Portland Timbers Odds and Ends

By: Bob Kellett | July 22nd, 2008

Number of games the Timbers were shutout in a season
2006 - 13
2008 - 9*
2007 - 9
2003 - 8

*11 games still left in the season

The more things change, the more they stay the same
There have been many frustrations watching the 2008 Portland Timbers slog their way through games, but perhaps the most frustrating to me is that the team has shown no signs of improvement as the season has gone on. Early on in the season Gavin Wilkinson expressed his displeasure with the team’s inability to possess the ball. We read about the extra attention paid to this in practice. We heard that things were improving in this area. And then we saw a team go out night after night and fail to make simple passes and maintain possession. The same thing can be said of the attack. Are there any signs that this team has improved its offense since May? If anything, the attack has taken a step back.

Portland Timbers vs. Carolina RailHawks
Overall: 1-1-1
Home: 0-0-1
Away: 1-1-0

MLS winds are blowing
It is All-Star week in Major League Soccer, which is traditionally a time when MLS commissioner Don Garber gives his state of the league address that almost always includes a long list of cities that are in the running for an expansion club and all the Big Soccer geeks get excited trying to read the tea leaves. I don’t expect anything dramatic to happen this year, but I am hearing some rumblings that Portland Timbers owner Merritt Paulson is finally getting close to announcing his expansion plans. Expect some kind of announcement and the launch of a website in the not so distant future.

Lord Byron
KPTV did a nice feature on Byron Alvarez earlier this week.

Best of Portland
Remember how we all came together to rig the election so that Takayuki Suzuki would be named Best Athlete in Portland by Willamette Week? The election results hit the newsstand on Wednesday. Hopefully if he wins the award Taka will go on to score at least one more goal this season.

Another message from Blog Central
When I launched this little ol’ blog back in March I promised you lots of grammatical errors. Promise delivered. I promised that I would be taking a break in May to get hitched. That happened. I also promised that I would be shutting things down for my honeymoon. That’s going to happen starting on Friday and lasting until August 11. Just getting you emotionally prepared ahead of time.

Photo: The Carolina player to the left sure looks like he is enjoying himself.