PORTLAND, Ore. – The Portland Timbers knew they were playing with fire. They knew because they’ve been here before – many times.
Against a dog-tired Sporting Kansas City, playing their third game in a week and coming off their midweek US Open Cup championship, the Timbers waited and waited, watching chance after chance rack up without finding a goal. Sporting sat back, absorbed and rode a brilliant performance from goalkeeper Tim Melia, the shootout hero from the USOC triumph, until Krisztian Nemeth made Portland pay with a touch of brilliance on an 83rd-minute goal that gave his team a 1-0 victory Saturday night at Providence Park.
“It’s devastating, the way that game played out,” Timbers head coach Caleb Porter said in his postgame comments. “Came out front foot, one-way traffic really the whole game. I said it at halftime … I’m looking for one moment, one moment of brilliance, one moment on a counter, one moment on a set piece, and they found it through Nemeth. And we couldn’t find one moment to finish in the final third.”
It’s been the defining problem for the Timbers’ 2015 season, which now stands on the razor’s edge of whether it ends with a trip to the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs.
On this particular night, Portland outshot Kansas City 17-8 (6-4 on target). Portland goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey was only really tested twice, first punching a Saad Abdul-Salaam shot over the bar. But on the second chance, Kwarasey couldn’t get to Nemeth’s right-footed blast from the right corner of the box after he weaved through three Timbers defenders to free himself.
“Soccer is a cruel game, there’s no doubt about it,” said center back Nat Borchers, one of the victims on the Nemeth goal. “In the back, we need to do better on that play. Nemeth did a great job cutting us up. I need to do better staying on my feet and ride the challenge and not giving up that goal. I definitely take responsibility for that goal.”
Portland’s attacking stat sheet, on the other hand, doesn’t look like a team that was shut out.
Winger Darlington Nagbe had four shots, three on goal. Attacking midfielder Diego Valeri had four as well, with two on goal. Second-half substitute Lucas Melano also had four, one on goal.
Melia may have turned in a Man-of-the-Match performance, but Porter said his team needs to be better in the final third.
“You leave the game again going, ‘How did that happen? How did that happen?’” Porter said. “How does their guy pull off a play and score out of nothing? And with all the play that we had, all the dominance we had, how did we not find a goal? But that’s the name of the game; that’s what it comes down to.”
Portland are now tied on points with the San Jose Earthquakes for the sixth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, but they sit below the red line thanks to the goal differential tiebreaker. The Timbers have a game in hand on the Quakes with three left, on the road against Real Salt Lake, LA Galaxy and at home to finish the regular season against the Colorado Rapids.
“I’ve said it so much it’s a broken record,” Porter said. “It’s the boxes, us finding that quality, finding a little bit of brilliance to score, and the other end not letting them score. They won the game because Nemeth found a little bit of brilliance, and we didn’t.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
