This Week in the Mercury

Show Me the Money!

News

Show Me the Money!

Will the City Pay for 600 New Miles of Bike Lanes?


New Column!

Columns

New Column!

Cougin' Out with Gloria Trout



Tuesday, June 30, 2009

PDX2K9: Three match Sunday

Posted by Mark Evans on Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 12:27 AM

Most American Soccer fans were excited about Sunday because the US Mens National Team, so long the butt of jokes around the world, had pulled off an improbable win (3-0 against African Champions Egypt), followed by a Holy Fucking Shit Did That Just Happen? win (2-0 against European Champions Spain, whose squad collectively earn something close to $1billion a year in salary), to put them in the Confederations Cup Final against Brazil, a country so famous for it's Soccer prowess that international friendlies against them often degenerate into Globetrotters vs Generals games.

For Timbers fans, however, that match was only the beginning of a magical day of footie: the Timbers Army sponsored a Timbers U23 match and BBQ (a portion of the ticket sales went to charity), followed by the Timbers Senior team playing the Montreal Impact, who we beat at the last moment earlier this month.

To put the US vs. Brazil game into a bit of perspective, if you compare the transfer fee of the most recently moved Brazilian player, Kaka (65 million euros) against the lifetime earnings of every player on the USMNT, Kaka's about $20million ahead. For more information about what I just said, click here.

The USMNT fought valiantly and played far above their pay grade to actually lead by two goals at halftime, but the inevitable happened, and Brazil carried the cup, 3-2.

Disappointing, perhaps, but also encouraging, since the boys showed heart and never looked like they didn't belong there. Timbers fans poured from bars and their homes to go watch the Timbers U23 match, which was a thrilling but low scoring affair. The Lil Saplings prevailed 1-0 with a goal in the 88th minute.

What followed, the Mighty Portland Timbers vs the Montreal Impact, was a sight to see. To put it simply, Keita knocked one in in the 9th minute and after that, well, it sure looked like we had a boot on their throat, never letting Montreal off the turf, it was a thoroughly dominating performance. After two easy second half goals (another from Keita and one from Farber), Gav the Gaffer started subbing people off to save their legs. An own goal against Montreal trickled in around the 77th minute and the Impact were down, demoralized and completely out. Out to the point that Gavin subbed Goalkeeper Steve Cronin off for rookie Brian Visser. Cronin wasn't injured, tired or playing poorly.

Let me put it this way: that's an insult to your competition. We kicked the shit out of Montreal, plain and simple. At least Montreal kept their composure and took their beating without picking up tons of cautions or ejections (unlike Minnesota a week ago).

The Timbers have scored 9 goals in the past two games, and are thoroughly outclassing the competition, just in time for their Wednesday match against the Shittle Sounders in the US Open Cup.

Allison's match report and photos

Groundskeeper Kip wrote something

Bob weighs in at The Offside.

OregonLive

Official word from PortlandTimbers.com

New Kids, Dropping Timber, write up the match

Tags: , , , ,

Comments (0)

Add a comment

/images/adoftheweek.gif

ad of the day

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 503-913-1937go


post an ad
Point Juncture, WA Point Juncture, WA

All contents © Index Newspapers, LLC

605 NE 21st Ave
Portland, OR 97232

Contact Info | Privacy Policy | Production Guidelines | Terms of Use