Portland Timbers 3, Columbus Crew 1
Providence Park, Portland Oregon
For the Portland Timbers after their Saturday’s heartbreaking loss in Houston, these had to prepare for another midweek match against a hardened and tough Columbus Crew squad coming to town.
However, this time the Rose City squad had the home field advantage for this match.
With the Black and Gold in town, these are not a walk in the park and seen as a serious foe for the Portland squad coming from an odd result in the weekend in need of a win along three golden points.
Whenever these two squads play one another despite the short history of these showdowns, the elements of a rivalry is always there between these two as for the in every match the Crew somehow are looking for a sort of payback.
The irony of this match was that both squads sporting the same record. I mean with both Portland Timbers and Columbus Crew comparable records (12, 8, 8, 44 points).
Along of showing both similar home records of 9, 2, 3 and away of 3, 6, 5. The only difference is that Columbus is fourth place seed in the Eastern Conference contrary to Portland sixth place position in the Western Conference.
As many stated that the Crew for today’s match, the Columbus side not having some of its top playmakers. In the case of Portland Timbers manager Gio Savarese sending his select initial eleven to counter a possessive and defiant Crew.
However, the match did not start going to Portland side. The early minutes of the first half, as well the half it was all in favor of the Columbus Crew. Despite the early, score by the Crew from Niko Hansen in the 7’ minute assisted by Milton Valenzuela and Pedro.
In spite of seeing, a sluggish and sleepy team early in the game, the reaction and full reaction immediately seen by the locals. After the Columbus, side almost scored a couple of more goals, suddenly in the 18’ minute we had a game!
When Sebastian Blanco passing to Andy Polo the Peruvian shoots found a well-placed David Guzman to score the equalizer, from the 18’ the half belonged to the Portland Timbers overall, despite the Crew dominating the stats in halftime.
In spite of some dangerous plays from the Midwest Boys, in the 38’ minute do to call Andy Polo a quitter when his counter pied off finally his first goal of the campaign came to give the Timbers the lead going to intermission.
The lead favoring the Portland side starting the second half, suddenly we saw a dominating Portland Timbers defensively speaking the backfield stepping up their game and offensively making some dangerous plays.
In the 48’ minute, it is when disaster hits Columbus, after Samuel Armenteros inside the area play provoking the unthinkable of seeing the go-ahead goal in favor of Portland from Crew defender Lalas Abubkar.
For the visitors manager Greg Berthalter not liking was he was seeing in the field, by making a bold and strange move of three substitutions in the 62’ minute, with Conor Maloney for Milton Valenzuela, Luis Argudo for Artur and Josh Williams for Pedro Santos.
For Berthalter looking forward to put in the game fresh legs looking forward for a rally or a comeback or start something and with some plays, in the end the Portland defense steeped in and calming down the Crew momentum.
With Giovanni Savarese changes paying off and getting Jeremy Ebobisse for Samuel Armenteros and later Lucas Melano for Diego Valeri in the end the Portland Timbers had a couple of close calls with a save from Steve Clark but Niko Hansen delivered in the last minute his second score.
In the end, the Portland Timbers stood up high and won three golden points and with their next match against Minnesota on Saturday, the question is whom will Gio put in his initial eleven up in the Twin Cities.
Post Contents and Property of Fern Mc Costigan © Copyright All Rights Reserved
Photos Credit and Property of Sean Meagher Oregonian and Portland Timbers 2018
Photos Credit and Property of © 2018 Major League Soccer
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