Catching up with the Timbers

The Timbers started last season—their inaugural season in Major League Soccer—with a bang, winning or tying seven of their first 12 regular season matches against MLS squads. They couldn’t keep the momentum going, though, and finished just outside the playoff window in the Western Conference. This year, the team has pivoted to try to improve on that result, bringing in new players from abroad and from their development team while keeping the core of last year’s squad.

The Timbers seem to be in a good position to improve on their result last year, but the MLS Western Conference is stacked this year. The Los Angeles Galaxy will be looking to repeat their 2011 championship, and the Timbers will be jostling for one of the five playoff spots with Real Salt Lake, FC Dallas, the Colorado Rapids, the San Jose Earthquakes and of course perennial arch-rivals the Seattle Sounders.

The Timbers had a productive offseason, picking up a slew of young up-and-comers to work into spots on the team in the future. Defense could still be a trouble spot for the Timbers, but they’ve made moves to improve their already packed midfield, such as signing veteran Cameroonian midfielder Franck Sono’o. They traded away top scorer Kenny Cooper last year but, assuming new striker Kris Boyd works out, their offense has the potential to be more explosive than last year.

“I think we’re in good shape,” head coach John Spencer said. “I think we had a good preseason last year for an expansion team. I think we’ve had a good preseason this year considering, up until we started to get all our injuries.”

Several Timbers are nursing minor injuries. Darlington Nagbe and Kris Boyd have both seen limited preseason action due to ankle afflictions, while Sal Zizzo is on track to return after undergoing knee surgery last November.

The Timbers will be expecting big things this season from new striker Kris Boyd, the highest scoring player in Scottish Premier League history. The 28 year old was a question mark as far back as last week when he was rehabilitating a sore ankle, but he came on for the first time against visiting Swedish team AIK Sunday and put in a header to cap off his inaugural performance with a bang.

“I feel good,” Boyd said. “It’s my first game in a long time, and maybe it will take a few weeks to get up to full speed, but I felt good tonight.”

The Timbers had a good showing in their preseason. They played most recently in a preseason tournament with AIK, Chivas USA and San Jose. They will walk away with a 4-3-0 record. Spencer said he was happy with the results and with the way the younger signees were playing, in spite of their nerves.

“The fans expect us to win every game here, so I think you can feel the passion in the stadium and the nervousness in the stadium, and it can put [stress] on to the younger players on the field who are not used to it,” Spencer said after their match against Chivas USA. “I think you can see them get a little bit nervous at times, and you can see their heads get down. I told them at half-time, just believe in yourselves.”

The team expanded its youth academy system as well. Teams for various ages are being developed to support Portland’s premier U-23 team, which then feeds talent directly to the MLS. The Timbers U-23 team won the USL Premier Development League Championships in 2010, and the Timbers have signed four players from that team to the main roster for this year. One of those players, defender Ryan Kawulok, already made a mark when he scored a late second-half goal against Chivas USA to keep the team’s preseason record spotless. And he did that just hours after being signed to a first team contract.

“Credit to the organization,” Kawulok said. “The U-23 program does an amazing job investing in their youth and teaching you guys the system of what’s expected here. Day-in and day-out for the U-23s I kind of knew what to expect at practice. I knew what to expect in games. They’ve done a great job allowing me to be prepared, and I think this transition to a professional game has been pretty seamless so far.”

The Timbers will be counting on their stadium presence, one of the best in MLS, throughout the season. The Timbers were one of only two teams last season to sell out every game, and already the fan section has been packed and buzzing for preseason games, with decked out fans on their feet for 90 minutes, chanting and waving Cascadian flags.

“There’s not a better feeling than celebrating with the army,” Kawulok said. “Those guys come out and they get their full 90, singing and chanting all game. When you can make them happy and hold up a slab of wood for them, it’s quite a feeling.”

When a goal is scored in Jeld-Wen, a tree trunk is split by chainsaw, and the hunk of wood is held by players as a trophy at the end of the game. The team expanded its seating capacity for this season to more than 20,000 and season ticket sales to 14,750. The Timbers recently sold out their season tickets, with 97 percent of last year’s season ticket holders renewing. The Timbers’ main rival Seattle will also expand its seating this season, and will open up all 67,000 seats in CenturyLink Field for their home match against Portland this season—an intimidating prospect.

The Timbers will kick off their 2012 regular season Monday with a home match against Philadelphia. Philadelphia’s offseason has been more of a question mark than Portland’s, so it’s tough to say what the squad will look like. The team lost starting forward Sebastien Le Toux and goalkeeper Fayrd Mondragon, but it’s tough to say where its offseason pickups will fall within the team so far. Kickoff is set for 6:30 p.m., and the game will be televised on ESPN2.