Crew Fans Pelt Portland Timbers With Beer During MLS Final

We’ve already talked at great length about who’s the favorite in Sunday’s showdown (READ HERE), what winning a championship in their first MLS Cup appearance would mean for the Timbers (READ HERE), and the challenges Crew SC pose to one of the league’s stingiest defenses all season (READ HERE).

Things took an nearly existential turn after Porter considered the destiny question in the pregame press conference. But if you’re able hang on and going through the suffering then you survive.

“You look at the Best XI, we don’t have a guy in the Best XI, you look at the all-Star team, we don’t have a guy on the all-Star team”, Porter said.

The Timbers moved back into defensive mode for most of the remainder of the first half to protect their lead.

If Kamara can’t play, veteran forward Jack McInerney probably would be the first choice to replace Kamara. The pairing provided the backbone of a defense that allowed the third-fewest goals in MLS this season.

He fell awkwardly and then clutched his right leg.

“It’s hard”, said head coach Gregg Berhalter. “So I’m going to go in the locker room and figure out what happened and figure out what the treatment is and if he is going to be available”.

He added: “My guess right now is he’d be available”.

The victor of Sunday’s game will also earn a berth in the 2016-17 CONCACAF Champions League, the regional competition that pits MLS clubs against the top Mexican, Central American and Caribbean teams.

Can the Crew win a second title? “Steve gets hundreds of balls, thousands of balls played to him during the course of the season and he rarely makes a mistake like that and you have to live with it. We support him and mistakes are part of the game.

Portland players ran to the right-wing corner to celebrate while frustrated Columbus fans, who felt that there should not have been a cross or a goal, littered the field with debris and beer and soda cans. Can they contain his speed and close down on him, as they did with Dallas’ Blas Perez late in the Western Conference second leg?

The Portland Timbers and Columbus Crew face off for an MLS title on Sunday.

Portland has scoring threats in Fanendo Adi and Darlington Nagbe, but the Timbers rely on strong defending, and life could be much easier for defender Nat Borchers and goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey, if Kamara is neutralized because of injury.

Both teams finally settled into a ragged, somewhat disjointed pattern as halftime approach. In addition to that, they have six goals in four postseason matches. Portland worked the ball to Lucas Melano, who sent in a looping cross from the right flank that a diving Wallace headed home at the far post for a stunning two-goal advantage. The goal scorer is awarded the slice. Because of this, teams often have been reluctant to challenge Columbus on the flanks, even though on several occasions – including multiple meetings with the Montreal Impact – it’s been the Crew’s Achilles’ heel. They recently changed the rules at Mapfre to ban both chainsaws and “logs of any wooden variety”.

How did the Timbers get here?