While many of us are enjoying what the Onion hilariously reconsidered as a series of Vuvuzula Concerts being disrupted by international soccer events, Portland began its run in a lesser-known but well loved tournament of its own, the venerable U.S. Open Cup. The Timbers’ Cup (not the one in South Africa) experience began against a team made up of what appeared to be extras from Baywatch with a few northern California booze hounds tossed in for good measure. Yes, I’m looking at you, #14, with your shorts that stayed in the dryer too long and your skin pink with blood exhaustion a minute after the opening touch.
The opponent: Sonoma County Sol [1]. The objective: live to see round two. The result: a convincing Portland victory that wasn’t certain until 58 minutes into the match.
So we were playing a bunch of high school buddies from NoCal in a single-elimination tourney on our home turf. Everyone in the sparse crowd [2] expected a win, and what with Portland’s recent, drastic standings dive, the fans were dying for a genuine romp. When you’re feeling shitty about yourself you go out and fuck with someone on an even worse streak. It’s what human animals do.
Except it took the Timbers 58 minutes to score. That’s right. A full half and a dozen or so minutes into the next before Suzuki and Co figured out how to unlock (a term I’m stealing from the amazing World Cup commentators) the Sol defense.
(OK. There were no photographs taken of this game, and I’d like for people to read to the end, so I’m having to cut out a lot of my regular bullshit and tangent. That probably makes you happy, doesn’t it? Well, so be it. I’ve added some footnotes at the bottom to flesh out the finer points, but in general let’s soldier on here. Nothing but the facts. For now, please enjoy the cheesy-as-fuck unveiling video that I hope came free from RARE Design, the company that created Portland’s new crest and a wealth of other inane professional and semi-professional insignia.) [3]
So don’t get me wrong. The Timbers were never going to lose this game. Never. Sol just weren’t going to score, not against Portland’s back line, which looked like stone pillars against Sonoma County’s fleeting attack, stepping solidly into every run and flicking away even their most skilled passes. So the outcome wasn’t the question. But until Doug DeMartin was able to work to the Sol touch line and thread a beautiful pass across the mouth of the goal for a streaking Nimo [4] to bury in the netting, it wasn’t clear how long Portland would take to get a scoring chance to succeed.
Once the Timbers broke the ice, so to speak, they continued to pile on. Suzuki, who played the entire game and used his still-considerable quickness and grit to frustrate the overmatched Sol defenders, made the game 2-0 some thirty minutes later, and James Marcelin sealed it right just before the final whistle with a solid finish to what was essentially Rodrigo Lopez’s goal (beautiful pass, hard to miss).
Fun stat that brings home Portland’s dominance: Shots — Portland 18, Sonoma County 2. Yes, a 9:1 ratio. The game could have easily ended up 7-0.
There was plenty more to discuss (a reporter I’d never met before who smelled of dryer sheets and didn’t utter a word the whole game; the failure of PGE’s wireless; the pancake fries which were so strange, just little strings of dough that should have had something else inside but did not; the opening rainbow rooted firmly in section 107; and more and more), but let’s bring this thing to a merciful end. Let’s talk about the U.S. Cup.
2010 is the last year Portland will have to slog through the first two rounds of minor-minor league action, since MLS teams enter in the third round like some army of men gathered by Gandalf to make their triumphant entry whenever they damn please. It works like this: 32 teams start the single-elimination tournament, grouped regionally. Hence Portland’s slot against the kids from Cali. The first game involves some pro team like the Timbers with a team going on the ride of its collective life. The field shrinks to 16 following that game, which again tries to be at least semi-regional. Then the trick: when the sixteen are halved again, a set of 8 MLS teams refattens the bunch and we’ve got a full 16 again. Then as you’d expect: 8, 4, 2, 1. Champs.
And so we’re alive and well in the Cup, and hopefully it’ll bring Seattle down here for another good old fashioned vitriol fest. I know I’ll be there.
[1] All in all, the Sol players seemed quite nice, and they were elated to play in front of the small but boisterous crowd at PGE. I’m guessing the Cup game will be the biggest many of them play in their lives. my evidence being their profiles on the official site, the fact that they still list their high school teams on their profiles, their incredibly homogeneous hometowns (Santa Rosa, Santa Rosa, Davis, and Santa Rosa, ad nauseum). At the end of the match, after Portland had cemented the victory and emerged as the clearly stronger team, the visitors walked past the Timber’s Army faithful and clapped up in appreciation. They were having a moment. The TA clapped back and said kind things in return, such as, “Get your shitty loser ass off my pitch” and “Go home, fucktards.” I nearly wept at the outpouring of emotion.
[2] The game was announced some two weeks ago, previously unknown and unmarketed to fans. The result, partly due to even more shitty June weather, was the thinnest attendance I’ve seen in a few seasons. Even the normally packed TA sections — which usually spill some three aisles in either direction — were condensed into three health clumps total.
[3] To his credit, Merritt Paulson, after getting railed at the unveiling and apparently shouting at a fan to “Stick his minor league crest up his minor league ass,” or something to that effect, met cordially with Timbers fans at the game on Tuesday and talked them down off the ledge. Because seriously. It’s ugly, it’s cheesy, but it’s not the end of the world. There’s a fucking hole in the ocean, right? Bad design isn’t worth flipping on that high stress cancer switch that we all know lives somewhere deep down dark inside ourselves just waiting for that bad juice to hit red line.
[4] Nimo. You should have seen him holding that slice of the log. The thing was larger than his torso. Little, lightning Nimo.
