BEAVERTON, Ore. – Heading into May, Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter cautioned that his team was heading into their toughest stretch of the season.
After playing at Montreal on May 9 and facing the Dynamo in Houston last weekend, the Timbers now face their third-straight cross-continental trip to play at Toronto FC on Saturday (5 pm TSN in Canada, MLS LIVE in US). They’ll then turn around to play a midweek match back home against D.C. United before hitting the road again for a match against the Colorado Rapids on May 30.
The tough travel is a reality of MLS. But with the Timbers having had to tread water while waiting for the return of their best player, Diego Valeri, who returned to the starting XI in the Montreal game, and captain Will Johnson, who is still working his way back to first-team action, it’s a stretch of games that could carry a lot of weight toward their postseason chances.
Portland are in ninth-place in the Western Conference with 13 points from 11 games following their 3-1 loss to the Dynamo, but they’re just a couple of results away from making a rapid climb up the table, trailing sixth-place Houston by three points and first-place FC Dallas by eight points.
“There’s a lot of opportunities for points,” Porter said at the team training facility this week before his team departed on Thursday for Toronto, where they will train Friday ahead of the match at BMO Field. “We’re a point off three teams, and we have to keep our head screwed on right, and we’ve got to make sure we understand this is a long season, but there has to be urgency to get points.… We knew this stretch, like I’ve been saying, was going to be our most difficult of the year.”
The effects of their latest cross-country trip were alleviated somewhat by the use of a charter flight, but Porter did acknowledge squad rotation would be part of the equation – especially for Wednesday’s match against East leaders D.C. United.
“We’re not going to put out a reserve team, but we feel like in a few positions we’ve got a couple players who are very similar in what they bring and the level they bring,” Porter said. “So it would make sense to rotate possibly in a few positions.… We also have to look at the last game and evaluate where guys are at physically, what we saw in that game and then also always tactically look at the next opponent and what makes sense.”
Johnson’s return to the lineup seems likely in the upcoming stretch, but that happening Saturday appears unlikely – and not only due to the karma-enticing fact that TFC’s BMO Field is the site where Johnson broke his leg in late September last year.
The midfielder has three games under his belt with Portland’s USL affiliate Timbers 2, the most recent coming in a 90-minute shift on Saturday. Porter said Johnson responded well in the aftermath and was back at training this week.
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“We were really interested to see how he would recover from this 90-minute game,” Porter said. “He looked a little bit better in the game, covered more ground, he was more active, so definitely made steps forward. And in recovery as well, he was able to do a little bit more in training today.… There’s some opportunities to use him in these three games, but only if he’s ready.”
Even if Johnson isn’t ready, Portland displayed impressive depth late last season as they balanced runs in the US Open Cup and CONCACAF Champions League group play. Forwards Maximiliano Urruti and Gaston Fernandez, midfielders Ishmael Yartey, Dairon Asprilla and George Fochive and center back Norberto Paparatto are all players who have started in the past, some as recently as this season, and could be in the mix for minutes in coming games.
“I think we have a very good team, we have a team consisting of about 20 to 25 players thereabout who are ready to play when called upon,” striker Fanendo Adi said. “It’s just a thing with the coaches, they know when to switch and when to mix in some new guys with the team.”
Dan Itel covers the Timbers for MLSsoccer.com.
