The Portland Timbers returned to Jeld-Wen Field for their first match since the team’s 15-game unbeaten streak was put to an end by the Columbus Crew two weeks ago. Their meeting with the LA Galaxy on Saturday was a battle between two teams sharing the third spot in the Western Conference. The Galaxy had started to build up steam lately, winning their last three out of four matches.
Timbers bring Galaxy back down to Earth
The Portland Timbers returned to Jeld-Wen Field for their first match since the team’s 15-game unbeaten streak was put to an end by the Columbus Crew two weeks ago. Their meeting with the LA Galaxy on Saturday was a battle between two teams sharing the third spot in the Western Conference. The Galaxy had started to build up steam lately, winning their last three out of four matches.
The visiting team got the usual Timbers Army welcome, but LA did not come to Portland alone. The Angel City Brigade, LA’s own official cheering section, walked into Jeld-Wen Field with their heads held high for the nationally televised match. Though they were drowned out by the majority of the 20,674 fans in attendance, Galaxy fans were determined to make their presence felt.
LA was without one of their star forwards, Landon Donovan, who had been called up by the U.S. men’s national soccer team for the Gold Cup. The Timbers squad also had a couple of players away on international duty, as team captain Will Johnson joined the Canadian squad and Rodney Wallace suited up for Costa Rica. Frederic Piquionne was named to the Martinique roster and started the match against LA as a reserve before returning to the lineup in the 60th minute. Also unavailable for Portland was defender Pa Modou Kah, who is serving a suspension after receiving two yellow cards against Columbus.
Seconds before kickoff, the stadium erupted with a “Beat LA” chant that was loud even by Timbers Army standards. Although the backline started out strong for the Timbers, the Galaxy got on the board first in the 18th minute when Hector Jimenez sent a cross to Marcelo Sarvas, who placed a header past Timbers goalkeeper Donovan Ricketts for a 1-0 Galaxy lead.
In the 28th minute, the Timbers pulled off a seamless set piece to answer LA’s goal. Diego Valeri got set for a free kick and quickly booted it to Darlington Nagbe while the Galaxy were still lining up. Nagbe hit a soft cross to Ryan Johnson, who volleyed it past unsuspecting Galaxy goalkeeper Carlo Cudicini to bring Jeld-Wen Field alive.
“It was a set play we had been working on in training,” Johnson said. “Diego played a good ball to isolate Darlington. He’s so good in the box, one-on-one, and he was able to get that ball across and I was there.”
The Galaxy got a chance to take the lead again when Ricketts found himself one-on-one in the 41st minute with Gyasi Zardes as the forward charged into the box unmarked, but Ricketts was able to shut down Zardes’ angle with a perfect slide tackle and cleared the ball away. Though LA was the better team on paper, with twice as many shots on goal as the Timbers and a slight edge in possession, the squads went into the intermission tied at one-all.
The deadlock continued throughout the second half as each team logged four attempts on goal and possession stayed virtually even. But with stoppage time winding down, Portland earned a corner kick. Valeri struck a nice ball into the crowded Galaxy box, and Andrew Jean-Baptiste lost his defender with a quick move toward the goal to place a header past Cudicini.
“[Zardes] was doing pretty well marking me the whole game,” Jean-Baptiste said. “I just felt the adrenaline pumping. I faked him right, left, right and then followed the flight of the ball to the back post and just made sure I got a good header on it.”
Head coach Caleb Porter’s analysis was characteristically pragmatic. “To be clear, it’s three points,” he said. “It’s nothing more, nothing less. But what it does is it continues to give us belief. You gain belief through success, and when you’re in a game like this, where you got two very good teams and it’s tight and the margin of error is slim—you’re one play away from losing the game, you’re one play away from winning the game—winning teams give a little bit more.”
With the victory, the Timbers jumped back up to the No. 2 spot in the Western Conference with a record of 8-2-9, four points behind Real Salt Lake. Next up on the schedule is a trip to Pennsylvania to take on the Philadelphia Union on July 20.
