Cascadia Cup Game One – Timbers tie
If you have been following the blog for any period of time, you know one of the clubs in the MLS I talk about is the Portland Timbers. So once again I go back to the Timbers, and the Cascadia Cup. It’s not a real cup sanctioned by the league, but more of a fan driven cup between the clubs in the Pacific Northwest. They are Vancouver, Seattle, and Portland. So in the first game Vancouver and Portland tied 1-1/
Kris Boyd put one past the Vancouver Goalie Joe Cannon in the 67th minute to go ahead 1-0.
Then super hyped, or just super rookie Darren Mattocks scored his first MLS goal not twenty minutes later to seal the tie for the Whitecaps. This is sure to be the first of many goals, of one of the better young strikers to come into the league in the last couple of years. Still he’s not Darlington Nagbe, but no one is. It’s good to have a goodish, team in Canada, because Toronto is a disgrace to all the soccer that has been played there, and well Montreal low Impact is new.
Still they are better than the Union. Overall, it’s a decent match, I’ll give the Timbers that. As much as they are struggling this year, they aren’t Toronto, LA, or the aforementioned Philadelphia Club. Unlike those other clubs, you sense sometimes with the Timbers that they will get their act together and move up the standings. It’s still early days in the league, but at the same point, think of it this way, struggles are struggles, and they need to be ended.
General thoughts on the match:
“I thought we never got what we deserved tonight. I felt we were by far the better team for most of the game, for long periods of the game. I thought our football at times was some of the best football we’ve played the whole year.”
On the changes to the Timbers’ lineup:
“I thought it worked. I’ve been saying time and time again, we’re lacking a bit of creativity, we’re lacking a final pass or cross into the box, and I think tonight we showed that with our feet. I thought we possessed the ball extremely well, at times. We’re creating chances at will, almost. For us, we just looked at it after the Chicago game, and we looked at the result and we thought, ‘You know what, great three points. Wasn’t a great performance.’ Never left us fulfilled as a coaching staff, because that’s not the way we want to win games. We want to try to win with flare and creativity. I just think tonight we had a little bit of sparkle about us. I thought we were the best team on the field by far.”
Lineups & Stats
POR: GK Perkins, D Jewsbury ©, D Mosquera, D Brunner (Horst, 46), D Smith, M Alhassan (Zizzo, 79), M Chara, M Alexander, F Nagbe, F Boyd, F Perlaza (Fucito, 88)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Bendik, D Wallace, M Palmer, M Songo’o
TOTAL SHOTS: 14 (Boyd, 4); SHOTS ON GOAL: 3 (Boyd, 2); FOULS: 12 (Boyd, Chara, 3); OFFSIDES: 2; CORNER KICKS: 7; SAVES: 2
VAN: GK Cannon, D Young-Pyo, D Bonjour, D DeMerit ©, D Rochat, M Koffie (Hassli, 72), M Chiumiento, M Davidson, M Thorrington, F Le Toux, F Camilo (Mattocks, 83)
Substitutes Not Used: GK Knighton, D Harvey, D Mitchell, M Watson, F Salgado
TOTAL SHOTS: 6 (Camilo, 2); SHOTS ON GOAL: 3 (Koffie, Le Toux, Mattocks, 1); FOULS: 12 (Bonjour, Koffie, Rochat, 2); OFFSIDES: 3; CORNER KICKS: 4; SAVES: 2
Referee: Jorge Gonzalez
Assistant Referees: Craig Lowry, Darren Clark
4th Official: Ramon Hernandez
Attendance: 20,438
Time of Game: 2:14
Weather: Cloudy, 68 degrees
Stephen Brandt
