As Year 3 begins, Portland's Phil Neville says it's time to deliver
The Portland coach wants to mirror the city. In 2026, it's time to catch up.
During a recent walk around downtown Portland, Phil Neville was struck by how different it felt.
This city was still going through the thick of it back when the Timbers manager was hired in November of 2023. And while things haven’t improved overnight, they have with time.
“It was Valentine’s. I took my wife into the city and I can see from where it was three years ago, how the city is in a miles better place now than what it was three years ago,” Neville said on Wednesday. “And yes, there’s still so much that we can do in and around the city, but I hope my team and the city are mirroring each other, where we’re just on a trajectory that’s going only in one direction.”
If that analogy holds true, Portland has a lot riding on 2026.
The Timbers begin the regular season on Saturday at Providence Park against Columbus. Neville is entering the third and final year of his contract and has two up-and-down seasons to show for it.
Yes, the Timbers made the wild card round in 2024 and the first round of the MLS playoffs in 2025. But they’re also 29-28-24 in 81 games under his direction. His first year, the offense was historic and the defense was dismal. In his second year, those two things flipped.
Three days before the first match of Year No. 3, Neville said it’s time for the day-to-day improvement he’s seen over the last two years to show up where it matters.
“If you’re at a club where you feel like you’re making inroads, where it feels like the team’s improving year-to-year, there becomes a time when you’ve got to deliver,” Neville said. “I feel like me and the staff have delivered to a certain extent over the last two years, but delivery for me is winning. Other people have different barometers, different types of KPIs. And I’ve always thought that my KPI in my life has always been that nothing is success until you win.”
At the very least, the Timbers seem to be in a better position to do that than a year ago.
Portland has exchanged the Evander-filled chaos of last year’s offseason for one of relative calm. Its best player — forward Kristoffer Velde — is healthy, in camp and has assumed a leadership role. Yes, the Timbers lost midfielder David Ayala to Inter Miami — but they were going to lose him anyway after this season, and they were able to flip the money from that sale to acquire Cole Bassett from Colorado.
Neville, as he does, was quick to heap praise on his new American midfielder.
“I think we’ve got one of the best central midfield players in the Western Conference and hopefully in the MLS,” the coach said.
Bassett is only 24, but has more than 131 MLS appearances after beginning his career as a 17-year-old with Colorado. He’s expected to play an attacking midfield role.
“It’s great to be in that locker room, I’ll tell you that,” Bassett said. “I think I only had one win here in seven years and it was during COVID so no fans were here.”
It’s not all sunshine for the club. Designated Player forward David Da Costa is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery and will miss the start of the season. And the club is still looking to add a couple of pieces to the roster to supplement a group that has a 14-game sprint before the league takes a two-month break for the summer’s World Cup.
“When you look at trying to round out the roster, the two positions for us is an attacking-piece winger and a center midfielder,” general manager Ned Grabavoy said.
But for the most part, the Timbers know what they have. The offense is going to feature Velde, they’re going to take advantage of Felipe Mora’s versatility, Antony’s speed and hope that players such as Kevin Kelsy take a step forward in their second year with the club.
The defense, led by Finn Surman and bolstered by the addition of Australian Alex Bonetig and New England’s Brandon Bye, is as deep as it’s been during Neville’s tenure.
Max Crepeau is gone and it’s James Pantemis’ net now. And while that midfield does feature some new faces, it still has the old foundation of the club in Diego Chara returning for his 16th season.
It wasn’t the flashiest offseason. And the Timbers don’t go into Saturday’s opener harboring a new star international signing.
But Neville believes it was an offseason of progress. And now, he says, it’s time for the club to start catching up to the city.
“This is my third year, and you know, I’m not embarrassed to say, I think this is a year when we’ve got to deliver,” he said. “And I’m super excited.”
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor