Portland Timbers head coach Giovanni Savarese spoke to the media on Tuesday – the first time he’d taken questions since his team’s 4-1, Friday night loss at the LA Galaxy. Over the 14-minute session, two themes emerged: dissatisfaction with the team’s last performance, but satisfaction that most of Portland’s players are returning to the team.
Left back Claudio Bravo and midfielder Eryk Williamson returned to training this week. Bravo was in Japan competing with the Argentine men’s national team at the Tokyo Olympics. Williamson spent the last month helping the United States men’s national team to triumph in the Concacaf Gold Cup.
They return to a team desperate to rebound. Friday’s loss was the Timbers’ second straight, and it was the fourth time this year they’ve lost a game by three goals. They’d done so at the beginning of July at Austin FC in a game that felt like a wakeup call. In its wake, Friday felt like a reminder: The team need to be more urgent about showing improvement.
“We're coming from a disappointing match against the Galaxy,” Savarese said as part of his press conference’s opening comments. “When I say disappointment, I understand that if I'm a fan of this club, I'm not happy with the performance. I'm not excited about what I saw after the 30th minute of the first half …
“We all know. We all take falling in that particular match. Players, coaches are committed. We have to show ourselves better …”
Portland’s next chance will be tonight against visiting San Jose. The Earthquakes are coming off an undefeated July, and while they won only one once in that span (five games), that win came on Saturday, on the road, against the West-leading Seattle Sounders.
“[The Earthquakes] come with confidence, and it's going to be a difficult match,” Savarese said.
“[San Jose is] a team that has changed some of their ways. San Jose plays a little bit different. Still [defend] man-to-man in some areas. Maybe a little bit more zonal or dropping into spaces a little bit more than they used to do before. The system, 3-4-3, [is] no longer the way they used to play, but [other] things are the same. We believe we have the group, at home especially, to be able to have a very good performance.”
For Savarese, one of the most important parts of that group is the options available. Throughout the season, Savarese has felt his team was hamstrung, be it by injuries, significant international absences, or a compacted schedule. The last factor remains as Portland plays both Wednesday night and Saturday, but the other two problems are correcting themselves. Bravo and Williamson are back, and the injury is down to four “out” players (Jeff Attinella, Ismaila Jome, Jaroslaw Niezgoda and Andy Polo). For Wednesday, Savarese is back to something resembling a full roster.
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“We're going to leave some players out of the roster,” he said, “which for us is a first, probably from the beginning of the year. That's pretty much where we have been: trying to manage a very difficult situation in a way that still put us right now, in a moment, in a [place] that we can still continue to climb and be in a playoff situation.”
The Timbers are outside of that playoff situation, at the moment. They’re two points behind Real Salt Lake for the West’s seventh and final postseason spot. With 19 games left in the regular season, that’s no reason to panic, but given the Timbers’ Friday performance, there is growing concern. There have been too many three-goal losses this year. It’s time to find out whether Portland can turn things around.
“But we don't have many tomorrows,” Savarese said. “We have a lot of todays we have to solve.”
