When Portland Timbers fans saw that the team had been drawn against rivals Seattle Sounders FC in the fourth round of the 2015 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, there was some trepidation among fans given the previous year's USOC meeting, a match the Sounders won 3-1 in extra time.
Like that match, the 2015 contest would once again be played at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila, Wash.
The match started harmlessly enough, as both teams played to a scoreless draw at the end of one half of play.
However, after Diego Valeri scored the game's first goal in the 48th minute, and as the Sounders frantically pushed forward for the equalizer, the drama quickly accelerated.
In the 69th minute, Sounders defender Brad Evans was sent off for his second yellow card, but his red card was just the beginning of an exodus of Sounders players that would see the team finish the match with just seven men on the field.
To the Timbers chagrin, the 10-man Sounders equalized only 10 minutes after Evans' sending off, when Obafemi Martins pulled one back to send the game into extra time. However, the goal came at a cost; Martins injured his quad late, but by then Sounders head coach Sigi Schmid had already used all three of his substitutions.
And then there were nine.
Ten minutes into the first overtime period, Timbers midfielder Rodney Wallace scored the game-winner, finishing off the rebound of a George Fochive shot.
Then, everything got out of hand.
Sounders midfielder Michael Azira saw straight red for elbowing a Timbers player. Forward Clint Dempsey then saw red himself after dissenting to the referee and, incredibly, tearing up the referee's notebook. In the span of a few minutes, the Sounders numerical disadvantage had shrunk from nine men to just seven.
Unsurprisingly, the Timbers padded their lead in the second overtime period, as forward Maximiliano Urruti calmly slid a low shot past Sounders goalkeeper Troy Perkins to ice the game.
Just one year after losing 3-1 to the Sounders in Open Cup play, the Timbers had returned the favor. The win was the Timbers' fourth in a row in all competitions and became a part of a five-game winning streak that helped the team leap to third place in the Western Conference.
