D.C. United 4- Portland Timbers 1
It has been a long hard road for D.C. United but finally after 23 matches they are out of the cellar door in the Eastern Conference. On Wednesday night at Audi Field the club moved into eighth place (6-9-6, 24 points) in the Eastern Conference standings, defeating the Portland Timbers (10-5-7, 35 points) 4-1.
Coming into the match it looked as if D.C.’s luck might run out. Although they were undefeated in their last three entering Wednesday night’s affair, United were facing a Timbers side that had just finished up a near perfect run of their own at 15 matches.
Despite having traveled a fair bit of distance Portland seemed to have the fresh legs early on. Using a five man midfielder Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese emphasized breaking down D.C.’s defense from the outside and forcing newly reacquired goalkeeper Bill Hamid to get out of position. It nearly worked in the 13th minute when outside midfielder Samuel Armenteros hit a cross in for a surging Diego Valeri. While Valeri was on point to connect, so too was Hamid who scooped up the ball and ended the threat.
Portland would continue to work the outside of D.C.’s defense with Armenteros and Sebastian Blanco causing problems for Oniel Fisher and Joseph Mora. In the 21st minute Blanco nearly had the game’s first goal when he beat Fisher and then went looking for Valeri at the far post. His high, looping cross though was parried over the bar by Hamid.
Armenteros found a similar amount of space against Fisher just nine minutes later. However, Fisher regrouped and pushed the Norwegian international back to the center of the pitch where he broke up the scoring chance with a deft clear.
D.C. weren’t as fortunate just five minutes later. Midfielder Andy Polo broke through United’s defense and hit a low pass into the box that found Armenteros at the far post. Having already beaten Hamid Armenteros only needed to tap it in to make it 1-0. The goal was his eighth of the season.
Down a goal and still needing to make up significant points in the standings, United went to work. In the club’s recent run of positive form head coach Ben Olsen has used the three-headed monster of Yamil Asad, Luciano Acosta, and Wayne Rooney to break down defenses with clever one touch passes and timely runs in open space. Their work coupled with midfielder Russell Canouse giving the Timbers midfield little space to mount a counter-attack hampered a normally stout Portland defense.
While it took about an entire half to break their defense down, it was worth in the end as United leveled the score at one in the 43rd minute. Asad drove directly at the Timbers defense creating space for Rooney to come behind and hit a low, driving effort past goalkeeper Jeff Attinella.
United’s magic continued into the second half as Acosta attracted the attention of the Timbers defense with one of his daring runs down the field in the 47th minute. That in turn gave Fisher room down the right to making a wing-back run from the defense and score his first-ever MLS goal.
D.C. continued the scoring barrage late into the second half. In the 68th minute Rooney off of a free kick hitting a bullet around the Timbers defense and past an outstretched Attinella to give him his third goal of the season. Substitute and former Timber Darren Mattocks extended United’s lead to three injury time with a chip over Attinella.
With the win D.C. has now won three of their last four matches. They will end their three game homestand on Sunday when they take on the New England Revolution (8pm EST/5PM PST, FS1). Meanwhile Portland head to the Midwest on Saturday to take on their long-time foes Sporting Kansas City (8: 30 PM EST/7: 30 PM CST/5:30 PM PST, MLS +).
MATCH SUMMARY
D.C. United-Bill Hamid, Oniel Fisher, Kofi Opare, Steve Birnbaum, Joseph Mora, Junior Moreno, Russell Canouse, Yamil Asad, Luciano Acosta (Ulises Segura 81′), Paul Arriola (Zoltan Stieber 70′), and Wayne Rooney (Darren Mattocks 86′)
Yellow Cards-Arriola (33′) , Canouse (72′), Acosta (73′), and Mattocks (90+2′)
Goals-Rooney (43′, 68′), Fisher (47′), and Mattocks (90’+1′)
Portland Timbers-Jeff Attinella, Julio Cascante, Lawrence Olum, Larrys Mabiala, Zarek Valentin, Andy Polo (Andres Floro 61′), Sebastian Blanco (Tomas Conechny 73′), Diego Chara, Alvas Powell, Samuel Armenteros, and Diego Valeri (Dairon Asprilla 78′)
Yellow Cards-
Red Cards-
Goals-Armenteros (35′)
ATTENDANCE: 18,219
