—by Chris Rifer
The scene was far from foreseeable six days earlier.
Merritt Paulson bounding out of the locker room, his head bobbing to the beat of hip hop spilling through the open door. Alvas Powell testing the ability of his cheeks to contain his smile as he shyly faced the media as the game’s, and potentially season’s, hero. The Portland Timbers, for the first time in 2014, sitting above the year-defining red line.
No fewer than five times since May the Timbers have had the opportunity to surge past the red line with and win, only to come up short each time. As Caleb Porter put it postgame, the missed opportunities “start to wear on you.”
As Paulson’s rhythm and Powell’s smile demonstrated, the weight of the Timbers’ seemingly infinite chase of the red line was gone from the Portland locker room on Saturday night, after a professional first-half performance turned dominant post-intermission.
Vancouver created the best chance of the first half early on, as Mauro Rosales found Pedro Morales in the center of the box against a well positioned, but still vertically limited Diego Chara. Morales got his head to the ball, but sent his header just over the bar.
But those first five minutes were Vancouver’s best spell of the day, and thereafter the Timbers slowly seized control. In a move that was in character for the Timbers, but out-of-character for Whitecaps opponents, the Timbers pushed both fullbacks on, starting Alvas Powell and Jorge Villafana over a bench full of more defensive options.
As a result the Timbers repeatedly found space on the Whitecaps’ flanks, and Powell and Villafana – players with only eleven 2014 starts and 44 years between them – became two of the most influential men on the field. But while the Timbers tactics had much of their desired effect in the first half, Portland didn’t create anything especially dangerous on account of a couple missed links and a steady Vancouver backline.
Viewed in isolation, nothing in the first half suggested a season-defining moment was forthcoming. But if Portland can ride their newfound momentum into the playoffs, that’s exactly how Saturday’s second half will be regarded.
In light of the first half, the Timbers’ first goal of the second half was no surprise. After solid holdup play from Fanendo Adi, Portland found space on the right wing where a wide-open Diego Valeri lifted a ball into the box where Powell nodded it down and into the net.
The visibly shaken Whitecaps recovered momentarily after Darren Mattocks replaced Kekuta Manneh, creating a pair of chances to level the game by way of Mauro Rosales and Mattocks shots from the right side, but in the 75th minute the Timbers marauding put the game away. After Michael Harrington forced – and then blew by – a very high Whitecaps flank rotation, the substitute easily found Maxi Urruti in the middle of the box where, given plenty of room, the Argentine nine put the ball off the under side of the bar and in.
If all that was missing to that point was the spectacular, Darlington Nagbe wasted no time in ticking that final box. In the 79th minute Nagbe picked up a pass from Villafana, rounded Matias Laba with ease, and slotted the ball past three defenders to an onrushing Rodney Wallace, who slid the ball past David Ousted for the exclamation point.
What ensued was in many ways a microcosm of the past three months between the Timbers and the Whitecaps. Since the teams met at Providence Park in June the Timbers have looked like a playoff team, posting a 5-4-3 record and averaging 1.5 points per game. The Whitecaps, on the other hand, have limped to a 2-4-7 record while averaging a tepid one point per game over the stretch.
And so it was in the last ten minutes at B.C. Place, as the Timbers easily moved the ball around and through a defeated Vancouver side. Aside from the traveling Timbers Army’s chants of “Our House, in the Middle of B.C.,” the Vancouver stadium sat silent as the Timbers ran out the clock on the Whitecaps’ hold on fifth place.
That silence was shattered moments later by the beat pumping from the Timbers locker room – a room from which the Timbers have never emerged as losers.
And like Paulson, the Timbers found their rhythm at the right time on Saturday.
Onward, Rose City.
