Tonight the Portland Timbers clawed their way out of Hades and ended the Sisyphusean struggle to kick a ball uphill into the opposing goal at Swangard one more time than the Vancouver Whitecaps could. It took a perfectly placed, pinpoint, penalty kick from Ryan Pore and a missile from the backline's Mamadou Danso to bring it home, but the Timbers did it. They really did it.
As expected the match was a slugfest. Ryan Smith went off with a forehead wound gushing blood in the first half. Stewart, attacking midfielder for the 'Caps was carried off on a stretcher. It weren't no cakewalk and that's a fact.
Pore's penalty came on the heels of a takedown in the box on a breakaway and the sending off of Janicki at the 65th minute. At that point Vancouver led on a solid goal from Khalfan which accelerated the Timbers' efforts to get one back. Pore showed his quality with a poised shot.
Dansu's goal was perfectly executed in the face of chaos as the Timbers attacking ball bounced out to Danso's foot right on the eighteen yard line and he placed it, unhesitatingly, into the goal.
Question to the peanut gallery. Is it my imagination or are defenses being so successful shutting down forwards that midfielders are ending up being the dangermen in this league? Or in any league? I haven't seen any stats but certainly Pore and Stewart fill that card. Bright Dike worked like a madman to get free and get a shot. And made good layoffs when he couldn't get the ball away. But he was marked as hard as a Chicago gangster on the road to Joliet. So maybe this is the new reality in the Game. Midfielders will be the new supa-stahs. Can somebody run the stat machine and spit out some statistics? Oh...and don't forget to include play in Uruguay.
Bottom line? Timbers hit the road with a win and a confidence builder against a quality rival. I like it!
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