Velde challenges Timbers to set new standard as club moves into offseason

A year later, the Timbers have a DP that's invested in the future.

The Portland Timbers weren’t that much different in 2025 than they were in 2024.

Last year, the Timbers won 12 regular-season games and were eliminated in a decisive 5-0 loss to Vancouver in the Wild Card Round. This year, the Timbers won 11 regular-season games — won in the Wild Card — and were eliminated in a decisive 4-0 loss to San Diego in Match 3 of Round 1.

The Timbers made it further this year. They weren’t as fun to watch — especially during a second half that saw a team contending for a top-four spot turn into an eighth seed, with only three points separating it from the conference’s 11th place.

At the end of both years, it was clear the club was still a distance away from its once-championship form.

There is one difference between how the seasons ended, though: a designated player the team can build around showed up to talk about how it went.

Kristoffer Velde came to the team’s facility dressed from head to toe in white. He had a tee time at the Reserve Golf Course after Thursday exit interviews, a flight home to Norway on Friday, and plans to spend at least a couple of days with friends and family.

But he wasn’t planning on seeing them so soon. Velde came to Portland from the European calendar. His year was just ramping up.

“I’ll be training hard,” Velde said Thursday. “I just had two months’ vacation, so I’m not ready for it yet.”

Velde arrived in Portland during the summer transfer window with the job of reigniting a Timbers offense that lost DP Jonathan Rodriguez early in the year and saw leading scorer Antony suffer a hamstring injury in June that cost him nearly two months.

There was also Santiago Moreno, who deserted the club during its Leagues Cup match in Dallas and demanded a transfer.

It was also made known Thursday that David Da Costa — Portland’s DP addition following Evander’s departure who played his way onto the All-Star team — played the second half of the season with a shoulder that kept popping in and out of socket.

And while Velde found his scoring touch when it mattered in the playoffs, he took ownership Thursday that Portland could have been in a better position had he found success earlier.

“I came in, I was in good shape, but yeah, as you have seen, I missed so many chances and that was frustrating for me,” he said.

He didn’t mind being self-critical. He also said it’s time for the club to do the same.

“I’m used to Europe. It’s way tougher locker rooms I’ve been inside. I think the standard needs to be set a little bit higher — what we do in the training ground, what we do in the gym. We have so many players with so much quality. The potential is there; we just need to get it out of them.”

Velde has been with the club for three months. The man who’s been with the club the longest agreed.

“We need more intensity,” Diego Chara said after his 15th season with the club.

More than anything, Chara said the club needed consistency — and stability in the lineup. Between the injuries, the transfers and his own choices, Phil Neville has never found a consistent starting XI during his two seasons with Portland.

“It’s very important,” Chara said. “I think those decisions come from the coaching staff and they try to make decisions to put the best possible team on the field, and I think that’s really important for every player or team — to have a consistent lineup.”

The Timbers announced they picked up Chara’s option for 2026 on Thursday. He’ll be in Portland for his 16th season. And for as good as Chara played down the stretch in managed minutes in 2025, he knows he’s on the back end of his Timbers career.

These early exits matter to him.

They do, too, for Neville, who enters the third and final year of his contract having won as many games as he’s lost in two years with the club.

“I’ve got incredible support. I have an owner who gives me the keys to the castle to do whatever I want and a GM who backs me,” Neville said. “…I think I’m at that point now where I have to deliver. I’m honest. I’m honest. We’re at this football club with a set of fans, a GM, but more importantly an ownership that wants success. This is why I love this football club. This is why I came… There are a lot of teams in this league probably sitting here this week with their feet up thinking, ‘We’ve had a decent season. We’ve got a home playoff. We’ve competed.’ That’s not in the makeup of this football club. And it’s not in the makeup of me. We have to win.”

The “we” there included the Timbers’ designated player, who is fully on board. After Sunday’s loss, Velde posted to Instagram — and unlike last year, when social media posts from a Portland DP tore the club down, this one felt like something to rally around.

“Thankful for the last 3 months in this beautiful club💚 Not the way we wanted to end the season but we will bounce back stronger next year!! Can’t wait.”

“We just need to set a culture where we have this winning mentality to push everybody, because we need everybody during the season,” said Velde, who didn’t look thrilled to be golfing. “I think when that comes, you’ll see a whole different team on the pitch. We just need to keep pushing.”

— Tyson Alger, The I-5 Corridor