Here comes Seattle

Timbers tune up for league champion Sounders by beating Minnesota 2-1

By Steve Brandon

LocalNewsDaily.com, Apr 25, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009

L.E. BASKOW / PORTLAND TRIBUNE

Coach Gavin Wilkinson and the Timbers are 2-0 after Thursday's 2-1 win over Minnesota, and defending league champion Seattle invades PGE Park at 7 p.m. Saturday.

After 90 mostly good minutes of soccer, scoring two goals and creating several more chances, the Portland Timbers celebrated their 2-1 victory over Minnesota — for about 10 minutes.

Then it was time to start thinking about the next game, Saturday night at PGE Park against the defending league champion Seattle Sounders.

It’s one of the biggest games of the year, even though it’s just the third of 30 in the regular season.

Seattle returns all 11 starters and 16 players and is motivated to end its United Soccer Leagues run with another title; the city’s Major League Soccer franchise begins play next year.

Portland, which leads the First Division at 2-0 after Thursday’s win, nearly made it to the league finals in 2007 and appears stronger, especially on the attack, this season.

“We’re going to celebrate this win (over Minnesota) for about 10 minutes,’ Portland forward Chris Brown said Thursday night, “and then we’ll go in the locker room and start talking about Seattle. We know it’s going to be a tough game, a battle. If you’re not up for that game, you don’t have a heart.”

And a good memory, Portland coach Gavin Wilkinson reminded his players.

“Seattle got the better of us last year,” he said. “This is a chance to rectify that.”

Seattle went 2-0-1 against the Timbers in ’07, winning at home 1-0 and 2-0 and getting a 2-2 tie at PGE Park.

The Sounders are 0-0-1 this season, having rescued a 1-1 tie at Charleston last week with a goal in stoppage time.

“It’s not going to be a level playing field, because they’ll be well-rested and we’ve just had a game,” Wilkinson says.

But the Minnesota match might have helped the Timbers gain some valuable experience as they continue to work the new front line of Brown and Takayuki Suzuki and new goalkeeper Ray Burse into a lineup that is otherwise familiar with one another.

Brown banged in his second goal in two games to give Portland a 1-0 lead before the crowd of 4,921 Thursday. The Thunder (0-1-0) failed to clear a cross by Leonard Griffin and then lost focus when defender Stephen deRoux went down in the box. Play continued, and Neil Dombrowski found Brown for the ninth-minute score.

“I got the ball and cut it back inside and got my right foot on it well,” Brown said.

That right foot is turning out to be the Timbers’ best finishing punch, although Suzuki and others had solid shots, too, during the game and midfielder Shaun Higgins got his first goal since August 2005 for the game-winner in the 65th minute.

Higgins’ strike was a true team effort. Miguel Guante had just replaced starter Lawrence Olum. The alert and quick Guante came up the sideline to take a ball away from Minnesota. He kept on going down the sidelines for a bit before tapping the ball ahead to playmaker Andrew Gregor. The veteran all-leaguer curled a strong cross to the onrushing Higgins, whose shot landed inside the far post from six yards.

Minnesota had evened the match in the 41st goal on a breakdown in the back by Portland.

“We lost the ball, and they caught our defenders out of position,” Burse said.

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