PORTLAND — Pressing in the final third of the field was a point of emphasis this week for Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter.
Porter believes his team in recent matches has been missing just a bit of its up-field aggressiveness, and said in advance of Saturday’s match against the Vancouver Whitecaps FC that time was spent this week re-emphasizing the point.
“Not that it’s been poor,” Porter said. “For me, we haven’t been quite as aggressive in that part of our game.”
Two of Portland’s league-low three losses have come within its last four matches. The Western Conference playoff battle is extremely tight. Entering the weekend, five points separate first-place Real Salt Lake and sixth-place FC Dallas. Only the top five will make the playoffs.
Portland has 13 games remaining, eight of those at Jeld-Wen Field.
With 34 points from 21 games, the Timbers sit second in the Western Conference entering play Saturday, three points back of a Real Salt Lake team that has played one more match.
“We’ve put ourselves in a good spot, with a lot of home games coming up down the stretch,” Timbers captain Will Johnson said, adding that he’s never been involved in a playoff race this tight.
To be pushing for the top spot down the stretch instead of scrambling just to make the playoffs will require a level-headed approach to the home stretch, Johnson said.
“You can’t dwell on any one result, whether you win or lose,” Johnson said. “Because if you get too high then you’re going to lose the next game. And if you get too low, then you’re definitely going to lose.”
In addition to playoff position — Vancouver enters Saturday two points back of Portland and fifth in the West — this match is part of the Cascadia Cup competition. The Timbers won that trophy last season, a nice consolation prize at the end of a disappointing season. They have much grander goals for 2013.
“This year we hope that’s not the only thing we win,” Porter said. “We don’t want to be at the end of the year hanging our hat on just the Cascadia Cup.”
This is the Whitecaps’ only visit to Portland in 2013, and Seattle also only comes to Portland once. Portland earned dramatic draws at Vancouver and Seattle earlier in the season, and will visit each of those teams one more time .
“Our fans are very much behind us in these Cascadia rivalry games,” Johnson said. “But we still only get three points if we can beat Vancouver. We desperately need those. But there’s definitely added incentive with it being a Cascadia game.”
