While the rest of the world is under the impression that the United States is just hosting friendlies at the moment, the MLS season is back in full swing after the World Cup and the Portland Timbers are beginning to go from strength to strength. With the points on the board recently and a strong squad beginning to gel, the Timbers may have made more of the Impact game than was necessary but DP Diego Valeri hit the winner in a five goal thriller.
Portland Timbers sit with LA Galaxy
The Impact sit last in the Eastern Conference, while the Timbers sit in seventh level on points with the LA Galaxy. In recent weeks, Diego Valeri has really been beginning to show his quality form and why he has two international caps for Argentina, and his late winner was one that was delighted the travelling Timbers support and everyone back home.
With the Timbers starting the game in a lively manner, they soon had the Impact on the back-foot and were pushing hard for an early goal until a nice breakaway from the home side saw Justin Mapp hit a low ball across to Andres Romero. Romero pulled a nice move to put the dependable Danny O’Rourke out of the equation before firing past the unlucky Donovan Ricketts in goal.
A goal down to the worst team in the Eastern Conference and one might expect the team to start panicking, but the Timbers showed their intelligence and fortitude and instantly returned the game back to an attack vs defence exercise. The first-half was looking to be fruitless, with possession and huffing and puffing all that the Timbers could muster until the 34th minute.
The brilliant Darlington Nagbe, potentially the Man of the Match, send Felipe for some ice creae whil he pushed toward the box, before slipping the ball through to Maxi Urruti who made no mistake with a lovely near post finish past Evan Bush to level matters.
Portland Timbers Superior Side
From here on in, it was fairly obvious who was going to be the winner. The Timbers are a superior side to the Impact, and just five minutes later this was proven to be the case when Gaston Fernandez got into a position to freak Bush out. In the ensuing chaos, Hassoun Camara brought down the main man Valeri to give away a penalty, which Silviu Petrescu wasted no time in handing over.
The Captain made no mistake, putting the Timbers ahead with a composed penalty. Sadly, the half-time lead wasn’t to last and the Impact stunned the away side by pulling back an equalizer before half-time. As the pitch began to soak up the rain, the ball zipped around with purpose and a nice pull-back by Patrice Bernier found Tissot, whose left-footed finish gave Ricketts no chance of keeping it out. A nice goal all the same, but it felt like at that point that the Timbers had undone a very good first-half comeback.
The game began to lose its flow in the second-half, however, and it took the introduction of Rodney Wallace to bring the Timbers back to reality and to get the points that they need. Wallace galloped down the left and swung a cross in that was cleared by Impact defender Futty Danso. The ball landed at the feet of Valeri from the clearance with the Argentine finishing the move off with aplomb, with a fantastic finish rifled home to send the Timbers into keen celebrations.
With the game won and a seemingly must-win tie over with, the Timbers look forward to the trip to the Galaxy and the StubHub Center knowing that a win can put them ahead of the Galaxy as the season heats up.
Image © Portland Timbers
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