Rose City Forecast 13: Portland Timbers vs LAFC

Welcome to another Forecast everyone!

Last week was a good week; the Portland Timbers played their twelfth road game in a row on the other side of the country and brought three points back to Portland. And not only did the win come from a transcontinental trip, it was also against the team at the top of the eastern conference standings. With a brace by new signing Brian Fernandez, PTFC finished their season-opening road trip averaging more than one point per game, a respectable accomplishment by any standard. In addition to Fernandez’s brace, Diego Valeri finished a heck of a shot from outside the box to give Portland three goals on the night while the Union could only find one for a final score of 3-1.

Congratulations to MacVanek for taking the prediction of the week with a very respectable 13-point haul after predicting the score, Fernandez and Picault goals, Valeri and Blanco assists and a low-card game. Nice work!

It’s a big week in Portland! The Timbers finally return home for their first match at the freshly renovated Providence Park! And on top of that, their opponent is LAFC, the best team in the league. Through fifteen games, LAFC sit on an astonishing 2.27 ppg, with only one loss all season. But on the bright side, they’re not clearly the best road team in the league. They’re a very good 3-1-3 for 1.42 ppg outside LA, but several other teams are right in that vicinity. In fact, over their past seven road games, your Portland Timbers have earned 1.86 ppg. In addition, LAFC have 12 points from their last six games while the Timbers have 13 points in their last six. So while LAFC are incredible this year; going by recent form they’re actually worse than Portland, especially when accounting for the fact that some of their last six were on the road. All of that is the long way to say that while they’re definitely the best team in MLS, LAFC is hardly invincible, especially on the road. Of course, Carlos Vela has almost as many goals this season as everyone on the Timbers combined, so if the boys in green can’t find a way to contain him, they’re going to struggle to get the win they’re capable of earning. How do you think it goes? Will Providence Park be celebrating Saturday night?

Total Cards O/U: 4.5

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!