Rose City Forecast Five: PTFC vs New England

NOTE: Please note the clarification of scoring in the explanations section regarding assists on goals that were unassisted or directly from a PK/FK. Also a clarification on red card points rule.

Here we are leaving March with the fifth prediction thread of the year.

Last week, the Timbers suffered their first loss of 2017, and their first loss against the Crew since... 2015? 2014? Ask the Timbers’ stat-man. Anyway, it’s been a while, and the side in yellow was probably due, especially since PTFC was without Nagbe playing in his home state. The final score was 3-2, after being 2-2 at half time on Adi and Asprilla goals for the Timbers and Meram and Kamara goals for the Crew. It looked like the Timbers might hold on for the road point, but those hopes collapsed when a Columbus rookie scored in the 84th minute, shortly after coming on as a sub. And so the Timbers return to Portland disappointed.

Like the Timbers, most of you predictors won’t love your points haul this week, as only one of you predicted a Timbers loss. Bosoxtjh18, congrats on being the downer of the week, and on your 13 point haul, correctly predicting the score, two of the goals, an assist, Chara’s first yellow, and over on the total cards. I hope it’s at least a bit of a silver lining. Two people had posts with four recs, so I had to be tiebreaker. I went with Webfooter17 for predicting three beers thrown per Crew fan, and the tiebreaker was the included picture. Shoutout to TNOTTS for also getting four recs for suggesting that Gleeson would drink some of the beer thrown onto the field. Cynical.

Onto the standings. If I messed up my math, let me know!

The Timbers return home this week, and have Nagbe and Guzman back with the team. With neither pushed too hard on national team duty, PTFC has a chance to maintain its home winning streak against middling New England, whose only points have come at the expense of the terrible Minnesota United. Though it looks to be in the Timbers’ favor, in MLS it always pays to overlook the opposition. Will the team return to focus at Providence and come away with their fourth win in five games?

Over/under: 3.5 total cards

The Scoring Format:

• Correct score: 5 points
• Correct result (draw/win/loss): 3 points
• Each clean sheet: 2 points
• Each goal-scorer: 1 point
• Each FK/PK/assist/lack of assist: 1 point
• Goal/assist bonus: 1 point
• Player with the first yellow card of the match: 1 point
• Each player with a red card: 1 point (Cannot earn points for predicting 0 red cards)
• Over/under on total cards: 1 point
• Most recommended/most outrageously accurate prediction: 2 points

Some ground rules and explanations/clarifications (the fine print):

You may amend your prediction at any point up to kick off to account for game day 18 announcements. Though I recommend at least getting an initial prediction sooner, just in case you forget to come back in that hour or two before the game.

Keep your scoreline predictions realistic. Basically, if you’re predicting lots of goals all the time to just earn points on goals and assists and ignoring the score, I feel that goes against the spirit of this thread. This hasn’t been at all a problem in the last two years, so let’s keep it that way!

The goal/assist bonus is an additional point if you correctly get the correct scorer and assistant on the same goal. (e.g., if Nagbe scores, assisted by Valeri, and you predicted that exact combination you get a total of three points - 1 goal, 1 assist, 1 bonus. However, if you predicted Nagbe scores assisted by Adi and Adi scores assisted by Valeri, you would get two points from the Nagbe/Valeri prediction - 1 goal, 1 assist)

New - Please be clear whether you think a goal will be unassisted, assisted, or from a PK/FK. Unassisted = no assist, run of play; Assisted = player who got the assist; PK/FK = directly from a free kick. For the purposes of this thread, a PK counts as a FK, and a FK as a PK. If you just leave the assist section blank, I will assume you’re declining to make an assist prediction.

New - Even though a player can be awarded a secondary assist by OPTA, I will award a maximum of one assist point per goal. But that point can come from either the primary or secondary assist in the box score. However, please keep your predictions to one assist per goal.

For the over/under on cards, a second yellow leading to a red counts as two cards, not three.

New - You may predict more than one red card if you’re expecting a chippy match, but only up to three total.

Most weeks, I will reward the most recommended prediction with the 2 points. However, if someone predicts that Caleb will bring a towel to dry off Seattle’s field, and he does, they’ll probably get those two points, regardless of whether they got the recs. We’ll also be testing this out, because I want to be careful that this doesn’t end up favoring the first few people to post their prediction. As I see it, the goal here is to add even more fun without going too over-the-top ridiculous.

If you’re looking for where I set the over/under on total cards, check the end of the preview paragraph after the standings.

Format:

In the comment title, post your predicted score with the winners, eg: 4-2 Timbers

In the body of your comment, start with the goals and assists, like so:

Nagbe (Valeri)

Valeri (Free kick)

Adi (PK)

Blanco (Unassisted)

Beckham (Free kick)

Donovan (Beckham)

Next, choose your first yellow card, and that means picking only one person.

First yellow to Nigel De Jong

Then reds, if any. (NOTE: no points awarded for correctly calling a red-card-free match, so take a guess.)

Nigel De Jong gets a red card for stomping Blanco.

Clearly note whether you’re predicting over or under on total cards. Don’t leave me to try and figure it out!

And lastly, make your fun prediction.

Nigel de Jong tries to stomp Nagbe’s ankle again, but this time, Nagbe avoids the tackle. Being angry Nagbe for the first time in three years, he kicks the ball straight into NDJ’s groin. Camera pans to a trademark Chara smile.

As always, any questions about anything?