Portland Sports News

Hi, we are new to the area and will be needing to find an orthopedic and or sports medicine doctor. Is there anyone highly recommended in the Salem area or will we need to travel to a bigger town like Portland? We currently have Kaizer perm but unfortunately we need to switch to BCBS .... any suggestions are ver appreciated.

A trip up to Portland is never one to take lightly, but things felt different this year as Gio Savarese’s dirty style has been replaced by something more free flowing and attractive.

We were punished by two near identical goals. Beautiful lofted balls hitting men who’d gotten free from our CBs, smashing unstoppable efforts past Lloris.

Answering those two goals were two moments of brilliance from Bogusz, one assisted by a beautiful through ball from Tillman and the other a poor piece of decision making from our former number 1 Maxime Crepeau.

Portland going down a man with so much time left felt like something we should be able to take advantage of, but truth be told it’s not a maxim in the game for nothing that it can be harder to break down 10 vs 11 men.

Should the ref have blown his whistle with Tillman slotting home? Absolutely not. But it is a moment where you go: we should’ve won before that.

It’s tough not to feel for Dolo. We lead the league in shots. We’re second in shots on target and we’re almost 5 goals under our xG. Compare that to cross town rivals and conference leaders Carson, who are about level with their xG, and Vancouver who are outpacing their xG by four goals.

Watching the two goals that went in against Portland I was reminded of those dog days under Bob, when we seemed to completely lose all the luck that had been on our side. We were severely under our xG and it felt like every team in the league could knick a wonder goal or against the run of play counter against us.

No one likes to talk about luck in sports. There’s a sense luck balances out over the course of a season. Really, in my two decades as a football fan, it seems to me more like luck might even out over a ten year span the way that with a 1000 coin flips you’ll end up around 50-50 but in a 100 you might get a wacky 78-22.

Because we decline to control the ball, it’s never quite the case that we grind down a team until they make a mistake or have a concentration lapse and we score. It’s a lot of rapid out of nothings.

The problem with this kind of style is that players concentration levels have to remain high. If you’re on the ball more often, you are naturally engaged. This is a big issue with keepers. You’ll see guys on shit clubs with worldbeating save percentages because they face lots of shots, who can’t make the jump to the best clubs because the best keepers have to remain locked in despite hardly facing any chances.

Olivera’s one goal this season came off a great bit of buildup play and he found himself centrally located and scored without thinking on a snapshot. He’s near the top of the league (with Denis) on shots and shots on target not from moments like his goal but really just breakaways. It’s easy enough to get in your own head in those moments. I’d be curious to see a breakaway conversion rate in the sport. It seems like a chance we overestimate the ease of conversion.

With things as they are, I can’t help but look ahead to August. Giroud is fitter than his age would suggest, but he’s not going to be galloping with Denis and Olivera to get on the end of chances. To get the most out of him, we’re going to need more of the ball. I think the same is probably true of the guys already in the side.

Sorry for the delay this week fam. Caught a bug and didn’t have the concentration levels myself…

How are you feeling about our performances? Has anyone surprised you so far this season, for better or worse? If you could shake anything up in the side, putting on your Thor hat, what would you do?

After watching the Portland WNBA dreams get crushed last year (article I was VERY happy to hear the WNBA commissioner mention Portland as a possible expansion city. I wonder what changed. There hasn't been anything the local media about this possibility moving forward again.