PORTLAND, Ore. -- A rivalry match against Seattle Sounders FC normally consumes an entire week’s focus around the Portland Timbers, but coming off a game last Sunday across the country at league-leading Atlanta United FC, the transition from last week’s attention to this preparation for Saturday's match at CenturyLink Field (1:30pm PT, FOX) has taken a unique course. It wasn’t until Wednesday, this week, that the team was able to have a full practice, with much of the first team given a half- (“re-entry”) session the day before.
Beginning Wednesday, the Timbers faced three practices before their Friday trip to Seattle, where the team will face their rivals for the second time this season.
“I think Seattle comes at a good time,” Portland head coach Giovanni Savarese said Tuesday, in his weekly press conference. “We understood how difficult it was to go down there, to Atlanta, and play a difficult team, in a difficult environment, in a way that we have to be very disciplined, in a way that we have to buy in, all together, to achieve a result ...
“And then we bounce back, we come back here understanding we have another huge game. We don’t have time to relax. We don’t have to think that we’re better than we are.”
It’s one of the first times which, implicitly, Savarese has acknowledged what his team has become.
Following Sunday’s 1-1 in Atlanta, Portland’s unbeaten run in all competitions sits at 11 games. Since the team’s two losses to start their MLS season, the Timbers have gone 6-1-5, with the only defeat coming in shocking fashion in Orlando on April 8. It was the last time an opponent raised the number in Portland’s loss column.
“Our feet need to be on the ground,” Savarese cautioned. “Our sleeves need to be pushed back, and now (Portland needs to be) ready to work again.
“I think this Seattle game comes at a very good time for us to make sure that we have to continue to work, we have to continue to get better, and we have to face this team being ready to give everything that we have.”
It’s a way to turn a potential distraction into a challenge. In the abstract, the task of shifting focus from a top-of-the-standings opponent to one struggling to create could constitute a trap, especially after your team played well in the first of those matchups. But instead of leaning on a rivalry’s history, hoping that alone will guide his team’s emotion, Savarese welcomes the difficulties. If last week’s ability to match Atlanta presented one type of challenge, Portland’s ability to shift gears and take care of business against a struggling Seattle presents another.
“I think they’re still trying to figure it out, a little bit, but at the end of the day, they have really good players on their team,” Timbers goalkeeper Jeff Attinella said of Seattle. “It’s the same group of guys who have been there for the last two MLS finals. We know they can turn it on with the flick of a switch, and I’m expecting them to bring their best on Saturday.”
Attinella has faced the task before, having previously traveled with the Timbers to Seattle. Other key Portland contributors haven’t. Among the 14 players who saw time in Atlanta are six (Samuel Armenteros, Julio Cascante,Jeremy Ebobisse, Andrés Flores, Cristhian Paredes, Bill Tuiloma) have never played at CenturyLink before, and while their experiences in other derbies or in environments like the one they saw last week at Mercedes-Benz Stadium provide insight into Saturday’s challenge, they don’t tell a player, exactly, what it’s like to be a Portland Timbers player trying to get a result in Seattle.
“It’s hard for me to say what [Seattle has] done before, since I haven’t played in MLS in previous years,” Armenteros said, before coming back to his experience on May 13, at Providence Park against the Sounders, for some anchoring in the conversation.
“We know it’s a tough game. We were pushing them (on May 13). We were the most dominant team. Obviously, we played at home. We had a good game. We were just happy we could get that one-nil in the later minutes.
“We want to make it easier, maybe opening the score earlier in the game ... We’ll take it day-by-day, but you’ve got to look through a team, their strengths and weaknesses, and do that every week, as we’ve been doing, and take it from there.”
It’s a straightforward plan, one that can applied to any matchup, no matter the history behind it. But that’s also how the Timbers have built to where they are now: hoping to extend their unbeaten streak to 12; hoping to claim their first ever regular-season MLS win at CenturyLink Field.
“Obviously, there are three points on the line, which we want to get,” Attinella explained, “but there’s a lot more on the line when you play Seattle. It’s just about coming out focused.
“We know that we’re going to get their best. We’ve just got to be ready for that.”
