Don't forget the games in hand.

I'm frustrated by the sports page commentary on the MLS season as we rush toward the playoffs. Articles headline the point totals of our crew against those of other teams as if they were a straightline calculation.   And the articles which follow chew through excess verbiage on which team has how many points.  The truth is the discussion isn't worth having unless it includes recognition of where each team stands in games played.   Without the factor of 'games in hand' or the difference in numbers of games played,  all the talk about points is just jawing.

My take right now on the Western division isn't aligned with what you'd read in the paper. Sounders, coming on strong late in the season are not only atop the Western Division but have two games in hand and 50 points.  With six games left they have a potential 18 more points.  Even if they lost two games,  they'd be at 62 points.  Real Salt Lake has four games left.  Winning all four would give them only 60 points.  The Galaxy,  at best,  can pick up 60 points as well in five games.  Colorado with four games left can pick up a max of 12 points to put them at 59 possible points.   Hard to imagine that Seattle would drop more than two games.   The new alignment of the MLS means they will play all of their remaining games against western competition except for a match against Red Bulls on the 29th.

So that brings me to my own hometown crew. The Timbers have five matches left for a potential capture of 15 points. I rate the odds good that the Timbers can take all three of their home games and at least nail the final match against Chivas.  That would give them 58 points.  Good enough to be in the final four.   However,  it's not a given that 58 points are enough. The table is very very tight.  I'm holding my breath and counting.  No question that we are in a strong position but there's no room for missteps.



(RCTID)

A New Era for Old Boys in Portland

This weekend marked the opening of a new chapter for amateur men's soccer in the  Portland Metro area.   The Greater Portland Soccer District untracked its first ever season including an O58 Men's Division.   One challenging reality for men's soccer in the region has been that the guys who started playing in the 70s or even earlier were finding that the challenge of playing against younger guys,  sometimes twenty years younger,  was not a good equation.   

The men's league has several notable players who are in their 70s.   Lajos Balogh is an excellent example but not the only one.   The league is committed to making it possible for players to participate in the game at levels appropriate to their skills and abilities,  and so the inaugural O58 season is marks a positive note in that era.   

Years ago a similar situation arose when the older teams in the league began feeling the pressure from playing against guys in their thirties.   Under the staunch and reasoned leadership of Ivan Ivanov, the league moved to create an O50s division.   The founding teams back then were Mixed Bag, Royals, Masterbooters, Jimmy O's, Rodders, Old Nicks, and Gresham East.  Sadly,  Ivan suffered serious health issues and was not able to continue as a leader in the league.  

Today, though,  is a day for celebration.   Cities around the country have strong O60s and older divisions playing.  The fact that GPSD is now hosting a division moving in that direction is a great step forward for hundreds of 'ould boys' who don't want to give up the game but also don't want to be crippled from playing against much younger players.

In commemoration of that fact,  here are a small sampling of pics.

 Goalkeepers in the O58 can take it easy....it take a long time to run down that field.

 FC77 Old Nicks played the opening match against Pierres.  Perennial rivals and good friends.

 The Maple Tree Bier Stube has been a very popular feature of Ould Boys soccer in Portland.  Thanks to Workhorse Midfielder and  Bier Meister, Glenn Fithian-Barrett,  the taps always flow.

The second match of opening day featured Masterbooters v Highland Stillhouse old boys.

Tumbled up in Utah!

The Timbers match against Real this past week was dismal...hard to experience even through the medium of radio while on the road.   And yet it wasn't a surprise in its unfolding.  Real had its A team available and they've been the grittiest side in the western division this MLS season.   Portland on the other hand exposed its only weakness in that injury and disciplinary decisions limited the available roster.   The Timbers out of the gate this year made a seeming madcap rush to brilliance by playing a new, disciplined style of possession soccer.   Just past the halfway point of the season,   we can see that no matter the talent of the youngsters and newcomers on the field,  the Timbers' style isn't easy to step into in an instant and requires a delicate balance of solid, experienced players with talented, journeymen players eager to adapt but not always able to deliver consistent play.  

The match against RSL?   I think we had an obvious challenge with no seasoned back among our final four.   I think we continue to be hurt by the absence of Will Johnson though we were greatly helped by Chara's return.   I think we had too few choices organizing the play through midfield- Valeri's departure was a tragedy.   The overarching truth is that the team stepped up to compensate for the missing starters.   Al Hassan and Nagbe for example.  But it became a Himalayan journey once we were down a man.   

If I have any challenge to what I see happening,  I'd say that Kah needs to turn down the jets on his game presence--volatile behavior on the pitch almost always is a fatal flaw.   And is rarely helpful.   

So the weakness of the Timbers right now is their depth at each position.    I was watching the match between 'Spurs and Dynamo Tblisi and one of the observations the commentators made was that Spurs have 'quality depth at every position'.   Note to the wise,  Portland Timbers are still building to that status.   Until then,  we need to support their efforts--scoring when a man down--and urge the creation of  a solid, confident machine on the field.

Seattle Grinds the Timbers

Sunday night's match Portland Timbers at Seattle Sounders was not a blowout or demonstration of the superiority of one team over the other; it was a grind.  Hard and steady sending the ball through the rough field intent on planting seed. And both teams were hard at it.  Fierce in going at each other's goals.   Watching the match was so edgy that I couldn't sit in my mother's family room, but had to stand.   And my mother,  86 and trying to eat her dinner,  was continually distracted by the battle.  "why did he knock that player down?"  and then the realization that it was expediency and a gritty face-off between two excellent sides. "Oh," she'd say, "he had to stop him."  

The goal that won it was a serious disappointment.   After all,  our boys had managed to send beautiful leading passes through the Sounders' defense and onto the feet of our fleet and nimble forwards but to no avail.  Seattle's keeper read each attack and dammed our effort.  Ryan Johnson tumbling over the keeper in a one on one rush early on.   To give credit to our opponents,  they too put dangerous balls into our area,  befuddling even Ricketts the master keeper,  and leaving the outcome of the attack as loose as a toss of dice from a cup.

In my book, though,  the game was not all about Clint Dempsey, the fancy fella back from England.  The game was not about a letdown of our attack, for we were hounds to the hunt throughout the game and Valeri, Nagbe, Johnson, Wallace, and others were dangerous if not quite precise enough to take home the points.

The game was instead about the absence of Will Johnson and Diego Chara in the midfield.  For the first part of the season Johnson's canny play and Chara's non-stop energy have been disruptions to every team we've met.   Their absence was noticed.   Al Hassan played an excellent game I believe, giving his best to the defensive effort.   And Cap't Jack did as well.  But there was not the synergy in the middle that marked our efforts in the first half of the season.

The only other dissonance for me was the play of Kah on the back line.  He risked the game with histrionic reactions to the referee.  His tackle, drawing a yellow card, was not representative of the Timbers' style of play and added to the 'take no prisoners' tone of the match.   No team has won a championship through 'angry' play to my knowledge.   I hope that he can temper his behavior.  

We will be in the playoffs. I have confidence in that.  But whether we can progress in the playoffs depends on whether we can keep the core team healthy and whether we can maintain our poise.