Yesterday was a day in the history of the Timbers. No matter who was playing, how the team performed, or how many goals were scored, yesterday was the first ever full game the Timbers played as an MLS team. Of course, it was only a friendly so it should be taken with a grain of salt. Still, it's unfortunate that the team didn't gel enough to eek out a win against PDL side the Ventura County Fusion.
When I wrote my pre-game piece on yesterday's game I made special mention that no matter the score, fans should not expect this game to mean much. Whether it was 4 - 0 Timbers, or 0 - 4 Ventura County. Either way it meant about as much as our 1 - 1 tie did yesterday.
What was really important, for this game, was that our players learned each other on the field and figure out how each person truly plays in a competitive match. In that aspect, I'd say the game was a relative success. While the score at the end didn't impress, what did was the team's seeming domination of the game.
Now, unfortuantely, I wasn't able to make the 1000-ish mile trip, nor was the game broadcast so my analysis of the game is rough, at best, however, what I could glean from tweets and the follow up article on the game was that despite not scoring, our team certainly dominated much of the game.
Additionally, the goal/assist by Nagbe/Perlaza, respectively impresses. The fact that both players were able to get themselves on the board and work together doing it impresses me. Perhaps a 4 - 3 - 3 with Cooper, Nagbe and Perlaza up top is the way to go after all.
Unfortunately, it looks like we've already sustained our first player injury. Bright Dike, while his current status is unknown, is reported to have been injured during the match, something about his knee, I believe. It will be interesting/unfortunate to see how this shapes up our forward pecking order if Dike's injury is severe.
Come Tuesday, the Timbers will face a serious opponent in the LA Galaxy. Given that Los Angeles has had few player movements and has kept a large majority of their 2009/2010 players, I'm not super confident our mostly-new team can beat them. Still it will be interesting to see how well we fair against the likes of Landon Donovan and Juan Pablo Angel. No word on whether that game will be broadcast or not.
P.S. Here's a video of the Nagbe/Perlaza goal: