The Portland Timbers hosted FC Dallas on Sunday in bright and balmy conditions at Jeld-Wen Field. The action was sloppy at times and thrilling at others, with each team easing into a rhythm and then getting kicked right back out of it.
FC Dallas played a relatively steady, intermittently impressive game, pouncing on a sudden break in the Timbers defense to score in the 51st minute. The Timbers responded by maintaining a vigorously stubborn assault on Dallas’ goalkeeper until he finally cracked.
Both goals were well-earned, as was every moment of progress throughout the game. When four minutes of extra time did nothing to break the stalemate, the teams walked off the field with a 1-1 tie.
The puffing, sweaty masses in homemade T-shirts and thick green-and-white scarves filed out deflated—a hard-fought but vaguely disappointing result. This was a little strange since there wasn’t a moment during the entire game when it didn’t feel like the home team had the advantage.
The Timbers Army is not a cheering section. It is a machine. Its members are fierce and coordinated, an unsettling combination of ruthless efficiency and minor psychological imbalance that is the mark of every truly successful fan base.
The group sports a tireless drum line and a lively horn section. They have dance routines and even a conductor—a man in charge of directing an extensive catalog of custom-fitted anthems, retaliatory chants and streamlined heckling—who doubles as the only individual in his general vicinity even more unhinged than the mob in front of him. The troupe clocks in for their shift the moment the players come onto the field for warm-ups, and doesn’t let up until there is no soccer left to be played.
Motivations aside, there was never any doubt about what was happening on the field. If a Timbers forward advanced the ball more than 30 feet without having it stripped, he was met with unchecked, uninhibited ecstasy. Any time a player hit the turf and a penalty was handed out, it inspired an immediate wave of frustrated profanity from the stands, directed either at the opposing player who committed the egregious act or at the referee. By the time the second half began, a simple change of possession at midfield or a visiting goalkeeper with the audacity to make a save carried with it the potential of a localized riot.
Even more important, though, is the residual effect of the central Timbers Army encampment on the rest of the fan base. The northern end of Jeld-Wen Field is the unquestionable emotional core of the movement, but it is a movement that is still in its infancy, with a following that is still becoming familiar with the experience of rooting for professional soccer at home.
Oregonians are undoubtedly among the most passionate in the country about the sport, and Portland fully deserved an MLS franchise; the city is an ideal market for soccer and a willing promoter. Just as the heavily sunburned first battalion serves as the impetus for the rest of the stadium, the Timbers will be a crucial part of the sport’s development in the U.S. The noise coming out of the orchestra is emphatic, but the reaction it inspires is a force.
Near the end of the game, the official attendance was broadcast over the PA system: 20,438 tickets were sold that afternoon, marking the 29th consecutive sellout crowd for the Timbers at Jeld-Wen Field.
The crowd responded to the figures by working itself up into a state of delirium, all whooping and barking and spinning towels, drowning out the MAX line running along 18th Avenue and serving as a general indicator of the level the madness has already reached.