Portland v Rochester: Sights and Sounds
By: Bob Kellett |
1 Comment
Takayuki Suzuki welcomes former Timbers midfielder Luke Kreamalmayer back to Portland and Scott Vallow is none too pleased.
Category: Timbers Army and Fans
Tags: Guest Post: Leagues of their own
By: Bob Kellett | 1 Comment
David Falk is the webmaster of www.GOALSeattle.com. He has followed the Sounders and the Seattle soccer scene since 1974. He was instrumental in starting the Cascadia Cup competition and had lobbied for the NBA Sonics to change their Yellow & Green (ick!) color scheme. He’s recently realized that will soon no longer be an issue. His thoughts on the Timbers and Sounders rivalry ahead of Saturday’s clash in Seattle are below. My take on the Northwest Derby can be found here.
Sounders and Timbers fans are looking at 2008 through very different lenses. So are the clubs themselves.
While the Timbers look to continue their hot start with a second win in Seattle this Saturday night, the Sounders are hoping for some home magic to turn around the performance and result from their 2-0 loss in the Rose City in late April.
It goes far beyond one match, though, this seeing things differently.
Match 4: Portland Timbers 0-0 Rochester Rhinos
By: Bob Kellett | 8 Comments
The Bottom Line: The Portland Timbers and Rochester Rhinos played to a nil-nil draw on a Thursday evening in front of 7,519 at PGE Park. Coming off a 12-day layoff, the Timbers could not find a rhythm against a Rochester side that kept the action tight. The two teams combined for a total of 40 fouls in a contest that was at times chippy. Rochester starts their season by going 270 minutes without a goal and are winless in three games. The Timbers end their four-game homestand with three wins and a draw. Keeper Ray Burse picked up his third shutout in four games. The Timbers have gone 18 regular season games at home without a loss and they remain in first place in the USL First Division.
Category: Match ReportsAn Alternative Approach: Portland should wait out MLS
By: Bob Kellett | 6 Comments
I applaud people who are creative in thought and who are willing to challenge conventional wisdom. I salute Cliff Pfenning, a former scribe for the Portland Tribune and the current publisher of Oregon Sports. He has penned an interesting piece (PDF) about the approach Portland should take to land an MLS team. He argues that instead of dipping into his extensive piggy bank, Timbers owner Merritt Paulson should spend his time and energy building up the current franchise so that it becomes so big and so attractive that MLS simply will roll out the red carpet in 2012 without demanding a huge expansion fee. An interesting idea for sure, but for the sake of argument let’s examine some of his reasoning.
Category: Portland MLS ExpansionThursday Night Lights
By: Bob Kellett | 2 Comments
How does this work again? It has been 12 days since we last saw the Portland Timbers play and I almost forget what I am supposed to do on game day. Surely it doesn’t involve performing any meaningful work. Surely it does involve spending all day alternating between looking at the clock and the Talk Timbers message board until a reasonable enough hour arrives for me to slink off to the pub unnoticed. We can start to fill the waiting hours by reading the piece on Miguel Guante in the Thursday Oregonian. Guante is the flavor of the moment thanks to his performances against Minnesota and Seattle, and he’s hoping to become the flavor of forever. It just goes to show how thin of a line there is in the soccer world. One minute it looks a player isn’t going to feature much for a club and the next he has a stranglehold on a starting position. At least for now. There are a lot of bodies in the midfield this season and a lot of them are seeking to do the same thing that Guante has done early on this year, win a starting job.
Category: Former Portland TimbersWho are ya? – Rochester Rhinos
By: Bob Kellett | 7 Comments
The Details: Portland Timbers v Rochester Rhinos, Thursday, May 8, 7pm, PGE Park. Web audio broadcast, Video webcast, Spanish radio on La X 1040AM
Last season: The 2007 Rochester Rhinos had high hopes playing their second season at Paetec Park, a stadium built over a filled-in section of the Erie Canal. Alas, the Rhinos did not live up to those high expectations, finishing the regular season in fifth place with 12 wins, 10 losses, and 6 draws. Rochester was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by Atlanta. A franchise that once won three league trophies and the US Open Cup in its first six years, Rochester has now gone six years without winning anything.
Category: Match ReportsHonk if you support the Timbers
By: Bob Kellett | Add Comments
Without much fanfare
From the club’s Tuesday press release: “The Timbers announced today the club has signed goalkeeper Steve Reese and midfielder Tom Taylor for the 2008 season, pending USSF approval. Both were members of the Timbers in 2007.”
Category: Timbers Team NewsPortland Timbers World Map
By: Bob Kellett | 3 Comments
Arsene Oka, Ivory Coast
Lawrence Olum, Kenya
Bryan Little, Scotland — Tom Taylor, England
Justin Thompson, Canada
Takayuki Suzuki, Japan
Benjamin Totori, Solomon Islands
Cameron Knowles, Gavin Wilkinson, New Zealand
Vardan Adzemian, Armenia
Everyone else, United States
A visual representation of where the 2008 Portland Timbers’ players where born. There are nine countries (10 if you break out England and Scotland) and nine U.S. states represented. Soccer truly is a global game.
Category: Player NewsStand Up for the Rose City
By: Bob Kellett | 2 Comments
Back in the dark, ugly days when USL Live did not exist, it was next to impossible to scout teams in the USL First Division. You could read the meager game reports provided by the teams, hope that there was coverage in the local newspapers, and read the biased thoughts of fans on message boards, but you could never really get a sense of a team until they came to your town. Fortunately those days are over and we can watch almost every game in the league this season. This has to be a huge help to coaches like Gavin Wilkinson. With his team off this past weekend, I imagine that Wilkinson curled up with his computer and watched Rochester play a pair of games. I sure did. The one thing that really struck me about the Rhinos is that they look like they are lacking in team speed. They have a few individuals with motors - Luke Kreamalmayer and Johnny Menyongar, for example - but overall the team appears to be more Benedetti than Scott with one T.
Category: Timbers Team NewsJuventus Primavera Tickets on Sale Tuesday, Two Games this week
By: Bob Kellett | 2 Comments
After a week off, it is game week once again for the Portland Timbers. The heroes in green and white will try to be bloody dynamite against Rochester on Thursday at PGE Park and on the road against those dreaded Seattle Sounders on Saturday. It seems hardly fair to have to go through a season with a rush of games, followed by a lull and then followed by another rush of games. USL First Division scheduling is something I won’t miss when the day comes that the Timbers play in MLS. You can also add another game to the June calendar. Ticketmaster has confirmed that the Timbers will face Juventus Primavera on June 14 (UPDATE: Official club press release). Online presale tickets go on sale Tuesday and regular tickets will begin being sold on Saturday. I wasn’t super excited when I found out AC Milan’s kids were playing here last season, but that turned out to be an entertaining friendly. Let’s hope the Juventus youth also put on a good show. Here’s the most recent YouTube clip of them in action.
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