New Keepers, New Injuries, New Suspensions, New Questions

By: Bob Kellett | June 24th, 2008

The long extended break the Portland Timbers are on was supposed to give the players time to heal their wounds and their manager time to come up with some answers to the team’s first half of the season mediocrity. It doesn’t look like that is turning out to be the case. The Trib has the details of the bevy of challenges facing our heroes. On the injury front, Andrew Gregor will miss this weekend’s games with a bad hammy (not a good injury for a player his age). Lawrence Olum, Shaun Higgins and Bryan Little are all questionable. Tom Poltl picked up a three-game suspension (who knew this league even handed out suspensions?) for his elbow against Atlanta and Scot Thompson will serve a one-game suspension against Carolina. Even if Bryan Jordan is back and Mark Briggs signs the bench is going to be short for the back-to-back. Good thing there are nine million midfielders on the roster, right?

No break for Burse
The news that the Portland Timbers have brought in a couple of keepers – MLS reserves Corbin Waller (Houston) and Michael Gustavson (San Jose) – for a trial doesn’t come as much of a surprise given the tenuous nature of the Ray Burse loan. Burse has been busy keeping the bench warm for FC Dallas the past couple of weeks while the Timbers have been out of action. From the looks of things his days with Portland might be numbered, but according to the official FC Dallas blog he could still make the Carolina/Atlanta trip after suiting up for Dallas on Thursday evening. I tend to think that it would be helpful to have a keeper, you know, who actually trains with the team and doesn’t just fly in for games, but what do I know?

And how about this quote from Gavin Wilkinson:

Jordan James, who has played some when Burse was fulfilling duties with Dallas, “has to step up and show he’s the No. 1 goalkeeper,” Wilkinson says. “If not, there’s no point in having him around. He’s done well in some games, and in some games we expect more.”

Actually the point all along was to have him as a backup keeper. It is not like he’s been terrible in that role. Nor is he responsible for Josh Wicks leaving and Ray Burse disappearing. Seems unnecessary to throw a young kid under the bus like that in the media, but that is how the boss seems to work around here. As a motivational tool it hasn’t exactly worked this season.

Cruel and Unusual
Thankfully the USL First Division has moved away from forcing its teams to save money by playing back-to-back games. At one time the league required each team to play a minimum of four back-to-backs every year. The Timbers are doing the double twice this season, both times in the heat and humidity in the southeast. The first of the 48-hour fiestas is this weekend. How have the Timbers fared in back-to-back affairs over the years? The indispensable Allison Andrews has it all tracked out over on the Soccer City USA stats page. You’ll notice that the Timbers have not won both legs of a back-to-back in 29 tries. They’ve come out on the losing end of both legs six times. On the road they have picked up:

4 pts – 1 time
3pts – 13 times
2pts – 1 time
1pt – 2 times
0pts – 3 times

US Open Cup
Normally when the Timbers play a game after a long break I worry about them being rusty, but the Timbers were looking rusty before this extended break so the time off might not be an issue. Both their opponents this weekend will be in US Open Cup action Tuesday evening. Atlanta travels to Miami. Carolina hosts Real Maryland. Considering the injuries and the questions the Timbers have at the moment it probably is a good thing they bowed out of the competition early even if it still makes me bitter that they did.

Photo: Allison Andrews/Soccer City USA