Less about the actual soccer, more about being a Portland Timbers fan.
They’ve started adding the seats to lowest level the stadium expansion, a week or so after they started connecting the exterior anchors to the top of the new roof outside the concourse. I spoke to a guy in a hardhat who said the scaffolding on the west end is being used to install news video boards. The work continues, run, snow, or shine. Brace yourselves, this is quite a large dump of photos.
Continue reading “Anchors, Seats, and Scoreboards”
Some games are legendary because of the run of play. Our 2019 season opener in Colorado will be infamous for what happened on the pitch in a different way. A disappointing draw, sure, but highly memorable. In fact, the coldest game in MLS history so far. It was officially 18 degrees at kickoff, but unofficially reported as low as 16 degrees during the match. However, It’s not the cold that made it memorable, but the snow. That’s William H. Macy doppelgänger and referee Drew Fischer doing his unintentional impersonation of Jack Nicholson in The Shinning thanks to an image put together by Jacqueline Pi.
Continue reading “The Snowing”
Liam Ridgewell dishes on his MLS experiences to the Hull faithful.
Randy Kilwag (That’s me!) guests on a very long episode of Soccer Touchtown!
MLSsoccer.com rates the Timbers #7 in the first edition of the 2019 Power rankings behind Atlanta, the Red Bulls, SKC, LAFC, Sounders, and DC United.
The construction cam goes in and out of focus every half hour, which makes for very trippy viewing of the time-lapse video if you’re in the mood. Highly recommended! What’s going on? They’ve started dismantling the big yellow crane, digging the foundation for the exterior retail store, and there is some interesting scaffolding up in the West end between the press box and the box suites.
Continue reading “Big Yellow Coming Down”
Timbers Army “No Pity” scarves made an impression in Atlanta. Enough so that Five Stripes supporters have made their own edition, a riff on ours that welcomes Gonzalo “Pity” Martinez as their new DP. I’m wondering how it will be received out of context without No Pity to reflect it. Does it make sense? About as much as me including Caleb Porter [source] in this graphic.
Stadium cam is still out of focus, but here’s a few shots taken from one of the cranes thanks again to Travis Glen Blankenship via Walt Jensen. Or is it Walt Jensen via Travis Glen Blankenship? How does that work? Walt took the pics. Travis sent them to me. In the top left you’ll notice they are adding extensions to some of the trusses that are acreage up.
Continue reading “View From a Crane: Part 2”
Not sure what to do with yourself now that the construction cam is out of focus and most of the action is off camera? You MUST check out the new podcast form Zarek Valentin and Jeff Attinella. From J to Z is already 3 episodes deep in only 10 days. I hope they don’t burn out. Make sure you start with episode 1 where the guys talk candidly about the their experience in the MLS Cup. This is must-listen content if you have any interest at all in player personalities and what makes them tick, or peeking behind the scenes of the MLS experience from the vantage point of the guys on the field. The real value of the podcast is that it’s not semi-scripted front office media. To be fair, the Timbers social media group has made some really compelling content recently and has significantly stepped up their game in the past year.
For the past couple of weeks, all the stadium action has been happening out of view from the security cam feed. There were 3-4 new struts being constructed, and then the snow hit. It wasn’t the massive (by Portland standards) dump we were expecting, but it still managed to fog up the housing on the stadium cam, rendering everything out of focus. Thanks to Scott Brown’s unnamed friend we have a visual update. If you’re looking for another round of slightly older ground level shots, keep clicking through.
Continue reading “More Roof Struts”
Another photo courtesy of Walt Jensen. Snow in the stadium, just like that time in 1953 when they built a downhill ski jump for the Rose Festival. Rose Festival? Yes, it was artifice snow, brought in on trucks. I always thought that ski jump was a one time deal, but I’ve found photos online dated at 1953 and 1961.
Continue reading “Stadium Snow Day”
Maybe the photo editor for The Oregonian needs to make a case for not getting a demotion. That sure looks a lot like Jorge Villafana, and not Zarek Valentin. This image appeared online as well as in print. It reminds me of the time Yahoo Sports thought Ridgewell was Lucas Melano. I guess all handsome foreigners look alike to them. Now that there are 2 cases, I get to create a new tag for mistaken identity.
– Thanks to Jerry Simmering for the tip.
Continue reading “Oregonian, Oof!”
Are you sick of these yet? I’m not. Thanks to Bruce Harris for these photos.
Continue reading “More Roof Strut Action”
They’re here at last! The pro-hoops crowd is not going to be entirely satisfied, but these look sharp!
Of course, 30 minutes after I got back from my trip downtown to photograph the roof struts yesterday, they actually started lifting one of them up.
UPDATE: Added another shot from a crane.
Continue reading “Very Uplifting”
I’m not going to lie. I spend way too much time refreshing the live construction cam at Providence Park, but for the past few weeks all the assembly action has been happening out of frame. The official Providence Park feed doesn’t update daily, but I did find another Twitter feed from @bobthebuilder4u that’s got some gold in it. Welding and semi trucks driving around on the pitch look so… wrong. Bob makes more updates than Providence Park. He’s a construction guy so he’s chiming in on what’s going on. After you’ve watched a few of his videos you realize he’s not on the actual crew, and he’s just a guy who belongs to the MAC club. Yes, I said “MAC Club,” But at least I didn’t say “The MLS.” On a side note, it drives me nuts that Bob holds his phone in portrait mode while he shoots those videos, so I drove downtown to try and get my own photos. I ended up slinking into Providence Sports Care Center until I was politely, asked to leave. All the photos from inside the park were taken behind the glass.
Continue reading “Hide and Seek With Hidden Roof Struts”
Jamie Goldberg has written a very interesting piece on Caleb Porter in The Oregonian that talks about what it’s like for him to get back to work, and how he feels about watching Portland from afar. He watched the first 5 away games, but could not bring himself to watch the home opener, and is not looking forward to that first Crew match in Portland, come 2020.
Our Timbers are hot tonight, watch them boom the Thunder out of sight! Check out this NASL era Timbers tifo, as seen in the Phil Soar book Soccer: The World Game, published in 1978.
– Thanks to Aaron Cullen for the tip, photos.
Continue reading “Timbers Tifo, 1975 Style”
Looks like a case of mistaken identity, or a complete fabrication. No American newspaper is reporting this, and it makes zero sense from a Timbers standpoint.
American newspapers: Management of the American Portland Timpers Club approves a offer from the #الأهلي Saudi club to annex the Argentine games maker (Sebastian Blanco/Sebastian Blanco) 🔶 Portland Administration waiting for the player approval
Twitter
UPDATE: Debunked by Jaimie Goldberg on Twitter on more than one occasion.
I added 18 new tattoos to the Timbers Tattoo Gallery, bringing the total up to 64!
The Portland Timbers posted a gallery of construction pics on Facebook. from all kinds of angles your average poacher can’t provide. Definitely worth checking out.
It seems like we’re the only team in MLS that hasn’t announced a new roster addition, outside of the SuperDraft. Today we have confirmation of the addition of center back Claude Dielna from the New England Revolution, and the unconfirmed addition of goalkeeper Aljaz Ivacic from the Slovenian top division side NK Olimpija Ljubljana. Reaction ranges from excitement over adding another French speaker to the back line with Larrys Mabiala, or lack of excitement over picking up someone that the lowly Revolution doesn’t want anymore. As for the goalkeeper, I guess Gavin and Gio still aren’t ready to recall Kendall McIntosh from his development loan to T2.
Eagle-eyed Bruce Eaton noticed what appears to be a discrepancy in the original renders and the live construction shots. The original renders show what appears to be a 4th row of seats at the very top that are missing from live construction cams and newer renders.
UPDATE: Added a few new renders and a link to the 3d model that shows the new additions.
Continue reading “The Case of the Missing Seats”
More construction action not visible form the security cam. This picture was shot from a crane by Walt Jensen.
– Thanks to Travis Glenn Blankenship for the tip.
Portland Timbers and Liam Ridgewell have mutually agreed to part ways. Liam’s comments in late 2018 implied he didn’t want to have to battle for his position. The Timbers have unquestionably been better with him on the filed for us, that match against the Red Bulls not withstanding. However, he was expensive, and missed a lot of games injured, as well as a handful after butting heads with Saravese. When he was on the pitch and fully engaged we loved him. I’ll remember him for his great distribution, a good hard foul every now and then, and an occasional Ridgy Roll. Well, that and the swimsuits and boating. Richard Farley has nice recap of Ridgy’s tenure on Timbers.com.
Continue reading “So long, Liam”
For the past few days the construction cam made it seem like outdoor work had stopped, but the Providence Park Twitter feed shot from another direction revealed parts of the roofing structure being assembled on the pitch.
– Thanks to Mitch Gray for the tip.
Continue reading “The Roof Begins.”
First we gave them Fanendo Adi mid season. Next, they took Darren Mattocks as their first pick in the expansion draft, and later that day they picked up Kendall Waston in a trade. The day after Christmas we traded them Alvas Powell for some GAM. On January 3rd they made an offer for Ozzie Alonso, and a day later they’ve announced Pa-Modou Kah as an addition to their technical staff. FC Cincinnati is now being referred to as Cascadia East in some online discussions. They could do worse, that’s for sure. And they only have to beat Orlando to not finish last in the east, so they’ve got that going for them too. They could be interesting to watch.
Update: Looks like Minnesota is trying to outbid Cincinnati for Ozzie.
After throwing his hat in the ring for the USMNT, and either passing on the LA Galaxy, or not receiving an offer, Caleb will be replacing Greg Berhalter, who did just take charge of the USMNT. I wonder if this is a bit of a letdown for him. He’ll be going home to Ohio, but how will Crew supporters welcome the former coach of the team that robbed them of a 2nd MLS Cup at Mapfre? It’s also potentially very exciting to take charge of a team with a fresh new ownership group intent on revitalizing the club. I just hope they give him a pass on this first year if it doesn’t go well. Why? He’s coming in without a lot of time to spare, taking over someone else’s system and players. It’s a team whose very existence has been in upheaval for the past year. I hope he does well, just not too well.
BTW – I’m trying to find the source tweet that mentioned Porter passing on LAG. It said LAG only offered a year contract and Porter wasn’t interested.
Check out the live construction cam set up at Providence Park. Shots are uploaded every 15 minutes, and there’s a time lapse available. You can also click through previous photos, but so far I haven’t gotten the date picking functionality to work.
Update: Added some more stills of precast sections and crane at work.
Continue reading “Live Construction Cam!”
What better way to start the new year than to take a look at some pics from years gone past, thanks to 1970’s Soccer USA. It’s a great page to follow on FB. 7 vintage NASL Timbers images after the jump.
Continue reading “New Year, Old Photos”
Wow. Losing Caleb Porter shortly after the end of the season last year was like a gut punch. We were first in our division, and if not for losing 4 starters in an incredibly unlucky stretch of injuries in the Houston series, we were looking good. It must have been emotionally draining for Caleb, but it was still a shock that he chose to leave so soon after getting a contract extension.
Who had high hopes for 2018 after learning we were trading Darlington Nagbe too? When our new coach was announced, it was exciting. Gio had a stellar reputation with players and other coaches, and a championship winning record. Still, NASL is not on par with MLS, so how would that transfer?
Continue reading “What a season.”
