Quick Recap: Portland Timbers Tie Vancouver Whitecaps 2-2 in Goalsplosion

The Portland Timbers came away from their match against the Vancouver Whitecaps with a point that inches the Timbers even closer to finally clinching a playoff berth. With three of the game's four goals coming in three minutes of the second half, this match started out slow but finished with a bang.

Darlington Nagbe opened up the scoring with a precise 30 yard strike in the 40'. With Maximiliano Urruti providing high pressure, Whitecaps keeper David Ousted misplayed his clearance, dropping the ball to Will Johnson just inside the halfway line. Johnson, after a short dribble up field, found Nagbe 30 yards from goal. With a quick touch away from his man, Nagbe found space and fired a beautiful shot into the upper 90 of the Vancouver net to open the scoring.

Closing out the first half the Timbers looked like the better team, but the second half would see the Whitecaps surge back into the game.

After putting on the pressure from the start of the half, Vancouver pulled the game even in the 76'. With the Timbers scrambling to clear the ball after some scarey chances for the Whitecaps, a foul well outside the box seemed like a nice respite. However, Camilo Sanvezzo struck a hard curling shot over the wall that, with the aid of a deflection off the head of Rodney Wallace, skipped just inside the near post and a wrong-footed Donovan Ricketts.

The tie would not last for long, however, as the Timbers restarted play intent on getting back in front. A quick drive down the pitch saw Nagbe dribbled the ball into the corner of Whitecaps' box with three Timbers players crashing the goal. Rather than firing the ball into the mixer, Nagbe, his head up, laid the ball back to Will Johnson arriving late at the top of the box. With his first touch Johnson side-footed the ball in on goal, getting a deflection off of Carlyle Mitchell along the way that put it just out of reach of Ousted in the 77'.

The onslaught of goals was not over, however, as Vancouver once again put the Timbers under pressure. Just two minutes after tying the game, the Whitecaps pulled even again, and again it was Camilo putting the ball in the back of the net.

In the 78' Darren Mattocks took the ball down Vancouver's left flank, showing off some fancy stepovers as he went at Jack Jewsbury. Finding some space, Mattocks put a cross through the box, but was unable to find his fellow forwards. What he did find was Young-Pyo Lee streaking down the Vancouver right. Lee, with a deft turn of his hips, vollied the ball back into the path of Camilo who, in a surefire goal of the year contender, threw himself completely horizontal and fired a scissor kicked shot past Donovan Ricketts at the near post.

This time, however, the tie would last even as Vancouver threw everything, including the kitchen sink, forward at the Timbers.