PORTLAND, Ore. – Caleb Porter knew that the Portland Timbers’ experience from last year’s late-season surge to win the Western Conference regular-season title would help in this year’s quest to qualify for the playoffs.
Porter said that the 2013 run manifested itself in Saturday afternoon’s thorough, 3-0 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps, which puts the Timbers in the fifth and final MLS Cup Playoff spot in the West and gives them control of their destiny over their final five league matches.
“I thought that was the biggest difference was that mentally we looked like we were the confident team, experienced and mature, and I thought we were very patient and composed,” Porter said in his postgame comments.
Everything about Portland’s performance was poised.
They withstood an early Vancouver surge, which nearly resulted in a goal by Sebastian Fernandez in the opening minute. And with every passing moment, the Timbers gathered more and more control, eventually taking the lead through a brilliant Diego Valeri volley in the 28th minute. And with the Whitecaps pushing for the equalizer in the second half, Portland kept their wits on the defensive end and struck with two daggers in the form of Fanendo Adi counter-attack goals.
It was the second straight 3-0 victory over their northernmost Cascadia rivals, and most importantly it put the Timbers back above the red line and in the driver seat for an MLS Cup Playoff berth down the home stretch of the regular season.
“It’s huge, it’s big,” center back Liam Ridgewell said. “This is what we’ve been looking towards. We got a clean sheet a couple of weeks back, and we looked to build off that, but a couple of things may have gotten us the last few weeks not to mention any games. … I think this week we showed what we can do.”
The Timbers pointed to a complete performance by the defense as the reason for Saturday’s dominance. They did so with good reason, too; Portland has been flying in the attack recently.
“Playing them a couple of weeks ago gave us a little indication of what we needed to perform like, and I think it was a great performance,” Ridgewell said.
Now, Portland face Toronto FC on Saturday in their next league match, followed by a home-and-home against the San Jose Earthquakes, then a regular-season home finale against Real Salt Lake before wrapping up the regular season on the road against FC Dallas on Oct. 25. Portland’s lead over sixth-place Vancouver, who also have five games remaining, is two points, and they trail fourth-place FC Dallas by six.
"Some teams they always seem to be able get it done every year," said Porter. "You watch certain teams you know even though it’s tight you just know they are going to punch through and get it done. A lot of it’s belief, a lot of it is confidence, experience and maturity and we looked like a team tonight that has ‘been there, done that’ like last year when we got the job done, but we’ve still got five games to go to do it again.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
