A Timber Fanatacist's Guide to Soccer

Who has watched Money Ball ?  Statistics don't lie, in fact, they can win you leagues and possibly championships!  So let's look at a quick stat: three games into the season and the Timbers are already at a 2-goal differential per game.  Unfortunately they are on the wrong side of that differential: Goals for = 4 (1.33/game) Goals against = 10 (3.33/game) Oh, and in case you were wondering if it was all defensive misery?  Timbers had 24 shots against Colorado; last 2 games combined???  22...  So the misery is all encompassing is it not?  So the emotion of the Adi/Powell reunion isn't the only thing bringing you to tears, right? I will say that I was NOT expecting to start this blog with the goal of seeing how many players could reach "F" status.  But a train wreck is a train wreck, and eventually it gets cleaned up and fixed and moves forward and it is still a really, really great source of conversation around the water cooler!  So let...

For a moment there...  and I'm just saying "just for a moment"...  I felt like stepping off the barstool and peeling off my Timbers jersey.  I didn't, but boy oh boy was that uncomfortable. Playing like that in the snow is one thing, but playing in perfect soccer conditions is another and there are no weather-related gimmes in this edition! For the purpose of these musings, this game was about as crystal clear as one can get.  As mentioned already the weather was perfect, the referee didn't really miss much, the other team was playing good soccer and the Timbers... well...  let's talk about that shall we? I mean, how many of you cringed when we saw THE SAME EXACT STARTING LINE UP AS THE COLORADO DEBACLE?!?!?!? (and who ever invented the alternating question mark/exclamation point because that is a brilliant piece of punctuation!  Don't you think?) I also feel like Jeff's goalie garb looks an awful lot like what Tim Howard was wearing last week ...

You've seen the flakes fall, you've seen the goals scored...  Really, what a debacle.  That wasn't soccer.  That was reminiscent of a U-11 match played just because it was as much fun to slide in the snow in shorts as it was pretending you were actually playing soccer (see Feilhaber's postgame quote in @mhoff piece)... There are several other great articles on the run of play, the strategy of the game, the aftermath, etc. and so the focus here is on the tactical performance of each player.  Speaking of great articles: Six Degrees: Did we learn anything at all?  :  @cidemann Twigs: The MLS climate change edition  :  @mhoff What we'll remember  : @richardfarley But before I digress too far... Here we are, one game under the belt and a first opportunity to grade the players.  Because seriously, they deserve to be graded, right?  They get paid to play and whether or not our endless and boundless fanaticism puts them on pedestals...