It's the Hope (August 2023)
Sometimes there is hope, even in defeat. After the last match of July—a hard fought group-stage-finale in the Leagues Cup—Dario Župarić gave us exactly the sign of life we needed going into August: “I said to Zac [McGraw] at halftime ‘This is gonna be a war, but we’re going to die like heroes,’ and it was like that,” he said in the post-match press conference. “I would like to lose every game like this.”
The Croatian center back’s words exemplify the fight we want in our team, especially in such an uneven season like 2023. We can handle any result if the battle is there. And it was in the next one—a hardfought 0-1 loss to eventual Leagues Cup 4th-place side C.F. Monterrey started August off with the feeling that something had changed in us over the mid-season tournament. We just might be OK. With over two weeks to prepare for a road match at Houston, and, after that, 6 of the remaining 10 matches at Providence Park, we were ready to give everything to what remained of the season.
Hope, however, ended up being little more than that. That road match at Houston ended in a 0-5 defeat that quickly dampened what momentum was earned in July. It also ended the Giovanni Savarese era in Portland when, on August 21, the Timbers made an in-season coaching change for just the third time in club history.
This month’s essay takes a look at those three in-season incumbent removals, the hope behind them, the results that followed, and the people who stepped up to lead us, all hoping our finest hours were in their stead.
1980 Don Megson
When I opened the 1980 press binder belonging to the NASL Timbers front office, I found the first page reflecting the season as you see it at the start of this essay. Assumedly typed fresh before any match had been played, with just the fixtures and national TV dates noted, it began blank, a would-be roadmap to a successful season. As the record, results, and attendance filled in after each match, the story further fleshed out.
It was a tough start—a couple of road losses—before a home win became the only victory of April. That win in front of an official 14,595 Civic Stadium fans, promised positive things for the side that had invested $2 million in off-season player acquisitions.
May brought a bit more luck with 3 wins and 3 losses over the first 6 matches. Of the three at home, however, attendance consistently dropped: 13,615 to 9,673 to 8,948 for the May 28 home loss to California.
And then there’s a handwritten note, just before the last match of May: “Megson Fired.”
Thus marked the end of Don Megson’s Timbers coaching tenure and the first time the team made an in-season managerial change. Dropping attendance numbers do not go well with a larger player payroll investment, and the inconsistent additions to the win column meant something had to happen. Everyone involved could feel it was a possibility, but I doubt anyone was prepared for how it happened:
Timbers fly to Ft. Lauderdale for a road tilt against the Strikers, knowing things are not going well and that they need to start getting results, for themselves, for their coach, for their fans.
Timbers players go to sleep the night before the match, ready to try and turn things around on the road. They know they can; 2 of their 4 wins to date that season came away to Washington and Edmonton.
Timbers players wake up to just about the most absurd news possible: they are now coached by a Methodist minister/marriage counselor who fired their former coach in the middle of the night, and on that now-former coach’s 22nd wedding anniversary, no less.
Megson’s replacement, GM Peter Warner, who inserted himself at head coach despite having no previous playing or coaching experience, oversaw 5 losses in a row from May 31 (the 2-4 loss at Ft. Lauderdale) to June 14 (a 0-1 home loss to Seattle in front of 10,131).
After that match, there’s another note in the schedule, in the same handwriting as before: “Crowe Hired.”
The Timbers turned to their first-ever coach as their new one: Vic Crowe returned to the bench, welcomed by a Brian Gant home goal to lift the Timbers over Atlanta in his first match in charge again. From there, the Crowe-coached Timbers rattled off a 10-6 record, including winning the last 5 matches of the season. Ultimately, it wasn’t enough to make the playoffs, but Crowe remained in the gaffer’s seat for the rest of the Timbers NASL tenure.
2012 John Spencer
Portland’s first-ever MLS head coach, by nature, would always be the team’s first-ever former first-ever MLS head coach. Any coach goes into the profession knowing this is not just a possibility but an inevitably. This is, in part, what former Scotland International John Spencer signed up for when he was hired on August 10, 2010 as the Timbers’ first head coach of the MLS era.
John Spencer is one of us.
After a May 14 1-1 Cascadia Cup match at Seattle, Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid blamed the dropped home points on the rain—specifically on how it affected his team’s ability to play the style they prefer. To this, two days later, Spencer replied, "Next time we go up there, we're going to take plenty of towels so we can dry the field off for them before the game. And take plenty of tissue so they can dry their eyes after the game."
The 2011 season ended with the team one place out of a playoff spot in the West. Not too bad for a new side in the league.
Then, the 2012 campaign started much like its 1980 counterpart: with money invested. Portland signed the all-time Scottish Premier League leading scorer, Kris Boyd, for a then-record $1.5 million (or 75% of the NASL off-season Megson-era investment in multiple players combined).
On the plus side, Boyd led the 2012 Timbers in goals with 7 (which was still 20 behind MLS leader Chris Wondolowski).
On the other side, however, on May 30, the Scottish League all-time leading scorer skied a penalty in a US Open Cup home loss to Cal FC, an Eric-Wynalda-coached side of amateurs, in what was the lowest attended home match for Portland that season, with just 5,489 in attendance.
July 9, 2012 was not, to my knowledge, John Spencer’s wedding anniversary. However, on that day, the now-former Timbers coach thanked owner Merritt Paulson for “the opportunity to be the first head coach in the history of the MLS Timbers."
And for the second time since 1975, we had a midseason manager change. As with the first time, the GM inserted himself as temporary caretaker in place of the former coach. This time, however, instead of a Methodist minister/marriage counselor, the team had a two-time USL-1 Coach of the Year, with extensive playing experience, in Gavin Wilkinson.
2012 ended with the team three places out of a playoff spot in the West. Not ideal for a second-year side who spent $1.5 million on one player in hopes of making an immediate mark in MLS.
There were three bright spots:
Before the 2013 season, the club hired Caleb Porter, who would lead the team to first in the Western Conference in 2013 and then an MLS Cup in 2015.
The 2012 Spencer/Wilkinson season brought home that year’s Cascadia Cup.
No coach, past, present, or future, will likely reach the impossibly high endorsement bar John Spencer set with his 2011 Alaska Airlines commercial:
2023 Giovanni Savarese
It happened again this August. Third verse, somewhat same as the first (and second).
The 2023 team entered the season with a club-record-signing, bringing in Designated Player Evander at a $10 million transfer fee. Head coach Giovanni Savarese signed a contract extension in the offseason, and 2023’s home attendance would average over 25,000.
As the season went on, everyone held on and hoped, month after month, with the side hovering just above or below the playoff line. But the team started to quickly run out of ‘next months’ to be THE month.
After August started with a 0-5 listless MLS loss on the road to Houston, just after things had [once again] been looking up, head coach Giovanni Savarese said the result was a very “not-like-us performance.” He continued to add the match was “a performance not to the level of a Portland Timber. Not to the level our fans deserve.” He was honest. He was correct.
A couple of days later, General Manager Ned Grabavoy had to bear some tough news.
“In this profession, unfortunately, at times, there’s a lifecycle to where we are and what we do,” he said to the assembled press on August 22, after head coach Giovanni Savarese had been let go. “And I do think, at this time, it’s best for the club to have a new voice, and the decision was made with the best interest of the club for both the short and long term. And obviously for myself and for a lot of others, we wish Gio the best moving forward.”
Instead of inserting himself, as his Timbers’ GM predecessors had done prior, Grabavoy, the two-time MLS Cup champion, named then-assistant Miles Joseph as the interim head coach.
Under Joseph, Portland first dropped a hard-fought 2-3 loss at home but ended August on a high note with a 2-1 win over visiting Real Salt Lake. Once again, a month was over, and once again, the team was on the doorstep to the playoffs. “We needed this win, to get confident again,” captain Diego Chará said after the RSL match. “We know that every game [from here to the end] is going to be a final.”
The 2023 Joseph-Era Timbers channeled the new-manager-bump energy of the 1980 Crowe-is-back Timbers, taking 14 out of the next possible 18 points before losing the final two matches of the season and ending 2023 out of the playoffs for the second season in a row.
Soccer seasons, when you care like we do, take us all for a ride. In the end, only one team lifts the Cup. For all the others, maybe it’s the hope that kills, or maybe it’s not having hope that does. Regardless, we know we’ll recover and then come back together when things start again.
“Unfortunately, at times, there’s a lifecycle to where we are and what we do.” Grabavoy’s words are as true in this sport as they are in life. Whether the goodbye is contractual or existential, at some point, hope—and therefore, time—runs out. We have to say goodbye.
Earlier in 2023, we said goodbye again to Don Megson, this time in a different way. This essay is dedicated to him.
Here's to the hope that our journey is continually filled with people like Megson, Spencer, and Savarese. Here’s to hoping it’s filled with people like us.
Always Timbers.
#RCTID