By Niall McCusker

The events at the end of the game took most of the headlines with a red card shown to Will Johnson for verbally abusing the referee after the final whistle, another red just before the end for a bad tackle by Harvey on Valeri and a stamp on Chara by Techera which has since earned him a one game suspension.

What got lost in that was the fact that Vancouver played very well in the first half, their movement at the front caused Portland all kinds of problems, but the home team somehow managed to come in at the break a goal up. Despite a better performance in the second half Portland conceded the equalizer to a good strike by Laba, they had plenty of possession after that, but lacked the invention to break down the visitors.

The midfield line up of Nagbe – Fernandez – Valeri that recently eviscerated Seattle was sidelined for the same Nagbe – Valeri – Asprilla look that needed a last minute set-piece to rescue a 1-0 win against San Jose two weeks ago. In that game the substitutes were Wallace for Asprilla (73), Urruti for Adi (79) and Fernandez for Nagbe (84) – in this game the exchanges were exactly the same but in the 67th, 76th and 83rd minute.

The San Jose ratings contained the caveat – “Porter kept his moves quite late in this game, more questions would have been asked if the 0-0 tie had held up, but they got the break-through.”.

In this game there was no last minute winner – so time to ask that question. In a home game do you want to keep some of your best attacking talent on the bench for so long?

Here are the individual ratings:

Adam Larsen Kwarasey 6.5: A mixed body of work. The keeper left his line a couple of times in the first half to chase down crosses and through-balls and it seemed his timing was a little off, but he got away with it. He also had an excellent save from Manneh after he had skipped past both Borchers and Powell. The Whitecaps goal was a well struck shot and perhaps he was unsighted by players in front of him, but he doesn’t get a pass as it was his weak punch that led to the shot. New goal-keeping coach Adin Brown needs to work with him on his catching versus punching.

Alvas Powell 6.5: He got drawn inside a few times to act as an auxiliary center back as Manneh came into to center forward. He did get beaten badly once, but overall was solid defensively. However, he and Asprilla should have been much more dangerous going forward as it would have given Manneh a task to do that was not terrorizing Borchers and Ridgewell with pacey runs.

Nat Borchers 7.5: When Manneh’s run split the defense his goal-line clearance was probably the highlight of the game. He also bailed out Johnson with some excellent defending after the ball had been given away in midfield early in the game. A solid game from the ginger titan.

Liam Ridgewell 6.5: The Englishman often got drawn out of defense by some clever movement by Rivero, meanwhile Manneh slid into the hole that was created as Vancouver out-foxed the Timbers defense in the first half. He didn’t really make any mistakes, but the task of getting the Timbers defense to react better to what the Whitecaps were doing surely fell to him.

Jorge Villafana 5.5: It’s probably unfair to single Villafana out as his wing was constantly overloaded in the first half and he needed some help. But he got caught in two minds on too many plays and should probably have just stuck tight to Rosales who dropped deep and played some nice passes in behind. Mezquida dropped into the right wing slot that Rosales vacated as the Vancouver movement confounded the Timbers early on.

He played a beautiful ball up the wing to Nagbe in the first half but other than that didn’t offer too much going forward.

Diego Chara 7: The midfield looked very porous in the first half, perhaps looking the most vulnerable since Orlando’s visit early in the season. Chara did offer some support to the left side of the defense, but it could have been more effective. On the offensive side the Colombian was excellent, an alert run for a quickly taken free kick on the right wing, created a great chance and it was his astute interception that lead to Portland’s goal. In the second half he upped his defensive duties, chasing down Manneh on several occasions in one of which he stood on the ball and rolled his ankle. A few fouls soon tested the ankle further before Techera’s final ‘finish him’ move. Chara was somewhat displeased at the final whistle but managed not to get sent-off.

Elderly men along the Northern side of the Rio de la Plata were nodding approvingly as Techera cast their minds back to the halcyon days of Uruguayan football.

Will Johnson 3: The sometime Canadian internationalist should have done more to shore up the Timbers defense in the first half, but instead added to the problems with some bad giveaways and misplaced passes. He upped his game in the second half, chasing down any Whitecap counter attacks, but his actions (and presumably words) after the final whistle let his team-mates down. The role of a captain after a feisty end to a derby game is to get his team rounded up and into the locker room, once there by all means engage in all the swearing and traditional destruction of inanimate objects required to exorcise your frustration – but be available to play in the next game.

Dairon Asprilla (off in 67′) 5: Young, fast, strong, direct, inexperienced – all attributes describing a late impact substitute. As in the San Jose game he worked hard, but he isn’t the man to break down a well organized defense. On the road if you are counter-attacking more of a starting option for sure. His defensive work rate is high which might be why Vancouver attacked the other wing, but is that ambitious enough at home to play him as a starter?

Diego Valeri 7.5: Watching this game live one tends to pick up on certain heavy touches and other little rusty things that point to Valeri still not being quite 100%. Even his goal was a little ugly, a heavy touch and a sliding toe-poke.

But a Roll Royce with a slightly off timing belt is still a very nice car. The Argentine really had a good game in the middle of the attack, distributing nicely to his wings and linking with Adi on several occasions.

He stepped across the ball that Harvey had mis-controlled, he was perfectly entitled to do that, but it’s also a great way to get re-injured as the full back was always going to try to win that ball back. Safety first!

Darlington Nagbe (off in 83′) 5.5: He jogged back into defensive positions on the few occasions, but needed to actually close some-one down. Rosales had ample time to slide a perfect pass through to Manneh as Nagbe stood nearby admiring his vision and execution. On the attacking side he did very well to feed Adi who created a shot early on for Valeri, but aside from that one of his poorer performances of the season.

Fanendo Adi (off in 76′) 7: The big man did what he could with little service. His first time flick to put Valeri through on goal was very nice and that one-touch play is something he can do but needs to execute it more often. In the second half Valeri returned the favor sending a great ball into Adi who had made an excellent run across the defensive line, Dean’s sliding block was textbook but Adi could maybe have got the shot in earlier.

Going direct at times to Adi who faced two inexperienced central defenders should have brought more dividends for Portland but the balls into him were not good enough.

Substitutes:

Rodney Wallace (on in 67′) 6: He added some energy to the attack, having a shot deflected out for a corner as soon as he came in. But he is more of a brute force type of response to a situation that perhaps required a more inventive approach.

Maxi Urruti (on in 76′) 5.5: Hovered around hopefully in the middle but the balls into him were low percentage crosses. Instead of replacing Adi it would have been interesting to see him brought in alongside him to really test the two Vancouver center backs.

Gaston Fernandez (on in 83′): He worked himself a nice shot that was deflected just over the bar, but didn’t have enough time to do much else. Portland beat Seattle by playing nice football which Fernandez directed, leaving him out of the line-up in game expected to be a more physical battle might be considered pragmatic. It might also be considered unambitious in a home game which was Portland’s last chance of the season to get a win over their Canadian rivals.