Portland Timbers Training Quotes and Notes: All Salt Lake

The Portland Timbers put in a day of practice at the team's Beaverton training center before heading down to Utah for Wednesday's clash against Real Salt Lake, their first match up against their competition for the the top spot in the Western Conference this year.

Today's practice got off to a late start as the Timbers held a longer than normal team meeting before taking the pitch. Training started off with some of the regular warm ups then, as practice was closed to the press, the Timbers' reserves went indoors to recover from their match yesterday while the rest of the team headed to the center's grass pitch to work through tomorrow's tactics.

Injuries and Absences

The Timbers were missing a number of players today after the weekend's physical matches. When asked about their absences, Caleb Porter said, "You probably know as much as I do because it has just been a day since the game and I think that we are still evaluating all of those things. I don't really know where we are at with all of those guys. I think it is just one of those things where, more than usual, we are going to be making game time decisions on the players playing."

Frederic Piquionne, who left the match against Vancouver in the 40', was not at training today, although he did tweet that he hopes to be healthy for the Dallas game.

Also absent from practice today after going the full 90' with the Timbers reserves was Sal Zizzo.

Jack Jewsbury was at practice today, but watched from the sidelines.

Diego Chara, who has been out with a case of turf toe, was back with the team for warmups today. Chara said last week that he hoped to be fit for the game against RSL.

Bright Dike continued his return to fitness today with an extra long session under the direction Sean McAuley. When the press were allowed back out on the pitch and the rest of the players had already headed indoors, Dike was still running.

David Horst, Brent Richards, and Mikael Silvestre were all spotted at the practice facility today. Horst went through the warmups with the team, as has been the norm for him over the last few weeks.

Trialists and Guest Players

David Meves trained with the team again today and will likely be with the Timbers through the rest of the season, so we are going to go back to don't-mention-him-unless-something-changes mode.

There were also three academy players training with the team today. Jesse Garcia-Aguilar and Anthony Macchione, both of whom trained with the team last week, were with the team again today and were joined by another U-16s player, Niko De Vera. All three played with the Timbers reserves yesterday, along with fellow academy prospects Reed Baez and Jacob Kempf.