Preview: Sounders vs. Timbers

02.06.2023 20:30

Sounder at Heart

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

The Sounders will try to snap a four-game losing streak against their biggest rivals.

The Seattle Sounders will host the Portland Timbers in the first game of a doubleheader on Saturday. They’ll be looking to end a rather ignominious streak of failure against their biggest rivals that stretches all the way back to 2017. Both teams could use wins pretty badly. Let’s see how it shapes up:

One key stat

4 — The Timbers come into this match riding a four-game winning streak against the Sounders, which includes two straight wins at Lumen Field. In fact, the Timbers have a six-game unbeaten streak (5 wins) at Lumen Field.

What Sounders will try to do

While the Sounders offense has been struggling to score goals for the better part of the last two months, their defense remains elite. In their last nine games, they’ve kept four clean sheets and they have one of the best defenses by expected goals, as well. Who knows if they can finally find their scoring boots, but they’ll be dead set on defending hard.

What Timbers will try to do

If there’s been one consistent characteristic of the Timbers under Giovanni Savarese, it’s that they tend to sit pretty deep and look for opportunities on the counter-attack. They haven’t been particularly good at either this year, but they’ve certainly had their moments and Evander seems to have finally found his footing with four goals and two assists.

Vibe check

For all the chatter about how the Timbers revived their season by beating the Sounders in their previous meeting, they’ve gone just 2-3-2 in the seven games since and are coming off a 4-1 loss to Sporting KC last week. That’s only marginally better than the Sounders’ record of 3-5-1 in the same time frame. Suffice it to say, both teams are badly in need of feel-good performances.

How close is everyone to full strength?

The latest addition to the Sounders’ list of missing players is Alex Roldan, who will be serving a yellow-card accumulation suspension. At the same time, his brother Cristian Roldan is expected to make his return, most likely off the bench, and João Paulo returns from his own suspension. The other notable absences are Jordan Morris (groin) and Obed Vargas (international duty).
The Timbers are still missing several players to long-term injury. Notably added is Yimmi Chara, who came out of the Timbers’ last game with a hamstring injury. David Ayala also featured in the previous meeting against the Sounders and is listed as out.