Timbers eye playoff berth in Seattle showdown
Portland hasn't lost in Seattle since (redacted by Phil Neville)
BEAVERTON — Phil Neville has never outwardly been superstitious in his time with the Portland Timbers.
Results, he insists, come only from the work and courage shown on the pitch.
But there are certain lines one doesn’t cross, which is why the second-year Portland manager cut off a reporter midway through a question about the Timbers’ upcoming derby with the Seattle Sounders.
With the Timbers having not lost in Seattle since 2017…
“Whoa, Jeremy. Jeremy!” Neville said to Cascadia FC’s Jeremy Peterman. “Rephrase the question: With the really good results in Seattle…”
The reporters in the room laughed. Neville laughed.
But yeah, even though Portland hasn’t lost in Seattle since 2017, Neville wasn’t willing to risk jinxing the next result by talking about it. Not with everything the Timbers have on the line.
Portland’s roller coaster of a season has come down to the final two matches. A draw against the Sounders on Saturday would clinch a playoff spot. A win would do the same, and also give the Timbers second place in the 2025 Cascadia Cup standings behind Vancouver.
No, Portland can’t defend its cup title. But ensuring Seattle finishes last would be icing on a cake already loaded with postseason stakes.
“You’ve got to play the game, not the occasion,” Neville said. “We’ve got to make sure that we have ice running through our veins on Saturday. It’s going to be a fantastic game — they always are.”
That calmness has been hard to come by late in matches. In last Saturday’s 2-2 draw with Dallas, Christian Paredes gave the Timbers the lead in the 81st minute, only for Dallas to answer four minutes later. It was Portland’s league-leading 11th tie of the season.
It’s been a paradox of a last two months: sound soccer, frustrating results. Over their last six matches, the Timbers have played well — drawing against San Diego, Minnesota and Vancouver — but have managed only seven points in that stretch.
Neville said there have simply been too many missed opportunities, noting that it’s a lot harder to blow a two-goal lead than the one-goal advantages Portland has been clinging to. A big help would be if Kristoffer Velde could finally find the back of the net.
To be clear, Portland’s recently acquired forward has looked sharp in his six matches with the club. He’s assertive, creative and takes chances the Timbers had been missing for much of the season. His fingerprints were all over Saturday’s match — forcing an own goal on a corner kick and delivering a clever assist to Paredes.
But Velde has yet to officially score. And while he’s been productive, he knows the Timbers’ ceiling rises once he does what he was brought here to do: score.
“I’ve been so close so many times,” Velde said. “By creating chances, I’ve made an impact and been involved in a lot of good things, just missing the goals to be honest. Feel like I’ve had some good games. We are playing really good against top teams and we’ve been unlucky and lacking a little bit of details in front of the goal and finishing off the counters and attacks. But that will come.
“As soon as I get the first goal, hopefully I’ll run into goals. We’ve lost too many points by not scoring.”
Seattle would be a good place to start. Velde said he’s always enjoyed derbies, including notching the game-winning assist in his first pro appearance against Viking FK.
“The thing is, when you come to a new country you don’t have a feeling yet until you’ve played it,” he said. “Derbies, after you’ve been with the club for a while, you get the feeling more after every game. So I’m looking forward to it.
“Let’s see if we can provoke them a little bit over there and spice it up a little.”
— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor