Once again Portland Thorns FC played a visiting team without several of their biggest stars.  Once again the U.S. Women’s National Team called up Alex Morgan and Rachel Beuhler, and the CWNT required the services of Christine Sinclair.  Once again an opponent came to Jeld-Wen Field looking for their first win against the Thorns and hoping to take advantage of the depleted Portland side.

That’s where the similarities ended.

The last time Chicago’s Red Stars cruelly exposed the failings of a PTFC that had used its national team players like a club to beat less-gifted opponents and a crutch to prop up weaknesses on their roster.  Without the stars Thorns FC looked badly adrift, underprepared, and lost badly 2-nil.

Sunday the scoreline was the same but the numbers were reversed, and it was the hapless Seattle Reign that walked off victims of two splendid Portland goals.

Why?

1.  Portland’s midfield continued to show the vastly improved organization and individual creativity that enabled Thorns FC to defeat KCFC last week.  What was more impressive about this win is that it came without Becky Edwards as defensive organizer and all-around chara* and Allie Long forced back into a more defensive midfield role.

Obviously we will miss Edwards; she’s a terrific player and has been a rock as DM.  But, in my biased opinion, Long’s shift back was a nifty piece of organizing by Parlow Cone and Long rewarded her by playing one of the best games I’ve seen her play all season.  Until we get Tobin Heath (from my keyboard to the Gods of Soccer’s ears…) I think she will manage quite well there.

Another standout from Sunday was Angie Kerr.  Angie has had some problems this season and has drifted in and out of the starting XI.  But Sunday personnel needs pushed her “in” and she was rock solid.  Her assist on the Shim goal alone was poetry in a size 7 soccer boot, and she controlled her portion of the pitch well all match, tackling neatly and distributing accurately.

Danielle Foxhoven, too, lived up to her “super-sub” reputation with a solid second-half shift as well as the clinical looping shot that produced Portland’s first goal.  Wetzel and Guess were useful; in fact, this was perhaps the first Thorns match I’ve watched where I didn’t swear more than once at one of our midfielders.

Well played, middies!

2.  Mana Shim finally had the game we’ve been waiting for her to have.  She was a pest in the Seattle backline all match, made several nice runs, and her goal was a thing of soccer dreams.  She should probably spend some time this week with Diego Chara going over 1 v 0 scoring because her run was perfect and her outside-of-the-foot chip shot couldn’t have been sweeter.  Well played, Mana!

3.  Karina LeBlanc owns Christine Nairn, or something.  I’m still not sure if she guessed right, read Nairn’s approach, and/or cheated off her line just enough to save the PK, but save it she did and kept the clean sheet.  Other than that she was her usual reliable self.  Well played, Karina!

So it was all sunshine and rainbow sparkle ponies Sunday, right?  Another boring ho-hum Thorns FC win, right?

Mmmmmm…not quite.

The one place that Thorns FC really showed the hurting in the absence of their national team players was in back.  Seattle had several dangerous opportunities when Portland Thorns defenders clumped around the ball and failed to clear their lines or gain control and pass out of danger.  And let’s not forget; this was a Seattle without Fishlock.  Had she not been off getting in touch with her Welsh roots away the scoreline might not have looked so pretty.

Jazmine Avant played a reliable game and Marian Dougherty provided quality wing play as well as steady defense, but as a unit the backline had the same problems they showed against KCFC; without Beuhler there to take them in hand they have a tendency to lunge and stab, miss their marks, fail to clear cleanly, and generally look like a group of players who are missing leadership.  LeBlanc does what she can but she’s no Schmeichel.

If we’re going to win the league this defensive unit needs to find a workaround needing the Bacon-saver to save their bacon.

So for all that I kid about the Thorns FC “Death Star” crushing all enemies we still have work to do and a long season ahead.  We are not destined to stroll to the championship because we have two of the greatest strikers in women’s soccer.

Destiny is something we’ve invented because we can’t stand the fact that everything that happens is accidental.

Or the result of damn hard work.

Sunday the Thorns proved convincingly that – without the bag stars – they can do the hard work to make themselves a team that can be dangerous from front to back, from the top of the roster to the tail.  The question before us now is; will they, and can we continue that effort through the remainder of the season?

And for that we will have to wait and see.  Or at least until next Saturday when we travel to meet the team that first best us so convincingly; Sky Blue FC.

Onward, Rose City!

When you think about it, shouldn’t we accept that the man’s name is worthy of adjectivization for “someone or something that causes fearsome disruption and bog-hammers anything around it”?  When you ‘chara’ someone or something you just put the boot in and keep kicking;

“Well, it started out to be a pretty boring staff meeting until Jennifer from HR just got up and chara-ed the #!$#! out of that guy from accounting…” ⏎

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1) Man! What a game! You know, I’ve always heard that snails can slide their way along a razor and won’t get cut. That’s the image that was running through my head as I watched Saturday’s game. Both teams were living on the razor’s edge.

If you didn’t watch the game and only saw that it ended 1-0, you might think to yourself, “Oh, soccer is so boring… Another 1-0 game… Yawn…”

Well, lemme tell you, brudda, this game was one of the most exciting you could ever see. It could easily have been 5-4. Or 5-0, for either team. It was non-stop chaos. Back and forth, back and forth, both teams were just BLITZING the goal.

2) So how does a free-for-all like this end up 1-0? Because the goalies were absolutely brilliant. How many of those saves will be nominated for MLS Save of the Week? Donovan Ricketts is definitely nominated for that lay-out save in first half stoppage time, but Dallas goalie Raul Fernandez could have three or four saves nominated. The guy was out of his mind! The way we attacked him for 90 minutes, Fernandez is gonna have to go into therapy. He probably woke up screaming last night.

But back to our side, how great was it to have Ricketts back in goal? The one word that kept coming to mind was “comforting.” Every time our defense got leaky, Donovan stepped up, made the right play, and told all of us to just calm the hell down, because he’s got this.

Remember the last time we gave up a goal at home? Me, either. Apparently, it was against Montreal, back in early March. Since then, five straight shutouts. It’s good to have you back, Donovan.

3) Now, I feel like I need to blame someone for putting Donovan under so much pressure. Oh, sure, I could probably just give Dallas credit for being good, but I think our defense deserves some blame, too. They looked a little shaky. Jack Jewsbury, you’re on notice, sir. Quit letting guys zip past you! Lower the shoulder and drop someone if you have to!

Also, it was our first time seeing Futty Danso and Pa Modou Kah side-by-side at center back and, I gotta tell you, the Great Wall of Gambia is missing a few bricks. I’d hoped that starting two Gambians would lead to vampire teeth and complete intimidation. Instead, it just led to missed assignments, mental blunders, wide-open shots on goal, and me, up in the stands, soiling my delicates. Tighten up, people! Donovan can’t save us forever!

4) But our defense wasn’t entirely to blame. The ref was pretty bad, too. How many free kicks did Dallas have? 103? That’s gotta be a record. I think maybe he awarded Portland one, as well, but it was by accident.

Seriously, though, what is it with MLS referees? Every match seems to turn into a hockey game. I was telling the guy next to me that I was worried a fight was going to break out, and then one did! Some guy pops Freddy Piquionne, Freddy gets up in his grill, and then the dude head-butts him! Right in the mouth! What did the ref do about it? He took another bong hit, that’s what.

Jeez Louise, MLS. Get some decent refs for a change. Is there some sort of old folks home for retired European referees? I don’t care how old they are, I say we hire a few. We’ll give them whistles and maybe some of those motorized wheelchairs and then let them do their thing. Could they be any worse than what we have now?

5) Let’s talk about some players.

Darlington Nagbe. What a freakin’ goal. It actually caught me by surprise. Something about the slowness of the shot, plus the ridiculous angle, I didn’t realize it had gone in until the crowd started going nuts. I think the goalie had pretty much the same reaction.

Diego Chara. I love you, dude, but you need to go to finishing school. You’re now leading the league in almost-goals. Also, you now have 4 yellows cards. I’m pretty sure your 5th means a one-game suspension. We need you, buddy.

Diego Valeri. Once again, you looked really gassed at the end. What’s up with that? We need you at full-game fitness, okay? You’re too valuable to be subbing out after 70 minutes. On a more positive note, your almost-goal? Collecting, turning, and firing, all in one motion? Sick. Absolutely sick.

Futty Danso and Donovan Ricketts. Are you guys hurt? Futty, you had to leave the game. Donovan, you were holding your back and grimacing. We can’t have this, dudes! We need you right now! Heal! Heal!

6) Why do we need them so bad? Because there’s no rest for the weary. Wednesday, we go to LA to face the Galaxy. Four days later, it’s Colorado, here at home. Then three days after that, we go to Dallas for the US Open Cup quarterfinals. There’s not a bad team in the bunch.

Fortunately, we’re pretty good, too. But eventually this unbeaten streak will end. If it happens in the next week, I’ll be sad, but I won’t be terribly surprised. We’re living on the razor’s edge right now. We might get cut.

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Man, I’ve been crazy-busy these last few days, and somehow Kevin Alexander got his column out before I did. Which is fine, I say. He’s provided you the calm, considered, and logical analysis. Now I’m here to bring you the TRUTH.

1) Clearly, when you have a 2-2 tie, there must be somebody to blame. Obviously, in this case, we can blame the Chicago groundskeepers. Did you see the goalposts? They were GIGANTIC! They must have been three feet across. How else could we hit the woodwork twice in the first 30 seconds? Three times in the first four minutes? And Valeri’s goal was off the post, too. Ridiculous! Who do they think they’re fooling? Clearly, these posts were thicker than regulation. Don’t believe me? Did you see the Chicago groundskeepers dragging that big-ass goal to the opposite end at halftime? Hmm? Did you? I’ve scoured the internet and there is no video showing they DIDN’T switch the goals. That’s all the proof I need. Conspiracy, I say! Conspiracy!

I’ve already contacted the league commissioner. He says he’ll look into it.

2) Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of my system, let’s get serious. These ties are getting old, aren’t they? Yes, it’s wonderful that we haven’t lost on the road. Yes, it’s great that we can “learn a lesson,” as Coach Porter says, and still get a point on the road. Yes, yes, and yes again. But generally, teams make the playoffs because they WIN games. We’re sort of the opposite. We’re going to make the playoff by not losing. Am I complaining? I’m not sure. I’m really not. The “not losing” thing is great. But honestly, this is getting a little weird.

Love the spirit, fellas. Love the “refuse to lose” spirit. Now, let’s turn it up a notch. “Refuse to lose or tie” isn’t nearly as catchy, but let’s try it anyway. Three points from here on, what do you say?

3) That being said, you do realize we were missing four starters, right? 36% of our starting lineup was off playing for various national teams. How did the subs do? Pretty good, actually. At forward, Freddy Piquionne was everything we could ask for, actually. Two assists, good work rate all night. If he scores a couple goals before Ryan Johnson comes back, Coach Porter’s going to have a tough decision to make.

Ben Zemanski? I like him. Yes, his goal was super, but I liked him even without the goal. He’s fast, he’s disruptive, he’s always in the middle of things. Reminds me of Diego Chara. I don’t think Rodney Freakin’ Wallace’s starting spot is in danger, though.

Nor is Donovan Ricketts’s. Milos Kocic was only okay in goal, I thought. He couldn’t do a thing about that free kick goal. It was a perfect shot. But the other goal? Super-hard to tell what happened there, with bodies flying all over. Did Kocic drop it? Or was it knocked out of his hands? I dunno, but I do know this …

4) … I’ve just about had it with Andrew Jean-Baptiste. Not only will Futty Danso be starting the moment he steps off the plane from Gambia, it’s possible Jean-Baptiste will lose his job before then. To McKenzie, maybe? To Tucker-Gangnes? To me? I don’t know. But I know that every single game, Beast does something that scares the hell out of me. He’s either wrestling someone in the box or missing an assignment or running into the goalie. And do you remember how Coach was screaming at him during that US Open Cup game versus Wilmington? I think Beast’s position as a starter is in serious jeopardy. If anyone out there can tell me how I’m wrong and how Beast is a lot better than I realize, I’d love to hear it. Educate me.

5) A lot of people are screaming about how the Timbers fell apart as soon as Diego Valeri came out of the game, and I’m not going to contradict that. But I’m not sure we can complain too much, and here’s why: Caleb Porter’s not just managing the game, he’s managing the entire season. He knows we’ve got a ton of games coming up – important games, too – so he’s figuring out who needs rest, who needs to play. He’s worried about Valeri’s bad hamstring. He’s wondering if the international call-ups will be exhausted when they come back. He’s wondering who’ll be the next central defender to blow out their knee. So I can forgive him taking Valeri out of the game early. He’ll probably do the same with some other players in the next couple weeks. We’ve got a tough stretch ahead. Coach is thinking long-term.

6) So how do the next few weeks turn out? Well, obviously all my predictions have come true this year, so I’ll drop a few more on you. Feel free to call your bookie right away.

I think we crush Tampa Bay in tomorrow’s US Open Cup match. Our boys have a bad taste in their mouths. Tampa will pay the price.

Then a quick turnaround for a Saturday game and I think we eke out a tie versus Dallas. We’re at home, but Dallas is leading the league and we’ll be tired and undermanned. So, yes, another damn tie. Curse them.

And then ANOTHER quick turnaround for a Wednesday game against the LA Galaxy. We’ll still be tired and undermanned, only this time we’ll be in Los Angeles. To make it even tougher, we don’t know if we’ll be playing Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. One week, LA is an overwhelming force. The next week, they’re getting shut out. And so, for my prediction, I fall back to the easy choice. A tie. Another damn tie.

It’s getting old, fellas.

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There are only 50 pulse-quickening days to go until the MLS All-Star Game, though I'm sure I’d don’t need to tell you that because you're already counting the days down yourself in fevered anticipation.

Or you could’ve just filed that little nugget of information to the back of your mind where it could be carefully disposed of until the official site and blogpack try to convince you that you care, you really, really care about this game. Vote! Vote now! Care!

I’m sure MLS do well financially from the engagement or else we wouldn’t be subjected to this carnival every year, even after factoring in costs to stage and to pay a team from Europe to travel over and attract sponsors. A big play will be made about selling the MLS brand abroad, and we’ll hear all kinds of talk about “markets”, “exposure” and “profile”; you know, the kinda stuff that really get a soccer fan’s juices flowing.

By the way, this is the same organisation that seeks to “protect” the Cascadia Cup trademark. Just saying.

But, from admittedly limited experience, I can tell you that in the UK, no-one cares beyond “ played a pre-season friendly today in America.” That situation is changing a bit as MLS slowly increases its profile abroad and I’m sure there will be those in MLS HQ who point to the All Star Game as a key part of that growth, but that’s equine manure.

MLS players making an impression in decent leagues abroad is increasing the profile as a place where you can actually buy talent, rather than send players who’s talents are waning.

The fans are doing it too by adding some literal noise and color to proceedings and getting the attention of international press.

The All-Star Game is a sideshow. MLS pats itself on the back for putting on their big boy soccer league pants while a bunch of superstars go about running off a summer spent on a beach in Dubai and people pay to attend this spectacle because this is just what the league does. A weird holdover from the days when the game here both helped and hampered in itself by modeling aspects on other US sports rather than other soccer leagues.

So, yeah, I’m not a fan of it, and the announcement of the opening of the ballot (VOTE! OR THE PUPPY GETS IT!) has left my twitter stream alternating from actively not caring to using the vote as a chance to weaken other sides because of course you’d schedule all this for the middle of the fucking week.

Given it’s squeezed into the schedule and could have a direct effect on the play-off race, I don’t see why we need to persist with a show-piece game in the first place. The big European teams will be here playing MLS sides anyway.

But if we do need some kind of event to drum up interest in the “package”, then why not thinking out of the box and, I’m not entirely unserious when I say this, why not hold a six-a-side tournament.

It’s a game that many fans will be familiar from playing in or attending, as well as non MLS fans. It’s quick, throws up lots of action in short bursts (that allow for commercial breaks), and will guarantee goals.

I remember from growing up that there was a similar competition held in Scotland called the Tennents Sixes. The top clubs would gather for a weekend and play a round-robin knockout tournament.

I loved it, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that a significant part of the reason I wanted to see Kilmarnock get promoted was that they would be eligible for the Sixes.

The tournament died due to increasing worries about injuries, as well as Tennents being an brand of lager and that kind of thing being frowned upon on TV. It’s never been revived, outside of a popular Masters tournament for old club legends, and I don’t think for a second MLS would actually entertain the idea, but I know which one I’d be watching every second of.

Still, I guess I better go vote for non-Timbers players because I don’t want our guys getting hurt in order to puff up Don Garber’s ego any further. Yay, All-Star Game.

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It was very much a good news, bad news scenario for Portland Timbers after their trip to Chicago ended in a 2-2 draw.

Good News: the unbeaten streak continues! Bad News: we threw away a lead against a team that had failed to get anything from being two goals down in their last fifteen attempts, stretching back over two years.

Good News: seriously, 12 games unbeaten! And 3rd in the West ahead of Seattle and LA. Bad News: only two wins in the last six, and those were against each conference’s early-season whipping boys, and of the four draws, we’ve twice gone into the last 15 minutes in winning positions and dropped points.

Good News: Diego Valeri was back, he scored, had a hand in our second and was pretty, pretty good. Bad News: he went off, our night went to shit and we ended up on the losing end of a 2-2 draw.

In the aftermath, there was a seeming consensus on twitter that Caleb Porter had blown it by taking of Valeri after 67 minutes, with the Timbers 2-0 up.

There is no doubt that the fact the team lost their lead when Valeri wasn’t on is worth bringing up as the figures would seem to support the idea that when Diego starts, you take him off at your peril.

If you exclude the first few matches, which Valeri started and finished, and the Houston match which he only left due to injury, Diego has started seven and been subbed off four times. In those matches the team’s aggregate scores are 12-4 when Valeri is on the field, and 0-4 with him off.

This ignores the DC game that Valeri didn’t play in, of course, and weirdly enough the Timbers have won both games the playmaker has sat out entirely having beaten San Jose 1-0 earlier in the year.

You would expect Valeri’s withdrawal, given how he is often the creative pivot in the team, to cause a drop off in attacking potency and that is indicated by the team failing to score once in the 64 minutes Valeri has sat on the bench despite averaging a goal every 47 minutes or so when he’s on the field.

The surprise is how poorly the team defend with him off the field. They’ve conceded the same number of goals in those 64 minutes as they had in the other 566, though I doubt there is any direct link between Valeri going off and our defence losing their way.

Porter has shown himself very adept at using subs, a skill that got him out trouble early on in the year when the Timbers seemed to start every game a goal behind. To put Porter’s record in context, John Spencer’s “W-L” record after the first sub was 11-21, Gavin Wilkinson’s was 4-4, and Porter is 6-2.

However, in the last few matches his ability to work some magic from the bench when it’s needed has waned.

Having a depleted squad, be it due to injuries, suspensions or international duty, limits a coaches ability to make a positive impact from the bench, and when the squad gets thin, that’s when you may look more to consolidate rather than put teams to the sword. Of the last four times the team has led when Porter has made his first change, three of the matches have finished with no further goals being scored for either side.

Chicago are the first team since the San Jose game to “beat” the Timbers post-sub, and yes, Valeri went off after scoring then too. Since the San Jose game the Timbers have been outscored 4-5 after the first substitution has been made, having “won” 6-2 over the first five games, but I see that as a product of a coach adjusting to a different squad dynamic over the past few matches than a coach who’s lost his touch. He’s managed to put a starting XI together that’s been in a losing position only once in the last nine games, and that was an injury-enforced change, so the Timbers are getting into good positions and generally if they can do that, Porter mostly calls it right to keep it that way.

The problem with taking Valeri off, and one potential reason for the side’s relatively poor showing after his removal, is that we don’t have anyone of his ability to fill the void he leaves. Perhaps Nagbe could, one day, but for now he’s not that guy, and without Valeri we start to retain less of the ball out of our half and that puts more pressure on the defence.

That’s what we saw in this game as the Fire came out firing, and got the goals that they no doubt feel they deserved or all their effort. That’s what those who railed against Porter’s substitution choice saw. The consensus seemed to be that everything had been going well up until then, and then Porter spencered it by bringing off Valeri.

The problem I have with this is, and this where I’ll respectfully disagree with the coach below and likely most other fans, is that we were already pretty poor before Valeri went off.

With the way we were playing, there was absolutely no reason for that team to get a goal. They got a goal out of nothing. It wasn’t like they had a flow or anything. It popped up in a moment, and we fell asleep.

Now, while I don’t disagree that the goal, the events that led directly to Magee making it 2-1, “popped up in a moment” when we had fallen asleep, but I don’t agree it came out of nothing. ***

For all we were stroking the ball around (somewhat) nicely and, in our mind, controlling the pace of the game, Chicago weren’t paying attention. They missed the lesson when Zemanski scored and just kept doing what they’d been doing, which was pressing hard and upping their tempo.

In the first half, the Timbers averaged 5 passes per minute, to Chicago’s 3 as they outworked and outplayed their hosts. By the time Valeri went off that situation had turned around entirely and our patient, deliberate play was being disrupted by a fired up Chicago. Our passing accuracy had dropped from 83% to 63% and the problem was that weren’t getting our attacking players involved enough because the Fire were pressing, or we were just plain sloppy and caught on our heels at times.

It’s true that Valeri had two shots at goal in the second half, equalling the entire team’s tally after he went off, and of his four passes, one led to the Timbers’ 2nd goal, but the problem is that he only had four passing opportunities in over 20 minutes of play. His minutes per pass rate had gone from 2.4 to 5.4 before he went off, and having Valeri making passes every five minutes is not how to get the best out of him.

By taking off Valeri, we were losing a lot of our attacking threat, but we were 2-0 up at the time and clearly Porter felt all was well. Can’t really blame him, and really the change makes perfect sense when you consider that Valeri is coming back from an injury, and we have a big week ahead. My problem isn’t with taking off Valeri, it’s that the change wasn’t bold enough.

A lot of our play was directed towards the flanks, which allowed Chicago to press hard out wide and force turnovers from which to launch attacks.

Fire tackling

Fire passing

The Timbers were warned a couple of times in the first couple of minutes of the second half as Magee’s movement and Jewsbury getting caught doing a dragback at the corner of the box. The Fire pressed harder, sometimes questionably so, but they also pressed higher and Magee proved a real handful with his play both on and off the ball.

In the first half, the Timbers pressing was very well organised and it snuffed out much of Chicago’s threat, but in the second half it wasn’t as effective.

Meanwhile Chicago were doing a better job of closing down the space in front of the defence, and denying the Timbers space and time there.

In general terms, the triumverate of Zemanski, Chara and Johnson did well and they rotated duties very nicely, such that if I’m Darlington Nagbe, I’m maybe a little worried about what Rodney Wallace’s return from international duty means. For much of the game, Zemanski was the deeper of the three, often dropping between Kah and Jean-Baptiste to help build from the back.

Zemanski did his chances of starting again no harm when he did move forward and was rewarded with a goal which was a thing of beauty.

Little surprise it came from Valeri being involved, his previous touches in the second half being a pass that led to his own shot at goal, and equally, given how tight the Fire were keeping it through the middle, it came from springing Piquionne in down the flanks.

Zemanski’s finish really was exquisite, and at that point it really did seem like it would break the Fire’s spirit and kill of the fightback before it really got going.

But the home side kept on pressing, getting the ball forward and drawing set-pieces, and throwing the ball into the box.

Well, we went up 2-0, and to be honest with you, it looked like it was going to be three or four

In all honesty, at the time I was worried about how the half was playing out and I’m struggling to see where Porter gets the 3 or 4 goals from, unless he’s referring to chances in the first half cos in the second, if you were out of the room when Zemanski scored, or blinked during Valeri’s tame effort from distance, you don’t see the Timbers doing much to threaten Chicago’s goal. You could say Kocic wasn’t really troubled by all this possession and increased tempo, but all it would take is a slip here or a slice of bad luck there and suddenly it’s 2-1 and all that pressure is going to start making people a little jumpy.

There’s a good chance that if Kocic scoops up the ball and holds it, rather that it spilling to Magee, that the Timbers weather the storm and Zizzo’s pace and width are able to stretch and hurt a tiring Fire defence in the last 15-20 minutes. Games can swing on such moments.

Now, I won’t make the case the AJB got a nudge in the back that sent him into Kocic, who then spilled it at Magee’s feet for that first goal because, hey, it’s a contact sport after all and if you rely on refs getting it right 100% of time, you’re going to be disappointed 100% of the time. Still, maybe someone will make that case here.

Equally, I don’t see the point in arguing that Jean-Baptiste won the ball from Magee, whose “foul” led to the free kick that made it level because when a player reaches in like that, it’s left to the referee’s interpretation, and I refer you to the stats above for how that will work out for you.

The fact is that it’s easy to lay blame for this drawtastrophe at the doors of Caleb Porter for blowing the sub, or the ref for being a ref. I’m sure these factors made a difference, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. The Timbers didn’t drop points because Diego Valeri was taken off, but because Caleb Porter misread the match and didn’t make the right kind of change.

To be fair to the coach though, his hands were tied. Four players off on international duty to add to an injury list meant that Porter didn’t really have the tools at his disposal to change the game when it began to slip away from him.

We really missed Rodney Wallace, whose presence would’ve offered more than Nagbe and Zizzo combined, and without Ryan Johnson available, Porter probably kept Piquionne on a good 10 or 15 minutes longer than he’d have liked. His reluctance to bring on Valencia is understandable in that the youngster is much more mercurial presence than Piquionne, and when the team need someone who can hold up the ball in attack to relieve pressure, you stick with the guy who is handing out masterclasses in doing just that right now. Valencia is stuck in the margins for now, though I’d expect he’ll have a second chance to shine against Tampa. I just hope it is as an attacker than in midfield.

The Timbers Front Three

The tight interplay and close movement and understanding between the front three, with support from behind, that is a big part of why the Timbers have been so successful in attack this year.

With a key, arguably THE key, part of that attack on the field, it suffered and the Fire were able to force pressure under it told. Even a late chance which came off Kah’s surprised right foot from a Will Johnson free-kick, and could’ve grabbed all three points wouldn’t have masked a second half performance that left us hoping for such a last gasp effort in the first place.

The sky isn’t falling though. Bad news: it’s one of those draws that feels like a defeat. Good news: we went to Chicago and outplayed them for 45 minutes with at least six first team players unavailable and were a few inches from coming away with all three points.

It’s a huge fortnight ahead, with three of four games at home, and a trip to play the Galaxy. The US Open Cup match perhaps isn’t the ideal timing with Dallas and LA next up in the league, so we will get a better look at just how deep Porter’s squad really is, and it’s a brave man who backs against Portland when they’re still grinding out results on the road with a half a team missing.

Good News: we’re still not Seattle. Bad News: seriously, there is no bad news there.

Keep the faith, and stay the course.
#RCTID

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Let me say this first; what a wild, wonderful, frightening, crazy, frustrating, exhilarating match!

Thorns FC celebrated the return of their national team players Thursday night by hanging a frantic 4-3 defeat on the visiting Kansas City FC.  Although far from being a “perfect” soccer match the encounter was loads of fun to watch and possibly the most entertaining game I’ve seen from the Thorns and the NWSL to date.

I’m sure my colleagues here will do what the gang over at Stumptown Footy has already done and give you a thorough rundown of the match.  I just wanted to comment on what happened relative to the carping I did after the loss to Chicago the previous weekend.  Specifically;

Having whined about the lack of wing play, Thursday night the Thorns played MUCH wider and used the width of the pitch to spread a scrambling KCFC defense and pour on the attack.  What didn’t hurt Thorns FC was that the KCFC defense lacked their organizer Sesselmann; I’d say that had she been there I doubt if Morgan would have had the time to bury her second.  Both Dougherty on the Thorns right and Marshall on the left had clearly been given orders to push up the touchlines when they could, and did.  The results rewarded the efforts and I hope we’ll continue to see this from Thorns FC going forward.

Although the play proved that the Morgan-Sinclair Axis is still the heart of the Thorns’ attack Thursday night the midfield looked an order of magnitude better than they have all season, stringing together crisp passes, moving well to space and looking to keep possession.  Allie Long had perhaps the best game she’s had to date, the Shim-Foxhoven combination (Shim in the first half, Foxhoven in the second) worked well, and Becky Edwards was her usual beast of a DCM, Chara-izing everything in a white jersey all night.  I won’t way that the midfield is “solved” but the Thorns midfield play was much improved and the team was the beneficiary of that.

As always, Alex Morgan was herself, using her amazing pace to trouble KCFC even without the ball at her feet.  I thought the defining moment for her Thursday night was early in the first half with Thorns FC up 2-nil and a lazy backpass forced KCFC keeper Barnhart to dribble the ball out of the back.  Most forwards might have loafed over to remind the keeper they were there.  Instead Morgan rushed onto her at full tilt, forced her to boot away a hurried clearance to avoid getting caught in a ter-Stegen.  Morgan clearly had no interest in letting her national teammate play her game; this game was Morgan’s, by Pele, and Morgan was letting her know it.

Even more entertaining were her struggles with KCFC’s Becky Sauerbrunn (whose awful slip had gifted PTFC Morgan’s first goal early on and was clearly angry about that).  They tussled and shoved and battled all evening and finally late in the second half the two raced down into the west corner at the North End.  Both were shoving shoulder-to-shoulder when Morgan reached under and ju-jitsu-flipped Sauerbrunn to the ground, rolled over…and sat up and appealed for the card against her victim.

Her own yellow for this was well deserved; nice piece of trickery only if you get away with it, you cunning thing, you.  But it revealed what a fierce competitor this woman is, and how lucky we are to have her.

Of course when you’re rebuilding a Death Star you’re still likely to end up with a defense that has an vulnerable exhaust port or two.  With the attack battering furiously away the Thorns’ defense didn’t have much to do…until the second half when, up 3-1, Parlow Cone pulled the team back into a 4-5-1, left Morgan running about up top, and seemed to want to park the bus.

As we’ve seen; when teams named “PTFC” try that it doesn’t usually end well.  In this case it allowed KCFC to work its way back into the match.

Much as I like what Marshall and Dougherty did going forward, I was hating what was happening in the back.  Marshall was repeatedly skinned to the outside; she spend so much time chasing down wingers who had burned her that I started looking to see if the back of her shirt didn’t read “Kimura”.  Over on the right Dougherty was caught upfield several times as well.  If CPC is going to push her fullbacks upfield to get width – which I like! – the midfield and backline will need to work on shifting to cover the space opened by the fullbacks.

And to add to that the defense continued its curious ways of going into sudden brainlock at random moments.

KCFC pulled back a third goal on what might have been the oddest looping curl of a shot by Erika Tymrak in the 81st minute.  She hit a medium-pace shot from near the right top corner of the 18 at what seemed like a half-dozen Thorns strung across the penalty area like a Washington County road crew and they, like the shovel-proppers, did absolutely nothing useful to the ball.  It whiffed past LeBlanc who looked to be screened by her ostensible defenders.  Ouch.

And speaking of “ouch” and speaking of defenders I have to add this; Thorns FC was very, very lucky not to be a player down after 33 minutes.

Rachel Beuhler did a lot of good work Thursday night.  But that didn’t include a very bad challenge from behind that took down (and injured) Renae Cuellar.  It had all the elements of a sending-off; clumsy tackle, from behind, by the last defender on an attacker that was otherwise in alone on the keeper.

Luckily for Thorns FC while it drew the PK that Cheney buried it didn’t draw the card.  Not that I think for a moment that there was intent on Beuhler’s part; just that on a night that Thorns FC was seemingly inspired by the great Brazilian teams of the Garrincha years – (“Score seven on us? Defending? Não faz mal! We’ll just forget that “defending” stuff and score eight on you..!) the last thing you need is to go down a player AND lose your most crucial defender.

Just sayin’.

After all the hurley was done, after the battle was won the Death Star has downed another plucky band of rebels.

Thursday night was a wild rumpus of an evening, a cascade, a starry night full of goals, and a lovely evening of soccer brought to us by the Ladies in Red; luminous beings were they, not this crude matter.  A delightful evening after the sour mumpish day we shared last Saturday.  Now.

Onward, Rose City!

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Thorns FC now sits squarely in second place in the NWSL after a 2-nil loss to the Chicago Red Stars at home and a Sky Blue win.

As I discussed earlier; Saturday’s game was full of questions.  Clearly, given the scoreline, the answers weren’t very favorable for the Thorns.  What were those answers and were they the reason for Thorns FC’s second loss of the season?

Was the third time the charm for Chicago?  I don’t believe so; I didn’t see anything particularly innovative about the way Chicago played today.  Both goals were the direct result of Portland errors; an unmarked Bywaters heading easily for the first goal, while the second was a dreadfully defended shot/cross that more or less bounced of Chicago’s Santacaterina into the net from pointblank range.

The changes all seemed to be on the PTFC end of the pitch.  The loss of Beuhler looked to be critical, as Portland’s backline looked disorganized and backfooted all afternoon.  I didn’t think that amateur keeper Cris Lewis was particularly at fault on either goal but her presence between the posts calls into question Parlow Cone’s assessment of her notional backup for LeBlanc; why didn’t Adelaide Gay get the start Saturday?  Why go with an amateur who last played for Portland State – not exactly the North Carolina of West Coast soccer – and who seems to have last played competitively in 2009?

Was it the Germans?  Not particularly. Grings was not a major factor; she was well marked and didn’t have a good chance until late in the second half.  Fuss did nothing more than the rest of the Chicago backline, who had most of the afternoon off as Thorns FC flailed about trying to get past midfield.

Was it the loss of the national team players?  I would say yes, to a large degree, but not entirely.

At this point in the season I would say that Parlow Cone has only faced two real tests; the Sky Blue match and this one, dealing with the loss of the Thorns national team players.

In neither has she shown us any Porteresque degree of insight into the game of soccer.

She was flat-out schooled by Jim Gabarra of Sky Blue.  And Saturday against Chicago she appeared just stymied.  Her team continued to try and lump the ball forward but without the speed of Morgan or the force of Sinclair that didn’t work. The backline, without the Bacon-saver, made fundamental errors at critical times and shipped two fairly (one brutally) soft goals.  That isn’t exactly the sort of game reputations for managerial cunning are built on.

We’ve all noticed that the midfield without Sinclair is sort of ordinary.   Saturday when the Sinclair-less midfield did get the ball forward what they provided was nothing special – and neither Foxhoven nor Shim were able to make something out of nothing special, the quality that Morgan provides.  Bringing on Washington and Guess in the second half merely restated the obvious; Thorns FC attack is a Cascadian fir with twin trunks made of Canadian and American national timber.

Without that lumber the poor vegetable looks more like a boxwood hedge.

And since we’re on the subject of things that haven’t worked so well, here’s my pet peeve – this Thorns team’s motto should be  “ea alis nunquam” which loosely translated from the Latin means “She ain’t got jack @!#! for wings”.

Because the one thing the Thorns have not yet shown against any opponent is effective wide play.  The gals in red really want to force the ball through the middle.  And when that didn’t work Saturday…they tried to force the ball through the middle again.  What little wide support the forwards get is typically random and usually not particularly effective; one indication of that is that Thorns FC has scored only 1 of their 12 goals from a PTFC head.  Crosses?  Typically in the single digits (and one of the three matches where Thorns FC attempted more than ten was Sky Blue, where the visitors’ central defense was so impenetrable that the only attack that PTFC had was crosses in from out wide…).

Why is this a problem?  Because if you pack the middle the Thorns have trouble scoring because we cannot or will not play the ball out wide.  I’m no Kevin Alexander but it seems to me that attacking the flanks should at least be an option for Thorns FC.

Well.

If all that sounds like I’m being grim, well. I don’t think this was more than a bad day and the national team players will return.

But.

I would suggest that Thorns coaching staff might want to think very hard about whether there are real problems in the things I’ve discussed here, and, if there are, whether something needs to be done about this.  If I knew for sure, hell, I’d be coaching the team.   But if there are…well…

KCFC is coming around this Thursday, is all I’m sayin’.

Just a couple of other random comments on the match;

-  It was great to see the turnout for a match that didn’t feature the big stars.  12,000-odd?  I’ve said this before but it bears repeating; Portland really is “Soccer City USA”.

-  My normal match tickets are for the General Admission section at the North End, but for single-match tickets I usually have to depend on whatever’s available.  The last several times these tickets have been in the far-southwest portions of the West Stand.  And I have to say; that is a whole different world over there.  I’m sure that there are lots of people who like sitting quietly watching soccer, but for me it feels like going to a memorial service with 10,000 strangers.  I just don’t feel…right…sitting quietly watching my team.  I want to stand and sing and chant and abuse the officials and slag off on the visiting team.  It’s spoiled section 216 for me.

- There was one extremely odd bit of business that marked the second half.  John Nyen at By Any Other Name does a good job describing it but the gist was that Bywaters from Chicago went down with an injury and was carried off the field by one of her own teammates.  What the heck was up with that?  Where was the Chicago trainer?  Where the heck were the medical attendants with a stretcher?  The whole thing had a real rec-league feel and left me, at least, confused and concerned.

- Nyen also describes the furious altercation that broke out late in the second half between the officials and Thorns FC coaching staff that ended with assistant coach John Galas getting tossed.  That, too, was a bit disturbing.  Yes, the referee let some rough play go but was at least letting it go on both sides (not her fault that PTFC was shrinking from the tackling…) but the Thorns’ problems were not on the officiating in any sense.   Nyen draws some uncomfortable parallels between this incident, the PTFC coaching that this match showcased, and some of the worst features of the Spencer Era – and I have to say I agree with a lot of what he says.

- And can we STOP with the “What’s it like to see a crowd?” already?  Bad enough to taunt other teams playing in tiny venues that can’t seat more than a couple of thousand when we’re beating them.  When we’re losing 2-nil it had the nasty taste of sore-loserdom.  I don’t want to hammer on this any more, but, c’mon; we have lots of great songs and chants.  Let’s pack this one away until the next time Chivas USA comes to visit the Timbers, K?

Sorry.  Had to get that off my chest…

Anyway, Saturday the First of June was a bad day for Thorns FC.

We all have them; one of those days when nothing works, when you go to your Plan B and discover that it pretty much sucks and you got nothin’ in the “Plan C” file.  One loss is just one loss, even if it is to Chicago.

The thing to do now is learn from this and move on and up.   But Parlow Cone and the Thorns have to do that; they have to learn, and they have to do the work.

Because if you don’t do the work, the love dies.

And nobody wants to deal with that one.

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There’s no hiding the love affair that is currently blossoming in the city of roses between Caleb Porter and the Timbers faithful. Cautious optimism has given way to a sense that this team will find a way through, no matter the opponent or obstacle.

The table doesn’t lie, and with a little over a third of the regular season gone the Timbers sit 2nd in the West, with the 4th best defensive record.

That latter fact is arguably the most remarkable of the two considering the constant changing around Porter has done at the back. It’s not been tinkering for tinkerings sake, most of it has been enforced, but it’s a testament to Porter’s eye for depth.

Buying depth isn’t as easy as it sounds, because if it was, I mean, you’d just pay for four good guys instead of two, right? Except there’s a salary cap, and we’re not NYCFC, so finding those four guys is a bit trickier than just going out and getting the best available, and paying them what they want.

Pa Modou Kah became the fifth player to start at center back for Portland, and Rauwshan McKenzie may be the sixth after joining recently as the Timbers have weathered a barrage of misfortune.

The coach said at the time of Kah’s signing that he didn’t see the Norwegian-Gambian defender as a replacement for the injured Mikael Silvestre, leading the backline, but he saw the Kah-Silvstre partnership as his ideal pair.

That would seem to indicate that it wasn’t in the script for Jean-Baptiste to be so heavily featured at this point. The exposure will be a great benefit to the youngster in the long term, and the Timbers have got through what could’ve been a clusterfuck of misfortune in defence without many dents in the body work, but it remains to be seen who of Jean-Baptiste, Kah, McKenzie and Futty get the nod from Porter from here on.

It’s not just in defense where Porter has added to the squad wisely, and found great value for the club’s outlay. Piquionne’s four goals against Wilmington will live long in the memories of Timbers fans, and we have Ryan Johnston, Jose Valencia and a returning Bright Dike in the hunt for goals. The addition of Will Johnson, and the reinvention of Jack Jewsbury adds depth to center of midfield and the full-back positions, and Porter continues to get the best from guys who’ve tended to underperform under previous coaches.

Without Porter and his team’s ability to find guys who can step up when needed, or offer variety or flexibility in changing the complexion of matches, we’re settling in for another one of “those years”.

A good example of the change, not just on the pitch but off it, from then to now is to look at the guys on the bench. These are our game-changers, the guys who might have to make a difference.

Rewind to 2011, and the Timbers lost their 100% home record with a 3-2 loss to DC United. Of the seven guys on the bench for the Timbers that night, three of them would’t play MLS football in 2012: Adin Brown, Eddie Johnson and Ryan Pore.

The midfield was covered by James “Non Soccer” Marcelin and Adam Moffat. Moffat would get on for a whole six minutes, and would be playing for the Dynamo in less than two months.

The final two, Darlington Nagbe and David Horst, are still on the roster, but it’s interesting to look back and note that despite being 2-1 down from the 75th minute, Nagbe didn’t get on. In the event Spencer only used two subs, something he did fairly often which seemed like a quirk of his at the time, but can be read retroactively as a sign that even he didn’t have faith in his back-up guys.

If you give Spenny another year to build his squad, then you arrive at the 1-1 draw with the Whitecaps in late May 2012. The bench this time was better, in that Horst, Rodney Wallace and Sal Zizzo all wouldn’t look out of place in or around the Timbers XI today.

However, it also had Lovel Palmer and Mike Fucito who definitely were Timbers players, I’ve seen the pictures, but I’ll be damned if my brain isn’t trying to wipe that knowledge out altogether.

Joe Bendik was back-up to Troy Perkins, and I think it’s fair to say we’ve upgraded there.

Franck Songo’o fills out the bench that night, and he’s swapped that for a couch this year, unless he’s finally found a club. Perhaps he and Steven Smith are out there, walking the land together.

This year, as we beat DC 2-0, because that’s who we are now, we had Kocic, Miller, McKenzie, Zizzo, Alhassan, Zemanski and Valencia.

Ryan Miller brings a lot of experience from abroad, and despite a grounding the States, seems to be taking a bit of time to adjust back into the groove over here, but he’s a solid back up to have. McKenzie adds depth to defense, while Zizzo, Alhassan and Valencia have been with the club since before Porter.

Ben Zemanski is a versatile player, a footballing Swiss army knife, who covers a lot of bases for a relatively bargain basement price.

This ability to fill out the squad with guys who represent great value is the key that has allowed Porter to do more than build a good first XI; he’s built a squad.

The average base salary of the benches under Spencer were $66k in 2011 and $70k in 2012. I couldn’t pull up figures for McKenzie, but I really doubt he’s going to be pulling the 2013 average of $65k significantly upwards.

It may be the heady cocktail of success and silky soccer getting to me, but I look at Porter’s bench and feel confident in flat-out saying it’s better than any bench we had under Spencer. And this is with key players out. Porter has done that, while still spending less than Spencer did to stock up on square pegs.

That’s not to say the squad is perfect, and I wonder how long we carry six central defenders when they’re all fit, but it’s certainly better than it has been in the past.

That is probably the most impressive thing about Porter’s reign thus far, and it’s this ability to build a squad that can all positively contribute that will do more to put Portland on track to silverware than all free-flowing football in the world.

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Today’s match between Thorns FC and the visiting Chicago Red Stars will be intriguing for the number of questions it raises.

There’s the “Third time’s the charm?” question.  The first two meetings between these clubs ended in 2-nil beatings for a Chicago side that never really learned the words to the Thorns’ opponents theme song, “How Do You Stop A Problem Like Alex Morgan?” Not their fault; only Sky Blue FC has managed to cover that number.  But Rory Dames now has SBFC’s example to learn from.  We’ll see if he can get the visitors to sing along to the tune that Jim Gabarra wrote here less than three weeks ago.

There’s also the “Where In The World Is Christine Sinclair (and Alex and Rachel and Karina…)?” question.  We know where – Toronto, preparing to play each other.  At Stumptown Footy the Always Indispensible Jonanna W discusses the potential options Cindy Parlow Cone has for reconfiguring a team that has leaned heavily on the currently-missing internationals.  She mentions all the usual suspects in attack; Foxhoven, Long, Shim…even Angie Kerr (who in my opinion has yet to show the form she promised in preseason) and Nikki Washington (who I thought looked adrift against Sky Blue, underperformed against a visiting Washington Spirit and was recently benched against Seattle).  But all of these players – though decent attackers all – have never yet played a minute against a NWSL opponent without the big names on the pitch.  My suspicion is that they will have serious difficulties today against a Chicago defense that has added a very solid German defender in Sonja Fuss.

Which brings up the third and most fraught question; “Deutschland über Portland?”

Chicago has added another GWNT player, and she is a serious load; Inka Grings

“…is third on Germany’s all-time career scoring list with 64 international goals…was the top scorer in Euro 2005 with four goals… Scored five goals and was the top scorer in Euro 2009…won German Footballer of the Year in 1999, 2009, and 2010…and top-scorer in the UEFA Women’s Champions League in the 2010–11 season.”  She’s also the Bundesliga’s all-time top scorer.

Whew.

I can’t see Grings as anything but a huge problem for a Beuhlerless Thorns FC backline.  And a real danger to a LeBlancless Portland goal.  Parlow Cone will HAVE to devise a tactic or combination tactics to neutralize Grings or today will be, as another German is supposed to have said;

“For the Thorns, it will be the longest day … the longest day.”

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Compared to last week, this game was refreshingly free of both the inane and the absurd, so I think there will be a lot less comedy from me. Which is a shame, since my soccer analysis can be both inane and absurd. I’ll give it a try anyway.

1) I wouldn’t call this the prettiest game we’ve ever played, but we still won, 2-0, didn’t we? Part of that is because DC United sucks. But it’s also because we’re a very good team, and very good teams win the ugly ones.

Why was it so ugly? Well, from what Coach Porter’s saying, the loss of Diego Valeri required us to play a more direct style, with less possession, more punting, and a slightly uglier aesthetic. If you look at the statistics, you’ll see that DC had a higher percentage of possession, more total passes, and more shots. Fortunately for us, every time DC got the ball in front of the net, they blew it, spraying shots at everything except the goal. We were lucky. If we give up those kind of opportunities to a good team, we lose.

2) Possibly we gave up so many chances because we had a new guy in the back four. Pa Modou Kah is certainly a lot more experienced than 20-year old Andrew Jean-Baptiste, but he’s also only been on the team a week and a half. He’ll be better next game.

But what about that next game? What happens when Futty Danso comes back from his red card? Does Kah stay in? Personally, I think he should. Jean-Baptiste makes me a little nervous, always wrestling with guys back there. He seems like a penalty kick waiting to happen.

And I like the idea Kah and Futty back there together. This whole “Great Wall of Gambia” thing we’ve got going on is fascinating. But I will admit, there are questions. For starters, who’s in charge, Futty or Kah? More importantly, will they have theme music and costumes? I think they should wear vampire teeth. And yes, I’m completely serious. Think of the intimidation factor. The opposing team will hear rumors that we’ve got two big tall Gambians back there, but they won’t know what to expect. How could they? Does anyone know what happens when you play two Gambian centerbacks side-by-side? Maybe they grow vampire teeth. I say we give it a try. (Editor’s Note: I love African football)

3) Three words. Rodney Freakin’ Wallace. The guy’s a machine, isn’t he? Non-stop energy, from start to finish. I saw him rockin’ it on the left side, the right side, forward, back, middle. He’s everywhere. You know how much I love Diego Chara, right? Well, everything Chara does for our defense, RFW is doing for our offense. And how about that goal, eh? An absolute laser right between the goalie and the near post. That’s a world-class strike, right there. Does MLS give an award for Most Improved Player, because if so, they might as well start inscribing the trophy right now.

4) Also fabulous: Darlington Nagbe. For years we’ve been begging him to be more aggressive. Well, Valeri’s absence Saturday must have flipped that switch, because Nags came out firing. I love it when he’s got the ball at his feet and decides to pin his ears back and run straight at the defense. He’s a blur. His aggressive play and shots from distance really opened things up for the rest of the team. The question now is whether this sort of energy will continue once Valeri’s back on the field. And should it? There’s a side of me that wonders if perhaps everything we saw versus DC was a one-time thing.

5) Case in point: we started the game with two strikers – Ryan Johnson and Frederic Piquionne. You’d expect them to be the scorers, right? Except they weren’t. In this weird, direct offense we had Saturday, the scorers became the playmakers and the playmakers became the scorers.

RFW’s goal? That happened because Freddy Piquionne got the ball, held it for a few seconds, let the defense rush out to stop him, then flipped a nice little pass to the suddenly wide-open Wallace. One missile strike later, we’re up 1-0.

Nagbe’s goal? Similar, except this time it was Ryan Johnson holding the ball, pulling the defense to him, then lofting it forward. Nags fights off not one, not two, but three DC defenders, then sends it through the keepers legs.

I’m starting to wonder if there really is no single, definable offense that we can call “Porterball.” Caleb Porter seems to mix it up just a bit for every single game. And when we face Chicago, with Valeri back on the pitch, I’m sure that, once again, we’ll see something new.

6) So, we lost to Montreal way back in early March. Since then, 11 straight games without a loss. When does it end?

Probably not against Chicago. It’s a road game, yes, but Chicago’s really not that good.

After that, we host Dallas, who only have the best record in the league. Still, it’s at home. I say the streak’s safe for that one.

It’s the next week when I think we finally lose. We visit the LA Galaxy on June 19th and, lemme tell ya, they could not have looked better this Sunday night, destroying Seattle 4-0. They dominated every aspect of the game. Offense, defense, set pieces, possession. They looked like the best team in the league. So if our streak has to end – and it does – then I think it’s against LA.

But until then, let’s enjoy ourselves, right? I saw some heavy legs against DC, so I think we’re having our week off at just the right time. Take it easy, boys. Spend these next two weeks getting healthy, then come back against Chicago tanned, rested, and ready to go.

And please, please, PLEASE bring your vampire teeth.

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