Hoping for the Future

Oh those Timbers. This has been a humbling year. I think a lot of us (maybe even Timbers management) thought that since the Timbers have the best supporters, there was no way they could be terrible. Maybe they wouldn't have a great season, but not terrible. Terrible is what happens to those teams in the non soccer fanatical areas of the country where they have trouble filling a stadium. Not Soccer City though!

And yet... here we are. Not as bad as Toronto, but we're fighting to not end up with the Wooden Spoon. Lets face it, there isn't any hope left for this year, and I would even go so far as to say that includes the Cascadia Cup. We could barely tie Seattle at home! Sure, I'll cheer on October 7th, but I'm going to be realistic about it.

As the days get darker here in the NW signifying the shift to dreary winter and the looming specter of seasonal affective disorder, I feel it's important to stay optimistic about next season. Thankfully, there ARE things to be optimistic about.

1) Creativity.  I think that one of the failings of John Spencer was that he didn't know what to do with creative players. James Marcelin, let go from the Timbers for "non soccer related reasons", is by no means Iniesta and definitely had a bone to pick with the Timbers front office, but a quote of his really stuck with me in the early part of the season. Marcelin stated after being picked up by Dallas "I can say this coach is more relaxed and lets you play your game. Spencer doesn't let you do that, he's just yelling all the time."

Watching some of those early games in the season, I saw a lot of players that were afraid to make mistakes. You can't take a player like Songo'o and expect him to play perfect defense. That's just not what he is out there to do. He is out there to be the creative engine, and that means trying ludicrous step-over moves that sometimes don't pan out. There were at least two games where Songo'o was the only creative sparkplug on the field, and yet Spencer subbed him because he wasn't adhering to his gameplan.

I don't think it's a coincidence that Songo'o and Nagbe have really blossomed since Spencer left. There's a lightness and a willingness to be daring on the field. Sure, we haven't put it all together tactically, but it's a sign that things are transitioning to something more open.

2) Developing a Style.  Kevin at Slide Rule Pass (an amazing Timbers blog!) summed it up best when he described the method the Timbers acquire players as "magpie like". We see a good player at a decent rate and we grab, with no thought to whether or not he fits into our style of play. It's part of the reason we ended up with this weird Scotch-Columbian mix of players. This may have been due to us either not having a style or due to a conflict between Spencer's vision and the vision of Paulson and Wilkinson. Either way, the roster looks the product of a confused soccer hoarder.

Currently it feels like the Timbers are trying to sort through and figure some of this out. We are feeling out a style, trying out players in it, seeing who fits and who is Kris Boyd (or something like that), and ultimately just setting the stage for having an actual plan for next year. Which brings us to...

3) Caleb Porter.  I was really excited when Porter was appointed the National U-23 coach. What better man to develop the national team youth than the man who routinely churns out stars from Akron! Unfortunately, that didn't pan out when the US failed to qualify for the Olympics and Porter got burned as the scapegoat; unfairly in my opinion. He didn't really have long to work with the team (he started in October 2011, had one training camp, and then off to the Olympic qualifiers in early 2012) and while the scorelines tell a sad story, we really only failed to qualify based on a fluke goal.  He was also able to get some truly inspired performances from the mercurial and inconsistent Freddy Adu.

Klinsman's loss is our gain though. We've already seen a shift from Spencer's rigid style to a more open style that I can't imagine Porter has not had input on. Additionally, I would think we may shift from buying MLS veterans like Kimura, Palmer, and Chabala as stop-gap measures to patch up a sinking ship to a focus on developing youth. This, however, means that we will likely struggle next season as we blood more of the young players (Trencito, Gleeson, Jean Baptiste, Richards, and whatever youth we snatch up in the offseason) and focus on building for the future rather than victories now.

My take: We're not going to transition overnight and realistically we will not be a title contender until 2014 at the earliest. That said, next year is going to be more fun and exciting! We will have an opportunity to watch our team develop and grow into something better, which really is the true fun of being a fan!