Abe Asher

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers The Portland Timbers will play their first competitive soccer game in more than four months tonight, when they face the LA Galaxy in an empty stadium in Orlando. Perhaps you’ll watch. Perhaps you’re eager to see familiar faces, to take in a soccer game and to escape, if only temporarily, from the […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers On Sunday afternoon, the Portland Timbers will launch their tenth season in Major League Soccer when they take on Minnesota United at a packed out Providence Park (4:30 p.m., TV on Fox Sports 1). It has been a wonderful journey so far. When the Timbers entered MLS in 2011, the league had […]

Portland Timbers There will be two Charas in the Portland Timbers’ starting lineup come March 1. The Timbers announced on Thursday morning that they have signed Diego Chará’s 28-year-old younger brother Yimmi as a Designated Player (DP), bringing to a close a years-long quest to reunite the brothers from the southwestern city of Cali in […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers The schedule for the Portland Timbers’ tenth MLS season is set — and is shaping very nicely. Here are five thoughts on the slate that awaits the club in 2020. 1. Balance After last year’s season-opening ten game road trip and season-closing stretch in which they played 11 of their final games […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers Crisis averted. After a fraught, months-long process, the Portland Timbers announced on Monday afternoon that they have signed club captain and all-time leading goalscorer Diego Valeri to a multiyear contract extension using Targeted Allocation Money (TAM). The deal represents a significant victory for the Timbers’ front office, which gambled that it could […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers Less than seven months after he arrived in Portland, Brian Fernandez’s time with the Timbers has come to an abrupt end. On Friday afternoon, the Timbers announced that Major League Soccer has terminated Fernandez’s contract with immediate effect for failure to comply with the terms and conditions of the league’s substance abuse […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers The Portland Timbers’ strange, deflating 2019 season is over. Saturday night’s first round Western Conference playoff match between the Timbers and Real Salt Lake, played in miserable, blustery conditions at Rio Tinto Stadium, was as full of twists and turns as you might have expected it would be — but it was […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers After a long, trying season, the Portland Timbers find themselves back in the MLS Cup Playoffs — looking to launch another memorable, underdog run when they face Real Salt Lake on Saturday night in Sandy (7 p.m., TV on ESPNews). The Opponent Off the field, this season was a mess for Real […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers Heading into the decisive final day of the MLS regular season, there were plenty of bad omens for a struggling Portland Timbers team in need of a result to qualify for the playoffs. Brian Fernandez was suspended. Diego Valeri was out with a lingering calf injury. And the San Jose Earthquakes were […]

Craig Mitchelldyer/Portland Timbers The Portland Timbers’ season has come down to this: with a win or a draw on Sunday afternoon against the San Jose Earthquakes, they’ll qualify for the MLS Cup Playoffs on the final day of the regular season. Lose, and what was once such a promising campaign may well be over (1 […]

Portland Timbers The Portland Timbers are just one point away from qualifying for the MLS Cup Playoffs in 2019, but they sure aren’t impressing anyone along the way. The latest deflating performance came on Sunday night at Children’s Mercy Park, where the Timbers came from behind to nab a 2-2 draw against a Sporting Kansas […]