This Week in the Mercury
Monday, May 11, 2009
Sports PTFC2K9: Doing donuts in your High School stadium
Posted by Mark Evans on Mon, May 11, 2009 at 5:19 PM
There are two types of games that end 0-0, the exciting games, and the 'utterly boring, tear your hair out, consider the possibility that the trolls might be right about this sport' games. Somehow, when the Portland Timbers headed to Cleveland to play the newly 'promoted' Cleveland City Stars on Saturday night, we saw a match that was both boring and exciting, frustrating and exhilarating.
The Cleveland City Stars were the USL2 champions last season, and after Atlanta folded, they were 'promoted' to USL1 for their efforts. Well, the team name was, because essentially the entire team bolted with the coach was hired to lead the Carolina Railhawks.
The Timbers headed to 'The Cheese' Stadium (which is actually Bradford High School's football field), to play a team made up of USL1 has-beens and USL2 talent who had failed to score a goal or win a single draw. The field was narrow and shit-turf, the the weather was shit and as far as anyone could tell, the Cleveland side hired a professional Soccer Mom to cheer from the sidelines.
Here are the some stats that should tell you everything you need to know:
Steve Cronin, Timbers GK: 0 saves, 0 goals. (Cleveland took 4 shots, but neither were anywhere near Cronin the Barbarian)
Timbers: 24 shots, 0 goals.
As Roberto put it: the biggest threat to the Timbers Defense was boredom.
Watching this game was both incredibly boring—there was no doubt from the beginning that the City Stars are not a threat to anyone but themselves—and very exciting because the Timbers took 24 shots, and at least 15 of them coulda woulda shoulda been goals. But they weren't. Thus, I am unhappy.
This Cleveland team is like the California Victory of 2007 and other crap sides that formed simply to be whipped, and we could only manage a 0-0 tie. EVERY OTHER TEAM IN THE USL1 will beat Cleveland. They're going to have a goal differential in the -50s at the end of the season, and we couldn't score. You know why we didn't score? Our strikers kind of suck. We missed gimmies. Keita missed gimmies. Suzuki missed gimmies. Josten... was he playing? I honestly couldn't tell.
We need some help up front or we're going to have a lot of 0-0 ties in our future.
Bright Spots:
— Alex Nimo was on fire in his time on the pitch, with two really great shots that the Cleveland keeper barely kept out.
— I will never worry about our midfield as long as Claesson and McManus are holding down the fort.
Next game is this Thursday against the Rochester (no longer raging) Rhinos at PGE Park at 8pm (note the late start time). Former Timbers player Andrew Gregor will be riding the pine for Rochester, but I expect him to be taunted mercilessly.
Showing 1-10 of 10
Sorry to hijack the thread, but does anyone know if the Champion's League final will be aired in Portland? And if so, where?
espn2 are showing the game, so any cable will do. however if you want to enjoy atmosphere you cany beat Kells. They show all the big games and attract a good crowd.
*McManus digs deep*
Good game. Bad result.
I'm sure this will draw derision given where I am posting, but you should do some simple fact checking before you go spouting off.
"The Timbers headed to 'The Cheese' Stadium (which is actually Bradford High School's football field), to play a team made up of USL1 has-beens and USL2 talent who had failed to score a goal or win a single draw."
It's Bedford High school. And we have scored a goal this season, albeit just one. We've also got a draw now, thanks to you.
Oh, and the weather wasn't shit, I was at the match. It was cool and pleasant without a single drop of rain during the entire game.
Yeah, our field sucks, and our team is shitty so far this year, but you should at least try to get things correct. You don't need to make up stuff or use half-truths to bash us.
If the league had decided to promote us two weeks earlier than we did we'd still have Rennie and the players that have pushed Carolina to the top of the table this year. The coach and players left before we were even given the option to move up.
@silentounce
Carolina? The RailHawks? The team we smacked around last week? Yeah...they'd have really done well for you dude.
They're above you in the table, aren't they?
Really, so 2-0 following drawing them a few days earlier, both at home, is smacking them around?
Btw, you talk about our lack of goal scoring. Those two goals are all you've got so far.
Our poor performance is expected, we just moved up. You've been in the league for years and are about to move up and you're still in the bottom half of the table with us.
@silentounce
They've played more games than we have...hence more points.
We had what? 24 shots on goal and you had 4 shots...but none on goal. Cronin sat there picking grass while your keeping had grass in his teeth and everywhere else stopping shots (which by the way you should sign your keeper for life since he's the only reason you didn't lose 6-0.
Agreed, Hunter Gilstrap was Man of the Match. Also he has the silliest name I ever heard, until later that night when I saw one Sterling Flunder take the pitch for the Timbers U23s.
wait... and who was your keeper when you got the win? was it cronin??? no he was picking the grass on the sideline
just wait for the MLS, when the Galaxy will look like Man Utd compared to you
beautiful kitty has gone missing from SE 35th & SE Morrison
Keep an eye out for our dear kitty!
Her name is Bramble Rose & she is a torti with long hair and a white face/chest & paws... pink nose..
She is extremely cute & affectionate- please call 503-913-1937
Band of the Week
Point Juncture, WA
About Portland Mercury
RSSGoing to Seattle?
Comments (10) RSS