BEAVERTON, Ore. – History indicates the Portland Timbers will not reach the MLS Cup Playoffs if they don’t find a way to win away from Providence Park.
In the league’s first 20 seasons, six teams have gone a whole season without winning on the road. Of those, only the 2003 LA Galaxy reached the playoffs without winning a road match – as the fourth-place team among five in the Western Conference. They were eliminated in the Conference Semifinals.
The Timbers have not yet won away from Providence Park this season entering Saturday’s visit to FC Dallas, the first of four remaining road trips for Portland. They do have six road draws, but facing the Supporters’ Shield leaders in the sticky conditions of Frisco doesn’t project as a logical place for a change in fortune.
Still, the Timbers hope a more recent piece of history leads to a breakthrough win this weekend.
Last October, with their playoff chances similarly precarious, the Timbers scored five goals in the second half for a comprehensive 5-2 win in Los Angeles against the Galaxy – an outburst that provided the foundational belief the Timbers carried all the way to their MLS Cup trophy.
Might last Sunday’s four-goal first half against rival Seattle provide a similar shot of confidence?
“It’s good for us to have a similar breakout kind of game,” Timbers coach Caleb Porter said. “Not only does it show what we’re capable of, but the group, I think having them feel that way of playing and dominating -- to score and to defvend well – that goes a long way.”
The fact that Vytas and Steven Taylor each scored their first MLS goals and that Lucas Melano scored his first in 10 games added to the potential confidence boost from the win against Seattle last weekend. Vytas said such success brings more glue to the locker room. Melano described the first half as “crazy.”
“Now the team has a different confidence mentally. That was good for the team,” Melano said.
Perhaps most exciting for Porter was seeing work from the training pitch transfer to the match. The chance to train or to play games with a consistent XI together hasn’t happened often for the Timbers in 2016. Porter again noted that he has not yet been able to follow up a win by playing an identical lineup, a situation that continues this week with Darlington Nagbe and Alvas Powell away on national team duty.
Still, Porter is hopeful that the win over Seattle will bolster the confidence of his team.
“Until you gain that collective belief, getting results and playing well together – all 11 guys – you don’t have that synergy that’s so important to winning,” Porter said. “We got that synergy going last year. This last game gives us a lot of momentum in getting that feeling, that winning feeling and collective belief going.”
Portland has scored 31 times in 14 home matches and 10 times in 13 games away from Providence Park. So packing Sunday’s swagger for the visit to Frisco (9 pm ET; MLS LIVE) would indicate a significant change. To carry any momentum forward, Porter said his team will be proactive at Dallas.
“We’re going to go in aggressively. We’re going to go in to attack. We’re going to go in to put pressure on them. They’ll put pressure on us as well, so it will make for a game that’s exciting,” Porter said.
