As the NWSL gears up to meet in Utah for the 2020 Challenge Cup, Katelyn Best chats with Thorns defender and NWSL Players Association Treasurer Emily Menges. The NWSLPA was closely involved in the decision to restart, winning guaranteed contracts for players regardless of whether they participate or not. They touch on her offseason playing in the demonstration AFC international club competition for the Melbourne Victory and what classic works of American literature she’s been plowing her way through in quarantine.
It is a well-established fact that the Thorns are not Sith. This is a good thing for all of us—particularly the younglings.
But if they were Sith, there would be a real disparity in the quality of Sith names throughout the Thorns roster. Adding Darth to your name is great when you are going by Vader, Sidious, or even Revan, but modern-day, real-life names lend themselves somewhat less to the intimidating air preferred by the adherents of the Dark Side.
I took a look at the Thorns roster and tried to pick out the best Sith name for each player: Darth followed by their first name, last name, or nickname.
24. Darth Charley – As someone with two first names, Simone Charley was always going to struggle in a ranking that is about a combination of intimidation and hard consonant sounds.
23. Darth Ellie
22. Darth Hubly
21. Darth Sophia
20. Darth Kat
19. Darth Everett
18. Darth Franch – I want to put Franch higher on this list mostly because she is one of the players on the Thorns I can best picture wielding a lightsaber (it is probably her haircut), but at the same time I just can’t get around the fact that her name doesn’t really let you sneer properly as you pronounce it.
17. Darth Westphal
16. Darth Rocky
15. Darth Salem
14. Darth Menges
13. Darth Ogle
12. Darth Heath
11. Darth Britt
10. Darth Seiler – Any name ending in an “r” is much easier to imagine Emporer Palpatine growling in warning.
“You will not fail me again, Darth Seiler.”
9. Darth Lussi
8. Darth Weaver
7. Darth Cel
6. Darth Bella – The Sith of the extended Star Wars Universe have a long history of using Latin-ish words as their names. Tyranus, Iratus, Nihilus, and Rictus have all graced the Galaxy far, far away, and Bella, the plural for war in Latin, fits right in with the theme.
Of course, if Bella Bixby had stayed Bella Geist, she would have been an easy contender for the top ranking on this list.
Portland Sueño day-two participants at Providence Park. (Courtesy of MLS)
When Major League Soccer kicked off in the spring of 1996, one of its trademark features was its uniqueness.
In Europe, every league from England to Belarus is steeped in decades, even centuries of tradition. Meanwhile, MLS came into existence as an afterthought in a country with its own distinct sporting culture. To succeed, the league needed to find a way to stand out.
Run-up penalty shootouts; flashy, un-soccer-y team names like the Wizards and the Crew; and an actual playoff competition to crown a league champion. You name it, MLS tried it. So in 2007, when the concept of a reality-television-style competition to find the best young players in the country was pitched to the league, it was naturally given the green light.
That initial concept became Sueño MLS, a competition that lasted exactly a decade with varying degrees of success. The winner of that inaugural 2007 season was Jorge Flores, a young defender from Anaheim, California, who earned a spot in the Chivas USA academy. Today, Flores—nicknamed Sueño after winning the competition—goes by another surname: Villafaña.
In 2016, the competition named Portland, Oregon as one of its three first-round “host” cities for the first and only time. Up to 400 young players were allowed to participate, and six players (five field players and a goalkeeper) were then selected to travel to Los Angeles, California to take part in drill work and compete in scrimmages against local academies during a four-day finals.
Yet, despite its billing as a big-time competition, many of Portland’s finalists learned about Sueño MLS through happenstance. Andres Labate, a 15-year-old from Salem, heard about the event through his Argentinian father who heard an ad for the competition over the radio. 16-year-old Jonathan Reynoso, who lived in Madras, said that he heard about the competition through a friend at the very last minute.
On Sunday, April 16, hundreds of young players from around the region spent a beautiful, sunny afternoon at a Gresham public park in front of experienced evaluators, including Larry Sunderland—then the Portland Timbers Academy and Youth Technical Director, who took part in the competition twice when he worked for Chicago Fire—and Ryan Miller, an academy coach.
According to multiple players, the field in Gresham wasn’t ideal. Faded green with chunks of grass out of place, players claimed that it was difficult to dribble and play precise passes. But even the field couldn’t take away from what Miller called a “soccer-rich environment.” He said what really stood out while watching the scrimmages all day was the excitement among the players and an atmosphere that involved plenty of families hanging around for hours and even picnicking at the park. Labate claimed that the day felt like a scrappy and competitive club tryout, while Reynoso recalls being split into different teams and playing with a lot of different players.
After the first tryout wrapped up, participants were told to expect a phone call later that night, if they advanced. While some players could tell by their performance whether or not they would be invited back, Sunderland and Miller left Reynoso sweating until the last minute.
“I was on my way home and I was thinking that I wasn’t going to go back the next day,” Reynoso said. “It was already eight p.m., nine p.m., but then I got the call.”
Those who received a call that night were invited to Providence Park, where evaluators further trimmed the field to just six finalists, who would represent Portland at the finals in LA. Once again, the tryout consisted mainly of scrimmages—and even involved Timbers forward Dairon Asprilla, who showed up to support the young players.
“There was a lot of pressure,” Reynoso said. “All those people there and it being in an actual stadium. It was fun though.”
Many talented players tried out that week, but there was one clear standout, and everyone knew it: Alan Gaytan. The 15-year-old from Troutdale was athletic, had a great left foot, and quickly impressed evaluators and television crew alike.
“It was pretty clear that of the kids that were there, he stood out,” Sunderland said. “He was dangerous, he could run the ball pretty well, he was good in the one-vs-one. At that Sueño level and that tryout level, he stood out to us.”
Gaytan, who ended up winning the entire competition a few weeks later, excelled at cutting in from the right and curling his shot into the corner of the net. “It was an easy pick,” Sunderland said.
The rest of the selections were not as straightforward. To come up with the other five finalists, evaluators had to scrutinize seemingly minute details.
“It comes down to moments,” Sunderland explained. “It’s easy to find the very top and identify the bottom third. It’s that grey area between the top grouping and the middle grouping. It’s catching the right moments, seeing the right thing, being able to identify potential versus performance. Unfortunately, when you do a tryout like [Sueño MLS], a lot of time you are looking for performance because you do not have enough time to judge potential.”
Added Miller: “Alan was a clear standout in the event because he was an athletic player, he was fast, he was left-footed, he was playing with joy. There weren’t too many questions about him.”
Shortly following the conclusion of the final scrimmage, players were called to the field where Sunderland and Miller officially announced the six finalists. Gaytan, Reynoso, and Labate were called up, along with midfielder Arturo González Vásquez, goalkeeper Antonio Campos, and defender Salvador Pérez. With excited family members in the surrounding stands, many participants called this their favorite moment of the weekend.
“I thought I played well, but I got really tired at the end,” Labate said. “My dad was there and we discussed it. I went down there, and I knew Alan [Gaytan] was going to get picked, but I was not sure about anyone else. It felt amazing to be selected.”
“If I were the director of Sueño, the atmosphere is what I would put my hat on,” Miller said. “That culture and environment that was created, I thought that was really cool.”
When asked about the final selection, Reynoso chuckled. He knew that he would be selected before the official announcement due to being accidentally tipped off on his way back from a water break. The forward admittedly didn’t know what he was seeing at the time other than his name on a computer screen, but he got a good idea as soon as the woman using the laptop quickly shut the screen.
“Once the game finished, I don’t know why, I was just behind everyone,” Reynoso said. “I was looking at the computer and they had the names written down already. So I saw my name on there way before [everyone else].”
Over the course of a decade, 11 separate players have gone on to win the competition. However, not every winner has gone on to find mainstream success in soccer. In 2015, Villafaña went on to win an MLS Cup in Portland and has earned a few international caps for the United States. Gabriel Funes Mori won the competition in 2008 and has since played the role of prolific striker for River Plate, Benfica, and Monterrey. Other winners are still in college, local academies, or are not playing soccer anymore.
“At that time I didn’t see [winning the competition] as pressure, I saw it as an opportunity, which I think is different,” Villafaña admitted. “I imagine every kid’s dream is to be a professional soccer player, and when I won I didn’t see it as pressure, I saw it as an opportunity to be a professional soccer player. That is what my drive was to keep me going. That I had this opportunity that I always wanted.”
Many other players echoed a similar sentiment of how SueñoMLS, as niche a competition as it was, influenced their soccer paths.
Labate, who is committed to playing soccer at Gonzaga University next year, knows that the competition helped him get noticed by the division-one school in the first place.
“Oh, for sure,” Labate said when asked to reflect on the competition’s impact. “Academy level compared to club is a step up, as well as, the connection to college coaches is better. The amount of people who I have gotten into contact with and the connections that I have made were all through the academy and the fact that I played there.”
In an interview back in 2016, Villafaña told MLS.com that “If it wasn’t for the Sueño MLS, I probably would’ve gone to college and I don’t know what would’ve happened. But I’m sure I wasn’t going to be playing professionally.”
Today, Sueño MLS no longer exists. After ten competitions, 2016 was the final run of a soccer reality-television show. And, in its final iteration, the competition gave the country a taste of just what talent can come out of the Pacific Northwest.
“It’s tough because [winning the competition] doesn’t mean that you made it,” Villafaña said when asked about the primary lesson he took away from a competition that helped kick-start his career. “It means that you’re just starting. It’s like every other guy that wants to become a first-team player.
“Once you are in the academy, it doesn’t mean that you have made it. It means that you have an opportunity to become a professional soccer player, so you have to see it as an opportunity, because there are a lot of kids that want to be there, and not a lot of them have the opportunity.”
Right off the bat, let’s be clear: the Thorns are not evil. They are a group of human women who play soccer professionally—emphatically not a shadowy warrior cult strong in the dark side of the Force. None of them would ever murder their dark mentor as part of the ancient, never-ending cycle of apprentice betraying master. I doubt any of them even owns a laser sword.
But, I mean…
You know what they say: a rose by any other name would be equally vicious and power-hungry
It’s not like they don’t want us to make that connection, right?
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So, if the Thorns were both fueled and consumed by a supernatural rage, and they did all own laser swords, and if their laser swords were the glowing red of a Dathomirian sunset, what would that look like? In other words, which Sith Lords best exemplify the essences of which Portland Thorns?
Lindsey Horan: Darth Vader
In the 2015/2016 offseason, the Thorns were coming off a dark year. Their season had been thrown into turmoil by the Clone Wars 2015 World Cup, they’d just shaken up their coaching staff, and the roster was undergoing an almost total rebuild. One bright spot on the horizon was Lindsey Horan, the immensely talented young American whose arrival had been foretold generations ago as the one who would bring balance to the Force. Like Vader, Horan does it all, by herself if she needs to: she defends, she sets attacks up, and she scores, sometimes all in a single play.
Christine Sinclair: Darth Sidious
Christine Sinclair may be one of the best goal scorers of all time, but for a player as immensely powerful as she is, her game is surprisingly understated. She’s cool and calculated, always lurking near goal when you least expect her, waiting for the fortuitous moment to strike. She makes an impact even when the other team thinks they’ve got her marked out of the game. And off the field, she’s famously quiet. She’s been in charge for years, and if you didn’t know what to look for, you might not even know it.
Tobin Heath: Darth Maul
A double-bladed lightsaber is the sword version of a cheeky nutmeg: few people can even control it without putting themselves in danger, let alone use it effectively in a duel. Some would call it unnecessarily flashy, but unnecessary flash is exactly what makes millions of people fall in love with the game. In my book, Tobin Heath gets unfairly labeled as all style and no substance too often, but the style? Nobody can deny the style.
Becky Sauerbrunn: Count Dooku
Count Dooku was a Jedi master—trained by none other than Yoda—who turned to the dark side late in his career, setting in motion key events in galactic history. While Becky Sauerbrunn has yet to put on a Thorns jersey, it’s not hard to imagine that one of the most decorated center backs of all time could be a difference maker for a team whose weak point has been defense in recent years. She’s already won two NWSL championships and two World Cups—a third NWSL ring, presumably suffused with dark energy and giving off a faint red glow, would be a great addition to that trophy case.
Mark Parsons: Darth Bane
Mark Parsons isn’t a Thorn, per se, but bear with me: Darth Bane was the ancient Sith lord who restructured an order on the brink of collapse. He introduced the rule of two, which limits the entire Sith order to a single master and their apprentice. When Parsons arrived in 2016, the Thorns were on shaky ground, and he restructured the team in a number of ways, bringing in a largely new roster and building a team-focused culture that prioritizes hard work and effort. The Thorns as we know them today wouldn’t exist without him.
Look through the names of past and present Portland Timbers broadcasters, and you’ll find a who’s who of American soccer media. Jake Zivin’s voice can be heard both locally on ROOT Sports and nationally on Fox Sports. Nat Borchers and Ross Smith both have their own place in Timbers history, on and off the field. Preceding them, John Strong is now the play-by-play voice of North American soccer on Fox Sports, while Robbie Earle is a staple of English Premier League studio coverage on NBC Sports. The common thread between them? They all got their start in American soccer broadcasting by covering the Portland Timbers.
A few weeks ago, Strong tweeted a picture of his television screen. On the screen were both him and Earle on the catwalk at Providence Park, filming a pregame segment. Nearly a decade younger, both men wore black suits with Stand Together pins on their left lapels. At that point in time, few could have predicted the highs to which their careers were about to ascend.
From 2011 to 2013, Strong and Earle were the voices of the Timbers, forging a unique relationship and chemistry early on. At the time, it was considered an odd pairing. Around MLS, the English personality was typically the play-by-play voice, while the American filled in as color analyst. Portland flipped the script.
“It was really the first time anyone had done that,” Strong said.
Before coming to Portland, Earle had a playing career in England, playing midfield for both Port Vale and Wimbledon. After hanging up his cleats, he spent ten years covering soccer in England until around 2010, when he decided to try his hand in America. One of the first people to reach out was Timbers President of Business Mike Golub, who sold him on the city and vision of a franchise that was about to enter Major League Soccer.
“It was immediately obvious to the team that as an option for our broadcast, this guy would bring instant credibility to our announcer team,” the Timbers’ vice president of broadcasting, Matt Smith, said.
And while the organization had to go across the pond to find Earle, Strong was right in their backyard. A talented yet inexperienced 25-year old radio broadcaster out of the University of Oregon, Strong covered some of the team’s final USL games and was chosen to continue broadcasting games in MLS.
The two leaned on one another during those years. If Strong needed to talk to the TV truck, Earle was prepared to cover for him. Earle, meanwhile, learned about American media, as well as how to always be prepared, from Strong.
“His unending patience with me,” Strong began. “The amount of battles that he fought for me that I didn’t realize at the time. Things I was just too young and stupid to realize that I was saying on the air that I didn’t need to be. I was way, way too young to have that job really, and the way Robbie acted as a firewall sometimes, with people that were annoyed with things that I have done or said that I didn’t know until years later—it was very appreciated.”
Strong and Earle’s first on-air MLS call in Colorado. (Photo courtesy of Strong)
Alongside Earle, Strong had another helping hand in longtime friend Erick Olson. Growing up, Strong and Olson had helped found the broadcasting program at Lake Oswego High, then spent their college years calling UO games together. In 2011, Strong asked Olson to help keep stats and spot from the booth. Olson knew his friend’s weaknesses and echoed how valuable Earle was during the early days of Strong’s career.
“We got the chance to start with not a whole lot of safety net, just a whole lot of trust,” Olson said. “It wasn’t like we were getting a ton of feedback, unless we sought it out, through college. So having Robbie come in and help us with those things was very beneficial.”
Strong still recalls a lot from his time with the Timbers. Over the phone, he named some of the early players from that 2011 team with painstaking detail, even recalling the health situation among the three goalkeepers at the time. Strong is a storyteller, and 2011 provided him with plenty of stories to tell.
There was the Timbers’ first home game against Chicago where, as the rain poured down, he couldn’t help but watch Earle, who looked stunned while absorbing the moment. The team won its first five home games—a feat no other expansion team before them had accomplished—blew out the eventual shield- and MLS Cup-winning Los Angeles Galaxy, and put an end to Real Salt Lake’s 18-game unbeaten streak.
In July, Strong spent the moments right before the Timbers and Sounders met in MLS for the first time watching the US Women’s National Team beat Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinal. That was his first time meeting Alexi Lalas, who came into the radio booth that day to watch the ending. Unfortunately for Timbers supporters, the game that followed didn’t have the same happy conclusion.
“There was such incredible energy in the building that day,” Strong said. “The Timbers led twice, but ultimately gave up a late equalizer on an Ozzie Alonso penalty. It was absolutely soul-crushing. That was one of the biggest gut-punch losses for the Timbers, really maybe even ever, because to lose in that way was rough.”
Over two years in Portland, Strong was never at a loss for words. But behind the scenes, there was one moment that came close: the team’s first-ever MLS game.
“I remember our first game against the Colorado Rapids where we talked about what opener we wanted, we didn’t want to get in the way of the club,” Earle said. “I remember the kick-off and turning to John to shake hands, which we did before every game for good luck, and he had tears streaming down his face. I didn’t realize how much the Portland Timbers meant to him as someone coming from the area, going to the lower leagues, working in football.
“In that first game in MLS, how emotionally it caught him. He had these Portland Timbers cufflinks on his shirt. It caught me off guard and made me say, ‘wow.’ If these are the emotions of a broadcaster who does very professional work, I was thinking about fans at home and the responsibility we had.”
It was those passionate fans that blew Earle away as soon as he arrived in Portland. He still believes that he and Strong had the best gig in MLS at the time, and still fondly cherishes the memories of passing fans lined up at the gates of Providence Park hours before every home game.
Growing up in England, and with experience playing in some of the most hostile environments in Europe, Earle compared Portland fans to some of the most passionate supporters in England.
“Not in terms of numbers, but in terms of love of the football club, [Portland] would probably be more like Newcastle United or Leeds United,” Earle said. “Two very strong identity clubs. When you go to those areas, you never see people in those cities wearing any other shirts. If you come from Leeds, you support Leeds. If you come from Newcastle, you wear black and white. I always think the Timbers are like that. The only soccer shirt you see people wearing with pride would be the Portland Timbers.”
According to Smith, when Earle was with the team, road dinners were full of stories that nobody on the TV crew could get enough of—stories of his time playing for a Wimbledon team nicknamed the “Crazy Gang,” and of playing for Jamaica. It was that paternal nature that helped Earle build great relationships among the entire broadcast crew, but particularly with Strong.
Strong and Earle with producer Jon Bradford (left) and Pat Brown (right) before their final home broadcast working for the Timbers. (Photo courtesy of Strong)
If there was a single moment that cemented the pair’s relationship, it came on October 2 in Vancouver.
Back in September, Strong had suffered from a case of pneumonia that later resulted in a collapsed lung. Just ten days after surgery, he made the trip to call the team’s 1–0 victory over the Whitecaps, but he was not himself.
“He came back a week or ten days too early,” Earle said. “He traveled up to Vancouver and didn’t look great in all honesty. He was quite pale and looked as though he was still not 100%. But, being John, he wanted to be back because he felt it was his responsibility.
“Thinking back on it, the one thing John brings to a broadcast is energy. When he came back, he didn’t have that same energy, and a couple of times I caught him having to catch a breath and take a moment.”
Strong later admitted the same thing. Back in 2011, he acted in haste.
“I should not have called that game,” Strong emphatically said. “I had no business doing that game. I looked sickly, I lost a bunch of weight, it was a disaster. But I was so desperate. I had finally gotten this dream job, and now it’s like it was being taken away.
“I remember doing that game in Vancouver and Robbie almost like a dad. He got emotional, having me back, and he gave me a big hug. It was a really nice moment even though I shouldn’t have been there.”
Looking back, those days meant a lot to Strong and Earle, but also to Olson. Watching his friend develop his career right in front of his eyes, in their hometown, was a special experience. Olson later accompanied Strong to the World Cup in Russia, but still reflects on 2011, which he knows was just the start of a long journey.
“Seeing something grow and, at the same time, watching my friend, who I had been broadcasting with since we were seniors in high school, grow into this role was special,” Olson said. “To go from the guy who is working really hard to make connections, to the guy who drives convincing people to put the Timbers on the radio so that there is a radio home for this professional team, to the guy who becomes the first TV broadcaster for this team. How much that meant and how hard he worked to get that done while at the same time making a real connection with the team. It was incredible”
So, back to that picture from the 2011 broadcast.
“Could any of us have predicted at game one that two and a half years later John would be the national voice on a network?” Smith asked. “I don’t think any of us would have predicted that, but by the time 2013 rolled around I was able to look at John’s peers around Major League Soccer and immediately knew that he was in the upper echelon of MLS announcers.”
For nearly a decade, the Timbers MLS history has been marked by inconsistent play on the field, an MLS Cup, and even a little bit of magic. But, through it all, there has been a talented television crew to tell the story. And it all began with John Strong and Robbie Earle back in 2011.
“Lots of people forget that the team was really darn competitive in 2011, right up until the end of the season,” Smith said. “There was a great atmosphere in Portland, a new expansion team that was upping the ante in Major League Soccer. But they were also competitive, and the Timbers were competing to be in the playoffs in year one. 2011 was exciting on all fronts, every aspect of it, and I think we had a great broadcast, great announcers, and the product we put on air was second to none.”
On what would have been the home opening weekend for the Chicago Red Stars, Katelyn Best and Tyler Nguyen join Sandra Herrera and Claire Watkins of Southside Trap (the premier Chicago Red Stars podcast) to talk through the nuttiness of the 4–4 Red Stars/Thorns draw last year.
A ludicrous, sloppy, and magical game more reminiscent of 2014 than the modern NWSL era, it featured some season-defining play from Meghan Klingenberg, some breakout moments from Midge Purce and Gabby Seiler, and the greatest team goal in NWSL history—scored by Michele Vasconcelos against a Thorns defense that could only gawk as the Red Stars attack passed them by.
Former Portland Timbers play-by-play commentator John Strong landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport expecting to make a quick connection to a cross-country flight to Washington DC. But on his way to the gate, he received an unforeseen email from Timbers owner and CEO Merritt Paulson asking where he was.
Strong knew to assume inclement weather on the east coast during the coming weekend. According to multiple reports, Hurricane Irma was projected to hit the DC area, but Strong anticipated that the team, and Major League Soccer, would postpone that weekend’s game against DC United just a day or two, and that he could bunker down in a hotel in the mean time. That idea was dashed just a few minutes later when he received another frantic message, this time from the Timbers’ vice president of broadcasting, Matt Smith.
“I’m thinking they delayed the game and we’d play it Monday,” Strong said. “I was still prepared to fly to DC. But [Paulson] responds in all caps, ‘DO NOT GET ON THE PLANE,’ and within seconds Smith is calling me saying, ‘where are you right now?’”
Strong, of course, was on his way to the nation’s capital, but those plans quickly changed. 285 regular-season games have gone on without a hitch since then, until March 19, when COVID-19 shut the entire league down. That game, nearly a decade ago, stood as the only time a Timbers game had been postponed in its MLS era, and it resulted in one of the craziest and most memorable days behind the scenes in the franchise’s MLS history.
Photo by Nikita Taparia
The team landed in Washington a day before the official postponement, arriving on Thursday night to an eerily empty Reagan Airport. It is team policy to arrive at road cities at least two days prior to an east coast game, so despite the rumblings about a potential hurricane, players and staff boarded the 2,800-mile flight to DC.
But in seeing how empty the airport was, with those passengers who were there scrambling to get out of the city, reality set in. By the time the team left the airport, Portland’s then-director of game operations, Nick Mansueto, couldn’t help but begin to contemplate a nightmare scenario—one that came to fruition 24 hours later.
“It was certainly a surreal feeling being at an airport, grabbing your bags, and being the only ones because everybody else in the airport is trying to leave,” Mansueto said. “It was strange to be the only group of people walking to the baggage claim, which made it all the more real and it hit home what exactly we were flying into.”
On Friday morning, just a day before the game was scheduled to be played, Mansueto recalls going outside to see weird cloud formations and feeling the wind pick up. Soon after, the call from the league came through: there would be no game that weekend, and the team would have to get out of DC. Players who boarded the bus expecting to head to training that morning were instead thrust into a crazy 24-hour experience that perfectly reflected the MLS 2.0 era.
One player who remembers that day well is former team captain Jack Jewsbury. He recalls the shock of switching mindsets from anticipating practice to having to turn around and fly right back across the country. As captain, Jewsbury left with the first group of players and would get to fly back out of Reagan.
“Nick [Mansueto] and his staff did as good as they could to get everyone on [flights], but you gotta think that everybody else in that area is trying to get out of there, too,” Jewsbury said. “It was a bit chaotic.”
Behind the scenes, Mansueto called it one of the most stressful and memorable experiences from his time with the team, one that involved booking an entire soccer team on cross-country flights in an ever-changing situation. The team was used to traveling in a controlled environment with tickets already printed, bags checked in, and expedited security lines. At that moment, Mansueto was just trying to get as many seats as he could together, and that meant securing two or three seats each on any planes departing out of Baltimore, Reagan, and Dulles airports—all at least an hour apart from one another without traffic—which meant lengthy layovers in four different cities.
“For me, it was important to get the guys out of there as quickly as possible,” Mansueto said. “If there were layovers, which there were, that was certainly a better situation than being stuck for an unknown amount of time in a city that you do not live in.”
By the time Jewsbury and the first group of players arrived at Reagan, they decided to enjoy a quick drink before the long journey home; after all, there would not be another game for a while.
“It was an odd feeling,” Jewsbury said. “You’re in your Timbers gear, you’re supposed to go to a game the next day, and you’re already coming back flying across the country. We had a few beers to settle the nerves a little bit because we had finally made it to the airport.”
Luckily, Jewsbury and the entire team arrived back in Portland in the coming days, but it’s easy to look back at that game and ask, “what if?”
In a way, it hurt the team to not play the game as scheduled. Back in May, DC United had become the first team to beat Portland at what was then Jeld-Wen Field, winning 3–2 in dramatic fashion. But by late August, the Timbers had caught lightning in a bottle, taking all six points from the Vancouver Whitecaps and Chivas USA in the span of four days.
Instead, the game was rescheduled for late October and became a do-or-die match for both teams. A Timbers win would have essentially guaranteed a spot in the playoffs if they could win or draw against Salt Lake City the following weekend. DC, meanwhile, needed all three points to stave off instant elimination. The game—which still holds an MLS record for most shots in a half of any MLS game since 2000—ultimately finished 1–1, with Kenny Cooper opening the scoring in the 24th minute, and Dwayne De Rosario scoring the equalizer in the 73rd. The Timbers were then forced to rely on another result; that game didn’t go their way, and the team was out before Decision Day.
“This is my hot take about 2011,” Strong said. “I think the Timbers win that game [if it had been played as originally scheduled] because they were playing with such confidence, and it was such a quick turnaround that they were running on adrenaline. By the time they played DC again at the end of the season, the team was out of gas.”
Jewsbury acknowledged Strong’s point, but he didn’t believe that one postponed game in August made that much of a difference in the team’s playoff fate that year. He did, however, agree that road points were hard to come by, and those three would have been extremely valuable.
“For me to say, ‘Hey, if we win that game, we are going to make the playoffs,’ is probably unfair, but we were in a groove,” Jewsbury admitted. “For a young team like we were, confidence was king. And we had that going at different times during the year, so to not get that one in hurt for sure, and you never know. We may have been able to grab that playoff spot, and you never know what is going to happen from there.”
That postponed game now stands as arguably one of the craziest forgotten stories from that 2011 season. Was John Strong right? Could the Timbers have actually snuck into the playoffs that year? We’ll never know for sure, but it’s a memorable flashpoint in what was an exciting inaugural MLS season for the Portland Timbers.
“Had the Timbers had the three points from the DC win, they would’ve come into the RSL game knowing that with a win they would’ve gotten in, or a draw might’ve been enough, depending on the result,” Strong said. “That’s always been my revisionist hot take. If it were not for that hurricane, the Timbers are the third expansion team ever to make the playoffs.”
