Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 9.32 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
93 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The rules permit it and it stings anyway. Manuel Miranda has agreed terms with Inter Miami CF for the summer, and until then he pulls on this shirt as a player who has already chosen his next one.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Trey Muse and Portland Timbers agree another 2 years.
In brief
Player ratingsKevin Lugo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad19 Apr 2038
Kevin Lugo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.64 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Lugo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
140 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The offer from Atlanta United FC for David Zardes was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Lugo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The words a physio says slowly. 155 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Lugo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Portland Timbers are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until David Da Costa signs something — a contract at Portland Timbers or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The words a physio says slowly. 162 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad22 Feb 2038
Kevin Lugo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Nobody at Portland Timbers will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
45 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Lugo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joseph Jones and Portland Timbers agree another 3 years.
1‑1, and a season that ran to May has ended inside a fortnight. This is what a playoff is: nine months of work settled by a couple of evenings, and nobody who designed it was thinking about the losing dressing room.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moses Amasi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 20-year-old it feels ownership of. Miguel Silva has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
390 appearances across 12 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Portland Timbers hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Kevin Kelsy was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Trey Muse and Portland Timbers agree another 2 years.
Squad5 Oct 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad21 Sep 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Portland Timbers know it.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.13 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad24 Aug 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
30 defensive actions and a clean sheet at the end of them. A defender's afternoon can only be told by what did not happen, which is why nobody makes a highlights package out of one and every manager in the division would take it.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.68 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Eduard Atuesta and Portland Timbers agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Player ratings3 Aug 2037
Adrian Wibowo was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.32. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 8 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 9.91 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Juan Mosquera was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Moses Amasi is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad13 Jul 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Owen Dempsey and Portland Timbers agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Nobody will confirm this and nothing else explains the last month of selections. A costly error buys a player a period of being second choice that is always longer than the error was.
A brace, and Kevin Lugo takes the afternoon — 9.16
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. Kevin Lugo provided it, and the 9.16 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Kevin Kelsy was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad29 Jun 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Marked 8.18 — the sort of number a correspondent writes down twice to be sure. Everything he tried came off, and what he did not try was not worth trying.
14 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
35 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Two goals and a mark of 8.56 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.53 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portland Timbers have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. David Zardes will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
192 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.19 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Portland Timbers they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Nolan Norris and Portland Timbers agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
The goal that put Sporting Kansas City ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Portland Timbers equalised, 3 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 25 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.66 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 39 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
2 kept out in the shoot-out, and a stadium that will still be describing them in twenty years. A goalkeeper only needs one of these to be remembered forever.
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Mark Wright has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Two goals and a mark of 9.37 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 0 on the scoresheet, 7.42 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portland Timbers have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 46 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. José Luis Caicedo provided it, and the 8.61 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
5 matches now without a victory, and the excuses have worn thinner than the patience. Somebody at Portland Timbers has to find a result from somewhere.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Jack Ferreira will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 67 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Portland Timbers, and it is not being withdrawn.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.86 at 33, and nobody on the pitch was better.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 81 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad23 Feb 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
“The manager did not use many words, and he did not need to.” Kosi Thompson has his answer from Portland Timbers; what he does with it is the next window’s story.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
There is no worse way to lose a footballer. Sam Aaronson has pre-agreed a move away, which means every appearance between now and June is made by a man the club can no longer sell, and somebody upstairs will be asked why the contract was allowed to get here.
Squad19 Jan 2037
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
27 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
83 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Portland Timbers lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portland Timbers have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
The words a physio says slowly. 112 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad29 Sep 2036
Moses Amasi falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
The words a physio says slowly. 53 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
There is a particular kind of quiet from an away end watching one man score twice. José Luis Caicedo provided it, and the 9.90 beside his name is if anything generous to everybody else.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
He left as a boy and has come back still knowing where the away end is. Most signings have to be explained to a town; this one needed a photograph and nothing else.
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 8.99 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
365 appearances across 11 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
“I want to be playing for trophies while my legs still let me.” Nothing in that sentence is a transfer request, and nobody at Portland Timbers heard it as anything else.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Jimer Fory falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
“The easiest signature of my career.” José Luis Caicedo and Portland Timbers agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Portland Timbers this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Portland Timbers is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
4 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
15 shots, and a count that reads like a good afternoon until you check the other column. Strikers survive weeks like this on the understanding that the chances keep arriving; the day they stop is the day it becomes a problem.
At 34 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.76 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Kevin Kelsy was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Kevin Lugo is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The goal that put FC Dallas ahead was still being replayed on the concourse when Portland Timbers equalised, 4 minutes later. Leads are only worth what you do with them.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
2 goals to the good, and then a slow surrender of everything that had been earned. David Da Costa will not be the one blamed for it, but nobody at Portland Timbers escapes the conversation that follows a collapse like this.
At 35 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 8.79 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Portland Timbers can pretend not to have heard.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
9 without defeat on their own grass. The pitch has not changed; the crowd has — louder earlier, and quicker to sense when the opposition would rather be somewhere else.
Squad14 Jul 2036
Kevin Lugo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Portland Timbers will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Portland Timbers have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
José Luis Caicedo was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Patrick Meling will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Portland Timbers the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad16 Jun 2036
Kevin Lugo falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Another week, another link, another denial nobody quite believes. Portland Timbers know the market decides these things, not the back pages — but the back pages are louder.
In brief
Player ratingsThe chances came and went for Roald Mitchell