The Portland Timbers of Major League Soccer (MLS) have already proven they can win in their opponent’s home when the stakes are at their highest. Now, they’re only one more road win away from hoisting The Philip F. Anschutz Trophy, awarded to the winner of the MLS Cup championship.
After pulling off three straight upsets in the MLS Cup playoffs, including a win over top seeded Sporting Kansas City in the Western Conference Finals, the Timbers will now head to Atlanta, to take on Atlanta United FC in Mercedes-Benz Stadium in the MLS Cup final, taking place on Saturday, December 8th at 5:00pm PST.
Such circumstances for the Timbers would’ve been hard to fathom earlier this season. Portland started out the season winless through their first five games of the season, and didn’t pick up their first win until more than a month after the season started. But once they got rolling, it was quite a roll they were on. After said winless streak, they didn’t lose a single game between mid-April through mid-August.
However, because of the slow start to the year, Portland entered the postseason as the fifth seed in the Western Conference. That earned them a match against the FC Dallas in the knockout round, which they won by a 2-1 score. In the Conference Semifinals, Portland got out to 2-1 lead in the first half against Seattle Sounders FC, but the match ended in a 4-4 tie in regulation. Portland won by a 4-2 margin on penalty kicks, to advance to the Conference Finals, in which they defeated Kansas City.
Even after all of those triumphs, Portland has their work cut out for them. Atlanta enters the MLS Cup as the prohibitive favorite. They not only finished second in the MLS with 69 points in the standings (far more than the 62 points earned by Sporting Kansas City, which qualified for the #1 seed in the Western Conference), but they’re plenty battle-tested as well. In the club’s inaugural season, the team qualified for the MLS Cup playoffs, before losing in the opening round. In this year’s playoffs, they easily dispatched of their two opponents — New York City FC in the Conference Semifinals and the New York Red Bulls in the Conference Finals — en route to Saturday’s finals.
Playing on the road was already a tough feat for the Timbers, and the task got seemingly tougher after what they felt was an unfair ticket allotment by the MLS for Portland fans. The team was allotted just 1,300 tickets designated for its fans, which they sold out in a matter of minutes. The Timbers Army Twitter account, which serves as the official voice of the Timbers Army group of Portland fans, complained about the small ticket allotment, confirming the anticipation that the fan club — and Portland fans in general — had for this game.
That’s why they’ll need all the support they can get, whether it’s in the stadium or the faithful fans rooting for the team at home.
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