PORTLAND – The Portland Timbers extended their unbeaten string to eight matches on Monday playing to a 1-1 draw with the Montreal Impact. But they left Providence Park wanting more.
“Any time you don’t get three points at home you’re disappointed. So, that’s a fact,” Timbers coach Caleb Porter said. “But I can’t fault the guys. They gave it everything they had.”
Playing their second match in four days, the Timbers took an early lead but could not turn it into a victory. At 6-6-8, the Timbers sit seventh in the Major League Soccer Western Conference standings.
The Timbers took a 1-0 lead in the 14th minute when Jack McInerney headed home a corner kick delivered by Jack Jewsbury.
Montreal (6-4-8) evened the score just before halftime with a counter-attack strike from a persistent Ignacio Piatti, who twice battled past Nat Borchers on his way to his 11th goal of the season.
“On the goal it seemed like every single bounce went (Piatti’s) way for him to get in the box. It was unfortunate,” Borchers said.
Piatti was fortunate to be on the field at that point. Early in the match his two-footed challenge to the back of Alvas Powell’s leg earned him a yellow card from referee Allen Chapman, but appeared worthy of a red card.
After the match Chapman said that on the field the crew deemed Piatti’s foul to be reckless but that after viewing a slow-motion replay the foul warranted a red card for serious foul play.
“The disappointment is we got our nose ahead. We’ve got to do a better job of not giving up that goal on the counter,” Porter said.
“It looked like we had all the momentum. We got caught up the field and we gave Piatti – the one guy that we thought could pull off the play — time and space to do that,” Porter said. “We’re an experienced enough team to not let that happen.”
Fanendo Adi nearly made it 2-0 on a 28th-minute corner kick, but his header was cleared off the goal line by an Impact player. Adi put another header home in the first half but was whistled for a pushing foul to nullify that goal.
Piatti was denied a second goal in the 63rd minute when Jake Gleeson came off his goal line for a one-on-one save after a Timbers giveaway created a counter attack. In the 67th minute, Gleeson parried away a strike from distance by Kyle Bekker.
“I don’t know how Jake saves that to be honest with you,’ Borchers said noting that Bekker’s shot was headed for the upper corner of the goal. “He’s playing out of his mind.”
The Timbers third consecutive draw came three days and a cross-country flight after Sunday’s scoreless draw in New Jersey with the New York Red Bulls. Fatigue showed in the final 30 minutes on Wednesday as the timing and sharpness of passes declined.
“The second half kind of fizzled a little bit, but I think it has to do with us not having that energy to push and us not having a bench to make a ton of changes to make a push,” Porter said.
With Diego Valeri injured and Diego Chara suspended for yellow-card accumulation, Timbers coach Caleb Porter went with a 4-4-2 formation with McInerney playing alongside Adi up front. The midfield had Jewsbury and Ben Zemanski in the middle and Lucas Melano on the left. Darlington Nagbe started on the right side, but had freedom to float inside. On the back line, Zarek Valentin got the call at left back instead of Jermaine Taylor, who was an available substitute. Porter said he wanted to keep continuity on a backline that had recorded consecutive shutouts on the road.
The Timbers will now turn their attention to a Sunday visit from Seattle, the first of three meetings between the Cascadia rivals in the MLS regular season.
Porter said there is a good chance that Valeri will be able to play on Sunday. The Sounders, meanwhile, will be without Clint Dempsey – unless the MLS overturns the red card the Seattle star received in the first half of Wednesday’s 5-0 win over FC Dallas.
