PORTLAND — There will be some adjusting on the fly, but Caleb Porter believes he has a good feel for the competition his Portland Timbers will face from Honduras champions CD Olimpia on Tuesday at Providence Park.
“They’re a good team,” Porter said. “They have three strikers who are dangerous. The wingers are dangerous. They’re good.”
Porter said he has watched Olimpia’s six league games and its two wins over Alpha United in the CONCACAF Champions League.
Olimpia is in this competition for top teams in world soccer’s federation of North America, Central America and the Caribbean as the champion of the top league in Hoduras. It beat Alpha United 1-0 in Guyana and 6-0 at home.
The Timbers, who qualified for this tournament by finished atop the MLS Western Conference, won 4-1 at Alpha United in their Champions League debut.
Alpha United visits Portland next Tuesday,
“There’s going to be some things they have to sort out as players inside the lines before we’re able to make adjustments at halftime,” Porter said. “But we gave them a good sense of what they’ve been doing, system-wise.”
Team captain Will Johnson said the mystery of this matchup works both ways — that Olimpia will be trying to figure out the Timbers.
“That can be good because you can catch them by surprise,” Johnson said.
Johnson did not make the weekend trip to Colorado because his wife gave birth to a son on Sept. 5. But Johnson will play in this “massive” match and still be available for this Saturday’s critical home MLS match against the Vancouver Whitecaps. Johnson described the lineup that will play against Olimpia as “experienced.”
Tuesday’s match at Providence Park and an October match in Tegucigalpa will determine if the Timbers advance beyond the group stage of their first Champions League tournament. With that in mind, Porter said Portland will be assertive.
“If we don’t get a win, then we put a lot of pressure on ourselves in that last game we have to go on the road in a really difficult place to travel (to),” Porter said.
