Portland Timbers Leave Conechny, Polo Exposed in Expansion Draft

The list of players eligible to be selected by Nashville SC and Inter Miami CF in Tuesday’s expansion draft has been released and we now know who from the Portland Timbers have a real possibility at leaving the club over the offseason.

Dairon Asprilla, Jeff Attinella, Tomas Conechny, Claude Dielna, Andres Flores, Aljaz Ivacic, Modou Jadama, Kendall McIntosh, Andy Polo, Zarek Valentin, and Renzo Zambrano are the available players from the Timbers.

That mean Sebastian Blanco, Julio Cascante, Diego Chara, Steve Clark, Jeremy Ebobisse, Marco Farfan, Foster Langsdorf, Marvin Loria, Larrys Mabiala, Jorge Moreira, Cristhian Paredes, Bill Tuiloma, Diego Valeri, Jorge Villafana, and Erik Williamson are the players that the Timbers were able to protect.

Despite plenty of minutes played in 2019 spread throughout the group of eligible players, there are no real surprises in who the Timbers elected to leave vulnerable to the expansion draft. Additionally, unlike in previous expansion years, there is no clear target among the Timbers who might get picked and who the side will clearly want to find a way to keep, making it unlikely that we will see a typical Gavin Wilkinson deal done to protect an unprotected player.

Perhaps the two most notable names among those on the unprotected list are Tomas Conechny and Andy Polo.

Conechny, a 21-year-old whose loan from San Lorenzo the Timbers bought out in July, made sixteen appearances for the Timbers in 2019 and made an impact in an expanded role late in the season, notching a goal and three assists in 348 minutes of play. While still far from a finished product, Conechny certainly showed some potential during his time on the field with the Timbers in 2019.

Polo, 25, has made 42 appearances for the Timbers over the last two seasons and likely would have made more if he had not regularly missed time due to call ups with the Peruvian national team. A quiet presence in the midfield in most games, Polo could be a solid building block for an expansion side to look at: unspectacular but largely functional. While many Timbers fans have grown frustraited with Polo’s contributions on the pitch, he certainly has the speed and technical skill to make an impact somewhere.

The expansion draft takes place on Tuesday, November 19th at 2:30 p.m. PT.