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Timbers' 21 Moves Point Towards The Future

Just over a year ago, the Portland Timbers hit their MLS apex. They vanquished the Seattle Sounders at Jeld-Wen Field, and added a playoff victory over their fiercest rival to a haul from a season that saw the club win the Western Conference and qualify for the CONCACAF Champions League.

It seems like a lot longer than twelve months ago now.

After the Timbers announced moves on a grand total of 21 players on a frantic half-day – quintessential MLS – trade-window less than 24 hours after MLS Cup kicked off, the excitement is palpable. So is the carnage.

Donovan Ricketts, replaced. Michael Harrington, cast aside. Pa Modou Kah, jettisoned. Kalif Alhassan, released. The Ryan Johnsons and Freddy Piquionnes are long gone, as are the David Horsts and the Andrew Jean-Baptistes and the currently unemployed Futty Danso.

In one year, the Timbers have turned over their entire backline – including their goalkeeper. Nearly the team’s entire bench from the season just completed has been excised.

It’s not a bad thing. The Timbers are better today than they were yesterday. They’re much better today than they were this summer.

Nat Borchers is a slam-dunk signing. Adam Kwarasey could be the #1 until 2020. Portland’s other two new players – Brazilian defender Jeandersen Salvador Pereira and especially Columbian winger Dairon Asprilla – have potential.

The Timbers’ new direction makes sense.

Caleb Porter has consistently and pointedly expressed his admiration for those few teams in MLS that have the same look every year – the clubs that don’t have major turnover in their playing or coaching staff.

LA Galaxy, the team that just won their third championship in four years, are the poster-child for that blueprint.

So what Porter and Gavin Wilkinson have set in motion today is a plan to have the same group in place for the foreseeable future – making playoff runs and establishing the Timbers brand.

Caleb doesn’t like tinkering. He wants to write the same eleven names on the team-sheet every week.

So this is what the Timbers have built for year three – the year of judgment in any coaching reign. Kwarasey, Powell, Borchers, Ridgewell, Villafaña, Johnson, Chara, Wallace, Valeri, Nagbe, Adi.

Of course there will be bumps along the way. Two ACL injuries, for starters. But that’s the Timbers’ plan.

Portland’s 2013 team wasn’t lucky – that’d be undercutting their considerable talent and achievements. But they did just piece things together, week-to-week, month-to-month. That team had a lot of moxie, but what the Timbers are trying to build is a powerhouse.

One look at five of the six the players who the Timbers have invested in today – Powell, Villafaña, Asprilla, Jeandersen, and Kwarasey – will tell you something about the long-term investment. Kwarasey is practically elderly in that group, and he’s only 26.

And when you consider that Kwarasey replaces Ricketts for no other reason than that Ricketts is 37, you can see that Porter isn’t just putting together a team that will be competitive this year – he’s putting together a team that will still be competitive in five years.

Nat Borchers is the only player the Timbers have brought in is over 30, and he figures to be the only opening day starter over 30 as well, but it’s his signing that was more than any other a no-brainer.

Borchers is a proven MLS center-back who has been a vital cog for one of those teams in the model of stability – Real Salt Lake – that Porter wants the Timbers to emulate.

The synergy works here too – and by that I’m not just referring to Borchers’ beard, although Timber Joey might be looking over his shoulder a little more this season.

Aurelien Colin was available as the Timbers looked for a proven center-back partner for Liam Ridgewell, but Colin is more expensive and more volatile than Borchers, who is as good a soldier as he is an experienced and effective one.

His acquisition obviously has parallels the Will Johnson pickup in 2012. Both were picked off from RSL for allocation money because of a roster squeeze in Utah. Borchers talked to the skipper, and picked Portland over two other clubs who wanted his services.

Borchers is the kind of center-back we’ve wanted in Portland for four years. He’s a keeper.

So is Kwarasey, and although it’s a little bit troubling that Clint Dempsey scored on him only 30 seconds into his first and only World Cup game, his looks a shrewd signing.

It’s extremely hard on Donovan Ricketts – whose fate is yet to be determined – but the Timbers get Kwarasey in his prime.

Kwarasey has been a solid player in Norway and with Ghana over the last four years – although he was drawn into the drama and hysteria that plagued the Black Stars at the World Cup – and the Timbers’ brass’ qualifications on picking the #1 are impeccable.

Portland has turned Steve Cronin into Troy Perkins and turned Perkins into Donovan Ricketts. If this move is another upgrade, Portland will have one of the best goalkeepers in the league.

Portland’s brass is also high on the Columbian Asprilla, who will absolutely see game-time in 2014. With Steve Zakuani and Kalif Alhassan gone, and Gaston Fernandez’s fate up in the air, Asprilla will start high on the depth chart.

Alhassan wasn’t the only depth player cleared out. With the exception of Jack Jewsbury and Norberto Paparatto – both of whom will be unprotected in the expansion draft – there are no more depth defenders.

Raushawn McKenzie and Danny O’Rourke were released, as was Pa Modou Kah. Harrington also goes to Colorado, where he’ll get a chance to play every day that will almost surely not be as fun as playing every day in Portland was.

Harrington was valuable in 2013, but ultimately too limited to hold down his job.

Kah, on the other, can’t be categorized. He is a person and a player unbound by normal labels. He is just Kah. One of the most unlikely fan favorites in Timbers history, Kah will be missed for his jovial presence – the outsize personality and his entertainment value. Not so much his play.

Alhassan went out neither as jovial nor entertaining, just sad. He had every chance to succeed in Portland, but his awful 2014 season was the last string. He leaves us with plenty of memories, and probably enough promise to convince another team to take a flyer on him in the Re-Entry Draft.

Perhaps the only surprising move today was the contract extension of Andrew Weber, who lost his backup spot to Jake Gleeson last year. Portland currently has four goalkeepers on the roster, but one will depart before the beginning of the season.

There was an understanding from Portland that their supporting players around the likes of Nagbe, Valeri, Wallace, Chara, Johnson and Ridgewell last season weren’t good enough. They’ve cleared out the clown-car, so to speak, and are left with a leaner roster of higher quality players.

Of course, the offseason isn’t over, but the Timbers’ nucleus appears intact.

The 2015 season - and the greater future - is taking shape.

This FanPost was written by a Stumptown Footy community member and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of the site or its staff.

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