Are The Portland Timbers Haunted?

Another week, another game where the Portland Timbers largely dominate the run of play and fail to get a result after losing 1-0 to visiting Sporting Kansas City Saturday night.

Despite Sporting Kansas City having played 120 minutes on Wednesday night and fielding a team featuring numerous reserves, Portland was unable to break through and find a goal,  despite numerous good chances at goal. However, Kansas City goalkeeper Tim Melia was superb, stopping a number of stinging shots from Diego Valeri, Fanendo Adi, Darlington Nagbe, and Lucas Melano.

After the Timbers failed to finish, SKC substitute Krisztián Németh made a run worthy of goal-of-the-year consideration in the 83^rd minute, slotting the ball perfectly into the corner net and giving SKC all three points.

On August 20^th, Coach Caleb Porter was quoted in the Oregonian saying that the Timbers needed to win all five of their final home games. Since then, Portland has played four home games and earned a total of two points. Portland now sits tied with San Jose for the 6^th and final playoff spot in the Western Conference, and the Timbers are in real danger of missing the playoffs for the second consecutive year.

At this point in the season, results such as this can, unfortunately, no longer be considered a surprise. The number of times this Portland Timbers squad has outplayed an opponent only to end up with less than a win simply defies belief at this point, and may very well end up costing them a playoff position.

The Timbers lead the league in shots taken and are among the league leaders in chances created and shots on goal. Portland is also tied for third in the league for least goals allowed. By all accounts, this is a talented, well-rounded team that can dominate even against top-tier competition, and has done so regularly this season.

And yet, forget competing for a championship, the Timbers might not even make the playoffs.

We’ve passed the point of logic and reasoning with this team. There is simply no statistic that can explain how a team this talented and playing reasonably well can continually struggle to get results. Whether it was Valeri’s strikes in the 26^th or 44^th minutes, Nagbe’s curving balls in the 34^th or 71^st minute, or Melano’s perfect run in the 65^th minute, it is truly incredible that not a single one of these well-struck balls ended up in the back of the net.

Normally, one could simply explain away a result like this to an unlucky week. But this is the story seemingly every third or fourth game for this Portland team in 2015. Perhaps it was a harbinger of things to come when, in the first match of the season all the way back in March, a shorthanded Timbers squad ran Real Salt Lake up and down the field, but could not find a goal and ended up with a 0-0 result.

The Timbers have three games remaining in their 2015 regular season schedule, and still have a chance to make the playoffs. But the way Lady Luck has treated Coach Porter and the Timbers this season so far, they would have to be forgiven if doubt is beginning to creep in that this just simply might not be Portland’s year.

So Portland, go ahead and pull out that rabbit’s foot you’ve stowed away. Pull the lucky socks out of the laundry, or throw away the shirt with the bad juju. Hold a seance, pull out the Ouija board, or head to your church, mosque, or temple. Because something is obviously bedeviling your Timbers. And if we don’t get it fixed and fast, the 2015 Portland Timbers will end up right alongside the Shanghai tunnels and the Benson Hotel as the most haunted places in all of Portland.