Rose City Forecast 17: LAFC vs Portland Timbers

Welcome once again to the Portland Timbers prediction thread!

Last week saw PTFC face the San Jose Earthquakes at Providence Park, walk away with their eighth win on the season to extend their unbeaten run to 11 league games and 13 across all competitions. Samuel Armenteros had a brace and Diego Valeri had an assist brace (brassist?) to give the Timbers a 2-0 lead, but San Jose got on the board late in the second half through Florian Jungwirth to make for a nervy ending, but the Timbers held serve to win 2-1. San Jose received a yellow card in the first minute of the match, then went the remainder without getting a second.

Timbers Pride and shrekpdx both had excellent weeks on the prediction side, earning 12 points each, while landoid takes the points for the wild prediction. They thought the stadium crew would have to take an extra day when cleaning the stadium to rid the place of ‘ultra-funk’.

A perfect prediction for 19 points:

2-1, Timbers

Armenteros (Valeri); Armenteros (Valeri OR Sebastian Blanco)

Jungwirth (Quincy Amerikwa)

First yellow to Harold Cummings.

Under on cards

The standings include the points from the previous three games - San Jose, Seattle, and Atlanta.

The Timbers have another road game this week, traveling south to Los Angeles. LAFC is one of only a handful of teams to have more points and more points per game than the Timbers, and they are unbeaten on their home pitch. The Timbers, of course, are unbeaten since April, including a home win over LAFC. However, the team PTFC will face on Sunday will look much different, as LAFC has scoring wonder Adama Diomande on the pitch, who wasn’t present last time the two teams played. Will the Timbers be able to keep an excellent LAFC side at bay and pick up points?

Total Cards O/U: 3.5

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, but you may predict up to 3 players with a red.)
• Over/under on total cards: 1 point
• Most outrageous(ly 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. 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)

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.

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.

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

For the most outrageous(ly accurate) prediction, I will be trying to toe a line between completely absurd and mundane in my choices. As I see it, the goal here is to add even more fun without going too over-the-top ridiculous. So, in my mind, the best predictions will be something that could conceivably happen, but don’t happen often, like amusing coaching spats or goals that bounce off the crossbar, then off the keeper’s back, and then in. Things like that.

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?