It can be hard finding a silver lining in a season-ending loss, but I’ll try anyway: the Timbers didn’t lose this game. Atlanta won it. We didn’t piss it away, Atlanta won it fair and square. That’s some solace, at least.
1) Coming into Saturday’s MLS Cup, I think there was a general agreement that Atlanta’s attack was goddamn terrifying. They led the league in goals scored, their striker Josef Martinez had smashed the league record for goals, and their number 10 Miguel Almiron was arguably the best player in MLS. So when the game started, my main thought was, Please let’s not give up an early goal.