After a week-and-a-half off following their loss to LAFC, the Portland Timbers are back on the road and will be back in action tonight in Tacoma — where they will, for the fourth time in the last six years, face the Seattle Sounders in a U.S. Open Cup tilt in Washington (7:30 p.m., TV on ESPN+).
The Opponent
After an uncharacteristically strong start to the season, the Sounders — who took 16 of the first 18 MLS points available to them in March and April — are struggling. They’ve lost three straight games, and haven’t won in almost a month.
Injuries have been a big reason for the turn in form. But while most of the players who have missed time in recent weeks are set to return to the fold by this time next month, one player is gone for good: center back Chad Marshall, one of the best defenders in MLS history, who abruptly retired three weeks ago.
Marshall’s retirement, due to chronic knee pain traceable back to the meniscus tear he suffered against the Timbers in the playoffs last year, represents a huge loss for Seattle. Even at 34, he was by some distance the team’s most important defender.
Seattle has signed a new DP center back in Ecuadorian Xavier Arreaga to replace Marshall, but he, like some eight other Seattle starters, is currently away with his national team or otherwise unavailable. In other words, most of the Sounders are currently gone. The team we’ll see tonight will be a mix of reserves and Tacoma Defiance USL players.
The Tactics
With the Sounders missing so many starters and the game being played at Tacoma’s Cheney Stadium, this will very likely have the feel of the old Open Cup contests between these teams at Starfire — fairly disjointed and not at all polished, but competitive nonetheless.
If either side is going to provide the game with a measure of class, it should be Portland. The Timbers will have and need to play at least several members of their high-powered attack, especially as the first team is off until June 22 while T2 is in action this weekend at Providence Park against Fresno FC.
One note is that, unlike at Starfire, Cheney Stadium has a grass surface. That in itself might make for slightly better soccer than we’ve seen in these games in the past, and make it easier for Gio Savarese to risk his best players. Sebastian Blanco, who is suspended for the club’s next MLS game, will almost certainly feature.
The setting will also, as Brian Schmetzer pointed out this week, give a number of Seattle’s team, who play regularly at Cheney Stadium for Tacoma, a measure of familiarity and comfort that they otherwise would not have.
The Lineup
12 – Clark
16 – Valentin
5 – Dielna
18 – Cascante
2 – Moreira
40 – Zambrano
21 – Chara
27 – Asprilla
10 – Blanco
8 – Valeri (C)
17 – Ebobisse
— The Timbers have four players away on international duty: Peru’s Andy Polo, El Salvador’s Andres Flores, and Marco Farfan and Eryk Williamson, who are with the U.S.’s U23s.
— Neither Dairon Asprilla nor Claude Dielna traveled with T2 to Austin over the weekend, and both players should be involved for the first team tonight.
— Savarese should have a full compliment of players to choose from — it’ll be interesting to see which players currently outside of the first team picture he gives significant minutes to.
The Memory
The Timbers only have one U.S. Open Cup win over the Sounders since joining MLS, but it is, as ever, well worth remembering.
The Pick
Most anything can happen in these Cup games, but the Timbers should have far too much quality for Seattle tonight. They’ll win 3-1.
