Portland Timbers vs. San Jose Earthquakes Match Thread [7:30 pm]

Tonight the Portland Timbers will face off against the San Jose Earthquakes. There will be plenty of headlines that come out of it, I'm sure, but really they won't matter all that much. You see, the following week, the Timbers have to play San Jose again. So whatever happens tonight is really just half of the full story. Of course, that doesn't mean we shouldn't be expecting three points. It is a home game, after all.

Here's all the information you need for tonight's game:

General Information

Watch it on: NBC Sports Network

Kick off: 7:30 pm at Jeld Wen Field

San Jose Earthquakes: 8 points in the Western Conference

Portland Timbers: 6 points in the Western Conference

Starting Line ups

Portland Timbers:

Donovan Ricketts; Jack Jewsbury, Futty Danso, Mikael Silvestre, Michael Harrington; Diego Chara, Darlington Nagbe, Will Johnson (C), Kalif Alhassan, Ryan Johnson, Rodney Wallace

Subs: Milos Kocic, Ryan Miller, Dylan Tucker-Gangnes, Michael Nanchoff, Ben Zemanski, Frederic Piquionne, Jose Adolfo Valencia

San Jose Earthquakes:

Jon Busch; Justin Morrow, Ty Harden, Victor Bernardez, Dan Gargan; Rafael Baca, Ramiro Corrales, Chris Wondolowski, Sam Cronin; Alan Gordon, Steven Lenhart

Subs: David Bingham, Nana Attakora, Adam Jahn, Brad Ring, Abu Tommy, Cordell Cato, Mike Fucito

Final Thoughts

Obviously a win tonight is expected. The Timbers are coming off a great win over the Houston Dynamo, they're playing at home and, despite some injuries, have been gelling very well in recent matches.It's almost enough to hope for the Timbers taking all six points from the Earthquakes over the next two games, but you've got to walk before you can run. If the Timbers can win confidently tonight, it will definitely help them going into San Jose next week.