By: Jamal Smith Sports Editor
It seemed like just yesterday that the Portland Timbers celebrated their 2015 MLS Championship victory, and a city starved for championship gold rejoiced. In the December rain, tens of thousands of Timber Army fanatics packed downtown Portland for the Timbers’ victory parade to celebrate with their team; they sang, they rejoiced, and they cried.
But that was last season. Now, just a short three months later, the Timbers have to start all over.
“I think the really simple mindset our group has is, ‘Last year is over,'” head coach Caleb Porter said in an interview with ESPN. “This is a new year. It has nothing to do with last year. Teams will be fighting it out with each other as always. There will be ups and downs. There will be wins and losses. It’s going to be a tough season like it is every single year for every single team.”
Fittingly enough, the Timbers’ first regular season matchup on Sunday pits the reigning champions against the same team they defeated 2-1 in the 2015 MLS Cup, the reigning Eastern Conference champs, Columbus Crew.
Sunday’s match will take place at Providence Park in Portland with a kickoff time of 1:30 p.m., and already days before the event, the city is buzzing with excitement.
While Portland kept most of their core players from last year’s championship team intact, they did lose 2015 starters Rodney Wallace and Jorge Villanfana as well as supporting players like fan-favorite Will Johnson and Spanish striker Maximiliano Urruti.
With Porter focusing on preparing his team for the home opener, Portland’s general manager, Gavin Wilkinson, has been wheeling and dealing in an attempt to add talent to the positional voids left from the departed players.
Wilkinson’s efforts have paid off and this year’s squad, at least on paper, looks stronger than last years with the additions of league veterans Ned Grabavoy, Chris Klute, Jack McInerney and Jermaine Taylor.
“We replaced everyone we lost,” Wilkinson said to ESPN. “We had identified the likely players that we were losing, and we had a depth chart in every position of who we wanted to go after. We knew what we had to spend and what profiles we were looking for. Our focus was to get MLS-proven players.”
The new players have had limited opportunities to play with the team in the preseason, and the biggest question going into opening night is how they will fit into the team, who last year had a special chemistry.
“They’ve proven they can win it — they now have the blueprint to do it,” Porter said to ESPN. “That means when you get in that position in the playoffs the next time, there’s a positive psychology that helps you to do it again.”
Can the Timbers repeat? After the offseason moves, are they more or less talented than they were last year? Will the team still have the special chemistry that they had last year? Hopefully we will find some answers Sunday.
Contact the author at jsmith15@wou.edu or on Twitter @journalsportWOU
