Diego Valeri shoots on Harold Cummings in a match between the Portland Timbers and San Jose Earthquakes on May 5th, 2018 at Avaya Stadium. Photo by Lyndsey Radnedge.
The San Jose Earthquakes headed into Saturday’s match in the familiar spot of looking up the standings and needing something to turn the trajectory of their season. One of those familar trajectory turning moments over the years has been a visit from the Portland Timbers to Avaya Stadium. On this night, it was not to be for San Jose, as Diego Valeri delivered a magical free kick in the 88th minute to propel the Timbers to a 1-0 victory, their first ever win at Avaya Stadium.
For Portland, it was their third straight win and their first on the road this season. After starting the season with five straight road games and collecting two points to show for it, the Timbers have seemingly righted the ship after some home cooking and were able to take that magic out on the road to climb out of the basement and into a tie with Houston for 6th in the West.
“I think the unity has been much better.” said Timbers Head Coach Gio Saverese. “Everybody’s covering each other, everybody is working for each other. They sacrifice defensively, and they believe offensively, so I think that’s the key factor so far. We need to continue to grow, but I’m seeing growth game by game.”
Earthquakes midfielder Vako controls the ball against Portland Timbers Diego Valeri and Alvis Powell in a match on May 5th, 2018 at Avaya Stadium.
After a promising preseason and opening night performance against Minnesota United, the Earthquakes have managed just two points since and find themselves tied with Seattle at the bottom of the Western Conference table. Once again, San Jose is left scratching their collective heads at what feels like a very pivotal moment in the season.
“It’s really hard when we have just one victory after eight games, so we need victories for sure, but the only thing we can do is move forward, analyze, practice harder and hopefully we can get a victory really soon.” said Earthquakes Coach Mikael Stahre.
“It feels like every week we don’t play good, the other teams are smarter and look more experienced than we do. We can’t compete if we play like this every week, it’s impossible to win games.” said Florian Jungwirth. “Tonight we played too naive. It has nothing to do with men’s soccer, it was youth soccer that we played.”
Earthquakes Coach Mikael Stahre looks on during a match against the Portland Timbers on May 5th, 2018.
San Jose heads to Minnesota on Saturday Morning for a rematch with the Loons, who they beat on Opening Night for their only win of the season while the Timbers will be riding high off this victory as they welcome their Cascadia Rivals from Seattle to Providence Park for a Sunday Afternoon showdown.
San Jose Earthquakes
Portland Timbers
