Less about the actual soccer, more about being a Portland Timbers fan.
The construction cam is no longer active, which is to be expected, however, the stills and stop time-lapse video are no longer viewable, and that is very disappointing.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!”
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.”
I added 18 new tattoos to the Timbers Tattoo Gallery, bringing the total up to 64!
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.”
Bands FC reimagines soccer team logos as band logos, or vice versa. Some of them are really, really good. Some aren’t. Here’s Tool and the Portland Timbers.
UPDATED: Another MP tweet in the full post.
Merritt Paulson may have given us a spoiler on what the 2019 kits will look like when he replied to a fan-designed kit in a tweet. “…we jumped through hoops to design the 2019 kit.” Confused? Hoops in the context of soccer jerseys refer to horizontal bars or stripes. T2 kits from 2016-17 had hoops, as did 2002-2003 Timbers. It’s getting impossible to find old Timbers jerseys online, as there is no definitive record, and with Timbers and Timbers 2 both existing in USL at different times, well Google isn’t very helpful.
I’m picturing Merritt hunched over his phone, trying to decide whether to submit his reply, agonizing over ruining the surprise. That’s what I’m picturing, but it’s a safe bet to assume he didn’t do that though. Of course, it could be just a common phrase with no hidden inference.
Continue reading “Hoops are back?”
LAFC front office has banned the pictured tifo from being brought into this weekend’s Timber’s match. In case you don’t get it, Chivas USA was a Los Angeles (well, Carson) based MLS team that folded in 2014. We picked up Jorge Villafana from those guys! The Chivas mascot is a goat.
Usually, although not always, a tifo or 2 stick will be banned due to offensive language. LAFC currently sits in 2nd place in the west, and 4th in the Suporter’s Shield race, yet their fragile self esteem can’t handle this.
[Photo : Aaron Emch]
I didn’t even get to properly address the bombshell of Caleb Porter resigning because it happened while the site was down for months. There has been speculation on whether he was asked to resign after our disastrous performance in the playoffs vs. Houston last year. Coincidentally, I finally got around to watching that game on the DVR for the first time. I make a habit of watching the broadcast of games that I attend. It’s an entirely different perspective. For one, a lot of the calls that we fervently boo when they don’t go our way, well sometimes they seem to be correct. That last match in Portland played out pretty much how I remembered. It was a bitter disappointment, but we bossed Houston around for the most part, and they got lucky on that last goal.
Yes, it’s true. There have essentially been no new updates since the recovery from the server crash, with the exception of the 2018 standings graph. Sooooo much has happened. I’m still trying to figure out the future of this site, and involved in a lot of other things like for example this upcoming Subbuteo table soccer tournament.
One of the things that happened since this site went down, there is now a thriving Subbuteo table soccer club in Portland. Check us out on Facebook, or come by one of our bi-onthly Monday night events at the Portland Game Store. We’re listed on their (online) calendar as Subbuteo – Table Soccer. In fact, if you’re reading this on the day the postwar published (3-19-18) we’re playing tonight. No experience necessary. Expect a lot more Subbuteo-based content on this site, as soon as I get some time to work on a new theme.
Just 3 days before the 2018 season and PTFZine is online again! So much has happened that I wasn’t able to post about since the site went down in October… but it’s finally online again!
TLDR: Web host had massive hard drive failure. Everything was lost. Now, several months later, they managed to recover the files, and I’ve managed to reinstate them. There might be some weirdness here and there that I haven’t discovered yet, and if there is, I will be fixing that in the coming week.
The full Story: My web host had a catastrophic RAID failure, and had no off-site backups. Apparently, that’s my job. They must have have done something wrong however, because after they tried to fleece their customers for a forensic hard drive recovery service and didn’t get enough takers, the eventually decided to pay for it themselves and only charge their users $20 a site to retrieve what they could. Fortunately, everything appears to have been recovered for this domain.
There are some minor additions to the Season Tracker seen at the top of every page. Points Per Game (PPG) have been added to individual games (visible on rollover) as well as the current PPG in the legend under the individual match boxes. On the Standings chart, PPG has been added as well as the individual match result and the opposing team. As a bonus, the data is pulled from the match results the Season Tracker uses. This means the chart is updated the fly as I update a match, and I don’t have to monkey with the embedded javascript in the post. Can you say Data Integrity? Tim will appreciate this.
I made a WordPress plugin to help visualize match results and double as schedule that would allow me to easily see who and when we were playing. If you operate a WordPress-based site you can use it to track the Portland Timbers, or some other, inferior MLS team. Rolling over one of those squares will give you the match date, and if the match is finished, goals, and other results. A running tabulation of the season is kept at the bottom, and you can sort by home or away, conference, and games played, and more.
You can see it under the banner at the top of every page. Those are generated by a function called in the theme template. You can also generate it inline with shortcode in a post. [See below]
The project started last season. Once I figured the basics of how I wanted it to work, I coded up some CSS, Javascript, and PHP to make it work. It’s pretty easy in a one use situation, where you’ve only got one season and you’re only interested in one specific team. Updating results was a matter of editing a text file with serialized information. It was simple, but not simple enough. I wanted to be able to do the whole thing in the backend of WordPress, make it reusable, and not limit it to one team. I imagined a scenario where someone might want to show two different teams on the same page, or the same team in multiple seasons. Simple enough… sort of. It needed to be flexible enough to easily accommodate expansion teams and teams that switch from one conference to another during different seasons. Figuring out the approach to take was the hardest part. It would have been easiest to create my own tables in the MySQL database, but I considered it a challenge rearrange my thinking and make it work with custom post types, taxonomy, and custom meta boxes.
Installing and activating the plugin automatically creates the teams. It’s up to you to create the matches and sign home and away teams to each match. You can do it manually, or you can upload it in a CSV spreadsheet and do it all at once. I used the MLS calendar subscriptions viewed in the Google Calendar, agenda tab. A copy and paste into a text document and some search and replacing made it a pretty quick affair, and one where I didn’t have to worry about typos on match dates. Now that I’ve got it figured out, I might even consider converting some other teams schedules and making them available for others.
Implementing it in a site can be done with a function call in a template, or shortcode in a WordPress post or widget. Of course, if you fail to specify a team, it defaults to the mighty Portland Timbers. After a game is done, you edit the match with the goals and optional information like Conference and Supporters Shield standings. If you’re logged in as an admin you’ll be able to access edit links directly from the match info rollovers.
On the roadmap, I want to submit it to the WordPress Plugin Repository. There are some minor options I’d like to add, and some tweaks to the UI. Once that’s tackled, I want to work on making the CSS more elegant, but I figure that can wait until the mechanics are more or less complete. Also, the interface is based on rollovers, so I need to make it work on touch devices too, because apparently these new-fangled iPhones and iPads are going to stick around…
I’d love to hear feedback. Until it makes it to the official repository, you can download the code here. No, I’m not on Github.
Nagbe to Dempsey: Say ‘what’s up Portland?!’ ? #RCTID pic.twitter.com/Es8PWn7ypd
— Timbersmania (@Timbersmania) June 11, 2017
The Timbers/Thorns patch gallery I built for PTFZine.com has become the official online archive of PTFC Patch Patrol, and has a new home at PatchPatrol.com. Updates have been happening solely on the new site for a while now, which is a group effort. Aside from adding new patches as they are released, a lot of the updates fill in missing information for older patches. At the time of this posting there are 381 patches in the archives! Check it out!
The Timbers have what they call a fine wheel in the locker room. If you’re late for practice or have some other minor infraction you have have to spin the wheel and receive judgement. What’s good for the goose is good for the Gaffer, because Caleb Porter had to spin the wheel and was forced to put on a full Timbers kit for a training session. It caused quite a bit of laughter in the locker room, if you’re able to find the video that Alvas Powell posted, for a while at least. He was asked about it during a media briefing, and you’ll notice he goes out of his way tiptoeing around what the back of his jersey says, a reference to being a full kit wanker. It’s great see Caleb laugh, he always looks so serious.
I’ve added over 100 new patches to the patch gallery since the last time I posted abut it. This gallery will be mirrored on the forthcoming official new web site for PTFC Patch Patrol, to be unveiled in the near future. Lot’s of other things have happened since the last post, but this is the quickest/easiest update to make. I’ll get back in the swing of it soon.
Our last CCL match in this round, and we have a really good chance of advancing for the first time. In fact, as I’m writing this (before Colorado away), it may be our best chance of advancing in anything this year. When I volunteered to chaperone an overnight field trip at my kid’s school, I did not check the CCL schedule first. I’m not even going to be in a place with cell phone reception, so don’t spoil it for me. 107ist has a good read on what it’s like to travel to Costa Rica to take in a Timbers match.
Pura Vida Away (Unabridged)
Read it: TimbersArmy.org
Man that was a nail biter. We’ve got a real chance to advance now, what with Gleeson in the goal instead of Webber…
[Photo: CONCACAF]
I finally got the Timbers and Timbers Army Tattoo gallery and running. It would have been simple enough just to throw up some pages in a category labeled “tattoos” (crap, why didn’t I do that?) but I wanted to make it in the form of a plugin to handle taxonomies in the back end without having to make a custom theme. This in preparation for making a plugin out of the season tracker that you see under the masthead. I’m hoping to package it so other MLS supporters can easily use it to track their own teams without having to know the ins and outs of WordPress and be able to use it on any template. I’ve since become aware of this gallery posted by the Oregonian, which has a lot that I’m missing. That’s OK, the PTFZine Tattoo gallery is a living entity. There are 28 tattoos (Now 40, a short time later) in the gallery, and I hope to keep adding to it, as well as replacing some of the photos that were taken too soon after visiting the Double Post. There will be some interface tweaks as well, definitely room for improvement. There’s also room in every post for stories, the tattoo artist, tattoo parlor, and links to both if you have them. If they aren’t listed now, it’s because you didn’t tell me. Contact me if you have tattoos to add or edits to make. Tell a friend in the TA. Now go check it out.
Just watching the recap of this match makes me so frustrated. A game I felt we should have won. The handball (handballs?) that didn’t get called, and of course Luca getting dragged down in the 18.
An up-close view of the Melano incident. Got the ball first, but plenty of hands, too. #RCTID #pdx @TimbersFC – pic.twitter.com/LirlDHTlZY
— Jonathan Simmons (@JSimmonsPDX) May 16, 2016
I thought almost through the whole match we were going to pull it off. We played pretty cohesively and had some hustle… but no finishing. It’s been a while and I’ve tried to wash away most of the stain of this loss, but watching some gifs and replays of this match did remind me of one thing. I thought Jermaine Taylor had a decent run at LB. Nice to see some defensive depth development. I’m still not sold on Valentin, much less Klute.
Just when they needed a win, to get some fire going… and I miss the match. Ugh, I was in Washington… north of Seattle, yich.
Don’t worry though I watched all the youtubes and gifs I could. Looked fun and dynamic. Great to see Nabge on point and JackMac with some hustle. I wish I could’ve seen this one as it really illustrates what we’re capable of.
Ugh.
Nagbe was gone on international duty, BenZ is a CDM, and our outside backs are not playing to their potential, so Chara couldn’t really join the attack. It seemed we played a lot of the match in our half, and this is why. I guess I should be happy with 1 point on the road, but I was really hoping for some more momentum here.
So to add my own momentum, here is a little gift I received this morning from one of my kiddos!
PTFC Indeed!
Jaimie Goldberg’s piece in the Oregonian on the controversial phrase in the Portland Boys chant certainly has people talking. It’s one of my favorite chants, because I love the part where 10,000 people yell “I don’t hear a fucking thing!” and it’s always clearly audible over the TV. That’s just me. I’m immature about certain things. I don’t mind the line “shag your women, drink you beer.” In context it’s obviously a silly boastful line about also winning a competition for the opposing team’s dates. We don’t really advocate burning, destroying, wrecking, and killing either. Human life is the most sacred thing, right? If anything, I’m more uncomfortable with that line. However, and this is a big but, (Said Pee Wee: Let’s talk about your big “but” Simone. ) I can 100% understand how people are offended by the line. I’ve often wondered about it’s place in the repertoire of official chants for an organization that prides itself on inclusiveness and tolerance.
Simply changing the official words is unlikely to work. Disseminating that information to several thousand loosely aligned people is impossible, and the crowd will simply chant whatever it prefers. I suppose over enough time, with repeated reminders and enough examples, it might possibly work. Fact: It’s not going to happen in one season. So I’m on the record for keeping the chant and abstaining from saying it if you don’t like it, or changing the words if you prefer. If we get rid of it, someone please come up with another way for us to get thousands of people yelling “fucking” on national television, and I’ll get behind that one too. This is my opinion only, and not necessarily the same as the other (2) contributors to this site. You’ll have to ask them. BTW, I’m Polish, so feel free to send me your favorite Polish jokes if you want to see if I have a double standard about this. I don’t. I can appreciate a good Polish joke too.
Meanwhile, speaking of humor, the Nutmeg News tackled the subject of the offending chant by suggesting an official TA rewording carried out to the most excruciatingly politically correct extreme. It’s the low hanging fruit version for sure. I love the Nutmeg News, but some pieces fall flat. The winner by a long shot is the sometimes hilarious but way-to-infrequently-updated MLS Satire Facebook page.
Not really sure about the last two matches. Things aren’t linking up, someone is off, or the team seems lethargic. We got beat by Vancouver because they wanted it more and played more physically; Dallas beat our defense.
So let’s talk about our defense. In general I’m happy with Ridgewell and Borchers. Taylor is a competent backup centerback. I’m worried about our outside backs. I’ve tried to stay positive on their performances, and despite some quality moments, it seems we’re getting beat there. It was very noticeable against Dallas with their fast offense. I saw Valentin chasing more than once, and Klute was caught out of position as well.
Chara has been a stalwart at defensive mid. Not perfect mind you, but I don’t have any real strong complaints regarding his lapses.
Valeri and Nagbe need to get on the same page. Valeri wasn’t so hot against Vancouver and while Nagbe has shown well in both matches they aren’t connecting the way I’d like them too. Honestly it seems like The Maestro is either on point, or struggling to get something going.
Mattocks, Barmby, Melano, Asprilla(?)
I’m not even sure what’s happening on the wings anymore. Luca has shown some moments, I do like his speed… still waiting on the whole package though. Mattocks seems too eager, again a speedy character, but we can do without the tap dancing. I’d like to see more Barmby, and what’s happened to Asprilla? Not even in the lineup the past two matches. Ouch.
JackMac just seems a bit rough, don’t know if he needs more practice or maybe a start and then let Adi maraud around a tired defense as a sub in the second half. Regarding Adi, yes his hold up play is good and all, but if the ball isn’t getting to him then we need more versatility from our big forward.
Gleeson, excluding the nutmeged goal, has held his own as a starting keeper. He’s kept the past two matches’ scorelines looking a lot better than they might have. Thanks Jake.
I’m open to mixing things up at this point. New formation, start Barmby, or start JackMac? Maybe not both, I don’t know. The 2015 MLS Cup champs are still there, we just need to see the team firing on all cylinders.
RCTID!
I’ll take it.
Our match against the Revolution seemed pretty hard fought. It’d been a while since I’d seen the 4-4-2 formation, but I definitely understood why. I almost feel that we should have come away with three points, but it just wasn’t meant to be. The Revs really pressed at the end, and despite a top tier performance from Jermaine Taylor his own goal sullied the match. I’m having trouble assigning blame to him on this one though as it was his best match by far, and the OG seemed just unlucky more than anything else.
For the rest of our defense with the Revs, Nat seemed a little better, and our outside backs seemed a little off. I’m just not sure what to make of the off play by Klute and Valentin.
However with Liam back in for the Toronto game. The whole backline (the whole team!) seemed bolstered. Nat’s positioning seemed on point and he was chasing less, while our outside backs were showing that same spark we saw against the Quakes. Valentin really held his own again Giovinco, and Klute had some nice offensive footwork and passing with Valeri more than once.
The formation at midfield is anchored by Chara, guy knows how to work defensively and distribute effectively. For the Revs match, I don’t recall anything too spectacular from our attacking mids. For TFC, with Valeri back, Nagbe’s few good dribbles, and Luca streaking down the right… I was quite content. It was really great seeing Luca breakaway and cross to Adi, hopefully that connection will get more solid. And the Maestro, what can I say… Valeri got a goalazo of his very own for his birthday! Jewsbury lined up a starter for the Revs and came on to relieve Valeri and the end of the Toronto match. The Maestro was gassed, no doubt.
JackMac didn’t get it in the net for the Revs game though I did seem him stalking about the 18, no worries there… yet. And here comes Jack Barmby in for JackMac with a hacked one-timer for a goal. How about that? Good lad!
Darren Mattocks relieved Adi in the Revs match, and started against Toronto to be subbed by Asprilla late in game. Generally like Mattocks’s speed and voracity. Could maybe be a bit more defensive? Yeah.
Asprilla. Oh man. Coming onto the pitch against TFC and earning a yellow right off the bat, then some more fouls, then some other different sketch. It’s weird, he seems to have lost some calming edge to his game. Really hope he finds it soon. I definitely enjoy his play when he’s on.
GLEESON!
Who the? What the? How the?
Ok, so first just to touch upon the Revs match, the only ball that got past him was a fluke OG. Otherwise he seemed pretty solid.
Now against TFC, what was it 3 or 4 fantastic reactive saves? The man was huge and fast, controlling his box with poise and aplomb. Accolades have already been spoken about our backup (??!?!?!) keeper. How often does it happen where a starter keeper is out due to injury and the backup keeper holds onto the starter’s spot after the injury is healed? Just curious!
Aside from a few questionable foot related distributions I’ve yet to find any serious fault. I know we haven’t seen Jake play as much as Adam so we don’t know how consistent he is, but I think Adam is out a few more weeks so I guess we’ll find out.
On a similar note, the same question lurks for Powell and Valentin.
And lastly… BenZ! Very happy to have him back in. I was quite bummed when he got injured last season, as it looked like he was warming up to create some havoc in the mids. Let’s see what ya got Ben!
PTFC!
This article on Minnesota United FC supporters groups the Dark Clouds, and TNE (True North Elite) uses the Timbers Army as a yardstick, and includes a little behind the scenes video of our home opener tifo creation, filmed while Minnesota was in town for the Simple Invitational.
As MLS approaches, Minnesota United’s supporters’ culture blossoms
Read It: Twin Cities Pioneer Press
Alright, so the news has made the rounds. The ankle isn’t broken. And we all knew de Jong was a thug anyway, now we’re just waiting to see how the retroactive red and suspension will manifest.
Honestly, I was a bit skeptical to see how the increased handing out of reds would come about, but I can definitely see some benefit now… just wished we’d seen the red in the game.
Anyway…
Let’s talk about the match.
We played better. I kinda called it in my last post, if I may gloat a bit, that we’d see Jewsbury back in the lineup and with the Captain’s armband no less.
Confirmed. Caleb Porter follows ptfzine.com!
Barring Nat’s own goal, I feel the backline played better. Borchers wasn’t getting caught out of position as much, and Taylor is stepping up his game. It was great to finally see Klute and some definitive LB skills at work. Powell was good defensively as well, despite his questionable attacking forays.
Jack and Chara have a great partnership at mid. I don’t even really know what else to say about that. Always feels good when I see those two in that formation.
Of course we had Valeri and Nagbe in our attacking mids, no worries there. That said… what to do about Melano? Now, I’ve got no beef with the guy and I think he played a pretty good game, showing some hustle on offense and defense, almost had a goal. Almost. Jack Barmby has got to be chomping at the bit to get some minutes in, and I think we’re at a point where we might see him get subbed in. I was almost expecting it in the LA match, and it may have happened if it weren’t for the own goal.
Adi aka ‘The Hold Up King’, had a solid outing. I must admit I was pleasantly bemused to see Adi with some midfield dribbles along the pitch as well! Not that I want to see that often, I want to see Nagbe doing that!
Now for tomorrow, good grief, already! I’m guessing we’ll see Grabavoy come in for Darlington, but on the heels of such a recent game, I’m not sure how the rest of the formation will pan out. I don’t think Liam is fit yet, maybe in the lineup though? I can’t imagine any other defensive change barring Liam’s presence. Offensively, we have options, the aforementioned Barmby, Darren Mattocks, JackMac. Asprilla is still injured I believe. I don’t even know what’s going on with BenZ anymore!
Time to check that depth chart boys!
No Pity!
And let’s talk about giving him the Captain’s Armband as well. I’m frustrated, so are you, so are the Timbers.
Were’s the dominance we saw at the end of last season? Were’s that deadly offense, the stout backline, our midfield marauders?
It’s mostly there. Mostly.
The personnel losses from our championship team are noticeable. With all due respect to Will Johnson, his absence is less noted than Villafana’s, and maybe even Wallace’s and Pappa’s. Just sayin…
I don’t want to talk about the Orlando match anymore. My opinion: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
So!
Let’s get a steady hand to marshal our wingers, bolster our defense, and give our attack a chance to put it past the dodgy keeper.
Put in that Ol’ Salty Dog!
ps. i’d be ok with CB too
RCTID!
There can be no doubt now. I am a huge nerd. I love listening to Soccer Made In Portland so much that I am keeping a running total of the random points Chris Rifer awards each week based on the previous week’s predictions. Of course, it started as a simple running points total, but ended up being a little more comprehensive. However, I did trim it back a little as I was on the verge of including a time marker for the predictions and awarding of points. Now you can check out the only meaningful soccer stats you need to know. Once this post is gone from the front page, you can find the link on the sidebar. Again, please don’t let my wife know I how I spent my Thursday morning.
This one surprised a lot of people. It’s not the first time (or year) we’ve heard about the possibility of Mattocks coming to Portland, but now it’s a reality instead of a rumor.
Portland Timbers acquire attacker Darren Mattocks from Vancouver Whitecaps FC
Read it here: Timbers.com
Read it here: Oregonlive.com
[Photo: Wikipedia]
