TUCSON, Ariz. – Were it a regular season game, the match would be defined by revenge – the Portland Timbers seeking retribution from the team that upset them in the Audi 2017 MLS Cup playoffs. But this isn’t the regular season. It’s mid-February, and while Portland’s preseason match against the Houston Dynamo Wednesday (1pm PT, webstream: Timbers.com) won’t have much Valentine’s Day love, it’s too early in the MLS calendar for any real animosity.
“The time the season comes around, we’ll be talking about that,” defender Liam Ridgewell said, “but Houston is just another team in a preseason friendly that we’ve got to get through one hundred percent, keep stepping up our game.”
Instead of regular-season animus, the typical preseason themes will win out. First choice players should get a little more time than they did in the Timbers’ first preseason game, against Seattle on Feb. 3. The actual play should be slightly more ambitious, with head coach Giovanni Savarese having implemented more of his approach. The game’s tempo, too, should be elevated, with the players’ fitness inching toward regular season levels.
“The boys will be playing a certain number of minutes, coming off and coming on,” Ridgewell explained. “It’s literally to get out there and get your fitness up. Not that the game doesn’t matter, but it’s just to make sure we feel good.”
And then, there’s perhaps the most important part of preseason.
“To be healthy,” Diego Valeri said, unblinking, when asked about goals for the match. “To get minutes, rhythm, and improve our precision with the ball. That’s all.”
With a week and a half between games, rhythm may be the most elusive of those goals. But for much of that time, the Timbers were putting in two practice sessions per day, concluding most with the 7v7, 9v9, and 11v11 games that all teams rely on before the season. Those practices have often more intense than your typical preseason exhibition.
“It’s been hard, even if we didn’t have a game …,” Valeri said. “But it’s good. We prepared as if there was a game, and the fitness base for us, physically, is getting there … the practices have been very important.”
At some point, though, practice has to translate into real competition. Wednesday’s game against Houston may be an exhibition, but it’s the first of four, final preseason games ahead of the season opener. At a minimum, attacking Dynamo talents like Mauro Manotas, Romell Quioto, Alberth Elis and Tomás Martínez will be a change of preseason pace for Portland, while a Dynamo team that was one of MLS’ best on the counterattack in 2017 should test the team’s ability to defend in transition.
Whether the standard is fitness, form or score, though, progress has to continue. That it’s against the team that ended the Timbers’ 2017 is irrelevant. There will be plenty of time to seek retribution in the regular season. For now, Houston is the next obstacle in Portland’s path of March 4.
