Home field advantage in sports is a real thing. Teams tend to have significantly better results at home than on the road. MLS teams for example are averaging 1.67 points per game earned at home this season, and 1.04 PPG on their travels.
By all indications, the Portland Timbers should benefit more than most teams from playing at home. Last season they went 11-5-1 at home, scoring 29 goals and conceding just 11. They play week in,week out in front of sell-out crowds at Providence Park and a raucous Timbers Army. Yet for some reason, the Timbers have struggled at home this year, going just 3-8-3.
The Timbers have scored 49 goals this season, good for 3rd highest in the league. With 6 games remaining, they seem certain to exceed their total of 54 goals scored last season. They are 5-4-5 on the road this year, earning 19 points, a year after going 3-10-4 and earning only 13 points on the road. Normally those improvements would mean an improvement on the previous year overall. Not these Timbers. These Timbers find themselves in 6th place in the Western Conference, one point behind 5th place Vancouver Whitecaps for the final playoff spot. The two sides play one another in Oregon on Saturday. Calling this match a six-pointer could be an understatement.
The biggest problem for the Timbers at home has been their defense. While the Timbers had the 2nd best home defense in MLS last year, conceding only 11 goals, they’ve given up the 2nd most home goals in the league this year (29). The offense has been fine, which has helped Portland earn draws from losing positions on multiple occasions.
What’s strange is that while the Timbers defense has been awful at home, they’ve been quite good on the road. Portland has conceded only 20 goals on the road, good for 5th best in MLS.
The difference between their home and away form suggests that the problem isn’t necessarily the quality of their players. That certainly contributes, as Pa Modou Kah and Norberto Paparatto specifically have made a number of errors which have cost the team goals. But the fact that they have been one of the better defensive teams in the league on the road proves it’s not all about a lack of quality defenders.
Recently, in an interview with Soccer Made in Portland, Timbers head coach Caleb Porter shared some thoughts on why he thought the Timbers might be struggling at home. He said he felt that at times the Timbers were over anxious to press the attack at home. He added that while the crowd is a huge boost when the Timbers are chasing a game, early in the game the team seems tight. “We want to win the game so bad that at times we try to win it in the first 15 minutes,” Porter said.
Perhaps most tellingly, Porter noted that “We’ve given up 12 goals in minutes 15-30. We come out flying at home, we never start poorly, and we never look like we’re not ready to play…It’s almost like we hit a wall after the 15th minute and that’s when teams have caught us.”
Those first two periods of 15 minutes (minutes 1-15 and 15-30) may indeed be the key to Portland’s defensive frailty at home. While the Timbers look to control the game whether at home or on the road, they do seem to come out a bit more pragmatically on the road, where they look to control the game at a more patient pace.
Looking at the last few matches, Porter may be on to something. In their 2-2 draw at Colorado last weekend, the Timbers conceded two shots, took none, and spent most of the first 15 minutes in the defensive and middle thirds of the field. As the half progressed they began to push forward, culminating in a Diego Valeri goal just before the half. In their 3-3 recent draw at home against San Jose, the Timbers took 6 shots, attempted 12 crosses, created 5 quality chances, but failed to score. They conceded a goal to Chirs Wondolowski in the 21st minute.
In their 3-0 win at Vancouver on August 31, Portland were outshot (3-2), created fewer chances (3-1) and put in fewer crosses (4-1) in the first 15 minutes than Vancouver, then evened things out in the next 15 minutes as they grew into the game before scoring three 2nd half goals for a convincing win.
Against Seattle at home, in a 4-2 loss, the Timbers outshot Seattle (3-2), created more chances (2-1) and put in more crosses in the first 15 minutes while spending the majority of the time in the attacking half before conceding twice between minutes 15-35 to fall behind 2-0.
The Timbers, as Porter suggested, seem to attack almost recklessly in the opening stages of the game leaving them vulnerable to conceding on the counter. Once they’ve fallen behind they’re forced to continue pushing numbers forward to try and get level, which leaves them vulnerable at the back for the rest of the game. When they play on the road they come into the game a bit more patiently. Then, if they score first, as they did against Colorado, they aren’t forced to push numbers forward like when they fall behind.
With 3 remaining home games, including Saturday against the Whitecaps, the Timbers need to figure out their defensive issues at home quickly if they want to have a chance at MLS Cup. Perhaps a bit of calm and composure to open the game would do them nicely.
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