BEAVERTON, Ore. – The Portland Timbers will be the first to admit that they’ve hardly been perfect this year.
But they’ve also had their fair share of bad luck, and that trend continued over the weekend when not a single result benefited their ongoing playoff chase.
The Vancouver Whitecaps, who currently occupy the fifth and final postseason slot in the Western Conference with a one-point advantage over the Timbers, beat Seattle 1-0 last Friday. Then FC Dallas beat the LA Galaxy 2-1 to become the fourth team in the West to clinch a postseason berth by moving six points ahead of Portland.
With all that in mind, Timbers head coach Caleb Porter said it’s just one more thing his group will have to push out of their mind.
“Our players could care less about the other games,” Porter said after a recent training session at the team facility in preparation for their regular season home finale on Friday against Real Salt Lake (7 pm PT; NBCSN, live stream at NBCSports.com). “We’re focused on taking care of our business, which is what we’ve done.”
Indeed, the Timbers are playing some of their best soccer of the year right now, having won three out of their last four games, including a two-game, home-and-home sweep of the San Jose Earthquakes. In fact, over the last 24 regular-season games, the Timbers have registered the fourth most points in MLS with an 11-6-7 overall record (40 pts).
But the ‘Caps and FCD haven’t opened the door.
Now, the Timbers face the likelihood of having to take six points from their final two regular-season games, with the season finale coming Oct. 25 at Dallas, who have already qualified for the postseason. And, of course, they'll hope for a Vancouver slip-up in their last two games, Saturday at San Jose and Oct. 25 at home against the seventh-place Colorado Rapids.
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“We wish we were one of the eight teams that are in,” Porter said. “That’s where we expected to be, but it didn’t play out that way. But we’re also pleased that we are not one of the seven teams that are out that are playing their final games that really are irrelevant. It’s nice to, at the very least, be in a position where the final games mean something. That’s important for this club to be playing every single game out of the 34 where it means something, and we’re in that position.”
Porter said that while it may look like a daunting task, the Timbers portion of the job actually shapes up quite nicely.
They’ll play host to RSL having lost just three times on their home ground and only once since late June. And should they take care of RSL, their final game against FCD could be a win-and-your-in scenario – meaning anything can happen.
“I can tell you this, 100 percent, this team believes that we’re going to get into the playoffs,” Porter said. “And at the very least we’re going to take of our business. And I’m confident if we can get two wins, we’ll be in position where we’ll be in the playoffs.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
