Portland’s goal, a home win, and an extended absence

By: Brenton | October 9th, 2011

Hi everyone. I’ve been away from the blog for a while and will be until after November 19. I missed our home win over Salt Lake, but caught our home opener loss against Portland. You’re welcome, Portland (though you likely won’t make the play-offs). Great stuff from the Southsiders in both games; we/they* are really making the new BC Place exciting.

A few notes on the Portland game

Our 1-0 loss against Portland was dreadful. Poor energy, poor effort, poor everything. We make too many bad passes, and we lack coherence. Soehn just seemed to put players out on the field, and I couldn’t tell what his strategy was. He played Thorrington on the right side of midfield in the second half; Thorrington is a central midfielder and drifts inside, but not like Camilo does. Thorrington starts drifting in while still in our half, playing as a playmaking midfielder. At one point all four of our mids were on the left side of the pitch.

The Timbers goal

A nice volley from Kenny Cooper came from a bad pass from Rochat, but it really took three or four bad decisions to make sure Cooper had an open shot.

1. Rochat’s bad giveaway in the middle while we were still upfield after a corner.

Rochat's on the far right, Vagenas running in the middle, Chiumiento seemingly scrambling to get back, a full 10-12 yards in front of the player that he should have covered.

2. Vagenas took the man with the ball, Chara, when he could have taken the runner through the middle. DeMerit wasn’t sure who to take because of this.

Chiumiento has pulled up; our three players back are still in decent position, if only Chiumiento had sprinted back to cover Zizzo (bottom left now, and flying down the right).

3. Chiumiento, the intended recipient of Rochat’s pass, chugged back, and didn’t pick up Zizzo flying down their right. This left DeMerit with a difficult choice: does he take the runner, an obvious danger, or does he take the man in the middle? He took one step toward the runner, realized the real danger was in the middle and started to slide back to the middle, but the damage was already done.

4. Because DeMerit was of two minds, Rochat had to cover the closest danger, Perlaza running right at him through the middle. This left Cooper wide open on our right.

5. Vagenas overran his mark (maybe thinking of the unmarked Zizzo?), giving Chara space for the cross (which was very nice) over to a wide-open Cooper:

A dangerous four on three emerged, with all our players central.

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6. Nothing wrong here, though maybe Rochat could have attacked Cooper a bit more aggressively. This, however, would have left him open to a simple sidestep had he over-committed.

At this point it's probably obvious Cooper is going to shoot, but he also had two good options: lay it off to the onrushing (and unmarked) Chabala, or cross to Zizzo. Vagenas has totally switched off at this point and left Zizzo wide-open in the box, not that it mattered in the end.

Many things went wrong, but it was mostly down to a lack of concentration and poor decision-making. Typical of our play this season.

We’re not the worst!

Our 3-0 win over Salt Lake puts us one win ahead of the fewest wins ever, an ignominious record held by the now-defunct Tampa Bay Swashbucklers and Chivas. In the game Rochat (finally!) moved back out to left back, with new signing Carlyle Mitchell partnering DeMerit in the middle. Camilo scored two excellent penalties, both off dodgy calls. Khalfan’s goal was a beautiful volley from 25 yards out; I expect we’ll see it in the MLS Goal of the Week poll.

See you all soon.
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* I’m a member but I sit with friends in Section 245, to the east. Eastside, stand up!