Portland Timbers International Sights and Sounds: Rodney Wallace Edition

As many of you know by now, this past weekend was scheduled by FIFA as an international weekend meaning that the club world took a break (for the most part) in order to facilitate some national team games. The USA played twice against both Costa Rica and Belgium and lost both times. Such a shame...

But there's good news for Timbers fans! Despite none of our players getting onto the USA national team (come on Darlington Nagbe, Eric Brunner, Kenny Cooper!) we still saw four players get poached by various other national sides:

• Rodney Wallace (Costa Rica)
• James Marcelin (Haiti)
• Steve Purdy (El Salvador)
• Lovel Palmer (Jamaica)

The good news here is that both Wallace and Marcelin played exceptionally well, which can only mean good things for the Timbers...

As most American soccer fans know by now, Rodney Wallace is the guy who scored the diving header that won the game over the Yanks last Friday. It was a great goal for both himself and his national side which has been struggling against the USA in recent years. After coming on in the 61st minute, he scored in the 65th minute making an instant impact on the team...

Yesterday, Wallace got his first international career start and cap under Costa Rica against Ecuador, but was unfortunately defeated 4-nil at the hands of the South American side.

James Marcelin

Marcelin had an equally large performance for his national side over the busy weekend. After playing at hoome for the first time since the 2010 earthquake Haiti whomped the U.S. Virgin Islands 6-nil. The best part about it? James Marcelin got the opening goal in the historic win...

Haiti would then go on to win away from home against Curacao 4-2 where Marcelin scored agan in the 58th minute.

A total of two goals scored for the defensive midfielder. Not bad!

Steve Purdy

While El Salvador went on to win both 3-2 against the Dominican Republic and 4-1 against the Cayman islands, our own Steve Purdy went unused as a substitute in both matches. A shame, but sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Despite that, the experience of traveling and training with an international side is good for a player and hopefully Purdy will come back with a better knowledge of the international game.

Lovel Palmer

Fortunately, while Palmer didn't get the chance to join up with the Reggae Boyz for their 5-2 loss to Ecuador, he did join them for their friendly against Colombia in Ft. Lauderdale in yesterday's match.

FIFA.com hasn't updated their site yet and I can't find out the info to see if Palmer started or not, but the Reggae Boyz ultimately lost 2-nil to Colombia anyways.

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So there you have it, four Timbers representing all around the continent. Futty Danso probably would have gotten the call up for The Gambia had he not gotten injured a couple weeks ago.

The next international weekend is next month. Hopefully we see the same players getting called up.