Now this is a sodden pitch...

Fratton Park in Portsmouth England was drenched recently during a match between Pompey and Wycombe Wanderers.  My wife's cousin is a Pompey fan and sent the link to this match.   Recalls for me the Timbers match some years back when PGE Park was the locus of a violent weather cell.   Thunder and lightning and torrential rain, though not enough to stop the match.

This phenomenon may seem like an adventure to some, but in the realm of football management,  it's a terrible problem. Grass pitches can't be maintained adequately during a fall-winter season with torrential rains. For our club, FC77 this became clear about three years ago when we had negotiated the use of a wonderful grass pitch in outer Southeast Portland.  The problem was that we had a very high (for a small non-profit) obligation to pay cash for use of the field.  Our calculation had been that the use by league teams would generate the revenue for the bulk of the field cost.   However torrential rains caused cancellation of many games and the equation no longer worked.   Extreme weather events such as the downpour in Portsmouth will kill the traditional field use in the fall and winter.

Futbol,  like everything else in the world,  is being affected dramatically by real life weather conditions.
As someone said in the comments from Fratton Park, "At least they kept the bar open".   Does this feel like the Titanic?   At least we can drink as the ship slips into the wash…..

Portland Timbers- standing on solid ground

With last night's defeat of Chivas in LA,  the Portland Timbers are Western Division champions and the team which has ticked off many achievements as this season unfolded.  They have the fewest losses by a substantial margin at five.   They have the broadest crew of 'gunslingers'  as five players have seven or more goals. They have a goalkeeper in Mr. D Ricketts who has been like a shapeshifter ---regularly materializing in front of shots despite the laws of physics.    They have a defense which is centered in The Gambia but also has had heroic work early on from young players like Andrew Jean Baptiste and experienced players like Mikael Silvestre.  ("The Gambia" is so Oregon. Just like The Dalles).  Outside defense was a source of troubles a year ago.  This year Harrington and Jewsbury have given up very little and have created much.  They have a midfield which is intelligent,  skillful,  and unrelenting.    Will Johnson and Diego Chara are the Engines of Disruption and Cohesion both.   Like the two-faced gods in ancient cultural lore,  they both destroy opponents' attacks and seek the unfolding 'moment of joy' in which a pass arrives in the sweet spot of danger-to the opponent.    With the addition of Diego Valeri who epitomizes the ideal game,   the increasingly herculean contributions from Darlington Nagbe,  the physically hardened but joyful style of Kalif, and the insertions of Zizzo and Zemanski at the right moments,  the team has eaten up hours of time while plotting its next attack.   And there  is more praise to offer--Monsieur Fred,  Valencia, Kocic and the mercurial Urruti have all been contributors to a magic season earned with grit and hard work but also with a vision.  Porter's vision made real.   "We play as a team."  

The press coverage of the team has been massively improved since the early years when any mention of futbol was likely to be a truncated 4pt text addition to a page of 'really important sports'.  At the same time as this pic shows, the coverage has a long way to go.   Would a story on the Ducks football team misidentify a key player in a caption when the team was winning a Division Championship.   I think not.   And Diego deserves to be recognized--he works too hard not to be.  

Long before there were Portland Timbers, footballers prowled fields in Portland

A recent blogpost from Michael Orr who has made Portland soccer history his specialty describes how "Association Football" was part of the city's sports scene 120 years ago.
More interesting is that the venue at the time was not that far from our own Jeld-Wen Field.
We honor the Portland Timbers' tradition which stretches back to the NASL debut in 1975 but 'the Game' has made its muddy-cleated mark on Bridgetown since there were four masted schooners anchoring along the Willamette.   The more we know,  the more we can own this game today.

Portland Timbers

Who would have said back in April that the MLS Western Division would web so tightly clustered that a sneeze from a particular player could put a team in or out of the playoffs. Who would have guessed back in April that the Portland Timbers, rebuilding after a disastrous campaign in 2012, would be aspiring against the Red Bulls to take the Supporters' Shield,  would have the fewest losses in the MLS, would be standing, albeit with precarious footing, atop the MLS West?   This has been a landmark season,  almost miraculous considering the odds.  Portland has been blessed with a visionary coach and a cadre of hard core believers,  guys young and old, who think that the system they are playing in makes sense and that they can be champions if they play together.

I am watching, week by week, with great happiness for them, with great pleasure for the ecstatic flow of play, and with great hope that for the first time since 1975,  the Portland Timbers, the boys in green, will be competing at the highest level in domestic soccer.  Their success this year will set a standard and raise expectations.   "Soccer City USA" should never be hollow shout with no resonance in the present.  

This year is a tribute to the past of the club.   More importantly, though, it's a shout about the future, where we're headed.   I'm looking forward to that journey.