Portland Timbers Training Quotes and Notes: Playoff Wishes

John Spencer spent Monday morning watching the video of Friday's match (no doubt he was enjoying quite a bit of it), so he did not attend practice yesterday. The rest of the coaching staff was on hand, however, as the team played a 9v9 short field scrimmage before Friday's starters broke off for their post match re-gen workout.

Futty Danso is reportedly recovering well after his first game back from a hamstring injury. And Jorge Perlaza also participated in full practice and is in full health.

David Horst participated in the 9v9 scrimmage but worked with a trainer afterward to recover from his groin strain suffered in the match against Philadelphia.

Sal Zizzo, Jack Jewsbury, Mike Chabala and Eric Brunner kicked the ball around with a young fan, arranged by the Make a Wish Foundation. The boy's favorite player is Zizzo, and he's been given the chance to hang out with the Timbers midfielder for a few days. The group looked to be having quite a bit of fun.

Quotes

I wasn't able to get a ton of quotes for this report, as a few interviews were happening simultaneously. Timbers Insider Kelly McLain asked a few questions of Darlington Nagbe and included them in his training report. But not surprisingly, nobody outside of the coaching staff knows if we're going to see Nagbe as a starting striker going forward.

Kenny Cooper

On scoring a goal in Friday's dominant victory over the New England Revolution

We got off to a great start in the game and it was nice to get to go into half time a couple goals up. I thought all around it was a great team performance, and it was great to get another clean sheet. It feels great to win - there's nothing like winning. Great to get three points at home. It was nice to get one (a goal) but you know it's great when anyone scores for the team. It's a great feeling and it was great to get three. I thought we created a lot of chances as well. I thought the team was really dangerous the whole night and also defended really well.

It was great to come home and play in front of our fans. The energy they bring to the stadium is incredible. When you see them and the support they give us you want to make sure they go home happy.

On playing three matches in quick succession

It's important to keep taking care of ourselves when we're away from the field. Everyone did a great job of that during that two week span when we didn't have games. It's important to take care of yourself so when you get back on the training field you can get a good session in and be ready to go on game day. This is the time of year when you want to be playing great soccer, and fortunately we have been. Hopefully that will continue now.

On preparing for the match against the San Jose Earthquakes

We've been coming off some great performances, and a couple of clean sheets, so we'd love to continue that. They obviously have a dangerous goal scorer in Chris Wondolowski, so, you know.

We had a great training session today, we'll hope to get another good one in tomorrow. Hopefully we'll bring that same energy that we've brought to our last couple of games.