The rivalry continues and this match sees the Whitecaps play host to the Portland Timber in front of 25,083 fans and ironically both clubs as well as the Seattle Sounders all sit with 27 points all of which are in search of the Cascadia Cup.
The Cap’s have lost one of their last six matches that include back to back wins against the LA Galaxy and the New York City FC, with the Timbers coming to town being winless in six, with just two victories in their past 13 games.
It’s obvious that the fans are looking for a high scoring match, but that will be controlled by those on the pitch.
When looking at the past seven regular season games (matches) at home they have a record of 5 wins managing 1 draw giving up multiple goals only two occasions during that run.
It’s expected that Yordy Reyna will return to the line-up after being out with surgery on his left foot that was initially indicated that he would be “MIA” for the remainder of the season.
He managed to score his first MLS goal in a match against NYCFC giving the Caps a huge lift in the match
Bench boss Carl Robinson mentioned “When we brought him in in the offseason, it was a quiet signing for us and I knew he had great technical ability. We saw it in Portland in preseason, then he gets injured.”
As with most matches the Timbers brings a solid following fan base of supporters to the match which is only a short 6 hour trip north and this day see’s three busloads of supporters travel north of the 49th.
Kendall Watson remains out of the lineup and remains with the Costa Rican National team who is set to play in the Gold Cup semifinal against the US.
As with most teams and no different with the Cap’s they have relied on Christian Bolanos who has averaged 1.5 goals in 90 minutes of play during his 1,173 minutes played.
If you’re a Timbers fan don’t expect goals to come easy for them in this match as they will be without four who are on international duty, while Fanendo Adi is out with a Red Card.
The Timbers have won only two of their road games since the start of the 2016 season and this Cascadia Cup match-up comes following a 4-1 loss to Real Salt Lake this past Wednesday at home.
This match starts out with the Cap’s getting a free kick and manage to hit Valeri with the ball as he was turning his head and following a long assessment by the Timbers Doctor he was walked to the side-lines.
Interesting and a fact that I did not know is that the concussion assessment can and is completed by the Team’s Doctor as was in this case.
This match started out with the Caps giving the Timbers an early lead in the 14th minute as rookie Jereme Ebobisse putting the Timbers up 1 nil after taking a cross Asprilla.
The Caps came close as they almost managed a pair of first-half headers with Harvey sending a shot over Timbers keeper Gleeson followed only by a second chance on a Bolanos corner that saw Tchani turned away.
Parker sent one off the get one off the back post that saw Andrew Jacobson send it over the line sending the teams to the dressing rooms tied at one after the first half.
The Timber took the lead in the 49th minute with Blanco getting the go-ahead goal, but the Caps responded with chance after chance forcing Gleeson to come up with a pair of unbelievable stops securing the victory for the Timbers, who now move three points up on the Whitecaps claiming fourth place in the Western Conference and have played three more games than the Caps.
Many were pondering when bench boss Carl Robinson would make a substitution, but this wouldn’t come until the second half when he sent in Yordi Reyna in replacing Nicolas Mezquida in the 60th minute adding more offensive play.
Try as they might, this sub simply wasn’t enough so Carl offered yet another change four short minutes later in which he sent in fan favorite Alphonso 
Davies replacing Cristian Techera.
Diving – Extremely Prevalent
I might be wrong on this as in the 77th minute we saw yet another “actor” show his lack of skills but “diving and simply falling to the ground when no one touched him – again having many ask why this is allowed to happen?
Simply put diving is an attempt by a player to gain an unfair advantage by falling to the ground and possibly feigning an injury, to give the impression that some sort of foul has been committed and in some cases it clearly has not!
The second half of this match became more aggressive with the Caps tender David Ousted taking a huge hit with an elbow that eventually saw him get carded.
The caps hit the road for three prior to returning home Saturday August 19th that will see them host Houston in a 7 pm match.
https://mlssoccer.app.box.com/s/m3ubblxs8b98o0fr6pua179ak6cjcr3o/file/201118738471
