Less about the actual soccer, more about being a Portland Timbers fan.
It was an unfortunate week for the Portland Timbers to be featured in a demo of the MLS app on the Apple watch. I love it when my worlds collide, (I’m a long, long time Apple user) but not in this case. The FC Dallas/Timbers scoreline appears shortly after the 28 minute mark in the September 7, 2016 Apple Event. A friend of mine from Portland moved to California a year or so ago to work for Apple in their marketing department, so maybe he set this up in advance, anticipating a better result.
I went to the Seattle away match last Sunday. Not a lot of positivity to take home from such a decisive loss, except for the overwhelming failure of the ill conceived ECS tif0. Normally, matters of tifo quality are shouting matches between the supporters groups directly involved. However, in this case, Seattle’s Rickroll tifo has met with universal ridicule, even outside the MLS. Even if you agree with the ECS statement, there’s no denying that the execution was poor. MLS wants to promote the biggest/best rivalry in the league in order raise TV ratings and increase interest in the league? How dare they! This is the second Seattle tifo flub this season, if you’re keeping track.
Is this Seattle Sounders tifo the worst ever? The internet thinks so. – Fox Sports
The day the Tifo died… – A Medium Corporation
We Need To Talk About The Sounders’ “Rickroll” Tifo – Paste Magazine
Seattle Sounders fans hold up Rick Astley lyrics in weirdest tifo ever – Sports Joe
Seattle Sounders fans display bizarre tribute to 80s pop legend Rick Astley – The Sun
For the Nutmeg News, this is like shooting fish in a barrel…
6400 Word Dissertation To Accompany Next Sounders T.I.F.O – Nutmeg News
This is the first time I’ve seen Timbers (or any) Topps MLS trading cards in a local Target. In years past I’ve always had to order them online. This things are printed early on, but here are fewer missing notables than last year’s set. I think that came with a couple rookie cards featuring guys that never saw first team minutes. Ben Polk is the only guy who hasn’t seen first team minutes this yea. Unfortunately, Borchers is out for the season, possibly his career, but it was nice to see him get a card. Then there’s the Adam Kwarasey card. I would have liked to see him get the chance to say goodbye to the the home crowd before we shipped him off. The title of this post refers to the inadvertent phrasing of the price marking on the point of sale… There is one extra special card that is Excell Ent, even “Excellent.”
Yes, this is an actual, legitimate, non-photoshopped picture of Stephen Hawking wearing a Timbers scarf. Get the lowdown on KGW.com.
Photo: Brett Bigham
Steven Taylor looks a little bit like Gary Numan. On the left, an uncredited photo from a Stumptown Footy article that chronicles Steven Taylor’s disastrous debut appearance for T2 over the weekend, in which he scored an own goal in the first 9 minutes, and shared the blame for at least one of the other goals before being subbed off after 60 minutes. He’s really getting raked over the coals in the UK Press. On the right, a picture of Gary Numan during a vintage performance of Are Friends Electric?. Numan was younger than Taylor when the video was shot. I could have chosen a later era picture of Numan for the comparison, but then I wouldn’t be able to include the video after the jump.
Big thanks to the supporter who put this up in our neighborhood! ?? pic.twitter.com/fCF11WgShs
— Nat Borchers (@natborchers) July 24, 2016
All the predictions are saying achilles tendon injury, which could mean the end of Nat’s career, especially at his age. We’re hoping for the best, Nat.
UPDATE: Speculation was correct. Nat Borchers did intact future his achilles tendon and will be out for the rest of the season. It’s a blow to the Timbers for sure, but a bigger one for Nat. Portland feels for you Nat!
There’s a nice bit of fluff in the UK edition of Yahoo Sports about Liam Ridgewell’s negotiation to extend his contract with Portland. The is excellent news. Common wisdom around Stumptown Footy had been he was most like not coming back, as evidenced by his recurring loan stints to English teams during our off season, and the fact that his children still live in the U.K. It’s not that they think he doesn’t like it here, more that they thought this was just an interesting, but limited diversion for Liam, and he would soon want to return home. So this is good news. The bad news for Liam atlas, is that journalists in the U.K. have apparently forgot what he looks like. A day after the article was published, it still shows a picture of Lucas Melano captioned as Liam Ridgewell.
Columbia Crest vineyards has released Match Day Red, with Timbers themed packaging. There’s even an accompanying video. The winery is on the Columbia Gorge in Paterson, WA, which is about equidistant from Seattle and Portland. To hedge their bets they’ve also released a Sounders themed Supporters Blend. ( I’m pretty sure the Seattle version tastes like sour grapes…) The videos essentially share the same script, just fill in your team name. The wine has shown up in a few Safeways so far, but wasn’t at the one in NE Portland on MLK when I checked today.
Remember this? We’re still the 2015 MLS Cup Champions. Watch this short film from Duffy Higgins about raising the championship banner.