A Huge Opportunity Coming Up For The Portland Timbers

Portland TimbersAll I asked for this weekend was goals. I was willing to let one in if we could kick start our offense and have our first multi-goal scoring performance since March. Luckily, that’s just what we got. Eric Brunner, who wasn’t even on the bench last game due to injury, was back in for the suspended Futty Danso and managed not only some great defensive plays, but got the opening goal as well. After Chicago equalized, Kris Boyd did what he has seemed unnaturally good at doing this season – he didn’t score on his own, but he got his second game-winning own-goal assist for an opposing team. His crosses just seem to find defenders’ feet awkwardly. Not what we thought we were buying, but we’ll take it.

It was a return to winning ways and three incredibly vital points. But I’m not here today to talk about the Chicago game, or the fact that we are finally off the bottom of the Western Conference table. I’m not even here to gloat that Becks and Lando are in that last spot, making LA the biggest waste of money in MLS. I’m here to talk about the week we have ahead of us.

This coming Saturday, the Timbers host our first Cascadia Cup match of the season as Vancouver comes to town. The CC opened last week when the Whitecaps went to Seattle and ground out a draw. As well as Vancouver has started this season, they are a beatable team, especially in front of an ear-splitting Jeld-Wen Field crowd. If we beat them, we will go to 15 points for the season, only three behind Vancouver, and will very likely be within a game of the 5th and final playoff spot.

Just as we are starting to find our form (not just this game – we’ve actually picked up five points in three games), the teams between us and the playoffs in the West are starting to falter. Dallas is only a point ahead of us with two more games played, and is arguably the worst team in the conference on form. They travel this week first to Chicago, where they will face an uphill battle to get their first road win of the year, and then face an even harder trip to Real Salt Lake. Also one point ahead of us is Chivas USA, whose next two games are away at red-hot New York and at home to Seattle. Colorado has an easier time this week, with only a home fixture against Montreal, but they’ve also had a disappointing May.

The point is, we are coming into a period when our immediate enemies, the teams standing between us and playoff contention, are going to struggle for points. This makes the Vancouver game on Sunday doubly important. A win there not only puts us in the lead for the Cascadia Cup – and don’t underestimate the value of that for the Timbers’ confidence – but it will very likely move us up one or even two spots in the standings because of the tough schedules the others are facing. We could be on the edge of the playoffs by this time next week.

We’ve had some good luck, and some bad, but as much as I tend toward the doomsaying end of things, I like a lot of what I’ve seen from the Timbers lately. The back line is strong, strong enough even to withstand the shuffling of one of our center backs what seems like every week. A lot of the credit for that goes to Hanyer Mosquera for being a rock in the other center back position. Our wing play is coming alive thanks to the return of Sal Zizzo, who is finally getting into the box and delivering usable balls to our forwards. We can take Vancouver. And if we do, we can start to forget about the month of April, and how bad we looked there for a while. RCTID.

 

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