Desperation Time for the Timbers

By: Bob Kellett | May 29th, 2008

That wouldn’t have been my headline, but since the coach said it and the Trib printed it, I’ll go with it. I don’t think we’re quite at the desperate point in this 2008 season, but we’re certainly approaching the point where the panic button is pushed. The Portland Timbers (3-2-4) are making the cross-continent journey Thursday ahead of this weekend’s games at Montreal and Rochester. In previous years a trip to play against two of the league’s powers would have been viewed as a death sentence, especially for a Timbers’ side that hasn’t won in six games and has been shutout five of their past six contests. This isn’t a normal year in the USL First Division, however. Montreal (2-4-1) started with a brutal road trip and have yet to gain their form. Rochester (0-4-3) had a terrible offseason and are still looking for their first win of the season. Heck, they’d be happy to score a goal. They’ve only scored two in their first seven games. Three teams that all have high expectations and are on the verge of letting things slip away. Cue the desperation music.

Hand not tipped
The Timbers will be without forward Takayuki Suzuki when they face Montreal on Friday. He’s serving a one-game suspension for the red card he picked up against Miami on Monday. I’m ok with this. Suzuki has logged a lot of minutes thus far and the amount of physical play directed at him in this league isn’t helping him get any younger. A little bit of rest might do him some good. Meanwhile, the decision about who will replace him in the starting lineup remains up in the air, at least if you believe Gavin Wilkinson’s words. I don’t. I think he has already selected Chris Bagley. The sexier choice is to throw our future hero Benjamin Totori into the mix and let him show what he can do for a full game. When does Wilkinson ever do anything sexy? Totori is still learning his teammates’ names. Bagley is a known entity. I think he’ll see the bulk of the action against the Impact with Benji coming on for Chris Brown later in the game.

The Temp
Gavin Wilkinson will spend the 90 minutes his team plays against Montreal learning how to make nice with garbage cans. The Timbers boss will join Suzuki in the bad boys’ part of the stadium thanks to his waste bin outburst against Miami. That leaves assistant Rod Underwood to run the show. Underwood’s bio? He coached the perfectly named Albuquerque Geckos to a title in 1997 and he played on the perfectly named New Mexico Chilies. He also has penned a book called “Understanding Soccer”. Let’s hope he does, indeed, understand soccer enough to come away with a result against Montreal. By the way, does anyone else recall the days when the Timbers wouldn’t even send their assistants on road trips? Bobby Howe used to look so lonely on the bench.

30-minute delay
Forget the seven-second television delay. The game against Montreal will kickoff at 4:30pm our time but won’t begin airing on Fox Soccer Channel until 5:00pm. That should give the television crew enough time to censor all those PG-13 curse words that Andrew Gregor spouts during games. Seriously, if you ever get a chance to listen to Gregor swear during games it is awesome. He tries his best to avoid saying naughty words so instead you end up hearing him scream things like “Jiminy Cricket!”

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