PORTLAND — As with any first day, many of the questions for Caleb Porter and Portland Timbers were about the newcomers.
But for Porter, continuity is a major theme as he prepares his team for the 2015 Major League Soccer season.
Beginning his third season as the Timbers coach, Porter noted that 22 of the players currently on the roster were Timbers in 2014.
“We feel like we’re better in a few spots, but we also kept a really strong, experienced core,” Porter said. “I think that’s going to help us hit the ground running.”
The Timbers open their fifth MLS season on March 7, six weeks from Saturday.
They will train in Portland through Tuesday, then go to Tucson, Ariz., for two weeks. While there, they will play matches against Sporting Kansas City, Houston and San Jose. The team returns to Portland on Feb. 11, and will cap the preseason with the Simple Invitational matches Feb. 22-28. Chicago, Vancouver and Norwegian club Stabaek will play in that event.
The Timbers will start the season without two main cogs, as Diego Valeri (ACL) and Will Johnson (broken leg) continue recovery from late-season injuries. Both did some running and resistance exercises on the sideline during part of Friday’s training session.
Porter did not offer a timetable for either player to return to soccer activity.
“They’re doing great. That’s what I can assure you of,” he said. “I don’t know if they’re ahead of schedule. They’re definitely not behind schedule.”
Porter said an offseason training plan — used for the first time — paid off as players scored well in the first fitness tests of the season.
“Physically, they came in hungry and they came in sharp,” Porter said. He credited specific offseason programs designed by the Timbers director of sports science Nick Milonas and monitored over the three-month offseason for the positive early fitness results.
Central defender Liam Ridgewell is playing on loan with Wigan Athletic of the second-division in England and is scheduled to rejoin the Timbers when they return from Arizona.
“For him to be able to get five or six games at a high level is invaluable and will help our team,” Porter said. “We really get the best of both worlds. He gets some games at a high level to get ready, but then we get three weeks with him to plug him and get that chemistry right in the back four.”
Veteran center back Nat Borchers, who joins the Timbers after a trade with Real Salt Lake, said he doesn’t anticipate any problems developing a partnership with Ridgewell.
“He’s a very experienced player, a great player. And I’ve played in the league quite a bit. I’m hopeful that we’ll have the same ideas and the same willingness to defend.”
The Timbers other key offseason additions are MLS newcomers: Norwegian goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey, Colombian forward Dairon Asprilla and Brazilian left back Jeanderson.
Among those especially happy to have some continuity is Jorge Villafana. Despite becoming the team’s first-choice left back at the end of his first season with the Timbers, Villafana was left unprotected in the expansion draft. He said he is glad not to be starting over with a new team in a new city.
“You know the guys already. You have more confidence and you know the coaching staff. But at the same time it starts again. It’s a new year, everyone’s working hard. You never know what can happen, so every day you have to come out like it’s your first time and give 100 percent.”
NOTES — Danny O’Rourke, who played for the Timbers last season, is training with the Timbers. Porter said the team is still discussing contract options with the veteran defender. … Timbers 2, the club’s new USL Pro team, is tentatively slated to begin practice in mid-February according to Porter. Porter said the staff will decide after the team returns from Arizona if any current Timbers will be assigned to T2. The team can loan players to its USL Pro team to get them games, but cannot call up players who are on USL Pro contracts without adding them to the MLS roster, Porter noted.
