Odds and Ends
• Well that was predictable, right? After gifting points to Toronto and after a run of play that had included just one league win since May, your mental stability would have been questioned if you would have predicted that the Timbers would have so easily handed the Galaxy. Funny game, this soccer.

• Even more interesting is that the Timbers took apart LA using a 4-4-2 formation. After giving a 4-5-1 and other variations of it a go for the past three games, John Spencer went back to what worked at home earlier in the season. And it worked. Even more amazingly it worked with Perlaza and Kenny Cooper paired together up front. The strike force that had striked out looked good together. Cooper was active all night and Perlaza used his speed to have his way with Galaxy defender A.J. DeLaGarza.

• Cooper and Perlaza were effective, in part, because of the play of Sal Zizzo and Darlington Nagbe on the wings. They stretched the LA defense, helping to free up room for the forwards. While Nagbe is still a little reluctant to attack, he did a better job of keeping the ball in motion than what we have seen of Kalif Alhassan. And we all know what Zizzo does. He puts defenders on his heels. It will be interesting to see if this was just a one game aberration or whether this formation with these players will turn out to be successful.

• For all of the Galaxy’s star power they did very little on the offensive end. That was one of the quieter games Landon Donovan has played all year. Juan Pablo Angel was so ineffective that he was yanked in the first half. David Beckham was essentially limited to lobbing in crosses to empty spaces in the box. While the Timbers defenders played a largely mistake-free game, they weren’t really pressured into making mistakes because of the Galaxy’s lackluster play.

• For once there was no reason to question Spencer’s substitutions. This was the first time all season he didn’t make a move before the 80th minute. He didn’t need to.

• Take a minute to consider the plight of Mike Chabala. The dude barely played in Houston for four years. He gets shipped to Portland and is considered largely an after thought. Next thing you know he is starting and ends up scoring an excellent goal on national television against the league’s top team. What a few weeks it has been for him.

• Did anyone miss Jack Jewsbury? The Captain has been great all season but his absence wasn’t really felt at all. James Marcelin played ok (good defensively, terrible at passing) in the holding midfield role. Zizzo/Nagbe handled the corners well. There were a couple of set pieces that he might have contributed to, but otherwise it was a fine night for Jewsbury to take off. Troy Perkins was the captain, by the way.

• It was nice to see Bright Dike dressed on the bench. It was surprising that Eddie Johnson didn’t suit up. Dude scored a goal last game and his reward is a seat in the stands.

• Anyone think that Spencer was saving his players for this game? I have a suspicion that he tried to get away with starting Johnson against Toronto while saving Perlaza’s legs for this one. Perlaza’s legs were a thing of beauty.

• Josh Saunders sure looks fit now that he doesn’t eat the Bullpen’s fryolator food.

• Would love to know what Spencer told Beckham after Golden Balls flopped for a foul. Whatever it was it brought a smile to Becks’ face.

Final Thought: A one game aberration or the start of good run? That is the takeaway question from this game. As bad as the Timbers have looked at times this season they looked fantastic on Wednesday evening. The team has the ability to play up to competition, going 5-2 at home against the league’s top 7 games (on the road is another story). Has Spencer found the right combination with Perlaza/Cooper flanked by Nagbe/Zizzo? What impact will it make when Jewsbury slots back in? We’ll get some answers over the course of the next 6 games. We’ll learn more when we see how they perform on the road.

• Another late game meltdown from the boys in green and white. This has happened enough times to warrant some questions. First, are the Timbers mentally tough? The answer is clearly no. Almost every time the team has faced adversity this season it has folded up its tent. Saturday night was no exception. Second, is there a fitness problem? This one isn’t as clear, but Magic 8 Ball says: likely. The team almost always seems gasped during the final 20 minutes games. Guys like Jewsbury, Brunner, and Chara were exceptional in the first half. Where were they during the final stretch? Out of position, sucking air. Third, does the manager make the right moves to protect leads? Rare has been the time when John Spencer has made late game defensive substitutions. How does one go about protecting a lead by inserting Kenny Cooper into the left side of midfield? He had Marcelin, Futty, and Wallace on the bench. Would have been helpful to see one of those players – especially Marcelin – come in after Toronto’s first goal.
• Who would have predicted that starting lineup? Nagbe and Zizzo on the pitch at the same time. No Perlaza. No Wallace. Chara as an attacking midfielder. In a game that he labeled a “must win,” Spencer rolled the dice. It worked for 70 minutes. Also worth noting that the meaningless exhibition against Independiente might have had meaning after all. Notice how the guys who played well in that game got the start on Saturday?
• I saw a 4-1-4-1 formation out there with Jewsbury playing a sweeper role. I thought this was a pretty good setup. It freed Chara up to go forward and to generate some offense. For the most part Jewsbury did a nice job destroying Toronto’s advances. Johnson worked hard as a lone forward, making some decent runs and drawing fouls. It was still a defensive minded approach, but better than what we had seen the previous three games with Marcelin, Jewsbury, and Chara in the middle.
• The new guys did well. Palmer wasn’t spectacular, but he was steady. He was able to push forward and thread some through balls to guys making runs. He didn’t seem to be out of position after going forward. Chabala was excellent on the ball. He has the makings of being a true defender. Unlike Wallace, he favors contact and is good at blowing up plays. It is still early to say they will be the answer, but at this point they seem at worst as capable as the guys that have been back there all season.
• I know the crowd loves him but Sal Zizzo has a long way to go before he is a complete player. He made a couple of great runs, but he also disappeared for most of the game. He also plays no defense. The talent is there, but at this point that talent is one dimensional.
• Chabala took the corners when they were on the right side of the pitch. Jewsbury took the corners on the left side.
• For all the criticism that Chara has received, he was responsible for both goals. He calmly set up Johnson on the first one and drew the penalty on the second one. I love how he uses headers to attack forward in the box.
• It really is a game on inches. Toronto hits the post and then the Timbers countered right back, resulting in Johnson’s goal. In the second half, Brunner hit the post. If that went in we’d be talking about a different result.

Final Thoughts If soccer were a 70 minute game the Timbers would be a playoff contender. It is not and this team is not. Too many squandered opportunities at home. Too many late game blowups. There was a lot of encouraging play on Saturday. There was good possession, some nice buildups on the attack, and steady play in the back, but this game is all about results. And a one point result against a team that has stunk all season and whose players have to wear name tags to remember each other’s names is not a good result at all. A lot of season remains. At this point it seems like the Timbers are playing for future years.

Nevertheless, Saturday’s tilt against Toronto is being called a must win for our beloved Portland Timbers. It is a home game against a team that has 3 victories from 23 games. Not a must win. It is a “should win”.

Of course, I shouldn’t label it is a should win, either. When your own side has 6 victories on the season and has not won a league match at home since May 21 and has already lost to Toronto earlier in the season, it is perhaps a tad ambitious to say that they should win a beer league game, let alone an affair against an MLS side.

For those who are inclined to do the math, anything less than three points at home against a team that has been in a constant state of player turnover would appear to make it nearly impossible for the Timbers to suck at the teat of the bloated MLS playoffs. While it certainly wouldn’t help the cause, anything less than three points wouldn’t quite be the Titantic hitting the iceberg.

Following Saturday’s match, Portland plays seven games in August — four on the road, and three at home. Other than LA, which is a Galaxy ahead of them in the table, they face six teams that are all muddling along in the morass of mediocrity that is most of MLS. The Timbers are within five points of each of those six teams.

August could be a month of possibilities, so says the optimist (one willing to turn a blind out to the road record).

Those possibilities would be helped by a victory on Saturday, of course. Toronto enters the contest having lost its previous four league games. They are 0-7-4 away from the friendly confines of streamers, politeness, and maple syrup. They are coming off of a competitive game on Wednesday. They have to travel to a stadium with which they are not familiar.

On paper they are ripe for the taking.

Keep an eye on…

• The Formation: Will Spencer stick with the 4-5-1 that we have seen the past three games or will he play a little more aggressive against a side that has yielded a league worst 41 goals? If ever there was a time to ditch the three defensive midfielder and forward-on-an-island approach, it would be this game.
• The backline: You know by now that late goals have killed the Timbers. With the additions of Lovel Palmer and Mike Chabla the Timbers have slightly more depth with their outside backs. Will Spencer go with some defensive subs if his team is ahead late in the second half. That largely hasn’t been the case this season (of course the Timbers haven’t been ahead too often late), but hopefully we might see more than a Zizzo for Nagbe swap and a throw Cooper to the wolves approach.
• The early run of play: As we know all too from what we have seen other teams do to the Timbers, taking the attack to a struggling away side early on is a recipe for tasty MLS victories. Pay attention to how the Timbers come out of the shoot. The longer they let Toronto hang around, the worse your beer should taste.
• Torsten Frings It is not often in one’s life that you get to see Satan in person. Treat him accordingly

One lineup you won’t see

This was the Timbers squad against Toronto in April. In hindsight that is pretty sad.

Adin Brown (Jake Gleeson 46)
Steve Purdy, Eric Brunner, Kevin Goldthwaite, Rodney Wallace
Ryan Pore (Sal Zizzo 66), Peter Lowry, Jack Jewsbury, Jeremy Hall
Jorge Perlaza (Brian Umony 73), Kenny Cooper.

Editor’s note You might be wondering who is the doofus writing for this blog. What happened to the previous guy who actually knew what he was talking about? Mr. Mao has been stretched to his limits dispensing footy knowledge so he has passed the baton on to me for the time being. I’m not too much of a stranger in these parts. I was the founding editor of The Offside and used to inhabit this very space before passing the baton to Mr. Mao. I’m not sure how long I will snuggle with the baton this time, but as long as I am here I would welcome your thoughts, criticisms, corrections, haikus, and beer.

Odds and Ends

• John Spencer went with a 4-5-1 formation for the third straight game. This approach has included using essentially three defensive midfielders in the middle: Jack Jewsbury, Diego Chara, and James Marcelin. While this has helped prevent some of the defensive problems the Timbers were having in the middle of the pitch prior to the formation change, it has done little to generate much in the way of offense. The entire offensive buildup relies on the outside wings and/or desperation passes over the top to a usually offside Jorge Perlaza. Instead of killing the offense, how about getting some guys in the back line who can defend? Maybe next year.
• Speaking of which, I though Lovel Palmer acquitted himself well in his first start in green and white. You have to remember that the dude has been playing defensive mid for Houston for the past couple of years. It isn’t easy switching positions mid-season, even if he is reportedly a right back by nature. I thought he showed decent on the ball marking skills as well as an ability to push forward. I didn’t miss Jeremy Hall and neither did the Timbers.
• It was nice to see Darlington Nagbe come to life a bit. He is so smooth with the ball but so hesitant to move forward. Instead of waiting to draw contact from behind, I’d like to see him attack forward more. He showed more inclination to attack against the Crew then he has all year. Plus, his save (of sorts) off the line (of sorts) was a great reaction play that managed to full the refs.
• I am not a Kenny Cooper hater, but the guy is about as cut out to play the lone 1 in a 4-5-1 as you and I are. Talk about square peg in a round hole syndrome. I like John Spencer and have largely liked the moves he has made this season, but he must be able to see that Cooper can only thrive in a system in which he gets the ball with room to attack with the ball at his feet. He isn’t a target forward and he isn’t Jorge Perlaza-quick. Why pretend otherwise?
• It would be interesting to see Sal Zizzo and Darlington Nagbe on the pitch at the same time. I know that neither plays much defense, but I can’t help but think that they might stretch out the other team if paired together. At this point, why not give it a try? It wouldn’t be the end of the world to give Alhassan a night off.
• The Crew certainly haven’t looked like world beaters in their two games against the Timbers, but you can’t argue with their results. They win at home and don’t concede many goals. They don’t play a style that is going to add many new butts to those bright yellow seats at Crew Stadium, but they will be competitive come playoff time.

Final Thought: After a victory last week in Chicago and a midweek trade that should bolster the lineup, it is hard not to be disappointed with the outcome of this one. What is perhaps more disappointing than the result was the quality of the performance. It was a “meh” effort from most of the lads and from the coaching staff. Inserting Cooper into the lineup at halftime was an indication to me that they were playing for a point. As has been the case for most of this season, late game breakdowns cost the Timbers.

Onward Rose City…

A trade of fringe MLS players? Yep, but also an on-paper good move for the Rose City.

Moffat has been dinged by injuries since joining the Timbers in January. He will perhaps be best remembered for giving delightful “football-sounding” interviews and for serving as a worthy wrestling partner for Thierry Henry. His absence will not be felt.

In return the Timbers pick up Palmer, who until last month featured regularly in a pretty decent Houston midfield. He has been playing a defensive mid (think Marcelin) role but the word on the street is that he is more naturally a right back (think the opposite of say Hall, who isn’t a right back but has been forced to play that role). Fair to say that he might not be the second coming of Scot Thompson, but he could be a decent body for the rest of the season in a position that could use a little, um, Lovel.

Those who have been around these parts a while might recall the name Mike Chabala. He came to the Timbers on loan in 2006, the Year of the Agnello. Five years is enough time to remove the stench. He is a guy who everyone seems to like, but who never has been able to move from the fringe to the lineup. He can play on the left side so at least there will be someone around to give Rodney Wallace a kick in the butt.

Perhaps the best part of this trade is not the players the Timbers have received (although they provide depth/competition at key positions), but the international slot they have picked up. This offers some flexibility for future moves and/or trades.

Stay tuned…

Jeld-Wen Field was nearly full to witness Portland Timbers lose in a friendly match with Mexican giants Club América, 1-0 on Thursday night. Star forward Ángel Reyna got the game’s only goal as América seemed happy to bombard the Timbers early, get their goal and spend the rest of the game sitting back, waiting for counter attacks. Starting goalkeeper Adin Brown was peppered with shots in the game’s first half-hour before the game slowed to a more mellow pace. The story of the game for the Timbers was the return of Bright Dike from a ruptured achilles suffered in the first half of the team’s first pre-season game. Though he played just nineteen minutes and had no real impact on the match, Dike’s presence in the team was a welcome sight and brief reprieve from the disastrous run of late.

Portland started an entirely reserve side with the Cascadia Cup tie with Seattle Sounders coming on Sunday. Lined up in a 4-3-3 formation, the Timbers also used two trialists on the back line. Aleksandar Ignjatović and John Thompson started at center back and right back, respectively, while Chris Taylor played his usual left back and Kevin Goldthwaite captained from central defense. Portland’s three-man midfield was comprised of James Marcelin slotted deep in a holding role with Freddie Braun and Rodrigo López pushed further ahead, often alternating sides of the field. Kenny Cooper, Ryan Pore and Sal Zizzo were the forwards with Pore on the left and Zizzo on the right. Though anyone who has watched the Timbers this season knows Cooper does not stay in the middle, nor as a forward. The strategy did not fail, but nor did it provide clarity for the myriad formational and personnel questions alive in the first team. John Spencer was forced to drop Braun deeper, alongside Marcelin, as the América attacks built in the first half, leaving López to fend for himself.

Before bringing Khalif Alhassan and Futty Danso into the game with less than ten minutes to play, the Timbers switched to a 4-5-1 with Dike as the lone forward. Substitute Peter Lowry, also returning from injury, played with Braun as defensive midfielders while Pore and Brian Umony, who came on for Cooper, were out wide and López remained in the middle. This formation was nice to see as an experiment but trailing late in the game and switching to an explicitly defensive formation made little sense, even if the goal was to spring Dike. Spencer does seem to have a habit of shifting formations away from attacking ones late in games in which goals are needed. This space has yet to decipher that reasoning.

Encouraging for the Timbers, beyond Dike and Lowry’s returns, was the play of the trialist Thompson. He did well at right back except for one error in the second half and moved forward both on and off the ball. His overlapping with Zizzo on the right, particularly in the first half, was exactly the kind of ‘wingback’ play Spencer touts as his trademark, though it worked much more easily in a 4-3-3 than it ever does in the first team’s overcrowded 4-4-2. Thompson, who paid his own way for this trial, could be a viable signing for Portland, though he is 29-years old and not noticeably better than Steve Purdy at the same position. As for Ignjatović, he moved very slowly and tended to bang the ball out of bounds when troubled by América’s forward players. Though the Serbian defender did nearly score twice in a thirty second period in the second half. In fact, the Timbers nearly scored on numerous free kicks and corner kicks, owing that proximity to the quality of López’s deliveries and the efforts of Ignjatović and Goldthwaite. Amazingly, the latter tried to flick in a back-heel again and was denied only by a stunning save from América’s Armando Navarrete.

While the result did not officially matter, earning a win, or even scoring a goal, could have boosted the Timbers ahead of their derby with Seattle. One take-away was that Cooper played sixty-eight minutes, meaning he is very unlikely to start or play significant minutes against the Sounders. Expect a combination of Jorge Perlaza and Eddie Johnson on Sunday with the possibility of the first team moving into a 4-3-3 with either Darlington Nagbe or Alhassan as the third forward.

Portland failed to win at home for the fourth consecutive game in a 2-1 loss to Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night. Only a stunning goal from Darlington Nagbe could give the Timbers any semblance of hope in a mostly dire effort against a compact and talented Sporting side. Portland did have three key chances in the second half to equalize and relied on several fine saves from Troy Perkins to keep the Sporting tally at just two, but ultimately it was not enough to prevent a sixth game from passing without victory. The woeful month of June, with one point gathered from four matches, extends into July with Cascadian rivals Seattle Sounders due to arrive in eight days time.

Sporting used a 4-5-1 formation and powerful rookie center forward CJ Sapong to control the pace and availability of the game. Though the Timbers held the majority of possession in the match it often led to very little with Kansas City overwhelming Portland’s strings of passes before reaching that crucial final third. Sapong contributed immediately, gathering Omar Bravo’s pass, besting for once undersized Eric Brunner, plowing toward goal and easily beating Perkins for a 1-0 lead on fifteen minutes. His celebrations aside, Sapong was far too strong and just fast enough to trouble Brunner and Futty Danso all night. Accustomed to trailing early this season, the Timbers were not instantly dead, but a second just four minutes later enacted that status. A long throw-in from Matt Besler was flicked on by Sapong to an on-rushing Aurélien Colllin, who needed only to nod the ball into the net for a 2-0 lead before the twentieth minute.

Having surrendered twice in twenty minutes the Timbers looked completely out of sorts, unable to fathom a way through the over-crowded midfield. Repeated long balls from Rodney Wallace dropped to no one, and while Eddie Johnson, starting in place of Kenny Cooper, worked hard, he could not combine well enough with Jorge Perlaza to affect a change of the score line. Only Nagbe’s brilliant, measured strike brought the Timbers Army back to life. Juggling twice a ball punched out by Sporting keeper Jimmy Nielsen, Nagbe waited and unleashed a sliced shot just in front of the reaching head of Futty and perfectly past the retreating fingers of Nielsen. The stadium erupted on Nagbe’s debut goal and the half ended with Portland seemingly set to battle back into a game long since dead.

Perlaza finally got involved in the second half with Khalif Alhassan and Diego Chará providing the service necessary to bring the Colombian striker back onto the score sheet. Yet his first attempt sailed just high and his second was nicely saved by Nielsen at his near post. Otherwise the better of the opportunities came from Sporting on counter attacks and free kicks. Graham Zusi, the MLS Player of the Month for June, continued to play at an exceedingly high level and forced a solid save from Perkins in the eighty-first minute. Roger Espinoza and Miloš Stojčev both barely cleared the crossbar and Sapong nearly doubled his scoring total in shooting just wide in the eighty-third minute. So the game fell to Jewsbury in the eighty-ninth minute. A Wallace throw-in and return set up his cross that bred confusion and a poor clearance on the part of Sporting. With the ball at his feet twenty-five yards away, Jewsbury lined up a shot against the club where he played for eight years and pulled it just to the left of what was a mostly open net. The score held and that was it for the Timbers.

John Spencer promised changes and he delivered in bringing Johnson and Steve Purdy into the line-up. Yet it seemed that his formation once again failed, especially in the teeth of the five-man midfield of Sporting. A late change brought James Marcelin in for an exhausted Nagbe but the supposed 3-5-2 was far too loose and far less attacking than was necessary to chase the goal that could have earned at least a point. Instead of solving some of the team’s problems by talking tough and instituting change, Spencer is now left to ponder what, if any, changes he can still make. Certainly at least trying a different formation to start a game could help, though if the 4-3-3 of the New York match or the 3-5-2 from last night are any indication, Spencer either does not know how to move his players into a formation that works or his players are incapable of breaking free from the constraints of the same old 4-4-2. Regardless the Timbers appear rudderless both in tactical awareness and most glaringly in on field execution.

With high flying Seattle Sounders due as the next opponent there are few tricks left for Spencer to try to inspire his side. Most of the players do not have the history of the rivalry in their past to rely on and the 1-1 draw at Qwest Field in mid-May seems oh so far away now. The crowd will be in full force, but when aren’t they? The atmosphere relied upon to win five consecutive home games earlier in the season has done nothing to provide emphasis to a set of players stuck in the rut of poor play, low confidence and steady decline down the league’s table.

Portland Timbers suffered their worst defeat in the MLS era with an embarrassing 4-0 loss away to FC Dallas on Saturday evening. The Timbers allowed two goals in each half and easily could have surrendered more as Jackson twice hit the post for the home side. It appeared as though Portland were utterly unprepared for the Texas heat and were constantly outrun, second to loose balls and seemingly incapable of tracking back defensively. Dallas repeatedly took advantage of Portland’s penchant for sending outside backs forward and were able to isolate Jackson and Marvin Chávez on the Timbers’ retreating central defenders. So easily did Dallas batter the Timbers’ defense in counter attacks, John Spencer was forced to substitute Darlington Nagbe in favor of Adam Moffat, despite trailing 2-0 at half-time. Not only was the deficit the worst of the season for Portland, the four goals was a season high and the first time any Timbers team has allowed four goals in a game since a 4-0 loss to Atlanta Silverbacks in 2006.

The game actually started reasonably well for the Timbers as several free kicks were won in the first twenty minutes of the match. Those free kicks and three early corner kicks gave Portland several chances to the score sheet first, a scenario that would have been a first this season. The best chance of the early set-pieces came when Rodney Wallace collected a loose ball in the box but had his simple shot blocked by Kevin Hartman. Apart from a long range shot by Sal Zizzo late in the game, Wallace’s weak attempt was the only shot on goal for Portland. In the thirty-fourth minute Troy Perkins completely misread a corner kick and Dallas’ Zach Loyd snuck a poking header into the net for the game’s opening goal. Five minutes later, Kenny Cooper was badly beaten on a corner, allowing George John to power a header off of Perkins’ glove and into the net for Dallas’ second. From there the match was completely over for the Timbers. The final fifty minutes were an exercise in poor passing, spacing, effort and enthusiasm.

At half-time Spencer’s removal of Nagbe for Moffat seemed to shift the Timbers into a 4-1-3-2 with Moffat dropped deep in the midfield, almost as a sweeper. While Khalif Alhassan remained on the right, neither Jack Jewsbury nor Diego Chará replaced Nagbe on the left, leaving an unbalanced formation leaning heavily toward the right. When Zizzo replaced Alhassan just before the hour, that formation was reinforced. Though the addition of Moffat could do nothing to slow Jackson as he again darted into the middle of the Timbers’ defense, ultimately creating the situation that led to Brek Shea giving Dallas a 3-0 lead. Meanwhile Portland continued to launch long balls without a particular target and cede possession almost instantly. Spencer tried one final move to change the direction of the game, bringing on Eddie Johnson in the sixty-third minute in place of Jorge Perlaza. Only one combination ever materialized with Johnson though, as the pace of the Timbers’ attack remained stagnant. Ruben Luna was credited with Dallas’ fourth goal, though it was probably already over the line from yet another shot from Jackson.

This performance was utterly disastrous for the Timbers and deserving of every negative description. Spencer said it perfectly after the game, “From the first moment to the last, we never matched them at all, never got close to them, never tackled them, never ran with them, just a poor, poor performance.” Portland return home to host Sporting KC on July 2 as they tread just clear of the league’s bottom five clubs.

Sal Zizzo created both goals as Portland Timbers reserves defeated the reserves from San Jose Earthquakes 2-1 at Jeld-Wen Field. Nearly 1400 were in attendance on a beautiful morning as Eddie Johnson opened scoring in the second half, Chris Leitch scored a stunning equalizer and Zizzo forced Brandon McDonald into an own-goal for the match-winner. The Timbers featured trialist Cillian Sheridan at forward as well as former Timbers Tony McManus and Ross Smith in defense, the former playing all ninety minutes before sprinting off the pitch as soon as the final whistle blew. Johnson continues to impress in the reserves while Zizzo was more involved in the score sheet than any previous appearance in either the first team or reserves.

Portland played something between a 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond or a 4-1-3-2 as McManus sat just above the back four. Brian Umony, Ryan Pore and Zizzo played across the midfield with Johnson and Sheridan up top. Adam Moffat was in the back line along with Kevin Goldthwaite, Freddie Braun and Chris Taylor. Adin Brown started for the Timbers and was replaced at the half by Jake Gleeson. The Timbers used all of their substitutes, a wise move ahead of a brutal six weeks, by inserting Sean Morris and Jesus Gonzalez from the U-23s as well as Smith and Rodrigo López.

Umony had the best chance of either side when his first half shot from inside the box hit the underside of the crossbar and bounced back into play. Johnson’s opener came when Zizzo anticipated a midfield pass by San Jose, intercepted and sprinted up field. He then slipped a pass ahead to Johnson who made a slight move to free space and fired back across the goal to score. After Leitch’s 25-yard rocket the Timbers answered right back when Zizzo got the ball in the right corner, eluded one defender with a slick move and passed across the face of goal where McDonald redirected into his own net. That goal in the seventy-second minute capped an eight-minute stretch that included all three goals.

As a trialist, Sheridan had a few nice chances including a glancing header that missed just wide left and a half-chip that narrowly missed wide right, both in the second half. At 6′5″ the Irish striker was a constant factor in the air but was never quite able to get a handle on the style of his teammates.

Two more points were thrown away on Sunday night when Portland Timbers gave up a 3-1 lead in the final seventeen minutes to draw 3-3 with visiting Red Bull New York at Jeld-Wen Field. Though New York started strongly and controlled the first half, the Timbers were the better side throughout most of the second half. Goals from Jack Jewsbury, Kevin Goldthwaite and a Stephen Keel own-goal put Portland ahead 3-1, energizing a crowd starved for any goals after a 230-minute drought. But Thierry Henry pulled one back in the 73rd minute for New York before Rodney Wallace’s handball in the box on a Dwayne De Rosario cross gave Red Bull a penalty deep in injury-time. De Rosario, just back from international duty in the Gold Cup, converted the penalty on the game’s last touch leaving the Timbers with just one point.

Portland’s first half effort was poor as New York passed right through the Timbers’ midfield and defense. An Henry-De Rosario-Austin da Luz combination gave New York it’s first goal in the fifth minute. David Horst had a difficult time keeping track of De Rosario, who floated across the front line throughout the first half. Henry, though listed as a forward, tended to drop into his own half and played much more as a central midfielder, serving as the hub of Red Bull’s potent attack. Portland did actually possess the ball to a much better degree than in previous games but it seemed to be possession for possession’s sake. Though passes were strung together by the half-dozen, the possession did not lead to any real offensive movements. Rather the ball just passed to and from the wide midfielders with no real purpose. Horst caught a forearm to the head on a freekick and was temporarily knocked to the ground, though he did come back and complete the first half.

At the half, manager-for-the-day Trevor James replaced Horst with Goldthwaite to give the former New York defender first team action for the first time since the Toronto match on March 26 and a chance to play against the team that released him late in the summer of 2010. Goldthwaite did not take long to get intimately involved, though Jewsbury started the scoring for Portland. Collecting a loose ball just outside the box the Timbers’ captain ripped a shot through a number of bodies that skipped into the back left corner of the goal for a 1-1 score in the forty-eighth minute. The goal was the first from the run of play since the Dallas match on April 17 and Jewsbury’s fourth of the season. Not even two minutes later, Jewsbury sent a long free kick to the back right corner of the box where Eric Brunner headed down directly in front of goal. Goldthwaite, drifting forward as the free kick lofted away, was in perfect position to score but over ran the ball by a half-step. Rather than a frustrating miss, the much-maligned defender stunningly flicked out his back heel and poked the ball past Greg Sutton for a 2-1 lead and the least likely scenario imaginable for Timbers supporters.

With two goals in two minutes the Timbers went on the all-out offensive, pounding New York’s broken defense with runs and shots. In the sixty-seventh minute Brunner sprung a barely onside Jorge Perlaza on a breakaway. With Kenny Cooper to his left, Perlaza tried to pass across the face of goal after drawing Sutton out of the net. Instead of finding Cooper, the ball was deflected by a sliding Keel and dropped nicely into the net for a 3-1 Portland lead. Henry answered just six minutes later when his neat passing with Joel Lindpere and da Luz resulted in a wonderful shot and goal that pulled one back for the visitors and set up the dramatic final fifteen minutes.

Khalif Alhassan sent a perfect through ball to a streaking Perlaza, who instead of poking over to Cooper for a sure goal, drew a tackle from Sutton in the box, resulting in a yellow card for the New York goalkeeper and a penalty for the Timbers. Jewsbury stepped up to take the penalty, a certainty after Cooper’s fiasco against DC United three weeks ago, but pushed the shot too far to the right, sending the ball ricocheting off the post and out of bounds. Rather than taking a commanding 4-2 lead with just fifteen minutes left, the Timbers were left to defend their one-goal lead.

Rather than trying to rehash Henry’s strange exchange with the suddenly re-bearded Adam Moffat, this space will skip straight to the final act. A long, hopefully ball came from New York’s midfield, roughly toward De Rosario on the right. Goldthwaite mishit his clearance, leaving the ball at the feet of De Rosario with literally seconds left to play. With Lindpere in the box, De Rosario crossed, hoping to find an equalizer, but Wallace’s arm blocked the path of the ball and resulted immediately in a penalty for New York. The silence at the stadium was almost as impressive as the volume after the Goldthwaite goal earlier in the half. Of course De Rosario blasted the penalty past Troy Perkins, who guessed correctly, and gave the visitors a shocking 3-3 draw.

For all the antics and oddities of the DC match several weeks ago, this match was by far the strangest, most exciting game the MLS Timbers have played to date. To lose two points against the top team in the Eastern Conference after leading by two goals as late as the seventy-third minute, and not to mention missing a penalty, is a difficult blow for a Portland side that seemed to have finally regained some of the momentum lost over their three-game losing streak. While a point against New York is certainly not a bad result when viewed without context, the failure to finish out a second straight home game against a top level club will eat at John Spencer and his players.

After starting the season by giving up goals early in matches the Timbers have become a side that allow late goals. Six now have been scored after the eightieth minute this season with DC United, Colorado Rapids and now New York Red Bulls scoring game-winning or -tying goals after the eighty-fifth minute, just in the past four games. After winning their first five home games of the season the Timbers have not won any of their past three. The point from New York was the first since May 21 and Portland are now winless in four straight. However, the point did take the Timbers back within a point of a playoff position while holding two games in hand against tenth place Houston Dynamo.

In the end, Portland is proving to be exactly what it is, a first year side with a number of young players in important positions. What success has come this year has been mostly attributable to gritty performances by the likes of Jewsbury, Brunner and Perkins while the youngsters are still learning how to play together and keep their composure. There is no denying the talent on this Timbers team but there has not yet been a complete game played this season, the closest being the victory against Real Salt Lake. The hope for Timbers supporters is that Spencer and James can use games like New York to teach their players the importance of paying attention and completing games where points should be the deserved result.