PORTLAND, Ore. – Those familiar with the dynamic between the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps FC could have predicted how Sunday night’s match at Providence Park would play out. We had seen that dynamic both before and recently, with the teams combining for one goal a Timbers’ victory five weeks ago.
Per that script, the Timbers would dictate play but be patient, almost conservative; waiting for a moment rather than forcing one. If the Whitecaps couldn’t exploit a Portland mistake, the Timbers would slowly start stretching and probing the Vancouver defense. Ultimately, Portland would either break through before full time or pay a price for their patience.
On Sunday, patience won out, with Portland’s 61st-minute breakthrough delivered with the level of precision Portland needed to beat a solid if stoic Vancouver defense. Volleying home his fourth goal of the season, Yimmi Chara helped give the Timbers a 1-0 victory – a result that moved Portland to first place in Major League Soccer’s Western Conference.
“[Vancouver] do a good job to close spaces, to have a block together, to move from one side to the other side and not allow you to find too many spaces,” Timbers head coach Giovanni Savarese said, when asked about his team’s approach to the Whitecaps. “That’s why it was very important for us to make sure that we move the ball, that we found those spaces by moving the ball from one side to the other.
“In the first half, it was a little bit difficult to find a penetrating vertical ball. We played more side to side, but then in the second half we were able to be a little more direct through the lines and we created a little bit more problems for them.”
Unfortunately for the Timbers, the night’s victory may have come with a heavy loss. Late in the second half, Jaroslaw Niezgoda’s left knee buckled as he was trying to pressure one of the Whitecaps defenders. Without attempting to get up from the ground, Portland forward was carried off the field on a stretcher, with trainers taking the first-year Timbers forward straight into the team’s locker room.
It is the second time this season the Timbers have lost an important player during a victory over a Cascadia rival. Early in the team’s September 6 win at Seattle Sounders FC, winger Sebastián Blanco was lost for the season due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Though Savarese did not have a diagnosis on Niezgoda after Sunday’s match, the Timbers head coach admitted early word was “not very positive.”
“You don’t want any of your players to go through a difficult moment ...,” Savarese explained. “[There is] this feeling of reward for what we got from the match, but nevertheless, it’s difficult to feel happy when you know that one of your players went through a difficult moment …”
“You never want to see a teammate go down like that, right? ...” Portland left back Jorge Villafaña asked, rhetorically. “So far, he’s been really important for us ... But we have players that can do the job, as well. Any player that is going to get called in and be up top is going to perform ...”
In terms of options at forward, the Timbers are already down one player, with Jeremy Ebobisse having missed the last three matches while recovering from a concussion. That absence also leaves the Timbers thinner than normal on the wing, where Andrés Flores and Andy Polo have assumed starting roles while the team’s first-choice right wing, Ebobisse, recovers.
Throughout the season, the Timbers’ depth has been a strength, with Portland the only team in MLS to have four players (Ebobisse, Niezgoda, Felipe Mora and Diego Valeri) score at least seven goals. Given enough injuries, that strength will become a thing of the past, with the Timbers’ depth thinned out.
“We’ve had so many moments like [Niezgoda’s injury] this year, and it’s very unfortunate,” Savarese said. “We feel for the player, so it makes it a little bit difficult to enjoy this moment as much as you can.”
As Savarese implied, Sunday’s victory left little room for celebrations. It came just minutes after Niezgoda was carried off. Without that misfortune, the team could revel in another game well-managed, as well as an ascent to the top of the Western Conference. And that revelry could happen with one of the team’s important pieces still at full health.
Instead, Portland’s ascent up the standings becomes a silver lining. Now, in terms of claiming first place in the West, the Timbers control their own destiny. Win their last two games, and the Timbers will finish with 1.91 points per game. The highest Sporting Kansas City can reach is 1.86; Seattle, after their Wednesday loss at the Colorado Rapids, can only get to 1.81.
That’s good news for the Timbers, though in light of what happened at the end of Sunday’s game, it feels like news for another day. For the seventh time in their last 10 games, Portland won. They also left Providence Park with, potentially, a major loss.
