When it rained, it poured for the Portland Timbers in loss to Vancouver

On the bright side, there were no tweets after this one.

But following Portland’s latest loss to Vancouver, a 4-1 season-opening defeat at Providence Park that came on the heels of Portland’s 5-0 loss to the Whitecaps to end last season, Timbers manager Phil Neville didn’t spend much time searching for the positives.

Sure, the Timbers played nearly all of Sunday’s match down a player after Kamal Miller’s red card in the 11th minute. And yes, that red card was questionable. So, too, was the non-call on a handball that set up Vancouver’s third goal. But after an offseason of trying to move forward, after retooling a roster to be younger, faster, more athletic and supposedly better defensively, well, the only real positive the second-year manager could conjure up in his postmatch presser was this:

Unlike last year’s season-ending implosion, there are still 33 more games to go.

“I don’t want anyone to talk about those two decisions,” Neville said. “I’m more concerned about how a guy, when he’s four-versus-one at the back, gets through on goal. We could make all the excuses whether we thought it was a red card or a foul or not. For me, that guy should have never been in that position anyway. And obviously, the second — or the third goal — was it a handball or not? I think everybody probably in the stadium saw it, but I could say it was still 80 yards from goal. It’s not like it was a goal-line clearance or on the six-yard box, it was 80 yards from goal.

“And we got punished.”

Punished might understate it for a fanbase that spent November and December watching other teams in the playoffs, saw their former MVP candidate Evander shipped to Cincinnati, observed a first-game lineup that included absences from Jonathan Rodriguez, Dario Zuparic, Santiago Moreno, Juan Mosquera and Miguel Araujo (visa issues), and still filed into Providence Park underneath an atmospheric river just to see their home club have little chance.

The Timbers were down 1-0 after 24 minutes. They were down 2-0 after 33 minutes. They were outshot 14-0 at the half and, after Vancouver’s goals in the 53rd and 61st minutes, looked well on their way to another shutout loss before Antony snapped a 163-minute scoreless streak for Portland’s lone tally of the match in the 73rd.

The Timbers came into Sunday hoping to turn the page from a dramatic winter, especially as the club kicked off its 50th anniversary season here in Portland. It was Diego Chara’s 400th regular season match with the club, it was the debut of new designated player David Da Costa, and it was against a team Portland surely would have enjoyed redemption against following the events of Oct. 23.

And while Neville came into the year optimistic about his team’s youth and talent, the Timbers played jumbled soccer and gave themselves little-to-no chance 11 minutes into the game when Miller was shown the door.

“Little mistakes punished us,” said defender Zac McGraw, echoing his manager. “The first goal. The second goal, outside the box closing down. The third goal, counter attack. Fourth goal — like, when things are going down it’s easy to just get piled on.”

To be clear, the squad Portland played with on Sunday was far from full strength. Da Costa only played in the second half after his own visa issues held him out of getting enough training during the preseason. Rodriguez and Moreno are massive pieces of the Timbers’ attack, and the Zuparic injury, which Neville described as “bad,” caught nearly everyone by surprise. This team should be better, and it’s not like the offensive presence of Evander would have played any role against a Vancouver squad that’s now scored nine goals in its last two matches at Providence Park.

But Neville grew frustrated by the end of his comments to the media. There were excuses on the table if he wanted them, but there was also plenty of poor play that the manager said needed to get better, quickly, for a team that had six players make their debut with the club.

“I think those younger players will have learned a lot today,” Neville said. “Sometimes as a young player, you need an experience like this. I think my first game in football, I thought I was a really good player, and then went to Aston Villa, first Premier League game, and I think we were three-nil down after 20 minutes. I thought, ‘Oh wow.’ It’s a real check, and today was probably a check for a lot of our players in terms of what’s needed to compete. I think it’s better off feeling it in the first game—even though it hurts—than later in the season, when it can be painful.”

Neville did like what he saw from new defender Jimer Fory. He thought new forward Kevin Kelsy showed “courage” and said that Da Costa, who the Timbers paid $6 million for last week to get from French Ligue 1 club RC Lens, was “impressive” in his 45 minutes of action and will start Game 2 against Austin FC on Saturday.

Things can get better for this club — and if you’re looking for any sort of token sign, maybe a fanbase that’s been through a monsoon the last four months can point to the few patches of blue sky that opened up above Providence Park shortly after the conclusion of the match.

“Fortunately, last year this loss happened at the last game of the season, and we got knocked out,” McGraw said. “This year, it’s the beginning of the year so we can actually improve off it. There are a lot of new guys in the locker room and a lot of new guys in the field, but we’ve been together all preseason. They’re going to adapt.”

This article originally appeared on The I-5 Corridor.

— Tyson Alger