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First Thoughts
Having already managed to exorcise their demons of last season with a quality performance away to Seattle Sounders, the Montreal Impact will be looking to escape the Pacific Northwest with back-to-back victories, as they make the short trip to JELD-WEN Field to take on the Portland Timbers.
The Impact put in a professional 90-minute defensive shift against the Sounders, withstanding the onslaught of attacks and escaping with a 1-0 victory. The goal coming through a quality counter attack, consisting of Marco Di Vaio’s movement and combination play between Felipe and eventual goal scorer Davy Arnaud.
As for the Timbers, they played an epic 3-3 thriller against the New York Red Bulls in what was a tale of two halves. Going into the break 3-1 down courtesy of two glaring errors by newly acquired defender Mikael Silvestre, the Timbers were able to fight their way back to gain a share of the spoils. However, given the balance of play, Portland will feel hard done by that they didn’t manage to come away with all three points.
Keep Thinking
This match-up not only pits two first year MLS coaches but also two coaches with no prior Major League Soccer experience of any significance. (Caleb Porter made a few fleeting appearances for the San Jose Clash and Tampa Bay Mutiny before retiring due to injury). These coaches also deploy contrasting styles and have different overall approaches to the game. While Porter has the Timbers playing a fluid style akin to his days at University of Akron, Marco Schällibaum sets the Impact up to be compact and composed.
Montreal have shown themselves in the early stages under Schällibaum to be a team with very little bells and whistles about them, mainly relying on positioning and the experience of their spine consisting of goalkeeper Troy Perkins, the defensive partnership of Alessandro Nesta and Matteo Ferrari, midfielder Patrice Bernier and Marco Di Vaio leading the line. However this Portland Timbers side looks poised to put them to the test, as Porter has instituted a system predicated on a high work rate of players like former Toronto FC forward Ryan Johnson and Canadian International Will Johnson, along with the combination play and creativity of Argentine Designated Player (DP) Diego Valeri and Darlington Nagbe.
There are some key individual battles that will be rather intriguing to follow. Some of these include Ryan Johnson going up against the defensive duo of Nesta and Ferrari, Felipe going toe to toe with Colombian Diego Chara, the wide play of Kalif Alhassan against fullback Jeb Brovsky and the pairing Bernier and Davy Arnaud versus Valeri and Nagbe.
If there is one overall difference between last year’s edition of the Portland Timbers under John Spencer and this season’s side under Caleb Porter, look no further than their choice of forward. As Toronto FC fans can attest, what Ryan Johnson lacks in finishing ability he makes up for by working his socks off and playing with boundless energy. This is night and day compared to what the club had under Scottish import Kris Boyd last campaign. The pace and movement of the Jamaican international will be a difficult prospect for Nesta and Ferrari to combat, providing a different set of challenges than they faced against the Sounders Eddie Johnson.
The match-ups of Felipe vs. Diego Chara and Kalif Alhassan vs. Jeb Brovsky pose their own set of obstacles. Montreal will look to their Brazilian dynamo to pull Chara out of position and apply pressure on an unconvincing defensive partnership of 20 year old Andrew Baptise in his sophomore season and the aforementioned Mikael Silvestre, who will be looking to rebound from a torrid MLS debut. This in turn could see Will Johnson drop into a deeper central position, being far less gung-ho to support the attack like he did in the first half against the Red Bulls. In the case of Alhassan against Brovsky, this will be a tough test for Montreal fullback, as the Ghanaian winger has the pace and strength to dominate the right side of the field and will put the onus on Justin Mapp (or potential replacements in Sanna Nyassi or Andrew Wenger) to track back in support.
All of that said, the main match-up to keep an eye on is Diego Valeri/Darlington Nagbe vs. Patrice Bernier/Davy Arnaud. The budding relationship between the Argentine playmaker and one of the rising stars within MLS will likely see Arnaud forced into a deeper position in order to reinforce the middle of the pitch alongside Bernier and to negate a potential mismatch.
In the End
The atmosphere the Timbers Army creates with the green smoke, the singing of the national anthem and “Timber Joey’s” chainsaw blaring makes pulling off a similar result like Montreal Impact achieved in Seattle a difficult prospect. The players will need to go in with a similar all business mentality, be efficient in closing down space and approach the game economical in attack.
Prediction
Portland Timbers 2-1 Montreal Impact
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