Glad you mentioned Gerso too. Feels to me the fact PV didn’t sub Gerso in for either wing, or to change the front line, was a bit of a tipping point tactically and underscores some of this thread’ resentment of PV’s approach. Gerso speed on the wing against a PDX that was clogging the middle makes too much sense. So why not a change up top with the fastest guy on your roster? I think everyone in this thread can run the rationale back and forth. IMHO, PV decided to knock. Let’s rememeber we are talking tactics leg 1 not leg 2. (I don’t recall any hand-wringing when we went 0-0 in Houston back in 2013. (Of course, that was two lifetimes ago in my household....)) I generally tend to give the benefit of the doubt to conservatism during a first leg. Just feels to me that despite the away-goal rule, the overall format encourages such. We often complain about a stodgy first leg, but then we get the hair dryer treatment second leg. It’s a vicious cycle. I’ve seen the debate about who takes the lead going into leg 2 of a 0-0 tie. My question is to a PDX supporter: would you rather have it 0-0 going into leg 2 at home or take that same score on the road leg 2? I think the answer is simple if we are all being honest.
I hope you are right. What makes me more confident: 1. SKC doesn't play its best on plastic grass and will play better on their own turf. 2. Rubio is back in the line-up 3. Home crowd, "Cauldron effect" 4. Portland wastes a day traveling this time. 5. Sinovic feels loved again. 6. PV will play every card in his hand this time to advance.
We've played exceptionally well at home all season, and we've played Portland really well all season to boot. It's the playoffs, anything can happen, but I don't think we're in a bad spot, even with the away goals tiebreaker. Being at home with a little more confidence and ability to dictate the pace, playing on grass, in front of our fans... I think this game is going to look a lot different than the three previous playoff games. Portland has Chara, but they still aren't half as chippy as RSL are. I think this game sets us up to be a lot more free-flowing with our play-style, allowing us to dictate the game more and put together some of those passes and plays we've started to expect over the course of the year. And hopefully without any yellow card accumulation rules in effect, it won't take Chara 19 fouls to earn his first yellow.
I agree we should be confident about the home leg of this series but I also have some concerns. SKC want to boss the game through sustained possession. Normally, the away team sits back and complies because they are scared that if they play, we'll pull them apart. I don't think that is what PTFC will do. Portland is in a unique situation where conceding one goal doesn't matter. They have to score to win. As long as they score one, it doesn't matter if they concede. Given that situation, plus how effective they were at denying possession to SKC and how ineffective RSL's sit back and wait tactics were, I think Portland comes in to play. That scares me a bit. It took SKC 60 minutes to react to PTFC's tactics of man marking Illie when they lost possession. If it takes us 60 minutes to react to whatever PTFC brings this game, it could spell trouble. Hopefully its PTFC reacting to SKC, and not the other way around. Your list is a solid reason for why the game will go that way and I hope you're right.
I just hope we don't go up by 2 and start to feel comfortable and then do whatever the hell we did a couple weeks ago. because Portland is better than RSL, and doesn't have a little besler to whiff an unbelievably open net.
Okay. I'm late to the discussion, but wanted to add the Audi breakdown (I was in flight back home during the game. The Audi numbers would indicate that our goalless draw was among our weakest outings of the year, though playoffs be playoffs. We racked up a total of 2048 points, while Portland came in at 2397. That's quite low for us in 2018. We've had a lot of games in 2018 where 8 or more SKC players have come in at or above average for an MLS player. In this one, we had four. Melia (far and away the best numbers, either side). Behind him, for us, Besler, Opara, Zusi were also above the average line. Just below it: Ilie and Seth. Still, that indictes a below average outing. There's a trend in those numbers. Though it doesn't work completely. Our lowest rated player was Roger, (-166) who completed 45 passes, misses on 19 and lost four challenges. This is a pretty light on the positives number for him, and high on the negatives. He connected on 3 long balls, missed on 6. But it does pay to note that our top rated attacked was Shelton, who put up the sort of numbers he's done several times this year, light on the positive stuff, but not heavy on the negatives. His work is always off the ball as much as on it, and the numbers don't talk about that. Still, he lost 4 aerial battles, won 2, and that's unusual for him. He connected on 28 passes, missed on 7. He had 2 key passes. Russell had 28 completed passes, 13 missed (so bad % for him). He just wasn't overly involved, as his 103 points would indicate. But he was a fair bit above Salloi, who came in at -111 and managed 24 complete passes to 8 missed. A stat to ponder, he lost 7 aerial battles and won one. Why are we putting his skinny ass in a position where he's getting into 8 aerial challenges? This, much appreciated, was PVs new plan B approach, defend, defend and hope for a counter. We were way, way over our normal number of aerial challenges. Ilie had 5 (won 3). Besler had five (lost four). Zusi had 7, won 3. Seth had 7, lost 3.Oddly, Opara had zero. The takeaway: This was not a Salloi sort of game, obviously, but meaning this was not an SKC sort of game. We went in without too much concern about playing our way, and were totally focused on the result, which we got, kind of. Still, Salloi might have snatched a late one. Russell could have scored. They also could have, but who cares about that.