FRISCO, Texas – It wasn’t necessarily a statistic the Portland Timbers were proud of.
For much of the season, a center back – Nat Borchers – was among the team’s leading scorers, a sore subject considering Portland’s goalscoring struggles through most of the year.
Now, with the goals problem figured out heading into the second leg of their Western Conference Championship matchup with FC Dallas on Sunday at Toyota Stadium (5 pm ET; ESPN | WatchESPN | ESPN Deportes | TSN2 in Canada | MLS LIVE), the Timbers are more than willing to brag about that set-piece prowess.
They used it to stagger Dallas in their 3-1 win in Leg 1 last weekend, scoring twice off corner kicks, with Borchers netting his first of the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs and fourth overall this season. And Timbers head coach Caleb Porter said it will be an area of emphasis once again leading up to Sunday's match to decide who will play in MLS Cup.
“We’ve also shown that we’ve been very good on set pieces,” Porter said on Saturday after a wind-chilled training session at the Toyota Stadium practice field. “We’ve got some big boys, and we’ve got good service, and we’re executing at the moment.”
In the regular season, Portland scored seven set-piece goals: three from corners, three on indirect free kicks and once on a direct free kick. Center back Liam Ridgewell, who like Borchers is 6-foot-2, opened the scoring last weekend, his first goal of the season.
But Porter said there’s more to their success in that area than size, strategy or spot-on service.
“A lot of it is psychological, I think,” Porter said. “When you’re scoring and the other team knows it and then they start thinking about it and then they probably over-practice it. And the next thing you know it’s in their heads a little bit. So we’re certainly going to capitalize on the psychology of that.”
One wrinkle for Sunday’s match will be the likely absence of Ridgewell, who came off late in the last match with calf tightness and started Saturday’s session working on the side with a trainer. Porter said his status for the match is “touch and go” and that backup center back Norberto Paparatto would “most likely” start.
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Paparatto hasn’t scored this year, but it was his initial flick-on header that led to Borcher’s stoppage-time goal last week.
“It doesn’t hurt. He’s a big boy, and he obviously showed on that third goal for us that he can get up,” Porter said. “And we’ve worked on set pieces all week and we’ll continue to hopefully put some pressure on them in dead-ball situations.”
Midfielder Diego Valeri, who sat out Leg 1 due to yellow-card accumulation, is also likely to retake corner-kick and free-kick duties from Darlington Nagbe. Valeri couldn’t pinpoint what exactly has made Portland so effective in that area.
“In soccer it’s hard to explain why, to scout why what happened,” Valeri said. “It’s hard to explain when you are in the moment and the ball is in the moment, and we will try to do it again and take advantage of that.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
