By: Jamal Smith Sports Editor
The Portland Timbers tied FC Dallas 2-2 on Sunday Nov. 30, 2015, but advanced to the MLS Cup Finals with a 5-3 aggregate goal victory.
The Timbers entered Sunday’s match against FC Dallas with a 3-1 goal advantage from the game played a week before in Portland.
Neither team could find the back of the net in the first half, but the second half was much different.
Portland scored first in the 54th minute when midfielder Diego Valeri flicked a ball into the box to a wide-open Fanendo Adi who slotted it past Dallas’s young goalkeeper.
Just when it looked like Portland would easily defeat Dallas up 3 goals, Dallas gained momentum after Striker Blas Perez was subbed into the game. Dallas defender Ryan Hollingshead scored a goal in the 68th minute to close the gap to 4-2.
Six minutes later, in the 73rd minute Perez added another Dallas goal on a header off of a free-kick from just outside of the 18 yard box. All of the momentum now belonged to Dallas and it looked like they might be able to pull off the impossible.
Dallas nearly evened things up when Perez took a wide open shot in the 18 yard box, but Portland defender Nat Borchers came out of nowhere to deflect the ball, saving an easy Dallas goal.
Portland survived wave after wave of Dallas attacks, but Portland fought back with counter-attacks.
In stoppage time and on a counter-attack, Valeri flicked the ball forward to striker Lucas Melano who dribbled the ball around the Dallas defense and slotted the ball into the back of the net with a cheeky finish, sealing Dallas’ fate.
“This is a great moment for this club,” Timber’s head coach Caleb Porter said after the game. “This is our first trophy, but we want the biggest trophy and we have one more game still to achieve that.”
Portland is the hottest team in the MLS and are unbeaten in their last eight games. The team is firing on all cylinders and their defense is coming up big like they have all year.
“I think sometimes it just felt like the only people that believed in our cause were us,” Borchers said after the match. “I’m just really proud to how we’ve responded to all that pressure. It’s not easy. We easily could have given up and called it a day in the game at Salt Lake, but we won that game. We continued to win and here we are now.”
Portland will face their toughest test yet, when they play the Columbus Crew in Columbus, OH for the biggest prize in MLS. The Crew beat out the New York Red Bulls 2-1 to win the Eastern Conference Championship and advance.
The game kicks off at 1 p.m., Sunday Dec. 6, 2015 on ESPN.
