Portland Timbers vs. Montreal Impact Player Ratings: Italian Job Edition

First loss of the season. It's always a tough one to swallow, especially when it comes at home. Ultimately, as the season drags on, this will be looked back on as one of those games where we'll say: "We should have won that one." But alas, it's come and gone, and Montreal are now three points richer for it.

Here are our player ratings for the game:

Starting XI

Donovan Ricketts - 5

Stacey: It's amazing how Ricketts can sometimes be very good and very bad on a single play, like when he stopped a near post shot in the second half, but then spilled the ball back across the center of the goal. His defense saved him in a couple of those moments, but Ricketts also made a few really difficult saves, himself. For all the talk about the goalkeepers in this game, Montreal gave Ricketts a much bigger challenge than the Timbers gave Perkins.

Ryan Miller - 3

Geoff: Consistently burned is the word I would use to describe Miller's night. Unfortunately, it just didn't seem like he was the answer to Montreal on either the defense or offense. Which is probably what Porter saw when he was eventually pulled in favor of Trencito.

Andrew Jean-Baptiste - 6

Stacey: He made great use of his speed and size most of the night, coming up big on a number of plays. If I could, I would knock off just half a point for his defending on Montreal's first good chance, the header from Di Vaio, but I don't think a full point off would reflect how well he played the rest of the game. On that set piece though, Jean-Baptiste was standing in the box between Di Vaio and another Montreal player, marking neither of them. He wasn't the only culprit on that play, but he has got to do better.

Silvestre - 5

Andy: Got on the end of some important interceptions and positioned himself well on a couple of important stops, but I'd like to see him exert some more veteran leadership when it comes to things like set-piece defense.

Michael Harrington - 4

Stacey: Harrington was acceptable on defense and gets props for clearing the ball out of the mouth of the goal to prevent what would have surely been Montreal's third goal, but his crosses were poor and they took too long, which gave Montreal ample time to prepare for them.

Will Johnson - 3

Stacey: The captain did not have a very good game. He is largely responsible for the second goal, as he both gave the ball away and left his CB stranded and outnumbered because he didn't track back with enough urgency.

Diego Valeri - 5

Andy: He was still the primary creator of offense, but with the Impact ganging up on him he was forced to make far quicker decisions and thus failed to connect with his teammates too much of the time. If he is to continue to be effective for the Timbers, he'll need to overcome all the attention he's going to attract from the opposition.

Diego Chara - 6

Geoff: Solid night for Chara all things considered. He was consistently running at Montreal's midfielders Hassling them, Winning balls and keeping possession. Eventually you have to do something with that possession though and that's ultimately where Chara failed to make an impact (no pun!) on the game.

Darlington Nagbe - 6

Stacey: Nagbe is so dangerous when he gets his head up and starts dribbling. He can really blow past defenders to get some space around the edge of the box. But oh, how I wish he had taken than shot at the end of stoppage time instead of passing it to Valencia.

Kalif Alhassan - 4

Ryan: Kalif's tendencies to drift centrally really hurt Portland in he first half as it just clogged he middle more. When Kalif is not finding his game he has a tendency to check out and this occurred against Montreal and he had numerous bad passes and lackadaisical passes.

Ryan Johnson - 6

It took him the better park of 90 minutes by Ryan Johnson was finally able to crack Montreal's rock solid defense with a little help from Ben Zemanski. It was a shame he wasn't able to tie it up, but at least he didn't send Timbers fans home without a little bit of hope for the future.

Subs

Ben Zemanski - 4

Zemanski is taking some heat for his debut performance. His passing needs to improve, but he's obviously very communicative on the field and his assist was maybe the only dangerous cross the Timbers had all night.

Jose Adolfo Valencia - 4

Andy: Trencito seemed a bit more tentative out there this time around. When you're a super-sub brought in late, you can't be tentative. You have to take your chances well. He didn't.

Rodney Wallace - N/A

Wallace was only in for a little over 5 minutes so there's not much to judge him on. Still, I do remember one notable scuffle in the box where he was throwing himself in. Nothing came of it, but at least his heart was there.

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What are you individual player ratings for the match?