Timbers unfazed by Cup hosts
While Columbus is favoured at home, Portland likes its chances to pull an upset
COLUMBUS, OHIO — Portland Timbers centre-back Liam Ridgewell emerged from the players’ tunnel at MAPFRE Stadium Saturday holding a Styrofoam cup.
“It’s vodka,” the Englishman joked. His victory drink if they win? “Anything you can get in your system,” Ridgewell said. “It would just be great to top off the season with a big victory.”
The Timbers will be sizable underdogs when they meet the Columbus Crew in Sunday’s MLS Cup. It has been that way throughout most of this season.
During the buildup in Ohio this week, Timbers head coach Caleb Porter has uttered the same schpiel. None of his players received accolades this year. No all-stars. No allleague honours.
“We just want to win games. We don’t care if people give us credit. We’re over that,” he said when asked if he’s using it as motivation.
“We don’t need that motivation. We just want to win games. Seems like every single series we’re underdogs and that’s fine. It doesn’t change what we do. We’re unbeaten in eight games. Hopefully, we’ll be unbeaten in nine games.”
History isn’t on the Cascadia club’s side. Since Major League Soccer moved to have the better regular-season finisher host the final in 2011, a visiting team hasn’t won the Philip F. Anschutz Trophy.
Away records in MLS are simply abysmal with road teams collecting on average just 4.75 wins from 17 away games this season.
Porter, though, doesn’t plan to change much considering his club’s history. The Timbers have shown an ability to pick up results on the road the last few seasons.
“We’re the best road team in the league,” Porter said. “We’ve won 14 games on the road in the last two years, the most in MLS. We’ll approach it exactly how we always approach the road games. Try to win.”
The Western Conference champs have already picked up a pair of impressive road results during these playoffs, knocking off the Vancouver Whitecaps before earning a series-clinching draw in Dallas to get here.
Now they’re up against a Crew side that’s expecting a sold-out MAPFRE Stadium to explode this weekend. There will be a different buzz in Ohio’s capital on Sunday.
With the Ohio State Buckeyes on the fringe in contention of a College Football Playoff berth, attention has turned to a club that has seen attendance surge this season.
“As a player, it’s a huge event,” Crew coach Greg Berhalter said. “You really feel the gravity of it. You can feel the different energy of the crowd.”
They might need it following a freak incident that occurred Saturday afternoon. The league’s coleading goal-scorer, Kei Kamara, suffered a leg injury toward the end of training. It wasn’t immediately clear how it happened, although he walked to the showers on his own.
“I think he’ll be all right,” Berhalter said before the club listed its go-to striker as a “game-time” decision.