Most Portland Timbers broadcasts over the last month-plus have offered a similar reminder: that the team has come from ahead to drop too many points this season. Fifteen times during the 2020 Major League Soccer campaign the Timbers have conceded goals in a match’s final 15 minutes, including on Wednesday night, when a late score by the Colorado Rapids knocked Portland from first in the Western Conference.
On Sunday, the Timbers flipped that script. Overcoming a controlling first half from Los Angeles FC, the Timbers salvaged a result with a 90th-minute goal from Jorge Villafaña, earning a 1-1 draw at Banc of California Stadium on AT&T Decision Day to finish third in the Western Conference.
"Coming back in a stadium like this, against a team like LAFC, is always a good sign," Timbers head coach Giovanni Savarese said, "and to keep on fighting towards the end the way my guys did, I’m extremely proud. Now we feel that, hopefully, we can [continue] this momentum and in this mentality that the guys have into the playoffs."
That the Timbers were close enough to equalize will be seen as a stroke of luck by some, a subject of slightly bad aim by others. Three times over the first 53 minutes, Los Angeles FC hit goalkeeper Steve Clark’s woodwork, with LAFC attackers Carlos Vela and, twice, Diego Rossi failing to double the lead Vela delivered in the 13th minute.
Over the second half, though, Portland began asserting more control of the game, finding new ways to deal with the LAFC pressure that pushed them toward their own goal during the first half. Come the final minutes, Portland’s chances started to come, with Diego Valeri nearly equalizing in the 80th minute before, in the 87th minute, a sequence of play left LAFC goalkeeper Kenneth Vermeer sprawling at his far post.
Three minutes later, that far-post action paid off. Attacking a ball at the left post from his new, advanced winger position, Villafaña, the team’s starting left back, headed down into the LAFC goal, turning a shutout loss into a point of perseverance on the road.
"[The draw] shows that our team is mature," Villafaña said. "It shows what are we capable of coming back from a 1-0 [deficit], not getting desperate.
"We knew that if we stayed composed and we do the things that we needed to do and we did it in the second half, we could get the result. We got the tie, and I think this gives us confidence going into the playoffs.”
Consider the difference between the two scenarios: the ones that existed on both sides of Villafaña’s late goal. Before his score, Portland was primed to enter the Audi 2020 MLS Cup Playoffs with a two-game losing streak, having been shutout in consecutive games while dealing with a loss to one of the litmus-test teams in the league. With Villafaña’s goal, though, the Timbers got a point, on the road, against one of the league’s most talented teams, doing so after an early mistake in possession left them chasing the game for 77 minutes.
"Once we changed with a back three and we gave a little bit more freedom for Villafaña at the end to go a little bit higher, he took advantage of the space and he scored a phenomenal goal," Savarese explained. "We knew that we needed to find the second post, and he went into the area that we asked him to, and then, he finished in a great way.”
The line between the worlds Portland faced at game's end feels like a fine one – one that, perhaps, is more a function of perception than either team’s quality – but those lines are a reality of sports. Instead of returning home wondering why they couldn’t break through, the Timbers will go into the international break with a reminder: that they’re capable of grinding out results.
“When you score late, it feels more like a win than a loss ...," Clark said. "These games are tight and the West, there’s a lot of good teams. It’s about getting on the other end of these draws, and we’ve been getting better as a team ...
"The other factor that should be talked about is how many games we’ve played. We’ve played more games than anyone in MLS besides Orlando, and we’ve done really well within that. Today, you see a team that was on its fourth game in a very short period of time and traveling, and it’s a pretty good performance.”
Over the next two weeks, the emotions from Sunday’s game will dissipate. They’ll be replaced by the realities of how Portland finished their season. Over the past five days, they slid from first place to third. As a result, they not only get a slightly more difficult match in the West’s quarterfinals – the sixth seed, FC Dallas, as opposed to the eighth seed, the San Jose Earthquakes – but they’re only guaranteed one match at home. Portland is also on the same side of the West bracket as Seattle Sounders FC and Sunday’s opponent.
But as Portland’s route to MLS Cup finals in 2015 and 2018 showed, the difficulty of a team’s path might not be as important as the form they carry into the playoffs. And after Sunday’s result, the Timbers have reason to be encouraged with that form. Though the team didn’t get the results they wanted this week – and although they had more trouble against LAFC than they would have wanted – Portland was still able to go on the road, against one of the league’s most talented teams, and find solutions. When the final whistle blew, they’d worked their way back to even footing, doing so in a match that didn’t play out as they wanted.
At some point in the coming playoffs, Portland may be in the same situation. They were there at Sporting Kansas City in 2018. They were there against Sporting at home in 2015. Whatever the plan was going into those games, it had to change amid realities on the field. The Timbers had to persist and find new solutions.
If nothing else, Sunday showed Portland’s persistence. They can salvage a result, even on the road, against the league’s most talented. While that’s not a plan you want to rely on, it’s a plan you may need to execute in the postseason
