Portland Timbers rout Houston Dynamo 3-1 behind Janssen brace

Three goals in just over 50 minutes were enough for the Portland Timbers to seal a 3-1 win over Houston Dynamo FC at Providence Park in MLS play. The hosts struck early, padded their lead with a second goal right after halftime, and put the game away just as Houston had cut the gap.

The opener came in the 24th minute, after David da Costa had already tested the Houston goalkeeper with a shot that was stopped right under the crossbar. This time he made no mistake, curling a left-footed finish from the left side of the box to make it 1-0, assisted by Vincent Janssen. Before that, the match had been even, with Ian Smith and Eric Izoita going close without luck and Houston answering through Ibrahim Aliyu's attempts. The teams went into the break with that narrow margin intact.

In the second half, the Portland Timbers struck again on the counter. In the 64th minute, Kristoffer Velde finished with his right foot from the center of the box off a Janssen pass to make it 2-0. It looked like the knockout blow, but Houston Dynamo FC answered quickly: in the 70th minute, Agustín Bouzat fired a left-footed shot from outside the box, assisted by Duncan McGuire, to make it 2-1 and put some tension back into the match.

That tension did not last long. Seven minutes later, on a play that started from a corner kick, David da Costa whipped in a cross and Vincent Janssen finished with a header from close range, placing it low to make it 3-1, the final score. The closing stretch brought chances for both sides, a Finn Surman header that grazed the crossbar, a Lucas Halter shot that was cleared, but the result never changed again.

What the numbers say

Houston Dynamo FC controlled more of the ball and completed more passes, but the Portland Timbers were the sharper team whenever the game opened up. The gap in shots on target tells much of the story.

That gap also shows up in the expected goals generated during the match, an in-house estimate based on shot data: 3.141 for the Portland Timbers against just 0.445 for Houston Dynamo FC. A single shot on target for the visitors, which ended up in the net, says a lot about how little margin for error Ben Olsen's side had against the volume of clear chances, five, according to the stats, created by Martí Cifuentes' team.

The result also ran well ahead of our pre-match projections, which gave the home side a 41% chance of winning, a 28% chance of a draw and a 31% chance of a Houston win, with expected goals of 1.57 for the Portland Timbers and 1.35 for Houston Dynamo FC. The hosts not only won but blew well past that offensive expectation, while Houston fell short even of what was projected for their attack.

What it means in the standings

In the Western Conference, the win does not dramatically reshape the immediate picture for the Portland Timbers, who came in with 43 points from 33 games played (12 wins, 7 draws and 14 losses). Houston Dynamo FC, for its part, carried a record of 14 wins, 9 draws and 10 losses over the same number of games, good for 51 points, eight more than the hosts entering this match. For Portland, the goals from Janssen, Velde and da Costa made the difference between a tightly contested game and a victory that ultimately ended up looking comfortable on the scoreboard.