Friday, May 31, 2002
NEW! -
Brent Sancho Interview
As promised...the
timberlog Brent Sancho interview. Enjoy!
Brent kindly sat down yesterday after the
Timbers' training session and answered some questions. The beer garden was
bathed in sun and the
soft-spoken Trinidadian defender talked about the
Timbers' start to the season, his youth growing up in
Trinidad and
New York and his plans for the future.
[9
sound clips now included for your listening pleasure!]
posted by the timberlog at 10:48 AM
Thursday, May 30, 2002
...
Back from the Park...
...just back from the Park to watch the
Timbers training session before they head off to Texas tomorrow...here are some
snippets of info picked up
Erik Ozimek still injured and not training...the Timbers have been trying out some different methods to speed recovery (I told you they needed that witch-doctor!)
Bryn Ritchie was not training and had an ice-pack on a knee, but i'm told that Bryn was just being
rested and will make the road-trip.
McKinley Tennyson was not present...something about being in Indianapolis for brother's graduation.
Greg Howes not present, but will be on road-trip.
Fadi Afash fit and factor in full effect!
Gavin Wilkinson fit, but nursing a slight foot problem.
JT said that he would have liked
Darin Lewis back after being dropped by the Metrostars, but especially after 9-11, the visa would be a problem so unfortunately no-go...don't want to get drawn into a similar situation to last year.
The Timbers also wanted to look at
Gary Glasgow (MLS KC Wizards), but would have had a similar problem with visa.
Hugo Alcaraz not present...is down in LA after playing 45' for the
Galaxy in a
game against Aguila of El Salvador last night.
The Timbers looked
relaxed and both JT and Brent Sancho said that
morale in the Timbers camp is
surprisingly high and the players are still confident that they will start
scoring and winning.
...oh and watch out for the
timberlog Brent Sancho interview shortly...it's a wrap!
posted by the timberlog at 1:38 PM
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
Timbers Re-Sign Greg Howes
...after being
spied at PGE Park during the Milwaukee game...
[Timbers' press release]
The Portland Timbers announced Tuesday that they have signed forward
Greg Howes, a former Oregon State product and the second-leading scorer on last year's Timbers squad.
Howes, 25, tallied 20 points a year ago for Portland on seven goals and six assists. Most recently, Howes played professionally for the MISL's
Milwaukee Wave.
Howes helped lead the Wave to the
MISL Championship Series against Philadelphia. Howes finished the regular season ranked 13th in the league in scoring with 91 points on 31 goals and 22 assists.
"We're very much looking forward to Greg's return," said Jim Taylor, Timbers general manager. "Last year after the indoor season he came in and helped spark this club and we're hoping he can do the same for us this season."
Playing for the
Seattle Sounders during the 2000 season, Howes was named the
A-League's Rookie of the Year. He was also named to the 2000 All A-League Second Team. Howes played in 27 of the Sounders' 28 regular-season games. He totaled 41 points on a team-high 17 goals and seven assists, tying for most goals in the league and finishing third overall in A-League scoring during his rookie season.
A native of
Tacoma, Wash., Howes was the Sounders' first-round draft choice in 2000.
Just prior to joining the Timbers, Howes participated with the
U.S. Futsal National Team at the 2002 Genk Cup in Genk, Belgium. Futsal is a derivative of soccer and played with five-man teams on a basketball-style court with no walls and a low-bouncing ball.
posted by the timberlog at 4:51 PM
Friday, May 24, 2002
posted by the timberlog at 11:35 AM
Thursday, May 23, 2002
Oregonian -
Slow digging at PGE Park
Article about PFE president
Mark Schuster and his job, turning around PFE and PGE Park.
"I think the Portland situation, from a baseball standpoint, is unheard of," said Schuster, who was named president of PFE and general manager of the Beavers in February. "The depth of the bad shape we were in was so much further than what I thought. That is what intrigued me about it, the fact PFE was in such disrepair. Nothing comes close to this, nothing in minor league baseball.
"Our goal is 6,000 per game in baseball and 6,000 a game for soccer," Schuster said. "That's 425,000 for baseball and 84,000 for soccer. . . . (The) 425,000 might be a stretch considering how April really hurt us, but again, those are our goals. I think we'll actually outdo the number in soccer."
posted by the timberlog at 10:02 AM
Wednesday, May 22, 2002
[Update on the update on the update]
David Stadnyk is now officially the former owner of the Vancouver Whitecaps and Breakers. Stadnyk gave control of the soccer franchises over to the USL, saying he can't afford the losses anymore. Stadnyk is said to have lost over a million dollars since purchasing the team from B.C. Lions owner David Braley. The A-League has stated both the Caps and Breakers will complete this current season. The League also announced Bob Lenarduzzi will take over the operations on an interim basis until a new owner is found.
from
news1130.com
posted by the timberlog at 7:43 AM
Saturday, May 18, 2002
Rain Tomorrow (…or insert mildly humorous meteorological metaphor here)
The
Portland Rain play their first home game of the
2002 PCSL season tomorrow (Sunday) at
PGE Park against the
Victoria Stars. The game kicks off at
12 noon, admission is
free and entrance is down the slope next to MAC on 18th Ave.
posted by the timberlog at 4:50 PM
Thursday, May 16, 2002
(As I said before...) Who Threw the Gris-Gris?? Timbers 0 - 1 Rampage
Call it the
curse of the hoops,
bad juju from the
albino monkey, some
serious gris-gris or some other manifestation of the "dark arts", but whatever the cause the Portland Timbers’
goal and win drought continues.
In what must be one of the
best performances by a 0-5 team, the Timbers went down to a
single goal again last night to an
outplayed Milwaukee Rampage side.
Dominating the Rampage for almost the whole of the game Timbers'
chances came and went but nothing could get the ball into the back of the net and when
injury time came at the end of 90 min it was Milwaukee forward
John Wolyniec who finished, with 3 out of the 4 extra minutes already played.
It’s a soccer
truism that the longer a team has that kind of
dominance and applies that kind of pressure the chances of getting
caught on the break increase, but few in the
5,354 crowd at PGE Park thought that the Timbers would end the night with
another loss let alone another
barren score sheet.
Chances fell to
Tennyson,
Alcaraz-Cuellar,
Delgado (with probably the best chance early on – a
diving header from
Sancho’s cross skimming across the face of goal) and
Sagare (timberlog M-of-the-M by the way) in the first half.
The Timbers continued the pressure in the
second half with chances for
Ritchie,
Somoza,
Adair (a great chance, a
placed shot from inside the box and a
good save by Popik),
Bettinger (how this one stayed out, the Soccer-God only knows, as Bettinger’s almost
push-in at the far post off
Somoza’s cross was
bundled off the line by the Rampage’s Brennan) and
Bettinger again in injury time. (That's not even mentioning
Winters 1-2 with Tennyson which ended with what looked like a
trip in the box, but was only awarded a
free kick on the 18 yd line!)
Then as it looked amazingly as if
overtime was a certainty…the
sucker punch.
Wolyniec, fed by
Takawira, beat the
sprawling Napoleon inside the left post from the edge of the box.
Gutted!
[
match report posted]
[
...and since you asked how the text updates on last night's game went i'll tell you...so-so...went OK until the very last update which didn't appear until this morning for some strange reason. Since that was the one that included the goal and final score anyone reading it would have been v. frustrated last night! Maybe i'll try it again sometime]
[
...and I guess my eyes weren't deceiving me...it WAS Greg Howes in the Beer Garden and later in the stands on Thursday. If you read the text updates you would have got that news as it happened!!]
posted by the timberlog at 9:27 PM
Final Reminder:
Tonight's game against the
Milwaukee Rampage has a 7 pm kick-off at
PGE Park. The Rampage bring an
injury hit squad to Portland and will be without
Matt Bobo (high ankle sprain) and defensive midfielder
Jeff Bilyk (shin contusion). In addition defender
Chad Prince (knee) is questionable, and forwards
John Wolyniec (ankle) and
Digital Takawira (groin) and midfielder
Steve Bernal (knee) are injured, but are expected to play. The Rampage will also have to do without the services of 2 teenage players; 16-year-old
Craig Capano and 18-year-old
Miguel Saavedra who are both on
International duty. Midfielder
Craig Charlton has also recently been released in a cost-cutting move.
timberlog text updates can be found here (IF it works!)
team sheet here
posted by the timberlog at 3:46 PM
Oregonian -
Timbers seek second goal in fifth game
News from the broadsheet that
Gavin Wilkinson may be available for tonight's game after
testing out his hip flexor injury in training on Wednesday,
Sean McAuley will probably will not play because of a
strained knee ligament and
Fadi Afash's estimated time of return is June 1st.
Coach Howe:
"I'm not disappointed with our performance. We're playing better than we were at this stage last year. Last year, we were scoring goals and hanging on. This year, we're dominating more than half our games, but we're not sticking the ball in the back of the net."
posted by the timberlog at 8:03 AM
Wednesday, May 15, 2002
USLSoccer -
Sawatzky, Sounders firing on all cylinders
Interesting piece about former Timber
Darren Sawatzky.
On Portland:
“There were major pay cuts involved – in my case 50 percent. Why would I stay there when I could go home, make more money and return home where I can be close to my youth club?”
On the MLS:
“I won’t tell you what team, but the money I was offered to play in the MLS this year – a whole year’s salary – was less than I made in six months in Portland last year,” he said.
posted by the timberlog at 1:39 PM
Attention! I'll probably regret even
trying it, but look out for a
new feature tomorrow night.
Live text updates on the
Timbers v Rampage game from
PGE Park. May work OK...may crash and burn...who knows? Stand Easy!
If it works you can
link to it here
posted by the timberlog at 12:10 PM
Tuesday, May 14, 2002
A-League Woes
2
A-League clubs are now said to be on the verge of going under. The
Hampton Road Mariners problems are so severe that players are
ready to walk away from the team after failing to recieve pay checks last week. Owner
Felicia Gordon is proposing to pay players $50 per game for suiting up, $50 per goal and $25 per assist. Goalkeepers would be paid $100 for every 12th save. Not surprisingly the players who are generally paid between $1,000 and $2,500 per month are
less than happy.
In Vancouver, owner David Stadnyk is insisting that if gates do not increase the
Whitecaps and Breakers futures are in doubt.
[update]
Mariners Coach Resignes, Players Released
[update, update]
Mariners' longest week to end with a new owner
posted by the timberlog at 8:47 AM
Monday, May 13, 2002
After a full
environmental-impact study in keeping with Portland's new
Green Industry Initiative the timberlog is proud to present...
Thursday's team-sheet!
[Fully recyclable, not-tested on animals, safe for babies to chew on etc. etc. ad nauseam]
posted by the timberlog at 3:17 PM
Sunday, May 12, 2002
Possession may be 9/10ths of the Law, but the Timbers fail to capitalize.
The
Portland Timbers poor start to the 2002 A-League season continued this weekend
losing 2 games on the road, each to a single goal. Despite having
long periods of possession and
chances in front of goal in both games, the Timbers
lacked the killer instinct. The Timbers have now fallen to
4 consecutive defeats and have to contend with a
lack of confidence as well, something that
no-one expected after pre-season.
Friday saw the
Indiana Blast end their own 12 game losing streak while increasing the Timbers own run of defeats to 3 games. A 54th minute goal from
Jeff Dresser sank the Timbers and despite losing player-coach
Eric Descombes with just over 20' to go, the Blast held on. The Timbers
outshot the Blast 16-9 and had a 10-2 advantage on corners, but even with
chances to both
Chugger Adair,
McKinley Tennyson, substitutes
Delgado and
Bettinger and midfielders
Winters and
Alcaraz-Cuellar, Blast
keeper Josh Lynk kept a clean sheet.
On to
Cincinnati on Saturday and again the
Timbers lost 1 - 0 for their 4th defeat.
Shawn Rockey getting the winner on 27' after a moment of inspiration by
Ryan Lucas,
backheeling into space from the touchline for Rockey to run onto and
beat Napoleon. The Timbers, starting
Delgado and
Tennyson up-front and playing
Scott Benedetti in midfield,
dominated the game by all reports,
out-shot the Riverhawks 19-13, but despite chances, including a
last minute save from Hawks
keeper Wanamaker from
Tennyson's diving header, the Timbers could not break their
losing habit.
On to
Thursday's game at home against Milwaukee...a
cliche to say that
every game is important, but this one is
crunch-time. Get out to
PGE Park, Thursday night, 7 pm and
show your support.
posted by the timberlog at 9:45 AM
Friday, May 10, 2002
Indiana Blast v Portland Timbers
Today's game kicks off at
5.35 PM (PDT) add will be
broadcast live on
1360 KUIK-AM and
oregonlive.com
posted by the timberlog at 3:00 PM
Not Enough Maths!
For those of you like me who think there
isn't enough rigor, enough Cartesian quality to this sloppy game you'll be refreshed by the approach of one
Dr Chris Hope of the
Judge Institute of Management at the Cambridge University Business School who has given us a
model to predict when footie managers should get the boot...and as someone always trying to
inject some equations into the game, here are some excerpts.
By totting up the number of points his team win per game, giving most weight to recent matches, a club can put into practice a frightening "trap-door" policy.
"After a honeymoon period, if that number of points per game falls below 0.74, then it's time for the manager to go,"
Want the
full paper with equations and graphs??
Don't worry, I will be applying
Dr. Hope's approach to the Timbers' season as it progresses!!
posted by the timberlog at 1:26 PM
Oregonian -
Injury puts Timbers in a defensive mode
New signing
Bryn Ritchie straight in to cover for the injured
Gavin Wilkinson. Ritchie, who was drafted by the
Colorado Rapids, has been in limbo for the last 6 months while waiting for a knee injury to heal, unable to train with Colorado.
"I'm excited with this opportunity. Just to know I could come here and play right away . . . It's been six months, you know."
...and also
Brent Sancho on the Timbers start to the season:
"We started 0-2 last year, too, so we've been there before, and we know what we have to do to get out of this."
posted by the timberlog at 9:20 AM
Thursday, May 09, 2002
Bobby Howe's Jigsaw Puzzle Complete (?)
The Oregonian reported this morning the signing of the Timbers #1 draft pick
Bryn Ritchie. He trained with the team on Wednesday after
signing a 1 year contract.
This is what
Bobby Howe had to say about Bryn in the recent timberlog interview.
"The other draft pick, Bryn Ritchie, could be a very special player, but he’s hurt at the moment so we can’t get him, but we’d love to have him here if we could. He would be the piece of the jigsaw puzzle that I think would make this a very well-rounded team."
and more from the official press release:
"Ritchie is an outstanding, dominant central defender," said Howe. "He is strong in the tackle and was one of the best headers of the ball in the college game. His talent has also been recognized by MLS where he was drafted by the Colorado Rapids. As Bryn is a native of Oregon, we are thrilled that he will be wearing our colors this season."
"We wanted to add a little more youth to the mix this season and I think we've done a good job of acquiring some of the best young talent in the country," said Jim Taylor, Timbers general manager. "With the addition of Bryn Ritchie, we now have signed three players who were drafted in this year's MLS SuperDraft; the other two being Erik Ozimek and Noah Delgado. Along with rookies McKinley Tennyson, Jake Sagare, and Ben Somoza, I think we have a great youth foundation to build on. All in all, we have a well-balanced team in terms of experience."
posted by the timberlog at 8:47 AM
Tuesday, May 07, 2002
Timbers Road-Trip Preview
The Timbers travel to play 2 teams in the
A-league Central division this weekend, the
Indiana Blast on Friday and the
Cincinnati Riverhawks on Saturday.
The
Blast have got off to an even
poorer start to their season having
lost all 3 games, their defense leaking to the tune of
14 goals! The Blast
do have Brazilian
Rodrigo Costa who has scored 3 goals in 3 games (and was last season's top scorer with 12) and also feature defender
Ezzy Ihekoronye who was present at the Timbers try-outs.
The
Riverhawks have only played a single game so far,
beating Milwaukee 3 - 2 in overtime. The game will be played on a
high-school pitch as the Hawks new stadium is not completed yet. The Hawks team includes former Hershey players,
Christof Lindenmayer and
Fred Degand, features 6' 3", 200lb Barbadian international forward
Ryan Lucas and
maybe the only
Welsh player in the A-League (?)
Dilwyn Gruffydd. Another
recent signing is known to at least one Timbers' player.
Jon Teterick played at
Davidson College alongside the Timbers'
Erik Ozimek.
Despite injuries picked up last weekend I'm told that
all the Timbers will make the trip except for
Fadi Afash.
posted by the timberlog at 3:28 PM
Monday, May 06, 2002
Timbers lose again. Wilkinson, Benedetti and Sancho, join Afash and Ozimek on injured list.
The
Timbers opening weekend continued to be one of
more bad news as Seattle swept US Open Cup qualifying with a 4 - 1 win in Seattle and
Gavin Wilkinson aggravated a hip flexor injury.
Scott Benedetti (foot) and
Brent Sancho (ankle) also picked up injuries.
Fadi Afash was already out for 2-4 weeks prior to the weekend after undergoing
arthroscopic knee surgery on Friday and
Erik Ozimek has been receiving Cortisone injections for a bruised heel.
[Post-Mortem]
Oregonian -
SEATTLE 4, PORTLAND 1 Sounders strike late, often to hand Timbers their second loss in a row
Howe said if the Timbers' situation does not improve in the next two weeks, "We'll have to look at the transfer market."
Soccercity USA Match Report
posted by the timberlog at 1:10 PM
Saturday, May 04, 2002
Timbers Sunk by Smart Sounders
The
Timbers went down to a
0 - 2 loss at PGE Park tonight to an
impressive Seattle team who scored both goals in the first half.
Zach Kingsley scored after 12' with a hard strike from the left side of the box after a Sounders corner on the right. The second came on 39' after the very impressive
Brian Ching had split the Timbers' defence and fed
Darren Sawatzky who took the ball wide of 2 defenders and
beat Matt Napoleon to make his
pre-game prediction come true. 0 - 2 to the Sounders and a
very poor Timbers performance overall.
[
match report]
posted by the timberlog at 11:26 PM
Friday, May 03, 2002
Portland Tribune -
Timbers await season debut
Including Bobby Howe's planned starters:
Howe wants to put the most experienced team on the field, which means he plans to start Tennyson and Adair up front; McAuley, Benjamin Somoza, Brian Winters and Alcaraz-Cuellar in the middle; and Keith Costigan, Brent Sancho, Gavin Wilkinson and Scott Benedetti on the back end.
posted by the timberlog at 1:09 PM
Thursday, May 02, 2002
Some have called the
timberlog team sheet the "Krispy Kreme" of team sheets. Not sure that's a compliment though...here at
timberlog towers we like to think of them as the equivalent of the great place on about 50th and E. Burnside...
locally owned and operated, not much to look at on the outside, but
packed inside with
freshly baked treats. That's the
long way of saying that....
...
team sheets are out of the deep-fat fryer!
Enjoy!...and don't get the filling on your shirt!
posted by the timberlog at 10:00 AM