BEAVERTON, Ore. – The Portland Timbers’ schedule through the first month of the season hasn’t been at all kind.
They’ve faced the last two MLS Cup champions, LA Galaxy and Sporting Kansas City, Real Salt Lake, the 2013 runner-up, and Cascadia rival Vancouver Whitecaps – all four playoff teams from last year.
Next up? FC Dallas, the early Western pace setter who have scored a league-best six goals through four games, perhaps the Timbers’ toughest test of the young season.
“They’re definitely one of the teams to beat in the West, and then there are eight other teams to beat in the West,” Timbers center back Nat Borchers said after Friday’s training session at the team facility ahead of Saturday night’s home match (10:30 pm ET; MLS LIVE). “The West is unbelievable with the talent and the quality teams that they have. And I think this year is going to be extremely tough for every team.”
The unforgiving nature of the schedule – coupled with the continued absence of the Timbers’ best offensive player, Diego Valeri, and captain, Will Johnson – is combined with the looming specter of last year’s slow start (five points from the first eight games) repeated all over again.
This year, the Timbers haven’t been much better, managing three draws before last weekend’s 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. Has all that led to an early urgency for the team’s first win?
“Every game is important. Every game,” head coach Caleb Porter said. “First game’s important, second game, third game, fourth game, fifth, sixth, all the way up through 34, every game is the same. Points are points. Right now we’re not where we wanted to be. I think we’re not where we deserve to be, based on our performance in all honesty. But we’ve got two games at home, and starting with Dallas we need to get three points. I’ll be saying that every game for the next 30.”
And while facing a red-hot Dallas side that has won three and drawn once to start the year may seem daunting, Porter said the last time they faced them – a 2-0 Timbers win on the final day of the regular season last year – provides added confidence.
“It doesn’t hurt to show some video of us having some success, but at the same time we’re only going to win the game if we do those things when the whistle blows,” Porter said.
He said the most important aspect of that video was that it provided the blueprint to shutting down what Dallas does well. Porter said their front four of Blas Perez, Tesho Akindele, Mauro Diaz and Fabian Castillo is “dynamic,” making them dangerous on the counter, in addition to being very efficient on set pieces.
“We’ve managed it in the past, and a good example was last game of the year on the road when they hadn’t been beaten eight games at home,” Porter said. “That was kind of our video session today, to show what they do, which is really clear, and also to show some clips of us managing those things already in games because they’re pretty much the same team that they were last year.”
Portland certainly aren’t the team they were last year when they rebounded from that slow start to come within one point of the playoffs, with the team’s high-profile injuries hampering what has been one of the league’s best offensive teams over the previous two seasons. The Timbers may get one starter back, however, in midfielder Jack Jewsbury, who sat out last weekend’s match with a concussion. He returned to training this week and will be a game-day decision, Porter said.
“We have to have a response, and we just have to continue playing well,” Borchers said. “And it’s really just come down to a few key plays that have hurt us in this last stretch, and I think it’s on both sides of the ball. … And I think we’re right there.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
