Timbers look to extend unbeaten streak vs. Dynamo (Jul 26, 2018)
The Portland Timbers' unbeaten league streak is now at 13 games. However, their hold on the Western Conference's fifth playoff spot remains tenuous.
The Timbers host one of the teams chasing them, the eighth-place Houston Dynamo, on Saturday at Providence Park in Portland.
Portland (8-3-7) is even with the fourth-place L.A. Galaxy on points (31) and leads Real Salt Lake by one. Houston (7-7-6) is another three points back with 27, one behind Minnesota United and one clear of ninth-place Vancouver. (The Galaxy currently own the tiebreaker for fourth place based on goal differential.)
Portland has played at least two fewer games than the rest of the teams in the Western Conference.
The Timbers twice came back from one-goal deficits to earn a 2-2 home draw with the Montreal Impact last weekend. After Matteo Mancosu gave the Impact a 2-1 lead, Diego Valeri tied it in the 65th minute with his seventh goal of 2018.
"They fought all the way until the end, and that's what we want," Portland coach Giovanni Savarese said, according to MLSsoccer.com. "We want a team that never gives up and we did that. They believed all the way until the end and the games we have played usually we have been the team that scores first half. Today was a good response."
The Dynamo blew an early 1-0 lead at home on Wednesday, watching the Philadelphia Union score three straight times for a 3-1 win.
The Union tied it in the 34th minute and then Houston's Tomas Martinez was given a red card after video review determined he had stomped on the ankle of Philadelphia's Auston Trusty.
That decision left Dynamo coach Wilmer Cabrera flummoxed.
"If you tell me that it was something on the field, the players from the other team, or my players or any of you, know why the red card happened on Tomas, please tell me because I don't know," he said.
"We win it for sure (if Martinez wasn't sent off)," Mauro Manotas, who put Houston on top with his 11th goal of the season, said, according to Pro Soccer USA. "But winning in this league with 10 players is very difficult."
Martinez is suspended for Saturday's match.
The loss brought the Dynamo's league winless streak to three games.
"Right now, it's frustration, right now the guys are sad and upset ... because we work hard every day," Cabrera told the Houston Chronicle. "But we have to have short memory and start a new day tomorrow."
