BEAVERTON, Ore. – It's still business as usual at the adidas Timbers Training Center as head coach Caleb Porter prepares his Portland Timbers side for Sunday's second leg battle with FC Dallas in the Audi 2015 MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Championship at Toyota Park in Frisco, Texas (2pm PT, ESPN).
“Our lives go on through holidays,” said Porter after practice on Tuesday. “So nothing changes. We're training today. We're training Wednesday. We'll train Thursday on Thanksgiving and the guys will go home and have a good meal with their families and football goes on.”
The theme of Tuesday’s training, however, was simple: preparation.
Porter is well aware that, despite last Sunday's 3-1 win, the objective—getting to MLS Cup—is not yet finished. He says that this team, so full of experienced veteran players, knows just how much is still at stake.
“The guys know very well what Dallas is capable of, what they've done at home. We know first-hand. We've felt it. We lost 4-1 this year,” Porter said. But, he added, this Timbers team has beaten Dallas at Toyota Park before, once in the 2013 U.S. Open Cup and a 2-0 victory in the final regular-season contest last year.
“We've also been very good on the road [this season],” he continued. “So we know we can win on the road. We know we can score goals on the road.”
Porter also commended the job that his defense did in the last game containing FC Dallas's attacking trio of midfielders Mauro Diaz, Fabian Castillo, and Michael Barrios. He pointed out that his squad was primed to deal with the speed and passing threats that those players pose in the attack.
“We were prepared to defend them on the flanks, with our wingers chipping in, with our outside backs stopping them one on one and with our d-mids rotating out,” he said. “I think our guys did a really good job limiting Diaz, Barrios, and Castillo's effectiveness.”
Yet as effective as the Timbers were last week, Porter emphasized that Sunday's match will be a totally different game and one for which his team is amply prepared.
“What I like about the group is that they're aware of what they're doing but they're not thinking about it,” he said. “That's what good teams do. They're aware of the magnitude of every game and yet they're absorbed in the substance of what we need to do.”
This attitude from his players, he said, is one that's seen from many championship teams before.
“That's what these guys are: very businesslike,” he said of this Timbers team. “We didn't celebrate a ton after last game, just like we didn't celebrate a ton after beating Vancouver. It's on to the next game. Just follow the process.
“Funny enough, I think when teams do that, next thing you know it's over and there's not another game and that's kind of the way we want [it]. It's on to the next, on to the next, and the next thing you know there's no next game and you've won it.”
