Less about the actual soccer, more about being a Portland Timbers fan.
Timbers.com reporting that Jimmy Conway has passed away. Jimmy is one of 5 players in the Timber’s Ring of Honor. Famous for his time in NASL as a Timber, but a bigger legend in Oregon soccer beyond playing days for his contributions in coaching and growing the game in Oregon.
Continue reading “Jimmy Conway – R.I.P.”
The original Seattle Sounders poster on the left advertising the match with the Timbers showed up on my timeline again after the Timbers won. I thought I’d fix it for them to reflect the outcome. A little prophetic to choose Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots for the illustration, considering the antics on the field, especially post-match.
Continue reading “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots, Before and After”
I’m involved in Zarek Valentin’s project to raise money for Pride Month. Profits from the RibbonZ patches are going to New Avenues for Youth and the Q Center. Find out about the project here. In stadium sales are over, but you still have a chance to buy some online.
We’re halfway thought he 2019 regular season, and we’re 9th in the conference, 15th in the Supporters Shield race. At 23 points were’s averaging 1.35 points per game. We’re 4 points below the playoff line but still have at two games in hand over almost everyone ahead of us, except 7th place Houston which has only played more match than we have, and has 27 points. In our next 17 games, we only have 3 away matches! I love our current run of form, and that includes the loss to Montreal with a rotated lineup. MLS Power Rankings have us at #3 (!) which seems very generous to me. What do you. think? Check out the slightly interactive version of the graph above on this page.
Not to be outdone by Merritt Paulson, Diego Valeri was recently spotted tooling around Portland on one of those rentable electric scooters. This new version has a seat. I guess that makes it a bike, no?
– Thanks to Andrew Buswell for the pic.
The construction cam is no longer active, which is to be expected, however, the stills and stop time-lapse video are no longer viewable, and that is very disappointing. If you’re nostalgic for the pre-expansion stadium, you can still (for the time being) visit the Portland Timbers Virtual Venue. Holy ephemera Batman, check out the “Jeld Wen” in that uniform resource locator!
Continue reading “Construction Cam is Dead! long live the Virtual Stadium!”
What do you mean it’s just click bait and not a useful resource distributed through Playbuzz? No, you’re not looking at the new, redesigned logo for the Philadelphia Union Portland Timbers, more likely the work of an underpaid intern who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about soccer. I’m actually excited that this is my third Mistaken Identity post.
– Thanks to Brice Dick for the tip.
Safeway has shad Timbers’ related promotions for several years now, that’s why you see the kids who walk out with the team onto the pitch wearing Safeway T-shirts. Recently I noticed a brand new Diego Chara cutout greeting me at the entrance of my local store, and I was surprised to see that it was a Modelo promo. I was a little bit excited for Diego, glad to see him making some well-deserved extra $, but it mirth have more to do with the Timbers hospitality packages. A few days later I returned to see sa large Jeff Attinella cutout inside a goal, this time with a Coors logo, affiliated with the Safeway/Albertsons Save & Score promotion. I promptly geeked out and stood in the middle of the aisle to take a picture. Ironically, I’ve seen Jeff in person at a few T2 matches and have never taken his picture…
Continue reading “Save and Score, Drink Modelo”
I took the liberty of doing a little photoshop action to the Turner Construction sign….
Continue reading “Tonights the Night!”
Jeremy Ebobisse made the cover of Street Roots. In the May 3-June 6 issue he’s got a 2 page spread with an interview inside. It’s pretty much the same interview about the intersection of his social activism and soccer career that we’ve seen in other outlets, but it’s still nice to see him getting more exposure.
UPDATE: He’s also got a nice piece of the same vein in The Guardian.
Continue reading “Jebo in Street Roots”
Official Timbers/Thorns Providence Park policy has banned the display of the Iron Front logo, and so it seems a previous announcement was too good to be true.
No Iron Front symbology will be allowed in Providence Park during Timbers, Thorns or T2 games. This rule includes any creative “work-arounds” like we saw in Vancouver this past Friday [May 10] and any Iron Front-based clearly organized displays that make a public statement. Due to the extensive dialogue on this issue and subsequent breaches of trust in Vancouver and in other media, We will be enforcing strict punishments for any violations of this rule out of the gate, starting with multi-game bans for violators.
[“Shoot Here” graphic made by Andrew FuckTheTimbersAndSounders Delbaere – as seen in Cascadia Trifecta.]
Continue reading “The boot drops.”
Who wants to look at 20 not-so-timely pictures from inside the stadium shortly after they removed the old artificial turf, but before they started installing the new turf? You do. If you’re hankering to get your own inside look, you can go to the “soft opening” AKA T2 matches on May 25th and 29th. It’s bittersweet as I will miss yelling at the opposing players and ref watching T2 at Merlo. More pics after the jump.
This Brian Fernandez guy might be good…
Not sure if this is a truck is driven by the Front Office on loan from Buick GMC of Beaverton or just a straight up sponsorship deal. Is it corny? Yes. Do I like it? Yes.
Continue reading “Superfan?”
It’s official, we finally have a new DP signing. This is exciting, because it’s not a case of a young guy with a lot of of potential, but rather a proven goal scorer in Liga MX who is still young. Icing on the cake? He’s in mid season form and physical condition. He does come with some baggage, notably that in 2015 he “tested positive for a banned substance” as stated diplomatically by Richard Farley, as well as an extremely recent meltdown on and off the pitch on his last game for Club Necaxa. Here’s hoping that the he knows what the front office and the Timbers Army expect character-wise from anyone who wears the green and gold. The player announcement was also posted separately in Spanish, which is either a first for the club, or quite possibly, something I just haven’t noticed before.
One the one hand, the MLS launched the Don’t Cross the Line anti-discrimination campaign in 2017. On the other hand, Don Garber seems to be more worried about avoiding a potential NFL-stlye backlash from the MAGA hate, (excuse me, I meant hat…) wearing middle America wallets. His wishy-washy response to the infiltration of white supremacist fans in New York City FC supporters groups and the new MLS Code of Conduct that prohibits among other things, any political language or sign seems to be the MLS equivalent of “There were good people on both sides.” Many people inside and outside of the TA have been wondering how this was going to affect tifo displays in Portland, AKA Little Beirut. With a 12 game away streak starting the season, anticipation had been building. The Vancouver Whitecaps had already ejected Seattle Sounders fans displaying an anti-fascist banner in 2017. Interesting now that’s come to light that the Whitecaps have a human-rights issues. There have been reports of people being asked to remove anti-racist and anti-fascist banners this season too. (Citation needed. Do you have one?) What’s that mean for Portland? We regularly fly banners and flags with political messages. The entire fanbase may not agree with them, but they do define a large part of our supporter’s culture, and it would be hard to fathom the Timbers front office rolling over on this. (Sure, insert your derisive snort if you want to…) Well, now we know, according to this release from the Independent Supporter’s Council.
The Portland Timbers front office has confirmed to 107IST/Timbers Army that they will definitely allow anti-racist and anti-fascist words to be displayed at Providence Park.
Read the full statement after the jump.
Continue reading “STILL Anti Racist.”
Opening day is going to be amazing. Pictures don’t do the size of the addition justice. You have to see it in person.
[Photo: Nick Brusich]
Here’s some pictures of the video displays and turf installation thanks to Fran Poodry and Cola Whitchurch.
Continue reading “New: Video Screens and Turf”
This Dale Mitchell photo comes courtesy of the Facebook group 1970s Soccer USA, your one stop location for NASL golden era ephemera, and the indoor soccer decline years. The button on the right is from the collection of Chris Conrad who loaned it to me to photograph.
Continue reading “Dale Mitchell”
What a weird match that was. Our new coach plays our old coach for the first time. We were at the very bottom of our conference and the entire league while ColumbusColumbus was 2nd place in the East. Jeff Attinella is making all kinds of 2015 MLS Cup Steve Clark blunders while Steve Clark sits on our bench as a backup keeper. The Root Sports broadcast barely showed Caleb Porter on the sidelines, and we missed the handful of Timbers players greeting him either before or after the match. It’s a win that couldn’t have come at a better time. OK, actually last week, or the week proviso would have been a better time, but hey, we’ll take it. Let’s keep this 2 game streak of playing well and keep going!
No, no, no… I’m not talking about the end of our chances given the poor start to the season. I’m talking about the end of the construction. The outward facing bits are mostly done. The rest of it appears to be mainly cosmetic, apart from the interiors which we can’t see. It looks like the hard work has been done. If you want a more, err.. ahh… in depth but not necessarily factual report, check out this episode of Soccer Touchdown.
Continue reading “The End is Near…”
Online sticker manufacturer Sticker Mule is using a Soccer City USA sticker in a video promo for their removable bumper sticker product. Looks like SCUSA has gone mainstream. Why would you ever want to remove it?
Continue reading “Sticker City USA”
Check out these stills from some drone footage shot on 3/30/19. It’s not publicly available yet, but our source was told it was OK to share.
Continue reading “Send in the Drones”
Looking back at that 2-1 loss to the LA Galaxy, by the letter of the law those 2 penalty kicks were earned by Zlatan. But if the same letter of the law applied to him equally, he wouldn’t have been on the field in the first place.
[Image: Julio Cascante ]
The interesting bits of the stadium expansion are almost over.
They’ve finished spelling out SCUSA on the seats in the middle row. There’s also the beginnings of a skin on the roof for the first time. I though I had read the covering was going to be fabric based of some sort, but this looks like corrugated metal. It’s going to be loud when it rains!
Continue reading “SCUSA Seats and a Roof”
They’ve started the second tier of new seats, which includes the white seats that spell out SCUSA. Meanwhile, Bob the Builder has finally started using landscape orientation on his videos, and is uploading them to Youtube.
Continue reading “SCUSA Seats”
Thanks to Erik Graham for letting me post these pics he took from an interior perspective of the Providence Park expansion project. He was there legitimately and didn’t have to bum rush Providence Wellspace at Providence Park. One of these days I will get in there to take some pictures too. I’ve contemplated just walking in with a hard hat and a vest, but the possibility of a regular season ban from Providence Park makes it not worth it to me, despite the fact that I have 10’s of readers…
Continue reading “The Inside Scoop”
Last week’s Timbers in 30 featured a lengthy segment with Merritt Paulson talking about all things Timbers, including the fact that the overall really good 2018 season was overshadowed by the loss in MLS Cup. About 12 minutes into the segment we get to see some video shot from the new seats.
Continue reading “MP with Expansion Teaser on Timbers in 30”