Timbers renew rivalry that has some legs

Even if there were no history, tonight’s soccer match between the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders FC would fire up the fan bases.

After all, with the Sonics gone from Seattle, the sports rivalry between the Northwest cities is limited to the Western Hockey League. And tonight’s winner advances to the quarterfinals of the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup, the national championship for U.S. soccer.

But there is history — dating back to the Timbers’ North American Soccer League debut in 1975. This year, Seattle is thriving as a first-year franchise in Major League Soccer. Portland is among the top teams in the United Soccer Leagues First Division, one level lower on the pro soccer ladder.

So figure there will be more than a bit of added zest in those chants from the Timbers Army, the throng of fans who sit behind the north-end goal at PGE Park, when Portland and Seattle renew their soccer rivalry.

Kickoff is at 7 p.m. for the U.S. Open Cup third-round match. But the jousting on message boards started almost as soon as this match was set two weeks ago.

"Everybody from the kids I coach to their parents to people I see on the street, everybody’s hyped about this game," Timbers defender Scot Thompson said. "It’s going to be huge."

It also is expected to be a sellout, the Timbers said late Tuesday.

Timbers coach Gavin Wilkinson kept his players focused on their league opponents through Sunday’s 4-0 victory over Montreal. Then Wilkinson described what today’s opportunity means to him and the Timbers organization.

"The rivalry is huge. I think while we have an appreciation for one another’s organizations, there’s a great hatred for the teams on the field," Wilkinson said.

In other words, this match is the inverse of a friendly.

But it figures to produce quality soccer. The Timbers haven’t lost at PGE Park this season. In fact, their only loss of any kind was 15 matches back in the season-opener at Vancouver, B.C.

Seattle is 6-3-7 16 games into its first MLS season, third best in the Western Conference. The Sounders will be missing a few regulars to injury and national-team assignments, but they don’t play again this week and bring many of their top players into tonight’s battle.

The Timbers play Thursday at home against German club Bayern Munich’s reserves, and have a league match Saturday at Minnesota, but today’s match is front and center.

Playing Sounders FC is "a different beast than the league," defender Cameron Knowles said. "We’re the underdogs. We’re not really under any pressure to win, aside from it being our home field."

For Portland’s players, a strong showing against an MLS side might also be a career boost. Many of the Timbers have had at least a taste of playing in MLS, and are motivated to show they can stand up to an opponent from America’s top pro soccer league.

"The pressure is on Seattle to get a result," Knowles said. "And Cup games, they’re exciting because it’s win or go home. So there’s a lot of emotion and a lot of energy. And you multiply that with it being Seattle, our biggest rival, and it’s going to be huge."

The same might be said for the staff and the fans of the Timbers.

"Because they’ve stepped up to MLS earlier than ourselves, that’s probably added to the rivalry somewhat, because we consider our fan base to be somewhat better," Wilkinson said. "Going into the MLS, they’ve done a tremendous job capitalizing on the city and the support of the game."

Sounders FC have become the darlings of MLS, drawing larger-than-anticipated crowds to Qwest Field. They are averaging 29,700 fans through nine home games, almost twice the MLS average of just over 15,000.

Timbers fans are looking forward to joining MLS in 2011 — if Portland agrees to turn PGE Park into a soccer-football only stadium. But for now, the Cup tournament is their only shot at the Sounders.

The rosters of both the Timbers and the Sounders are much changed from recent seasons, when the teams battled in USL-1. One Seattle player with intimate knowledge of the rivalry is goalkeeper Kasey Keller, who played 10 games for the Timbers in 1989 after graduating from the University of Portland — shutting out the Sounders twice in Western Soccer League games.

"I don’t think a lot of the players quite understand what this game is going to be," Keller said on the Sounders FC Web page.  "I think when they show up on game day they’re going to realize real quick that there’s been some groups of fans that have really tried to turn this rivalry into a true, European hatred — which is kind of cool."