Portland Timbers: Postseason Preview

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2019 REVIEW

Well, let’s just say that did not quite go according to plan. Ideally, the plan was this: survive the epic road trip to begin the season, then do a 2018 DC United and ride a tsunami of home games in front of the Timbers Army to a high seed in the Western Conference and a home playoff game or two. 

For a while, it even looked like it was working. Portland did better than most expected, earning 4 wins and 2 draws against 6 losses on their road trip to pick up 14 points from 12 games. 

As recently as September 7, Portland sat just 3 points outside of 2nd place, with a game in hand and 5 of 6 remaining games at home. No problem, right? Just Lock up that #2 seed. Or not. Portland won just 1 of their last 6 games and slid into 6th place in the West. Not exactly ideal, but this is MLS, and the Timbers rode a 5 seed into an MLS Cup Final appearance last year, so not all hope is lost. 

Here’s a quick look back at the 2019 season and some keys to the Timbers' success, if they hope to have a repeat appearance in MLS Cup. 

TEAM STATISTICS

Possession: 49.9% (11th in MLS)
Passes Per Game: 498 (10th in MLS)
xGoals For: 51.6 (5th in MLS)
xGoals Against: 51.7 (20th in MLS)

The Timbers really did try to copy DC United’s 2018 recipe, opening a newly renovated Providence Park and bringing in a big-money forward. Brian Fernandez lit the world on fire for a bit, scoring 6 goals in his first 5 games, but managed just 5 goals in his next 14 appearances. Fernandez entered the league’s Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health program in early October, so it appears that he will not be part of any Timbers’ playoff run. 

Otherwise, Portland’s attack was led by familiar names in Diego Valeri and Sebastian Blanco, as well as a surprise contribution from Jeremy Ebobisse. The beginning of the season appeared to be Ebobisse’s chance to prove himself, and many wondered if he would maintain his spot in the lineup once Fernandez arrived. He did, playing 2490 minutes and contributing 11 goals and 1 assist. 


Here are the Timbers top 6 players by expected goals plus expected assists in 2019:

PlayerShotsDistSoloGxGG-xGKeyPAxAxG+xA
Diego Valeri8322.330.10%89.4-1.412589.518.9
Sebastian Blanco10622.623.60%66.9-0.980108.815.7
Brian Fernandez6917.28.70%118.62.42512.611.3
Jeremy Ebobisse5313.711.30%119.11.92111.710.8
Cristhian Paredes3720.732.40%43.70.32322.96.5
Jorge Moreira2925.331.00%21.30.738234.3

Before you ask why Major League Soccer tells you Diego Valeri had 16 assists while we only give him credit for 8: Half of the assists MLS credits him with were secondary assists, which are not acknowledged in our dataset. 

Now here are those same stats but only from open-play, so stripping out set pieces and penalty kicks:

PlayerShotsDistSoloGxGG-xGKeyPAxAxG+xA
Diego Valeri6722.517.90%45.4-1.45445.210.6
Sebastian Blanco8723.518.40%35.8-2.873108.414.2
Brian Fernandez6617.69.10%108.11.92312.610.6
Jeremy Ebobisse4714.28.50%108.11.92011.69.7
Cristhian Paredes3021.636.70%43.20.82012.15.3
Jorge Moreira2224.722.70%21.20.83222.53.7

For 5 of these 6 players, there’s not a huge difference. The difference, though, between Diego Valeri’s numbers when you take out set-pieces and PKs is striking. Valeri’s numbers have always benefited from him being an excellent deliverer of set pieces, but the gap has grown this year, and that might be important both now and going forward. 

A couple of other quick things to point out. First, Jeremy Ebobisse’s average shot distance. One of the reasons Ebobisse has a team-high xG with so few shots compared to others is that he gets into such good positions to take high-quality chances. That’s related to the second thing, which is that Ebobisse (and Fernandez, but Ebobisse is more important here because he’s around for the playoffs) exceeded his expected goals this season. Whatever your brain or anyone on Twitter may be telling you, Ebobisse scored more goals this season than what we would have expected based on everything we know about scoring goals in MLS. Third, Jorge Moreira had the third-highest expected assists on the team. That will be important in a minute.

LINEUP QUESTIONS

Fernandez’s absence, along with Valeri’s reported injury and contract dispute, bring some questions into what seemed a month ago like a very obvious lineup selection. Will Gio Savarese stick with the 4-2-3-1 he used much of the season, with Ebobisse up top and Blanco, Valeri, and either Andy Polo or Dairon Asprilla underneath? Or will he go with the christmas tree formation that worked so well for down the stretch last year, and which he reverted to in the playoff clincher against San Jose? Will Valeri be back from injury, or will his injury/contract dispute keep him out of the lineup? Does Dairon “I Only Show Up For The Playoffs” Asprilla start or come off the bench? Here’s my best guess, and a cool graphic from Eliot McKinley showing the Timbers passing tendencies in 2019.

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Why the Timbers Won’t Make the MLS Cup Final

If the Timbers don’t make it to MLS Cup Final there will be a few possible explanations. They could make it to the Western Conference Finals and lose to the best team in MLS history. Can’t really complain there. They could also miss out because their defense does a few too many dumb things and they concede really silly goals that cost them their season (remember, this team was 20th in MLS in xGA). It could also be because the Timbers don’t really seem to have a plan in attack other than “hope that Blanco, Valeri, and Moreira do stuff.” 

That plan works great, except when it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t, it looks like the Timbers 1-0 loss to DC United. When Blanco, Valeri, and Moreira aren’t able to make magic happen, or when a team bunkers and is able to limit those players' effectiveness, it’s a mess because there isn’t a plan B. 

Drew Olsen already did a great job laying out those problems, so rather than re-write it all, I’ll just let you read his words. 

That was a team with 67.5% of possession, who routinely got the ball into areas that should have been dangerous, and failed to actually generate any dangerous chances. That’s not a team that doesn’t have the talent to attack, it’s a team that doesn’t have a plan to attack. 

If the Timbers don’t make it to MLS Cup for this third reason, a lot of the blame falls on the shoulders of Gio Savarese. It’s hard to look at the level of talent on the Timbers, in the attack in particular, and not think they should’ve finished above 6th in the West. Yet somehow, the that team had a 6 game stretch from August 18 to September 22 where they scored just 3 goals. 

It might seem weird to say that, for a team that finished 5th in xG  and 20th in xGA, the offense is likely to be the reason that they don’t make MLS Cup, but when the attack has been working, it’s been enough to overcome their defensive issues. During that 6 game stretch where the Timbers only scored 3 goals, they also only gave up 8 goals. Also, while the Timbers were 20th in xGA, they were 11th in goals conceded, largely due to a great season from a man who was inexplicably not a finalist for MLS GK of the Year, Steve Clark. Which brings us to...

Why the Timbers Will Make The MLS Cup Final

If the Timbers make the MLS Cup Final it will likely be due to some combination of Steve Clark and the fact that it turns out Blanco, Valeri, and Moreira are pretty good at making stuff happen! This has been especially true when teams don’t sit back and bunker against them. Given that they’ll likely be playing their entire playoff run on the road, they’re less likely to see a string of opponents sit deep like they did down the stretch at Providence Park. If the Timbers are allowed to get out on the counter, they’re actually very good at finding space and making things happen. 

In particular, Blanco and Moreira are really good at this. Valeri led the team in chances created, but the majority of those came from set pieces. From open play, Blanco had one of the best chance creating seasons in MLS since tracking chance creation was a thing.

Here you can see the importance of Blanco and Moreira to the Timbers' chance creation. This image is from the Timbers 0-0 draw with Minnesota United last month, but despite the lackluster final result, the Timbers generated 2.68 xG that game, largely due to chances created by Blanco and Moreira. 

I keep talking about the importance of Moreira to the attack and it may sound weird to talk about a right-back as one of the most important players in an attack as loaded as Portland’s, but the eye test and the stats say that if the Timbers get Moreira involved in the attack things go well. He’s also, despite being perceived as a more attacking fullback, a very good defender. According to the numbers, he’s actually an even better defender than attacker. He’s so good, in fact, that our own Ian L. suggested he should be awarded Defender of the Year in MLS. Moreira is just good at everything. 

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Let me go back to Clark for a second, because I’ve hardly written about him, and it would be a shame not to say more about the player who had the second best G-xG in MLS this season. That is, compared to the goals he would’ve been expected to concede, Clark had the 2nd best season of any GK in MLS behind New England’s Matt Turner. In single-elimination playoffs, having an elite goalkeeper can make all the difference. 

One other reason for optimism is that (knock-on-wood) the defense is finally healthy. There have been stretches of this season where the Timbers were solid defensively, and they mostly involved games when Jorge Villafana, Larrys Mabiala, Bill Tuiloma, and Jorge Moreira were all healthy. Those 4 are all healthy entering the playoffs, which could be key for the Timbers.