Portland Timbers Training Quotes and Notes: A Complete Performance

The Portland Timbers practiced at their Beaverton training facility today. The team went through their usual regeneration workout in a completely closed session on Monday before getting back to business today. With the day's session closed, the Timbers put in a long workout before heading indoors for a gym session.

When the press were let out onto the practice pitch today, training had wrapped up and the team were winding down their stretching routine. The majority of the players headed indoors immediately, with only a few remaining on the pitch, including Futty Danso, Pa Modou Kah, and George Fochive. Fochive also returned to the pitch after the gyms session had wrapped up to practice his dribbling.

While the team was indoors working out, Caleb Porter filled in the press on the improvements that the Timbers need to make before taking on Real Salt Lake, a team they have traditionally struggled against, this weekend.

There are certainly some things that we stressed today in training, we will stress tomorrow in training, tactically that we need to do to have success against their team. I won't share that stuff with you guys, but there are things that we are going to try to do on both sides of the ball against this team.

The theme of the week seemed to be getting things together on both sides of the ball. Porter seemed to think that the pieces were in place for the Timbers to start winning, but that the team needs to find the balance between attacking and defending that will allow the team to get their first win of the year.

The biggest thing that we need to do is put together a complete performance. We have had some games where we have attacked well, some games where we defended well, but we haven't put together a performance where we have done both. We have played well enough to win every game, but at the end of the day we probably didn't win any of the games because we didn't put together a complete performance.

The team has not let the pressure of going winless this season get to them, Porter said.

There's no lack of confidence in this group. We've built a strong culture here. If you have watched training, which you are not, then you will see that the spirits are great, the confidence is great, there is no issues whatsoever with that.

Injuries and Absences

Steve Zakuani did not practice with the team today, according to Caleb Porter. Zakuani is still out with a tight hamstring after being held out of the eighteen for last Saturday's match against Chivas.

Rodney Wallace was on the training pitch today and left with the rest of the team as the press was let out onto the pitch. Wallace has been working on the sidelines of practice for the duration of the season so far while he recovers from offseason surgery to repair a torn ACL.