Rose City Forecast 12: Philadelphia Union vs Portland Timbers

Welcome to forecast number twelve! It’s the last one of the extended road trip!

Last week, the Portland Timbers went to Texas without Diego Chara or Larrys Mabiala and returned to Oregon with a point. Renzo Zambrano saw his first MLS start, and held his own in the midfield alongside Cristhian Paredes (until Paredes left the match with an injury, anyway). Houston scored first, when Alberth Elis flicked a corner kick to an unmarked Mauro Manotas, who directed the ball into net. Still down 1-0, the 65th minute saw the Timbers’ debut for Brian Fernandez. Twelve minutes later, he brought down a ball from Sebastian Blanco and calmly put the ball past Houstons keeper, and from there the score remained 1-1 through the end of the match.

UNOprivateer and landoid share the predictions of the week, as both predicted a draw and both earned four points from correctly predicting some goals and assists. The standings are updated!

Finally! We have reached the end of PTFC’s season opening road trip. Their transcontinental jaunt to Pennsylvania to play against the Philadelphia Union is the last match before they return to newly revamped Providence Park next week. But before they can play in front of a friendly crowd, the boys in green have one of their toughest matches of the season so far. They’re playing the best team in the Eastern Conference on points per game and they’re traveling 2500 miles to do it. The Union come into the game missing Mark McKenzie who is with the US U-20’s and possibly Marco Fabian who is questionable with an ankle sprain. Meanwhile, the Timbers will most likely be missing Renzo Zambrano to international duty and Cristhian Paredes to injury. But Diego Chara makes his return to the lineup and we may get the chance to see Brian Fernandez in the starting eleven. Will those two pieces be enough for the Timbers to get a result and finish their road trip averaging a point per game?

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

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

You may amend your prediction at any point up to kickoff 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 few 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. (For example, if Blanco scores, assisted by Valeri, and you predicted that exact combination, you get a total of three points: 1 goal, 1 assist, 1 bonus.)

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 an FK, and an FK as a PK. Just like predicting a player assist, you earn an assist point if you correctly predict an unassisted or free kick goal. 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.

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; for example, 4-2 Timbers

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

Blanco (Valeri)

Valeri (Free kick)

Ebo (PK)

Blanco (Unassisted)

Graham Zusi (Free kick)

Krisztian Nemeth (Johnny Russel)

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

First yellow to Matt Besler

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

Roger Espinoza 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!