By Kurt Schubothe
May 4 2003

Timbers lose opener and match in Seattle which puts them out of the Open Cup for the second year in a row. Lack of offence lets Seattle move on to the next round. Timbers came out fired up forcing Seattles keeper to come up  
with some big saves. Big differance from game one in Portland  
was starting Fadi. The first 20 minutes of the match belonged to  
the Timbers. After that the game was a toss up. Seattle looked  
strong once again in midfeild with Gregor (native of Portland)  
having great control.  Then Portland was lead into a sleep as the  
Sounders took control of the match in the last 20 minutes  
resulting in two Sounders goals.  
      On a positive note the Timbers Army showed up in good  
numbers. 18 to 20 loyal Shed heads and Joffe from Sweden plus
5 others which included Dan Aotniuk's brother which we hope
will join us in the Shed. Seattle security and fans did not know
what to do with The Timbers Army in town and tried to get us to
 sit down or move but found we meant no one any harm. In fact I
was training many young men the fine art in drum playing and they
all found the Timbers Drumman was not as mean as he looked.
We hope the many who took their turn playing the drum will all
have drums in the Pod some ten years from now.
      To be out of the Open Cup by losing both games to Seattle is  
once again a hard to take. This year at least the score was  
better. Afash and Antoniuk looked good on the front line as well  
as did Tennyson and Alvarez when they subbed in. The problem  
is getting them the ball in good areas so they can score. So once  
again like in years past the weak center mid is haunting the  
Timbers once again. The back line looks stonger then in past  
seasons and this is the main reasons Seattle was held to 3  
goals in two games. Once again the strong play of Gavin  
Wikinson and Bryn Ritchie with the addition of Lee Morrison and  
Nick Downing will help keep the score down this season. Curtis  
Spiteri has some big shoes to fill this season with Matt  
Napoleon retirement in Goal. He has had two outstanding  
games with some amazing saves. The Timbers should be  
looking into filling the void in the middle of the pitch. We got away  
with it last season and with Greg Howes being gone makes the  
job even harder to solve.
  The season is still young with many matches left to play.
We all hope to see the winning ways come back the Timbers soon.
For a full mach report on both matches against Seattle go to Timber Rattlers