I’m here in Carson to watch the Timbers play the “LA” Galaxy

MASSIVE MATCH for us in the playoff run. If we can get a win here, we might squeak into the playoffs. I won't see much of this match until close to the 2nd half. I'll go through and update as I can.

HYPE THREAD

Lineup Thread

Kick off is at 7:30 PM PST (probably closer to 7:40)

MLS Match Center

Portland Timbers 0 - 2 LA Galaxy

6' - Janssen scored, but was a whole body offside.

7' - Great sequence to put the ball across to an outstretched Janssen, but he can't get a toe to it and the keeper pushes it out.

17' - ⚽ goal them. Fuck. Yikes. Our CBs decided to let Reus run in between them and NEITHER picked him up. So WIDE open easy tap-in.

29' - 🟨 Yellow card for LA #17 (Accumulation this early? The ref last Saturday let their CB commit 5 fouls before he even WARNED dude about maybe potentially giving him a yellow. Joke league. Joke refs.)

31' - 🟨 Yellow card for LA #6 for kicking the ball away after a foul.

38' - 🧤 Great save for Pants. Nobody wants to defend. Pants lays out though.

39' - 🟨 Yellow card for Fory for the softest foul you'll ever see which conveniently stops the counterattack. Ref bit hard on that diving bullshit.

2 minutes of stoppage

47' - Velde got a decent chance to shoot and he put a low shot direct to the keeper. Cool.

47' - Fory finishes the half with the worst cross ever, which goes out for a goal kick.

Halftime

Well, what I saw of the first half was a team who wasn't good enough on either side of the ball to do anything. So, that's fun. Galaxy will be 6 points clear of us and RSL above us on the table. Playoffs are just getting further and further away.

Halftime Stats

48' - 🟨 Yellow card for LA #15 (foul vs DDC)

48' - FK is popped up over the bar by Janssen

50' - Miller with a FREE HEADER back post and he hits it straight into the ground and loses all power. Easy save

51' - Velde catches the ball that pops out after the next corner and hits a screamer that goes just wide.

53' - Velde cuts inside to take on the world but his shot is blocked.

54' - Velde gets ANOTHER chance and he hits it RIGHT at the keeper. COME ON DUDE! YOU NEED TO SCORE!

58' - Decent chance for Janssen. Ball could have been better and the header could have been better.

59' - Love Caicedo's physicality right there.

62' - 🟨 Yellow card for Velde (dumb late foul after getting stuffed by a defender)

63' - Smith ON 🔁 Fory OFF

63' - REALLY good idea from Velde. Instead of trying to hit it near-post, he nutmegs the defender faking the shot and Janssen was back post. Their CB cut it out, but it was a good ball.

64' - Smith's overlap opens space for Lassiter's shot and he just doesn't generate any power or accuracy on it.

66' - Velde is tired. Don't blame him. He's been busy the last 10 minutes.

67' - Velde shows it again by a lame shot trying to catch the keeper out on a giveaway.

74' - Izoita & Aravena ON 🔁 Caicedo & Janssen OFF

80' - ⚽ Goal them. We fucked. Just got beat on a FK header.

81' - Chara & Fernandez ON 🔁 Ortiz & Lassiter OFF

82' - 🟨 Yellow card for Da Costa

DM me if you're interested

EVERY GAME FROM HERE ON OUT IS A MUST WIN TO KEEP THE PLAYOFFS ALIVE!!!! WE NEED PRIME VELDE, PRIME DDC, PRIME LASSITER, AND ESPECIALLY PRIME KAMAL MILLER!!!!!

ITS MILLER TIME AND HE IS GETTING HIS YEARLY BANGER OF A GOAL!!!!! 10/10 PERFORMANCE BY THE BACKLINE INCOMING!!!! SHEETS WILL BE KEPT SO CLEAN THEY WILL START ADDING NEGATIVE GOALS TO THE GALAXY!!!!!!

Backheeled put Ned in the second highest category of CSOs. At the top were LAFC's John Thorrington and Nashville's Mike Jacobs.

In the "Better than the rest" category was LA Galaxy's Will Kuntz, Ned Grabvoy, and San Jose's Bruce Arena.

This group has done a good job, if not a transcendently great one. If you’re a fan of any of these teams you’ll be mostly satisfied – and even occasionally thrilled – with the DPs they’ve signed. ...

In Portland, Ned Grabavoy was the one who brought Evander to MLS, and while the relationship didn’t last, the success was real. The same goes for Jonathan Rodriguez, who was awesome before his injury. This season, we’re finally seeing David da Costa and Kristoffer Velde move closer to reaching the numbers you’d expect from DPs.

https://www.backheeled.com/who-best-mls-spending-transfers-ranking-every-cso-designated-players/

In other words, it's very supportive of the MLS schedule change:

The main takeaway: summer in North America is hot. For each of these metrics I took everything relative to their individual season (MLS teams press much more in 2026 than they did in 2013 and it made the plots look weird), and removed December because it’s only MLS Cup games, but the finding is very clear. Any metric that measures defensive effort dies in the summer. Total defensive actions drop from 265 per 96 in the spring to fewer than 240 by August. PPDA increases (less pressy) from 14 to 16 from March to July. Attacking third defensive actions, by definition pressing and counter pressing moments, 26 per 96 down to 23 per 96. Total possessions in a game! 270 down to fewer than 250. Across all the metrics that matter there’s a somewhere between 10 and 20% reduction from spring/fall to the heat of summer.

https://www.americansocceranalysis.com/home/2026/10/14/winter-is-coming

It’s Timbers Time and Chris and Matt discuss another wild ride this week as the team goes down to Kansas City and come back with a point in an end-to-end 3-3 draw… we talk about midfield rotations, the impact and importance of DP signings, the many Colombian Timbers (is there going to be another?)... and much more… RCTID!

This episode's key talking points include:

• Cole Bassett is finally dropped
• The obvious importance of elite DPs
• Is Good Vibes Only back?
• The first half shows a developing Martiball identity that’s growing every game
• Did Caicedo’s rusty sub appearance cost us the game?
• Marti’s late game shift to 352 is an interesting tactical wrinkle
• Eric Izoita gives another impressive cameo
• Velde over-dribbling in his own half cost the Timbers a huge game state advantage 
• Colombian Timbers Trivia
• Go support T2 in the Playoffs!
• Colorado and LA next game previews

Content Warning: A few “s” words and similar moderate swears 

Podcast Links:

Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/timbers-time/id1878719096
Spotify Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Gm0xFhBnPECrTVoryo2tA
RSS: https://anchor.fm/s/10f4a5654/podcast/rss
IG: timberstimepod

Listener Topics and Questions!

Thanks for listening and please do send us your questions or topics for analysis for the next episode: ⁠⁠⁠[timberstimepod@gmail.com](mailto:timberstimepod@gmail.com) or DM us on IG: timberstimepod or leave us a Reddit comment on our episodic r/Timbers post

Tillamook is a much better look

I had a chance to talk with Jack Cassidy for a podcast episode—love that the match in 5eatt1e, his first in charge of the senior side, was on the one-year anniversary of him being let go from his previous club (and that his wife sent him the screenshot from that day). He has a lot of solid words on player relationships and managing. Such a great person.

Go see T2 in the playoffs Friday!

The episode is also on Spotify, apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The "Dos Adams" and other pundits are going to go on about how we need to trust some master plan and "trust me bro Ned is going to sign a billion players" etc but managers are judged on actual results and actual play on the field and it is an indisputable fact that Marti Cifuentes has made this team significantly worse. Full stop. He took a team brimming with confidence after shaking off the Neville garbage and he drove the whole thing straight into the ditch. Sure he's had to deal with injuries, losing Kelsy etc so I want to be reasonable that I wasn't expecting him to come in and make them league winners in the middle of the season but I wasn't expecting THIS. Unwatchable. Maybe Marti comes good in the end, maybe he doesn't but what an absolute garbage way to start your tenure. He's for sure lost me, I have no confidence that he's capable of managing in this league. He's one of those managers as well where the system can never fail, only players fail the system so expect a lot of players being regularly blamed for his system failing. Also lots of quotes about how we won in the stats department and the result didn't reflect the game etc etc.

What is this dudes plan? Is he thinking he’ll turn over the entire roster and somehow be successful? Understand that this year was somewhat lost, but…not impressed so far

A good coach can get results with any set of players. And I'm tired of these handshake deals for coaches. We are required for whatever reason to be the trash bin for failed free mason losers. What did you do Merritt? Why are you forced to take these trash coaches that lose in Europe? It's so painfully obvious you didn't want Marti or Phil in the press conferences the way you talk fast like you are trying to sell. Merritt probably won too many games over the past 10 years, and the league is forcing us to be the bums. Why can't you get the same deal as Tom Dundon? He is going to win the NBA title this year.

My preview of tomorrow's match.

I’m in LA from Rose City and curious who else I might see at tomorrow’s game.

hopefully sounds okay; first time on audacity 4

Just looking for a GA ticket to take my friend to her first match, thanks everybody!

Edit: all sorted, many thanks u/tinfinsfc

Just saying…we were winning. He’s still winning. Maybe we’d still be winning.

This all feels very Phil Neville-esque right now.

My recap of yesterday's draw.

NOW: NORTHWEST SC

Hey all, I've been working on a new fan-site and news aggregator and I'd love some feedback and ideas. It's focused on news and updates from Cascadia based sports teams (with the exception of the Seahawks, ducks and huskies) This is for teams that don't get enough coverage and support nationally and that in my opinion could use more fan based content and interaction.

• It's a way to get news on local teams and games from multiple sources in one place
• A way to get stats and audio without having to listen to typical MLS broadcasters.
• Built as part of a software co-op with a focus on building AI enhanced teams and products that replace the boring work not the team itself. Using AI to help aggregate data and support interesting content
• Looking for fans who want to contribute livestream audio casts (think MST3K for Sports) for games, articles and moderation.
• We want to encourage community engagement and cross community friendly banter etc.
• Unbiased analysis will come from AI summaries and data visualizations, but it's interesting when partnered with fan voting and validation.

If it's not your thing that's fine, but if it sounds interesting let me know, Sounders, Timbers, Beavers and Cougars are all represented and hopefully you're interested in seeing west coast and NW teams represented in a way that the east coast bias doesn't matter anymore.

https://www.cascadiasc.com https://www.nwsportingclub.com or https://www.nwsporting.club not sure yet which I like better

EDIT: After a lot of feedback about the name I've changed it to Northwest Sporting Club. That said having been a Timbers fan since the early 80's I don't think anyone should own Cascadia, but I want this to be a home for everyone in Cascadia as well, so hearing you all and changing the name.

Also this is a site about community but the AI that we do use is open source and open weighted and privately hosted so we can produce data and visuals realtime and in a way that I couldn't imagine before:

I saw a lot of initial hype around the T2 playoff game this coming Friday… are we expecting a hype crowd? Some friends and I got tickets, and are excited. Just gauging how many got tickets and what to expect going into Friday.

Timber Review pod drops Monday

We tied 3-3

Well, that is a BIG lost 2 points for us. We fucking let this game slip through our hands due to a defensive error and a ref who fucking LOVED SKC. Shitty game. Shitty tie. Gives me 0 confidence that we will make the playoffs.