Another game, another one or two goals — wait. Six goals? Really?

That’s right. After a couple preseason matches that weren’t flush with goals (rightly so), we were presented with this gem. Real Salt Lake and Portland. It’s a match with some bite behind it, and frankly, we saw plenty of that over those 90 minutes.

Scuffles in the first 30 minutes? RSL going down 3-1? Substitutions at the 60-minute mark that saw the entire team change? This was practically a preseason classic.

And sure. The play wasn't always — how shall we put it? — particularly good, but again: preseason. It was, however, way more fun than it had any business being. Yes, even though we gave up three goals we shouldn’t have given up.

But you know what’s relieving about the goals we conceded? They’re largely preventable. It wasn’t like our system got torn apart — more, individual players were beat, sometimes badly. That’s not great, but it’s fixable, and when it’s young players, that can become a teaching moment.

RSL Soapbox writer CJ Guadarrama had some words about our attacking and defensive shape:

If you watched the videos Real Salt Lake posts regularly, you can sometimes hear Coach Cassar preaching attacking and defending as a unit—unfortunately, I am not seeing too much of that. We are losing the ball in bad places and not recovering it fast enough to prevent goals (see Valeri’s first goal and Mattock’s goal in the second half).

GOALS GOALS GOALS (and other notable moments)

1-0 Timbers

Chara red card

1-1 RSL, Plata goal

2-1 Timbers, RSL concedes a penalty

3-1 Timbers

3-2 RSL, Luke Mulholland from distance

3-3 RSL, Omar Holness from distance

Commenter reactions

Today’s comment comes from brandon.wilde.9, who has some words about Caleb Porter.

3. In his post-game remarks, Caleb Porter said that this game should have ended 3-2 in their favor, which would have been a win, and therefore he was pleased with that. I’m not sure which of our 3 goals didn’t count in Porterland, but what the hey? Classic Porter! And it inspired me. I think this game should have ended 3-0 with Keanu Reeves in goal with his first of many clean sheets for RSL, which would be a winning result, and I am extremely pleased with that.

Oh, Keanu.

Don’t be surprised if we write about Caleb Porter today, Brandon. Thanks.