MLS Footnotes: Sounders-Timbers still own best rivalry in league

By Doug McIntyre
FOX Sports Soccer Writer

Editor’s Note: MLS Footnotes takes you inside the major talking points around the league and across American soccer.

As MLS kicks off Rivalry Week, one grudge match still stands above the rest.

While much of the attention this weekend will center on Friday’s El Tráfico between league leading LAFC — who could debut celebrated summer signings Gareth Bale and Giorgio Chiellini — and the five-time champion LA Galaxy, the most authentic rivalry in American and Canadian soccer remains one that predates the 27-year-old MLS: Seattle Sounders vs. Portland Timbers.

Sounders-Timbers goes all the way back to 1975, when both were playing in the old North American Soccer League. They push each other on and off the field; one of the two clubs has appeared in each of the last seven MLS Cup finals, Seattle winning twice and Portland once. And although it won’t be as star-studded an affair as the latest battle of Los Angeles, there will be plenty at stake when the pair meet for the first time this season on Saturday (4:30 p.m. ET FOX/FOX Deportes/FOX Sports app) in Seattle.

Now seventh in the Western Conference, the Sounders have steadily climbed the standings since becoming the first MLS team to capture the CONCACAF Champions League title in May. After winning just three of their first 10 games while coach Brian Schmetzer and his players prioritized making history, Seattle have played themselves back into the playoff picture with a 6W-2L-1T record in their last nine.

The Rave Green beat Toronto FC 2-0 on the road last weekend despite many of their top performers, including Stefan Frei, Jordan Morris, Cristian Roldan, Raúl Ruidíaz, and Albert Rusnák, being either rested by Schemtzer or, in Ruidíaz’s case, not quite ready to return from a hamstring injury. Seattle are the clear favorites (-118) against a Timbers side that, while undefeated in their last four, are still languishing in 10th place in the West and in danger of missing the postseason for the first time since 2016. 

None of that will matter when the opening whistle blows. In the parity-driven landscape of MLS, rivalry games are determined by will as much as skill. Need proof? While MLS clubs boast a bigger home field advantage than their counterparts in the NBA, NHL, NHL or Major League Baseball, the home team has won just two of the last 14 regular season meetings between Seattle and Portland. With the Sounders celebrating their CONCACAF crown by hoisting their championship banner at Lumen Field before Saturday’s contest, count on the visitors to do everything possible to spoil their chief nemesis’ party.

“We wanted to be the first, and now that Seattle did it we’re pissed off,” Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese said during Thursday’s pre-match press conference. “We want to always be on top of Seattle.”

Schmetzer could miss the match after contracting COVID-19. But the coach confirmed Friday that Ruidíaz will return to the Sounders’ lineup for the first time since scoring twice in a 4-0 drubbing of Vancouver on June 14. 

With 10 goals in 11 career games, the Peruvian striker has been especially cold-blooded against the Timbers since arriving in the Pacific Northwest following the 2018 World Cup. No MLS player has been more prolific against a single foe over the last five seasons.

The Sounders’ next two games after Saturday away to Nashville and Chicago, so securing all three points in front of what promises to be another massive crowd in the Pacific Northwest is essential. “It’s a very emotional game no matter [what],” Sounders midfielder Kelyn Rowe, a Seattle-area native, said earlier this week. “The fact that we’re unveiling the banner just kind of adds to that. We know they’re going to be fired up.”

FOOTNOTES

1. Williamson comes full circle

Saturday’s match should be extra special for Portland midfielder Eryk Williamson. The 25-year-old was enjoying a career season last August when it was cut short by an ACL tear he suffered in Seattle. The injury occurred just weeks after Williamson started for the U.S. men’s national team in its Gold Cup final triumph over Mexico. It forced him to miss Portland’s run in the 2021 title match, the entirety of World Cup qualifying, and the first month of 2022 campaign.

Now Williamson is rounding into pre-injury form. With five assists in his last seven games — including one off the bench in a 2-2 comeback in Nashville on July 4 — it couldn’t come at a better time for the Timbers.

Will it be enough to get Williamson another look with the national team before the World Cup begins in Qatar in November? It could. A source with knowledge of the discussions said that U.S. coach Gregg Berhalter initially planned to include Williamson on his June roster before the parties mutually agreed that he stay with the Timbers this summer. But with his stock rising and a central midfield spot or two still up for grabs, don’t be surprised if Williamson is on the roster when the U.S. faces Japan and Saudi Arabia in its final two World Cup tuneups in Europe in September.

2. Can Charlotte make the playoffs?

Only a handful of expansion teams have reached the postseason in their first year. Despite its slow start, Charlotte FC has a shot. Heading into Saturday’s game against MVP candidate Hany Mukhtar and Nashville (7 p.m. ET FS1/FOX Deportes/FOX Sports app), the newbies sit just two points behind the New England Revolutiuon, which occupies the seventh and final playoff spot in the East.

To make a serious run they’ll need more from Polish striker Karol Świderski, who began 2022 with four goals in four games but hasn’t added another since March.

3. Herrera to debut against FC Dallas 

Bale and Chiellini aren’t the only former European club stars expected to play their first minutes in MLS during Rivalry Week. On Saturday, longtime Mexican national teamer and former Atlético Madrid midfielder Hector Herrera is expected to make his Houston Dynamo debut against FCD. The Dynamo are currently 11th in the West.

While Herrera, signed back on March 2, is finally ready to go after completing Atléti’s season, fans in Toronto will have to wait a little longer to see Lorenzo Insigne. TFC coach Bob Bradley said this week that Insigne hasn’t fully recovered from the knock he sustained playing for Italy in June and won’t be available for another few weeks.

4. Toronto still shopping?

The sputtering Reds officially inked Italian defender Domenico Criscito this week, and might not be done raiding Serie A for reinforcements. Multiple reports this week suggested that TFC is on the verge of inking Azzurri midfielder Federico Bernardeschi from Juventus on a free transfer.

Toronto traded designated player and 2020 MLS MVP Alejandro Pozuelo to Inter Miami on Thursday, opening up a roster spot that could be filled by the 28-year-old Bernardeschi. Considering his age, it’s arguably a bigger coup than Insigne. Whether it’s enough to help turn around TFC’s dreadful (5W-10L-3T) season is another matter.

5. Silly season in full swing

With the transfer window now open on both sides of the Atlantic, there’s been plenty of movement around the league already. The Revolution replaced Polish national team striker Adam Buksa, who left for French club Lens last month, with Juventus forward Giacomo Vrioni. The 23-year-old Vrioni could debut for the Revs on Saturday against New York City FC.

Elsewhere, the Galaxy landed Uruguayan defensive midfielder Gaston Brugman from Serie A’s Parma, while Austin FC added Ecuador international winger Washington Corozo on loan from Peru’s Sporting Cristal.

Going the other way are a pair of homegrown youngsters, Philadelphia Union midfielder Jack de Vries and D.C. United attacker Griffin Yow. De Vries will join former MLS players Gianluca Busio and Tanner Tessman with Venezia in Italy’s second tier, with Yow headed to Westerlo in Belgium’s top flight.

6. USL transfers showing no signs of slowing

The lower division United Soccer League has been busy moving young American players, too. Last month, Real Salt Lake signed U.S. under-20 national team playmaker Diego Luna from El Paso Locomotive in the USL Championship, while defending titlist Orange County SC sent 18-year-old Kobi Henry — whose agent (and former Revs coach) Brad Friedel said had multiple offers from MLS clubs — to French Ligue 1 outfit Reims.

“It was always my dream to play in Europe,” Henry told FOX Sports last month. “The French Ligue is a great fit for me.”

Terms weren’t disclosed, but reports put Henry’s transfer fee at around $700,000, the most lucrative in USL history. It could soon be topped by one for prized Louisville City center back Joshua Wynder.

Clubs from across MLS are high on the 17-year-old, who multiple sources said is good enough to start in the domestic league right now. Will any be willing to pay Louisville’s steep asking price? Don’t be surprised if the Kentucky native ends up in Europe for a seven-figure fee instead.

“As our league grows, we’ll see this happening more and more,” USL’s sporting director Mark Cartwright told FOX Sports in a recent interview. “MLS is like any other league in the world — they have to pay the fair market value for our players or they’ll go somewhere else. “That’s how it should be.”

One of the most prominent soccer journalists in North America, Doug McIntyre has covered United States men’s and women’s national teams in more than a dozen countries, including multiple FIFA World Cups. Before joining FOX Sports, the New York City native was a staff writer for Yahoo Sports and ESPN.