The Portland Timbers practiced today at the team's Beaverton training facility, opening their regeneration session to the press as they start the turnaround from Saturday night's 2-0 win over Chivas USA.
Today's session started with Saturday' starters in a separate group from the rest of the team doing some light jogging and recovery work before a long period of stretching to close out their workout for the day.
The substitutes from Saturday and the rest of the Timbers' reserves, a group that included several players back from long term loans, had a more standard practice, starting off with the usual assortment of warm up drills before going to a large possession drill then finishing practice with a game on a short but wide field emphasizing passing and quickly moving the ball from one sideline to the other.
Injuries and Absences
Darlington Nagbe was back in the team warmup today and participated in practice through the team possession drill, after which he headed to the end of the pitch to work one on one with one of the team trainers. After practice Caleb Porter told the press that the Timbers are hopeful that he will be able to play next week. Nagbe is coming off of an MCL strain suffered three weeks ago against the Montreal Impact.
Kalif Alhassan and George Fochive were on the sidelines today, working with the trainers apart from the rest of the team. Alhassan was out of the 18 this weekend after playing the majority of the Timbers' match against the LA Galaxy.
Trialists and Guest Players
The Timbers had an extra goalkeeper on hand at practice today, Evan King of Bellevue, WA. A rising junior with the Cornell University men's soccer team, King has yet to see the field with the Big Red.