Fogaça, 90+7)
The first scoring play went to Philadelphia in the 28th minute, with Julian Carranza scoring a header off a pass into the box from Kai Wagner.
The 58th minute was particularly tough, as Quinn Sullivan caught a rebound from an initial save to score their second goal.
Philadelphia's last score was in 67th minute when Julian Carranza took advantage of a Mikael Uhre cross to score their third and final goal of the night.
Jonathan Rodriguez was Portland’s lone scorer in the match, receiving a Santiago Moreno cross toward the back post to head the ball in the 80th minute. This was a particularly special goal scoring during the Timbers’ army rendition of “You Are My Sunshine”.
The Timbers started out as the much better team before that initial goal, with Rodriguez immediately making an impact with some nice play between him and Santiago Moreno in the 10th minute along with two other great chances early on. Rodriguez is a great runner and does his best work when the ball is slipped past to him rather than being served in the air, which is a chemistry piece that shouldn’t be expected to be perfect his first time out. His debut overall was great, having five shots on goal, and shows that he’ll fit into the Timbers offense quite nicely once the team figures out the best way to serve him the ball appropriately. He’s already proved to be popular arriving to fanfare from the Timbers crowd walking out from the locker room, and even gained some oohs and aahs from spectators as he simply made some practice shots.
Our defending simply looked poor this match. They continually played it safe in passing but failed to manage Philadelphia’s attack, really missing the presence of Kamal Miller. The backline failed to do everything they were supposed to be working on from last season, particularly being able to avoid set-pieces and defend them appropriately. Coach Phil Neville, who has been refreshingly blunt in his press conferences said that “you have to do the basics really well, and the basics tonight was defending”, which the team simply didn’t do. The left back-side is definitely our biggest piece to improve on with Eric Miller in particular having the most trouble not having K. Miller there to help cover. A conundrum with Miller is that we concede with him on and continue to concede after he’s subbed off. Miller works as a solid depth piece, and should fit into that role when Claudio Bravo is back in a couple of weeks. Juan David Mosquera played much better this match being primarily a little further up the pitch, and does his best work as a part of the attack. James Pantemis played well as Crepeau’s understudy despite that second goal coming off of him and presents the goalkeeper room as the least of the team’s concerns. It’s nice having two starter-caliber goalkeepers on the squad and helps ease tensions if Crepeau gets into injury trouble or goes in deep with the Canadian national team.
The most frustrating part of this match is statistically we had everything working for us, having the majority of the ball, shot attempts, and keeping the fouls to a minimum. The issue came with finishing in the final third. Coach Phil Neville even touched on this saying they should’ve been the ones up 3-1 by the end of the first half. Santiago Moreno and Evander needed to have more a presence in the attack and be comfortable with taking shots and finishing. Evander especially needed some more aggression, he showed it in New York and needs to be able to bring that dominate side out consistently. He’s working through his new role as a #10 and probably isn’t comfortable quite yet further up the pitch, but with a DP salary I would expect more.
Right now, the team is playing like individuals showing off skills when they should be playing as a squad trying to win goals together. That’s where a change in mentality needs to happen, because despite a good personal performance, a loss is a loss and you need to be able to go back to basics, do the “dirty work” as Neville said and play fundamentally well as a team before thinking about shining as an individual. The team also tends to play it safe, Eryk Williamson being a prime example looking to pass rather than take the ball and run with it or go for clear shots. Unselfishness isn’t inherently a bad thing, but you have to be opportunistic when the situation calls for it.
The subs came in and did the dirty work. David Ayala came on for Eric Miller and was outstanding, being in the running for a starting position when the team travels to Vancouver next weekend per Neville. Dairon Asprilla played his role as a spark plug when he replaced Mosquera in the 75th minute, and should’ve been on the pitch much earlier. Asprilla deserves more from the front office as he’s elevated deflated games time and again and should be treated like the club legend his is. He might be inconsistent, but with Asprilla his moments of brilliance can become folklore. Felipe Mora was the final sub coming in for Diego Chara, who Neville had taken out to avoid yellow card trouble down the line, and played decently in our first look at a two strike partnership with Mora and Rodriguez.
The referees continue to be inconsistent. Chara’s yellow card in the first half wasn’t deserved, and the ref didn’t call a blatant handball when Philadelphia’s goalkeeper was clearly out of the box. It seems like every week there’s another issue with the officiating, but there’s unfortunately still no news regarding the referee lockout that’s effecting the league as a whole.
Overall, this match was just disappointing. The team needs a change of mentality to win in the league and be comfortable taking risks to get the ball in the net. Our defense was weak, but should improve when Kamal Miller comes back next week and Claudio Bravo is reintegrated from injury, his time table being about two weeks. We simply need more from the attack to compete. Neville is still the man for the job, and shouldn’t be in the hot seat, but it’s up to him to consistently instill that winning, “foot on the pedal” mentality that we’ve seen flashes of this season.
Portland’s next match is away at Vancouver Saturday, March 30th at 7:30pm. The game is available to stream on Apple TV+ and on radio at 750 The Game.
Clear, complete and concise as usual - Thanks, Ross!
I'm gonna focus on defending. Phil's post-match comments were spot on, and they speak loudly about what I see to be 2 problems with current player selection and formation.
Problem #1 - our first-choice CBs aside from Kamal are not good passers. Zak, in particular, looks not confident about even trying passes to advance the ball out of the back, and of course that means most of his passes are inaccurate. When Kamal's not in the lineup this becomes a big problem. and making this worse, none of our CBs including EMiller - except maybe Aruajo - are especially quick to the ball or fast.
Problem #2 - The midfield group, aside from Chara, is doing a lousy job of helping the defense. Evander's too far forward, Williamson's mind is on offense so he doesn't backtrack hard enough. And Santi's game, but he often gets outbattled for entry passes from his defenders by bigger guys. Philly and DCU in particular stack big guys in midfield and press very physically, and we just haven't done well against that.
We're out of balance right now. We have too many small and 'offense first' guys in a midfield that includes Mosquera. And just not enough bodies/speed in the back to cover for the midfield turnovers that occur from bad passes and our small guys losing out on the ball.
I'd really like to see us go to a 3 CB set and sit Williamson for Ayala, who is a genuine defender, good short passer and and tough ball carrier who can break out of the back against presses.