Portland Timbers vs. Minnesota United: How to Watch, Preview, Match Chat [7:30]

The Portland Timbers have finally returned home and will open up Providence Park today with a match against Minnesota United.

After five games on the road to open the season, the Timbers are still without their first win of 2018, putting significant pressure on the team to take all three points in their first home match of the season. Already dwelling the basement of the West — Seattle Sounders aside — the Timbers will need to kick off a strong stretch of home form if they want to dig their way out of the early season hole that they have put themselves in.

In the Timbers way are the Loons. Off to a less cataclysmic start than we saw last year in their expansion season, Minnesota have continued from where they left off last season: capable of putting together a strong performance, but with significant gaps in their roster that still give the impression of a side under construction. However, at least one of those gaps from 2017 has been filled by the arrival of the Loons’ first ever designated player, Darwin Quintero, who could make his debut for the Minnesota side today.

The Timbers, meanwhile, remain a side in need of some consistency, playing their best soccer of the season during their first two-thirds of last week’s loss to Orlando before dramatically imploding before the final whistle. Timbers fans are no strangers to a side that has required some time at the start of the season to get up to speed, but now more than a month into the season, it is bordering on now-or-never for the Timbers.

Match Information

Watch it on: FOX

Where: Providence Park in Portland, OR

When: Saturday, April 14th at 7:30 p.m. PT

Portland Timbers: 0-3-2, 11th place in the Western Conference, lost 3-2 at Orlando City SC

Minnesota United: 2-3-0, 7th place in the Western Conference, lost 1-0 at home to atlanta United