Jorge Villafana’s grit, endurance, and individual brilliance is an inspiration to anyone who laces up their cleats.
MLS may not find space to recognise full backs in their MLS Best of 2015 starting XI, but in selecting the winner for Cascadia Corner Player of the Year 2015, Prost Amerika has.
Portland Timber Jorge Villafana is the inaugural winner of the award. In second place was Vancouver goalkeeper David Ousted, followed by Sounders FC striker Obafemi Martins.
Jorge Villafana has started 33 MLS games, playing 2929 minutes, the most for any outfielder. As Matt Hoffman explains, the man who seemed to be a makeweight in a bigger trade has nailed down one of the key positions on the Timbers roster and added a large part of continuity to a back four that had been a revolving door. That stability has been a large part of the defensive performance that has taken Portland to the MLS Cup Final.
Hoffman was a beat writer at Chivas USA during Villafana’s tenure there and now covers Portland for Prost Amerika. In his first column for Cascadia Corner, he explains how Villafana’s career came to where it is now and why he has been chosen for the award.
Cascadia Corner Player of the Year 2015: Jorge Villafana
By Matt Hoffman
Jorge Villafana came to Portland as a throw-in.
Former Akron and Sounder Steve Zakuani was coming back to MLS.
In order to snag Porter’s old pupil, the Timbers and Chivas USA agreed to a package sending Andrew Jean-Baptiste–MLS Combine freak athlete and Portland’s would-be center back of the future, to Chivas USA. This exchange in turn encompassed the second pick in the Re-Entry draft, the 17th pick in the SuperDraft and Villafana.
Ownership of Chivas USA had been bought out by the league with the stated intent of selling the club to a new ownership group. The Villafana part barely made the headlines.
Former MLS VP Nelson Rodriguez left the league offices eager for the challenge of building a club. Jean-Baptiste was to be the shiny jewel that would be part of a backline that was already anchored by former USMNT and Rangers FC captain Carlos Bocanegra.
Rodriguez was eager to help Chivas USA shed its identity of a perennial bottom-feeder. Unfortunately, that made Villafana expendable.
Villafana is a true two-way player: He creates scoring opportunities but never takes a shift off when the Timbers cede possession.
At the time of his trade, Villafana was already the longest tenured member of Chivas USA’s first-team, having arrived in 2007, despite being one of its youngest players.
But very little about Villafana has been conventional. While most Chivas USA players might save a wave or even a high-five for the occasional outstretched palm, Villafana loved the fans and the fans loved him right back chanting “Sueno!” during his lengthy visits with The Black Army.
Sueno MLS is a nationally televised reality soccer show (think Star Search for soccer). Besting a competition of 2,000 others, Villafana earned a try-out with Chivas USA initially with the team’s U-19 squad, before eventually establishing himself with the first team squad .
Statistically speaking, few clubs had been as defensively porous as Chivas USA. With a five different coaches in its last five years, Villafana had earned a reputation in league circles not only as a hard-worker but as a quick-learner despite playing on a team that routinely lost, often big.
The most beloved son of Chivas USA, Villafana’s play has earned him the love of the Timbers faithful.
Caleb Porter was among those able to see the potential within Villafana. He was Villafana a fantastic player who routinely out-worked his assignments never letting the losing get to him.
Porter selected Villafana to play for him on the Olympic team. While Porter has spoken about the lessons learned in the experience of failing to qualify for the Olympics, Villafana impressed Porter enough that the coach made sure the player was part of the package.
The Timbers missed the 2014 MLS playoffs by a single point. Extended absences of key players certainly hampered the team’s chances, but what was readily apparent was the Timbers defense nearly allowed as many goals as they scored, causing the team to rely on what Porter referred to as “Captain Comeback.”
Addressing the media following the end of the season, Porter spoke openly that the team’s defense was an aberration adding that he had never coached a team that finished so poorly defensively.
Porter had not spent his winter picking the brain of Jose Mourihno yet, but the pieces were already in place. The move would not be official until the next month, but the Timbers were working to get Nat Borchers over from Real Salt Lake to pair with the team’s first million-dollar-a-year defender, Liam Ridgewell.
On-loan defender Alvas Powell was to be purchased to go with Villafana.
Villafana finished 2014 strongly earning a spot as a starter after spending time behind Michael Harrington, Danny O’Rourke, and an out-of-position Jack Jewsbury. Yet, Villafana plied away and waited for his opportunity, starting US Open Cup matches and scoring daggers against LA and the Red Bulls.
Finally, on August 30 Villafana took over as the starting full-back, a role he never relinquished. He started the final 10 games as the Timbers went an impressive 5-1-4, the only loss being in Toronto in the match where Will Johnson broke his leg.
From obscure beginnings, Villafana has embraced the Timbers. And the Timbers have embraced him back.
On the Timbers backline, Villafana is the forgotten man.
He’s not the seasoned captain whose career was burnished in the EPL. Nor is he the grizzled MLS rep with the Portland beard-cred. And he’s not the up-and-coming electrifying Jamaican international.
In fact you might not even notice Villafana is even there. On TV he’s hardly visible at all. Like how NFL quarterbacks don’t throw the ball in the vicinity of a “shut-down” corner back, Villafana has adapted that role on the Timbers.
But he’s there, surrounding and ambushing opposing wingers playing both on-and-off the ball, yet constantly making runs down the field, sometimes even passing Timbers forwards along the way such as in one instance versus Houston earlier this year.
Villafana has expanded his repertoire as a Timber.
Besides being the premier stopper at his position and creating width on the attack, Villafana has created havoc for defenses with free kicks leading to goals for Fanendo Adi, Maximiliano Urruti and even for himself.
Yet so long after being the heartbeat of Chivas USA, Villafana has reprised that role for the Portland Timbers.
Which is why Jorge Villafana is the 2015 Cascadia Corner Player of the Year.
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