Less about the actual soccer, more about being a Portland Timbers fan.
Check out this surreal screen cap of an old CONCACAF video of the Timbers CD Olimpia match. This match made me so very angry. This is right after the CD Olimpia player faked getting kicked in the face. The screen cap caught the video in mid screen transition wipe, and resulted in some vaguely creepy imagery. It reminds me of Munch’s The Scream with a touch of Hieronymus Bosch. (Yes, I keep these things on my hard drive for some reason.)
I had chance to help pull up the tifo for the first time. Glorious! How, you ask? In the chaos before the opening day kickoff, I was walking back to my section and I overheard someone say they are short handed. What luck! This year I also got back in the swing of volunteering at the tifo painting sessions. Somehow I went the entire 2016 season without helping, and I missed it. If you’ve got an extra hour or two to help out, I highly recommend it.
I added a Timbers and Thorns patch gallery to the site. It’s a work in progress. So far, 209 entries, which includes patches designed by the Timbers organization, No Pity Originals, and unaffiliated supporters. There are lot of gaps in the information, but this is a good start. Patch culture, designing and trading is a strong subgroup of the Timbers Army community. Check out the Patch Gallery. You may notice one of the categories is called “Merritt Badges” instead of merit badges. It’s not a typo, rather a reference to owner Merritt Paulson. And just like merit badge you get in a Scouting program, you have torn these too.
Remember 2015? What a fine year…. Check out Augustus Rachel’s short animation of some of the top goals from the 2015 season. The Timbers make 2 appearances in the video, but one of them is something we’d all like to forget. The screamer from Asprilla will not soon be forgotten. I wish he had worked out his issues and stayed with the team.