The Portland Timbers have advanced to MLS Cup, where they'll play the Crew in Columbus on Sunday for the league championship. Here are the biggest ten reasons why the Timbers are still playing.

1. The Double Post Penalty

Sometimes, it just comes down to fate. There is no way that the Portland Timbers should have survived Sporting Kansas City in the Wild Card game. This team should be more than a month into its winter vacation, making roster moves, and preparing for 2016.

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Instead, it's preparing for MLS Cup. There were so many moments on that surreal, incredible Thursday night at Providence Park that the Timbers should have been knocked out of the playoffs that it's hard to remember them all.

But the one that is etched into everyone's minds, forever, is Saad Abdul-Salaam's potential game-winning penalty that hit the left post, slid along the goal-line, hit the right post, and, as Adam Kwarasey spun furiously on the ground to ensure that the ball didn't hit his back and go in, bounced out.

We'll never see that again. We'll never see a game or a moment like that again. We'll never see that stadium so drenched in raw emotion. The only way to do justice to surviving that game is by going on and doing something just as amazing: Bringing a major championship back to the Rose City.

2. Urruti's Goal

The Timbers would never have gotten to penalties, of course, had Maxi Urruti not leveled the match at 2-2 out of nowhere in the 118th minute. It's easy to forget, but, with elimination staring them in the face, Portland could conjure absolutely nothing in the second half of extra time.

They had no chances. They could barely hold the ball past midfield. It was a team leveled by fatigue, so it made sense that it was the substitutes, Dairon Asprilla and Urruti, that combined for the goal off of simple Alvas Powell throw-in and cross.

It was, to say the very least, an unexpected salvation. Never has soccer's greatest draw — the incredible power of a single goal — been more blissfully obvious. No one could have predicted that what was to come in that game and in this season would be even more dramatic.

3. Borchers Trade

It was the trade that made the season for one club and destroyed it for another. Jack Jewsbury might be club captain, Will Johnson might be team captain, and Liam Ridgewell might wear the armband most days, but there's no question that Nat Borchers is this team's leader and frontman.

Borchers is a natural — both at center-back, and in Portland. He just gets it like few other athletes do.

On the field, Borchers has helmed the club's best ever defense while blocking more shots this year than any other player ever has in a single season since Opta started tracking stat in MLS in 2011. The biggest block, last Sunday's unbelievable game-saving effort on Blas Perez — who, as of today, has left FC Dallas — was a moment that easily could have made this list.

Borchers' goal at the end of the first leg of the Western Conference Final also could have made the list, as it completely changed the complexion of the series leaving Dallas with a two-goal deficit to make up at home in the second leg.

It was Borchers' fourth goal of the season, and second in stoppage-time, after his emotional winner at his former club Real Salt Lake in August — after which, RSL owner Dell Loy Hansen took to Facebook to tell fans that it wasn't his idea to trade Borchers, and that the trade of Borchers caused his rift with GM Garth Lagerway.

RSL finished in ninth this year, while the Timbers won the Western Conference. Borchers is a winner. Simple as that. His team fell into line behind him.

4. The Formation Change

The Timbers were on the outside looking in at the MLS Cup Playoffs with three games to go in the regular season, dragging around an intrepid offense, and fielding questions about the future of manager Caleb Porter. In short, despite talented personnel and a terrific defense, it was a moribund season.

But all that changed and gave way to the run Portland is on now when, back against the wall, Porter dropped his familiar and traditional 4-2-3-1 for a Wednesday night game at Real Salt Lake for an inverted 4-3-3 formation.

The switch happened in part because both Will Johnson and Jack Jewsbury hurt and out of the Salt Lake match, leaving no natural midfield partner for Diego Chara, but also because Porter wanted to get Lucas Melano back in the lineup in a more attacking setup. The added benefit, of course, was moving Darlington Nagbe into a central midfield role that he has excelled in to the tune of national praise and a call-up from US national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann.

Portland would win that game in Salt Lake 1-0, but the real breakout performance and first real sing that this group was capable of something special came that weekend in Carson, California.

5. Second Half in LA

In the middle of October, the LA Galaxy were still a machine, while the Portland Timbers were still teetering and hoping to simply qualify for the playoffs. Having lost 5-0 in LA earlier in the year, Portland was supposed to get demolished.

For a half, things went to plan. The Galaxy took the lead through a fabulous Robbie Keane goal, and sat fairly comfortably at 1-0 up. But once Fanendo Adi scored a fantastic equalizer, the floodgates opened. Adi would add a penalty, Diego Chara raced past Steven Gerrard and scored the third with a thundering header (!), Darlington Nagbe skinned Omar Gonzalez and scored directly off the kickoff after Keane pull a goal back, and Urruti made it five in the dying moments by finishing off a terrific Jorge Villafaña run.

It ended 5-2 Timbers, the club's first ever win over LA in LA. The game shattered the shine on the Galaxy, who never recovered and would exit the playoffs on the competition's first day. Portland, meanwhile, looked like a completely different team with Adi, Nagbe, and Chara all playing their best soccer of the season. After a season of frustration, the goals haven't stopped flowing since.

6. June

October was special from the moment Krisztian Nemeth scored what may in just a few days be named the MLS Goal of the Year onward, and November has been a dream as well, but the biggest reason that any of the heroics of the fall were possible was the Timbers' extraordinary run through late May and June.

After losing in Toronto on May 23rd, the Timbers had won just three of twelve games on the season and were in ninth place in the Western Conference with a paltry ten goals scored. The now infamous Same As It Ever was banner from the Timbers Army was unveiled before the next match, a Wednesday night home tilt with DC United.

But the Timbers won that game, then won in Colorado, then came back home and beat New England, beat Houston, and after losing a midweek game in LA, demolished the Seattle Sounders 4-1 at home. The run would end after a 1-0 over San Jose on July 5th. Apart from the three-game winning streak to end the season, this was Portland's only noteworthy run of 2015 — and it was the reason they made the playoffs.

This stretch, in which the Timbers took eighteen out of 21 possible points, was fueled by several different characters — Jewsbury, for one, who scored two stoppage-time game-winners — but one of the major catalysts was Gaston Fernandez.

Filling in for Diego Valeri and then winning his own place in the team at the end of the month, La Gata scored twice, added two assists, and did his part to Portland stay afloat. His performance against Seattle was a thing of beauty, and while he's absent for this Cup run, his role in this season shouldn't be forgotten.

7. Adi's Emergence

You don't win MLS Cup without top-class forward, and from Kenny Cooper and Jorge Perlaza to Kris Boyd to Ryan Johnson to Maxi Urruti, the Timbers have never had a great #9.

And until recently, Fanendo Adi wasn't a great #9 either. The Nigerian showed flashes in 2014 and early 2015, but the Timbers' woes in the spring coincided with a horrific slump from Adi — who was the target of an unusual amount of animosity from supporters.

But it was right around the time that the Timbers were locking in Lucas Melano, possibly to replace Adi, that things started to change. To put it simply, Adi has grown up this year. He's playing bigger and stronger than ever before — complaining less, and covering more ground. His holdup play and passing abilities have taken huge leaps, and, with an MLS franchise record eighteen goals, he is an integral and irreplaceable part of this Timbers machine.

If Adi is fit for the final on Sunday, the Timbers are favorites. If he's not fit, the Crew are favorites. That's how important he is. Adi earned all the success and adulation he's suddenly receiving, and he'll have a home in Portland as long as he wants it.

8. Role Players

This beginning of this Timbers season was defined by injuries, and continued to be colored by key absences. Role players were always going to play a huge part in the season, and the Timbers' depth was a massive reason why they reached MLS Cup.

The team won six of the seven games that Norberto Paparatto played this year, as the veteran Argentine defender resurrected his reputation after a tough 2014 campaign with dependably solid performances at center-back.

Jack Jewsbury was huge all year in midfield, turning in one of the most impressive, out-of-nowhere seasons in club history. The likes of Rodney Wallace, Dairon Asprilla, Gaston Fernandez, and Maxi Urruti — all starters at one point, but certainly glue players — all carried the team at certain points.

This was also the first year in the franchise's five in MLS that young players have risen from the ranks to play important minutes. George Fochive — fifth or sixth on the depth chart in central midfield to start camp in January — came out of nowhere to play a huge role throughout the Timbers season. He looks like he's ready to be an MLS starter as a #6 right now.

Taylor Peay also looks like he's ready to start at fullback, and Jake Gleeson, who now has a playoff clean-sheet under his belt, is deserving and ready for an MLS opportunity as well. This Timbers team isn't ridiculously talented, but it has virtually no holes or soft spots — and the team's depth is huge reason why.

9. Jorge Villafaña

Jorge Villafaña wasn't supposed to be anything more than a throw-in. In the 2013 offseason, the Timbers traded center-back Andrew Jean-Baptiste to Chivas USA in exchange for Chivas' number two pick in the Re-Entry Draft — which Portland used to select Steve Zakuani.

Villafaña came to Portland mostly to make up the numbers. A member of Caleb Porter's U23 national team that failed to qualify for the London Olympics, Villafaña was a bit-part midfield player still best known for getting his big break with Chivas by winning the reality TV show Sueño MLS.

At the beginning of the 2014 season, Villafaña routinely missed out on match-day squads and only got on the field for the first time in late May in a home match against the Columbus Crew after Alvas Powell was sent off at the end of the first half.

At that point in the season, Michael Harrington was starting at one full-back position while Powell and Jack Jewsbury rotated at the other spot. But that would all change as Villafaña emerged as a terrific crosser

Villafaña's season has been nothing short of magnificent. Showing marked imporvement from the beginning of the season, Villafaña has quickly become one of the best one-on-one defenders in the league — balancing Alvas Powell's youthfulness with extremely intelligent, savvy play.

Villafaña is a terrific success story. He's work extremely hard, and in a league with few great full-backs, the he should be around Portland for a long time.

As for the other guys? The trade's centerpieces? Zakuani retired after a miserable year in Portland, never able to return to his pre-injury form. He now works as a TV analyst for the Sounders. Jean-Baptiste, meanwhile, is one step away from being out of soccer entirely. He was released by his last club, the New York Red Bulls, in July.

10. The Revival of Jack Jewsbury

Will Johnson was brought to Portland replace Jack Jewsbury in 2013. Replace him as a starter in central midfield, and replace him as team captain. That was supposed to be the end for Jewsbury. And three years later, in crucial playoff situations, Caleb Porter was picking a healthy Jewsbury over a healthy Johnson.

Nothing against Will, mind you. But part three of the Jewsbury renaissance this year has been ridiculously impressive. After being phased out to fullback the last two years, Jewsbury started more than half the team's games in the midfield — his first minutes at his old position since 2012. Providing steady, dogged work all season, the old captain won an unusual level of trust and praise from Porter. Add in a couple of game-winning goals and a position of huge respect in the locker-room, and Jewsbury's season was hugely important to the Timbers' cause.

Jewsbury's nickname, as coined by Porter, is Salty Old Dog. That name doesn't fit Jewsbury's game at all — his brand of soccer is all about control, poise, and grace — but it does do justice to his staying power. If the Timbers do win the Cup on Sunday, Jewsbury should lift the trophy. After all he's done for the club, he's more than earned it.