Ninety* minutes away from a trip to Atlanta*. A draw, at best, gets us AET, so we need to outright win this game. And our defense needs to be lights out, as a Portland goal means we have to score two. We've played really well at home this season, but man that away goals rule scares me.
Don't need to worry about accumulation for this one. The only thing that suspends a player for MLS Cup is a red card.
If we look at Portland v Seattle as a model, this is a stength v strength matchup. We didn't play to own possession there, and ended up sharing it evenly with them. In their Seattle serires, at home they lost that battle 44-56 percent, but on the road, when they won in PKs after scoring twice, they had 33 percent of the ball. They will look to absorb our pressure and stretch us on the counter. An early goal will be a very, very good thing for us. I fear going into the 80th minute still at 0-0.
Especially considering all of the lead up advertising has been about the "blackout" at the game where we are supposed to do some kind of lights show or some shit with our phones.
Son of a bitch, did we just park the bus with 10 minutes left in the first half and try to win 1-0? Because if the bus means kind of getting 9 men behind the ball, not winning 50-50 balls anymore, giving up possession at every opportunity, giving up a goal, then having to chase the game, then it appears we parked it.
i hope every asshole who threw shit on the field and at the portland players were identified, kicked out, and banned for life. ******** them.
The German announcer was wondering if the failure to review their second goal was the result of confusion after the beer can toss. MLS analysis guys said Opara just barely managed to keep Ebossie (?) on, but the Eurosport guy noted "Klar, offsides" after a quick view of the replay. I went to sleep (at 5:30 am here) thinking we'd just lost a championship because of beer cans. I will say this, hat's off on their first goal. I really would like to hate the game right now and never want to see another second of footie, but that goal was beautiful. Question, while it is cetainly true that Ike decided to bump the keeper on one of our first half goals that wasn't, had he held his idiotic run was that looper beating the keeper? Audi wise, that was about as even a game as can be. The Audi team numbers show Portland 3367 to SKC 3362. This is interesting because in the traditional stats, we were dominant: possession (60-40), passing percent (79-71), shots (20-8), sog (8-3), corners (13-3), etc. But add in all the other stuff, duals won (42-52), clearances (9-39), tackles won (5-12) and it becomes a bit more obvious that the stats were a reflection of a tactical battle. Both teams had 8 players at or above the season average for an MLS player, meaning the game was played at a pretty high level. I admit, I find this disappointing. Our top Audi performer was Gerso, and it must be said he was great after coming on. Everything he did was spark-ish. The Eurosport guy at the half was waxing on in his usual Salloi man-crush, Best player for SKC, best player in this game, a rising star in the game, so calm, so creative, etc. But jeebus, the second half seemed to be a bit off the cliff. Still, he connected on 20 passes, missed on 3. He had a couple ints, and only for involved in 3 aerial battles, won one, meaning the game was to his liking. I don't have the heart to go too deeply into this stuff right now. Zusi's numbers were interesting. He completed 40 passes. missed on 13, and was one of our worst Audi performers among the field starters because he had quite a few negatives to his game, lost challenge and aerial battle and gave up 2 of their corners and put the ball out of touch 5 times. but it wasn't a historically bad outing for him, just a bit off. Anyway, crap.
Tough end to a great season. Watching live, it felt like we got CONCACAF'd by a good Mexican team. Portland was miserable, petulant and effective. These games bring out the idiot bandwagons. Stadium had a Camarohead feel. Everything was Geigers fault. In reality, he did pretty good. Second game in a row where we got out muscles. Our midfield has gone soft. We don't have a player willing to deliver a borderline tackle anymore. No on field response to the repeated fouls. We just let players like Beckerman or Chara foul us repeatedly. We need an goon.
I can't believe that eight minutes into stoppage time, we get a corner kick... and we play a short corner that we immediately give away and concede a goal from. It's the dying seconds of the game, boys, whip that shit into the box. I will never understand this team's fascination with short corners. They are awful, they suck, they are terrible, they blow, and they never ********ing work. Just ********ing put the ball into the box.
I had the same thought at the time and I also hate short corners. That said, the Timbers are a big team and all the subs Savarese made were defensive and made to deal with crosses. I've never seen Opara get out jumped until last night. Portland had two or three defenders that could deal with Opara on corners and the rest of the team that was out there at the end of the game is useless on crosses.
I'm still going to at least partially (mostly?) blame this on our unbelievably conservative first leg tactics this playoffs. Blanco's wonder goal was exactly why you try to take things under your control in the first leg. We didn't try to score. We didn't work valeri or Chara nearly hard enough to earn them their yellow suspension. We didn't really do anything. we were luckier than New York though, they did the same thing and got their asses pounded in atlanta..so there's that. As for last night, we were "better". But that doesn't matter. Especially when the visiting team essentially has a free tie breaker. It blows my mind to see people arguing that we did not lose because of the away-goal rule. Sure the game was a loss, but does anyone in the world really think we have 10 players in the final third if a tie sends it to extra time? Hopefully everyone that threw something was identified and has been sent packing.
i agree that the tie was lost in portland. i saw an awesome game in an amazing atmosphere that was unfortunately very much tainted by the beer throwing idiots. I didn't actually hear them, but apparently the cauldron responded by shouting 'shame' in the general direction of them. If so, kudos to them. I've been to several stadiums in Germany and can't remember a stadium ever being that loud. Playoff soccer is just fantastic that way. Can't wait for next season - this team just has so many different characters that it just makes it a joy to watch. 'I like short corners' - A phrase that has never been uttered by any fan of any soccer club in the history of the universe. Why are they a thing? I guess they made sense for ~2010 barca when they didn't have a single player except Pique above 5'5, but apart from that? I definitely had my frustrations with the refereing during the game, but with a bit of reflection I too think that Geiger did pretty well, especially considering how difficult of a game it was - lots of challenges, lots of odd situations. Still think the Valentin no second yellow decision is going to be the one that he will want back when he reviews the game.
A nice addition next year would be to move on from these. I'd like a return to some version of the KS/MO border shirts, but pretty much anything other than wavy gravy is an upgrade. they're just boring.
I just hate the way they play. There were more Portland players on the ground after they scored than before, by a wide margin. I am a lifelong soccer lover, but the time wasting that some teams do, drives me crazy. I would like to see two changes to the game: 1. Any opposing player that picks up, kicks, or interferes with a dead ball is immediately issued a yellow card. 2. Referee should still keep the time, but the clock should stop for every stoppage. just like basketball. That would address the slow walking to the sidelines, and the rolling around on the ground with your hands over your face. Referee would still keep the time, but everyone would know how much time was left and it wouldn't be at the refs discretion.
I don't think we'd see any other team in the league behaving any differently in the same situation. That includes us.
the way the club treats it, we might as well not call them primaries or secondaries anymore. whichever one the club is pushing to sell more of should be considered the primary. that's basically what everything around this club is designed for. marketing bullshit at every turn.