Portland Timbers Grab 1-0 Win Over Norwich City

The Portland Timbers claimed their first win over an English Premier League side since 2007 thanks to a slyly slipped in shot from Jose Adolfo Valencia. It was a back and forth battle at Jeld-Wen Field that saw the Timbers come out 1-0 winners over Norwich City FC.

Steven Evans, a second half substitute for Will Johnson, started the game winning goal with some good pressure on his man, causing a bad back pass to the Norwich defense. From there things went suddenly awry for the Canaries as the follow up attempted clearance was scuffed and fell to Kalif Alhassan. Alhassan calmly drew both defenders before slipping the ball to Valencia who side-footed the ball under the Norwich keeper and into the back of the net.

The game was a physical one with plenty of fouls being whistled on both sides of the ball. The Timbers were perhaps the more reckless of the two sides as they picked up three yellow cards to Norwich's one and, in truth, could have been playing a man down as Alvas Powell, already on a yellow card, managed to go in studs up on Norwich winger Elliot Bennett.

With a somewhat stilted rhythm to the run of play, chances seemed hard to come by but still both sides' keepers were called into action with some regularity. In the first half Milos Kocic mad a beautiful fingertip save to put a wicked shot from distance onto the crossbar, while at the other end of the pitch Trencito managed to amass several sizzling shots on goal that Norwich keeper Carlo Nash did well to keep out.

While the match will not do much for the Timbers' progress toward the Supporters' shield, it did give both Caleb Porter and the assembled Timbers fans a good look at some of the team's less regularly featured players. The win will certainly keep the Timbers spirits up as they fly off to San Jose this weekend to resume league play.