Timbers @ Sounders this Saturday!

[tlongII]

http://www.oregonlive.com/timbers/in...to_resume.html


Portland Timbers defender Jeremy Hall said Saturday's game against the Seattle Sounders is "the game of the season so far."

The Portland Timbers return to practice today and they are already looking toward Saturday's game.

It's all about Seattle Sounders' week.

The Timbers will face their Northwest rivals in the first-ever Major League Soccer regular season game between the two teams Saturday night at Qwest Field on national television.

"It's a big game, a rivalry game," defender Jeremy Hall Said. "It's the game of the season so far. Everybody has been waiting for it."

The Timbers (4-3-1, 13 points) and Sounders (3-3-4, 13 points) are tied in the standings and possess very similar statistics for goals scored and allowed. Portland defeated Seattle 2-0 in a preseason game March 4, but that was the preseason.

The Timbers will enter the game against Seattle on a bit of a roll. They have won two consecutive league games and four of their last five MLS games. All of those wins occurred at Jeld-Wen Field, where the Timbers are unbeaten and have outscored opponents 9-4.

But the game between Portland and Seattle will be a road trip for the Timbers, and those games have not gone nearly as well. The Timbers are winless (0-3-1) in four road games and have been outscored 9-2 in those road games.

"This is a good opportunity for us," Hall said. "We want to prove we can win on the road."

[tlongII]

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...ounders10.html

Sounders FC gets pumped for Portland

TUKWILA — Sounders FC coach Sigi Schmid hasn't had to say a thing to his players about the weekend's big game.

"They know it's Portland week," he said.

As do MLS fans around the country.

The resumption of the storied Cascadia rivalry, which started in the 1970s in the North American Soccer League, was the leading story line at the start of the 2011 season. And meeting for the first time as MLS rivals, Seattle and Portland will kick off the Cascadia Cup — a three-team compe ion that also includes Vancouver — in a nationally televised game at 8 p.m. Saturday at Qwest Field.

Seattle boasts a 39-27-8 advantage all-time in a feud Schmid compared to Yankees-Red Sox in baseball.

That history and passion will be felt on the field, according to Sounders FC forward/midfielder Roger Levesque.

"I think it's going to get a little bit nasty," he said. "I think players definitely feel that intensity and pride. I know all the guys on our team have that pride in the Sounders symbol and I know their guys do as well with the Timbers. I think that starts on the field and will definitely carry over to the fan groups."

Goalkeeper Kasey Keller said guarding against getting overhyped for the match will be important for the Sounders. A reckless foul early in the game as a result of getting carried away could ruin the night.

"You're going to (get amped up) because it's there and you're going to be reading it and you're going to be feeling it," Keller said. "At the same time, you can't let the emotions take over the day. You still have a job to do."

Giddiness is also a concern for general manager Adrian Hanauer, who is worried enthusiastic fans might go overboard in the stands and cause security issues.

"It just takes one bad egg to cause a lot of problems," Hanauer said.

"We think we're prepared, but you can't be 100 percent certain."

Hanauer said extra seats won't be opened up at Qwest Field, in part because the team wants to preserve its home-field advantage — something it can't guarantee by selling more tickets on the open market.

"It's going to be great," Schmid said. "I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a great day of soccer for the Northwest."

Reserves beat Chivas USA

Mike Fucito, Lamar Neagle and Miguel Montano all scored for Sounders FC in a 3-2 Reserve League win against Chivas USA at Starfire Stadium.

The Los Angeles-based road team scored first on a breakaway by Chris Cortez in the 22nd minute, but Fucito tied the score shortly after on an assist by forward Nate Jaqua in the 25th minute. Neagle gave Seattle the lead for good in the 52nd minute by converting a penalty kick.

Montano finished a dangerous run in the 60th minute with a nice finish to the near post, and Cortez pulled a goal back for Chivas USA in the 69th minute to cap the scoring.

NOTE

• Schmid said the team is confident MF Brad Evans (quadriceps) will be able to play after missing Saturday's game in Columbus.

[MannyIsGod]

The Timbers are going to wax that ass.

[symple19]

This has the ingredients to become the go-to rivalry in MLS.

Although I watch MLS games from time to time, I still find it hard to really get into it (follow closely) like I do the BPL, NBA, NFL, etc.

Games/matchups like this are doing a good job of changing my mind, though. I'll watch this one for sure

[MannyIsGod]

Yeah, we'll see if it lives up to the hype. NY/LA was pretty damn good last week.

[symple19]

Yeah, we'll see if it lives up to the hype. NY/LA was pretty damn good last week.

Saw that one too. Good game


I think part of the reason I can't get hyped for the MLS is because I don't have a team...

[MannyIsGod]

I became a Galaxy fan but I do enjoy watching quite a few teams. Where as the NBA I watch mainly for the Spurs I can watch MLS games as long as there is a good team playing. I loved the Portland game earlier this year (their home opener). ESPN has done a good job with the games they've picked this year so far.

You should just a pick a team and start following them.

[tlongII]

http://www.oregonlive.com/timbers/in..._debut_no.html

Timbers-Sounders will debut Northwest MLS teams' visiting-fan protocol

Major League Soccer is basking in a breakout year. Home attendance is averaging 17,237, better than the NHL's this season, and early-season TV ratings are up. New teams in Vancouver, B.C., and Portland are driving interest and building the supporters groups that team owners and executives increasingly embrace.

But there is an undercurrent of trepidation as those ranks swell, evident when MLS commissioner Don Garber met with supporters groups last year, Timbers Army member Scott Swearingen said.

"His biggest fear," Swearingen recalled, "was violence breaking out at a game and tarnishing the league's image."

One of the 16-year-old league's tests arrives Saturday, when the Timbers play the Seattle Sounders at Qwest Field in the first meeting of the teams with the largest organized supporters' groups in MLS. As the squads renew the matchup that started in 1975 with the North American Soccer League, leaders of the clubs and supporters groups have taken extensive steps to assuage anxiety and prevent a bitter rivalry from leaving a lingering national aftertaste.

Team officials initially limited the visiting-fan allotment for Northwest stadiums -- Vancouver, Seattle and Portland -- to 150, raising it to 500 only after supporters groups protested. They also crafted a protocol for the three teams' visiting contingents.

Under those rules, Timbers Army members attending the game will ride to Seattle in 10 buses (one leaving from Tukwila, Wash.) that will stop at a designated stadium entrance. Two hours before kickoff, the fans will pass through security, allow workers to screen their signs for offensiveness and file into a designated section. Monitoring their behavior and that of the Sounders fans around them will be Qwest security, two Timbers front-office staff and eight security guards who work games regularly at Jeld-Wen Field.

"When the Knicks play the Celtics, there's not 500 seats set up for the Celtics fans in Madison Square Garden," said Mike Golub, Timbers chief operating officer. "It's one of the neat things about soccer, and it's going to really add to the atmosphere."

About 20 minutes after the game ends Timbers fans will leave through the same gate, board the buses and leave town. The only time they will mix with Sounders fans is in restrooms or at concession stands.

"I think it's unnecessary but smart," said Dave Clark, who writes the blog Sounder at Heart and sits on a team-affiliated advisory council. "The eyes of the nation's sporting community are going to be on these games."

Even as American supporters groups move into the mainstream -- elevated by clubs themselves through billboards and television commercials -- their organizers know they're battling a stereotype.

Dozens of people routinely are ejected from other large pro sports events for drunkenness or fighting without generating wide attention. But imported images of soccer show helmeted guards with riot shields separating rival fan groups, something unheard of in the U.S. That specter means more scrutiny here, fans say.

MLS mostly has avoided fan troubles, with at least one exception: Toronto at Columbus, 2009.

An estimated 1,500 Toronto fans traveled to Columbus and witnessed a 1-1 tie as frustration bubbled in the stands, the Columbus Dispatch reported. Some fans were ejected from the stadium, Toronto fans ripped a railing from its bearings, and multiple rows of bleachers in the Toronto section were twisted and bent. Parking-lot confrontations after the game prompted police to make three arrests and use pepper spray to disperse the crowd.

Though MLS officials resist elevating Portland-Seattle over other rivalries, no other two teams have their following, history and animosity.

Sounders fans recently declared "Hate Portland Week" on Twitter, with one tweeting a photo of a Timbers scarf aflame. Came the reply from a Timbers fan: "my hatred surpasses 7 days for Seattle." Even seemingly innocent video games run toward the dark: The Timbers authorized an iPhone app, "Timbers Axe," in which mascot Timber Joey decapitates "Flounders" trying to invade his rose garden.

This is not the same dynamic, however, in which smaller, splintered groups clashed with management in the lower-level United Soccer Leagues almost as much as they did with opposing fans. Though still feisty, Seattle and Portland supporters' groups are much more integrated into and accountable to the clubs now that they're in MLS, tempering the rivalry.

"It's also matured a lot," said Greg Mockos, co-president of the Sounders fan group Emerald City Supporters. "I feel like there's a lot of mutual respect, whereas back in the old days, there wasn't that respect."

Timbers fans are free to purchase tickets on the secondary market, and Swearingen estimated that a few hundred have. They'll be sprinkled among 36,000 Sounders fans in what is expected to be a sold-out game under Qwest's soccer configuration.

Leaders of supporters groups on both sides said they feel a responsibility to produce a problem-free experience.

"One of the goals for us is to spread traveling culture to other places, so that we go to more places, and more people come here," said Swearingen, the Timbers fan. "Hopefully we encourage it not just in our region but across the U.S."

[MannyIsGod]

You going to the game tlong/

[tlongII]

You going to the game tlong/

Nope. I don't want to get into a fight. I'll go when Seattle plays down here.

[tlongII]

The only game I've been to this season is Real Salt Lake. Great time.

[MannyIsGod]

Pussy! I'm actually kinda hoping to go to grad school up in Seattle which would be awesome for all the close MLS action.

[tlongII]

Nice job by the Timbers tonight! We got a point on the road. I'll take it.

[symple19]

nice game, great atmosphere