Photo Courtesy of Portland Timbers FC
When Sebastian Blanco was taken off the field with an apparent injury, the club morale could have come down. Instead, the entire Portland Timbers eleven continued its fight with perseverance.
Somehow, this team is not going down that easily and on Thursday playing against the odds and a team many favored to advance without any hesitations to the Western Conference finals. After the Colorado side had this game completely dominated, the victory still went to the Timbers, 1-0.
Yes, the Rose City side is nailed on the road, despite the regrettable set of events that the visiting Timbers had in today’s game with Blanco’s injury and Dairon Aspirilla’s red card to miss the conference finals.
Still, this team is full of surprises, and come game time, its manager Giovanni Savarese will have an ace under his sleeve as the man has instituted a winning culture in what seemed to be a very odd season.
However, today’s match wasn’t a walk in the park for the Portland Timbers, as Rapid’s manager Robin Fraser put in the field a very defensive-minded 5-3-2 formation to protect William Yarborough’s net.
Despite the hosts’ dominance in the game and outshooting the Portland side in the first half, 9-2, and three direct at goal to none, and a time of possession of 57.1 to 42.9; these Timbers never let their guard down in the whole match despite Colorado’s dominance mostly in the first half. Somehow, the visitors denied the Rapids the open spaces and did an outstanding defensive job.
In the adjustments made by Gio for the second half, the Timbers’ defensive game rose highly during the whole match, but this team never backed down and despite the moves done by Colorado’s manager, the Timbers weren’t intimidated by the altitude and rising pressure from the Rapids until the beautiful 90th-minute heroics by Larry Mabiala that silenced Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
As the native from France has scored his second consecutive goal and, in the postseason, where it counts the most and with the total team performance in Steve Clark’s words, his Timbers are a complete team.
In the end, this was a team effort and I praise the quality game both sides delight us but in the end, is only one victor and these were the Portland Timbers playing lately like there’s no tomorrow.
Goals
Larrys Mabiala 90’ PTFC
Man of the Match
Larrys Mabiala
Portland Timbers
Colorado Rapids
