The Great Leap Backward

By: Bob Kellett | July 20th, 2008

Are the Portland Timbers any better than they were at the end of the Chris Agnello era in 2006? Forget the ownership situation. Yes, it is better. Forget the fan base. Yes, it is bigger. Forget last season. Let’s focus on the current product on the pitch. In 2006, we saw a team that was poorly constructed with players who shouldn’t have even been in the USL First Division. We saw a team that couldn’t score goals, couldn’t shut other teams down, and couldn’t win. We saw a manager who was lost on the sidelines, who lost his locker room, and who was lost for answers. The soccer wasn’t entertaining. It was excruciating. If you watched the Timbers play against Atlanta and Charleston this weekend you saw the same thing.

You saw a team that was out shot 29-13, a team that mustered two shots on goal in 180 minutes of play, and a manager that didn’t even bring a full bench even though his team was playing two games in two nights in the heat and humidity. You saw a team whose lack of depth was exposed when two of its players went down early with injury. You saw a team that couldn’t hold the ball, couldn’t build an attack, and couldn’t mark their men when they needed to the most. You saw aging players who have been asked to play too many minutes lose the fitness battle. You saw a team that wasn’t playing to win, but rather to merely hold on. You saw an attack that continued its season-long futility and that was a fluke stoppage time goal away from being held without a goal for the tenth time in 19 games. You saw a team that erased all memories of the heart and hustle that were on display in 2007. You saw a team that brought back memories of the lethargy and losing of two years ago.

Unlike a couple of seasons ago, the USL First Division is abysmal this year. If you look at the table even the pessimist inside can’t help but ponder the notion that if this Timbers team could just put together a few wins and just make the playoffs it could salvage the season.

But if you watched the games this weekend you saw no indication that this team – a team that hasn’t won at home since April and that has two wins from its last 16 games - is even capable of putting together two minutes of solid soccer let alone a few wins.

The vast majority of the 8,000 or so people that will show up at PGE Park when the Timbers face Carolina on Thursday will not have spent the weekend squinting at their computer screens watching these games. They are the lucky ones. They will be blissfully ignorant of just how bad this team played and how uninteresting it has become to watch the same sorry script over and over again. They will show up because a night at the stadium is a good time — cheap beer, nice weather, the Timbers Army, chainsaws, and a chance to hang with friends.

Those of us who did suffer through these games will also show up (at least those us who aren’t going on their honeymoons will show up). That’s what we do. So what if we suck? and all that. We’ll enjoy the cheap beer, the nice weather, the Timbers Army, etc as much as anyone else, but we’ll also show up because we have an emotional attachment to the club. It is an attachment that outlasted the crap of 2006 and the crap of seasons before that and that will outlast this season’s crap.

We’ll show up because as supporters that’s all we can do. All we can ask in return is that the team shows up too, and that it rewards our loyalty by giving us some reason to look forward to the final eleven games of this season and some reason to think that things haven’t slipped all the way back to where they were two years ago.