There are some advantages to being short in soccer. The short guys have a low center of gravity, which leads to increased dribbling ability and balance. The short guys are compact, hard to chase down, and it’s even harder to knock them off the ball. Typically, the short guys get fouled a lot – they’re agile, quick, and wily.

Diego Maradona, 5’5. Pele, 5’8. Lionel Messi, 5’7. 

Diego Chara, 5’7.

Chara is a short guy. The Portland Timbers’ longest-tenured designated player has been labeled by his owner as “the most underrated player in MLS”, and it’s a moniker the diminutive Columbian deserves.

When the Portland Timbers are just a touch off their game, you can sense it. The passing isn’t as purposeful or crisp. The play isn’t as poised, and the players aren’t as ready to pounce.

At their best, the Timbers can score on every possession. When they’re a notch below that level, they’re about as good every other team in MLS. And things get interesting.

Saturday afternoon at BC Place in Vancouver, things were just a touch off. The Timbers can and will dominate possession in every game they play, but when they’re not buzzing – an occurrence that is frequent on the road – that possession is slow and listless.

With three of the last five games on the road, the Portland Timbers face another daunting task: three straight road games.  While there have been some moments in the last few road games  in which players and fans felt like there was more to be desired, the Timbers have demonstrated not only a commitment towards winning but one of class as well.  Take for instance the San Jose game with Steve Lenhart recklessly slide tackling every player in sight, or when Alan Gordon "inadvertently" elbowed Silvestre in the face, or maybe more recently when Mario De Luna pushed the innocuous ball boy for no apparent reason (I'll touch on this in my next article); the Timbers have kept their composure and have come away with a bevy of hard fought points on the road.  Recent history would suggest that the Timbers squad would perform morbidly on the road, seeing that they have only won a few sporadic games over the course of two seasons. But this squad is different; this squad is calm, collective and has a moral fortitude that makes me proud to sport my Timbers green.  Ultimately, they play inspired football and I love it.

In April, I wrote an article that outlined a couple recipes for success for Timbers games on the road. Let us reevaluate/breakdown these components in application to these last three road games. 

It was oh-so-easy for the Portland Timbers Saturday against Chivas USA. The Timbers strolled in the park for 90 easy minutes, and no one needed to put up a fight, except a brave ball-boy against a petulant and ill-tempered Mario de Luna. It was an effervescent victory delivered with panache and without a drop of sweat.

At times it looked like Manchester United was playing Reading. The gulf in class between the Timbers and Chivas USA couldn’t have been summed up by the team’s respective places in the Western Conference standings or the fact that the most experienced of Chivas’ back-three was former Timbers’ fringe player Steve Purdy. It was one of the most lopsided games you will ever see in Major League Soccer.

After defeating the San Jose Earthquakes 1-0 at Jeld-Wen Field on April 14th, there loomed a daunting six road games in the span of eight for the Portland Timbers.  Being an avid Timbers fan, I was well aware of our abysmal road record; fully expecting a meager three or four points out of the possible eighteen.  But what has transpired instills me to think that we have a new Timbers team on our hands.  A Timbers squad with moxy and vigor; they're hungry and it is very apparent after coming from behind against a talented Sporting KC team and tying with San Jose and FC Dallas.

This new influx of Timber talent may have turned me into a spoiled troll, but both 1-1 draws on the road have been rather dispiriting.  I say this largely because the Timbers were ahead of both of those games and just had some defensive let downs.  Goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts is playing out of his mind, making mind-defying save after mind-defying save.  The weakness to me seems not a lack of talent on the defensive side of the ball either, it's the mindset.  The mentality of "We have the lead, so let's play defensively" has backfired against them and left the Timbers with a tinge of despair when the final whistle blows.  

Those of us of a certain age remember Northern Exposure, a quirky television series that ran on CBS from 1990-95. The series was set in the fictional town of Cicely, AK (though it was filmed in Roslyn, WA). The residents of Cicely were a collection of quirky misfits who came to Alaska looking for a place where they could start over.

Janine Turner played Maggie O’Connell, a Grosse Pointe debutante turned Alaska bush pilot because … well, why not? Maggie was single because, through no fault of her own, all her boyfriends died in freak accidents. No one could explain Maggie’s curse, but she did seem destined for spinsterhood. With a trail of bodies defining her romantic history, who’d be willing to take a chance on breaking the curse?

I mention Northern Exposure because the travails of the Portland Timbers’ back line remind me of Maggie’s boyfriends. The Timbers have lost two central defenders, David Horst and Mikael Silvestre, to season-ending injuries. Both Horst and Silvestre were playing well when they were rendered hors de combat. Horst steadied the back line with his heart and hustle. Silvestre did the same through guile, experience, and dependability. The loss of two players of such high quality would hurt any team. It would have decimated the 2011 and 2012 Timbers. This edition has shown character and resilience despite the loss of two top-flight central defenders. They’re a wee bit short of central defenders at the moment, though.

It could not have started any worse for Mikael Silvestre in Portland. The Timbers’ newest high-profile player looked like a deer getting stomped by Red Bulls in the headlights of the club’s high-profile MLS season opener.

In his first 45 minutes, Silvestre looked old, slow, and French. He also looked destined to become the next casualty in a long line of accomplished international players to come to America for a paycheck and a career swansong, only to never devote the kind of focus, drive and effort required to be successful in MLS.

Rafael Marquez, anyone?

I can only start this column one way.

I stand with Jason Collins.

I stand with the LGBT community.

Now the question is, will NBA teams?

One of the things that makes sports special is that every so often, the games intersect with reality – the teams are forces of change, good and healing.

We saw that yesterday as the Portland Timbers hosted Atticus Lane-Dupre, an eight-year-old boy with cancer. His one wish was to take his soccer team, the Green Machine, and go to Jeld-Wen Field to play some soccer with the Timbers.

It never felt like an MLS game. The atmosphere was great, matched by the quality of play on the field. There was attacking intent, solid refereeing, and two class franchises contesting a pendulum of a game that went back and forth, until it came to a rest in the camp of the Portland Timbers.

The final score was Portland 3, Sporting Kansas City 2 Saturday night, in a match that would have looked more at home in the Netherlands or Germany. It was a landmark evening for the Timbers. Not only did Portland win their first road game almost six months earlier in the season than they did last year, but the Timbers out-footballed one of the best teams in the league, coming from behind twice, and leaving Kansas City as the hottest team in North America. 

The beautiful game. It’s a simple, succinct, romantic way of describing football; a game with many dimensions and factors, demons and angles. The beautiful game is the sport at its best – something to live up to. It’s more than a style of play; it’s a state of mind.

It’s one thing to win. It’s another thing to win with tenor, the flowing vibe of pizzazz and skill rolling through a team like a perfectly-played piano concerto. At its best, the beautiful game is mesmerizing, inspiring, and awing.

It’s not easy to play pretty. In soccer, anyone can play kick-ball, anyone can battle, or scrap, or hoof, but it takes real talent to be able to connect passes, confidently string together attacks through fluid movement, accuracy, touch and instinct, resisting the urge to put a foot through the ball, instead caressing the ball, spreading it around the field like fine jam on a piece of toast.