We're a little more than 48 hours away from the opening whistle of the 2007 season, and I couldn't be more amped to hear it.
It's hard to believe that the players reported for preseason a month ago already, but I think that extra effort is going to pay dividends once the season gets underway. We had several good scrimmages against local college teams, all building up to last weekend's exhibitions against the University of Portland and the Vancouver Whitecaps. I thought the boys looked very sharp and seemed to be firing on all cylinders in the second half of the U of P game; then turned around on Sunday and held their own against the defending league champs to win the trophy on penalties!
The attitudes of the players in training has been fantastic as well, although it's obvious that they're ready for Saturday. Gavin has spent a lot of time working on set pieces and shooting this week, so hopefully we'll see the fruits of that by putting a few past former Timber Josh Saunders.
From an administrative standpoint, it's been a great few weeks for us as well, with the announcement of two high-profile exhibition matches to be held at PGE Park this summer. Club Necaxa from the Mexican top-flight will be rolling into PDX for a match on May 9 and A.C. Milan will be bringing its Primavera team to face the Timbers on June 19. After experiencing the Coventry match and hearing about how successful Sunderland and the Women's World Cup were here, we're extremely excited to be continuing to bring great opponents from all over the world in front of our fans to face the Timbers.
I can't wait for kickoff on Saturday, under the lights, and in the glow of the new video wall; I hope you'll be there to enjoy it to. Go Timbers!
-Posted by: Brad
