3 INTANGIBLES
QUICK TURNAROUND
How much gas will the Timbers have in the tank? Seven starters — the four defenders and three midfielders — all played the full 120 minutes of that overtime-plus-penalties thriller on Thursday night. Now, they have to face the Caps 64 hours after the most dramatic of games. Can they recover both emotionally and physically? “It’s the tightest window we’ve played in all year,” head coach Caleb Porter said after the game. “It is what it is. ”
DISCIPLINE A KEY
Yellows in back-to-back games in the post-season will get a player suspended for one match. Four Timbers — centre back Liam Ridgewell, winger Rodney Wallace and midfielders Diego Valeri and George Fochive — were all carded in Thursday’s testy, emotional match against Sporting Kansas City. If they pick up another one on Sunday, they would miss the second leg of the conference semifinal Nov. 8 at BC Place Stadium. Yellows will also be an issue for the Caps’ Waston, who picked up 11 over the course of the season, the secondmost in MLS.
THE TIMBERS ARMY vs. THE SOUTHSIDERS et al.
The Caps supporters’ groups are loud, but the Army, pictured, is arguably the most ear-splitting in MLS and can turn intimate Providence Park (capacity 21,400) into a decibelpounding roar. Each club’s supporters will be allocated 750 seats in the other team’s stadium. We also have to give the mascot edge to the Timbers’ chainsaw-wielding lumberjack. He’d make short work of Spike, the Caps’ Belted Kingfisher, who likes to celebrate birthdays with kids and whose favourite song is Shake Your Tail Feather.