Welcome back FC Dallas fans. Two months on the coach watching the World Cup is over. The nine-game road trip resumes.
FC Dallas picks up where they left off in May, on the road and away from Frisco until September. The first stop on their North American tour hits Oregon and Providence Park, against a Timbers squad who just handed their rivals Seattle their worst home loss in MLS history last week.
Portland sat 13th before the World Cup break hit. Then they went to Lumen Field and scored five. Make it make sense, folks. Wednesday night, FC Dallas has to figure out which version of the Timbers is going to show up, the one that got smacked around in May by San Jose and Miami, or the one that just lit up the Cascadia Cup.
Here’s what we’ll be watching for Wednesday night.
Know the Context: Portland Was a Mess Before the Break - and It Showed
Let’s set the scene properly, because the Seattle result can be a bit misleading if you haven’t tracked what the Timbers looked like before the World Cup break. The Timbers went 1-3-1 in their final five games in May, finishing the first half of the year with a 4-8-2 record. For those who need the math, that is 14 points in 14 games…1 point per game.
Their pre-break form was erratic at best. They’d win one, lose three in a row. Win one, lose two in a row. They had another big outburst in May, when they downed Sporting KC 6-0, their largest MLS regular season margin of victory to date.
The Timbers were uneven, undermanned with key players picking up injuries.
Coming back from the break and dismantling a rusty Seattle squad is one thing, but doing it two games in a row hasn’t been the narrative for Portland this year.
Big D Soccer gives you the why — the tactical breakdowns, the honest assessments, the context that actually helps you understand what you watched on Saturday night.
If you're serious about this club, you should be reading all of it.
The Coaching Chaos Is Real - and It Matters
Here is the biggest subplot that makes Wednesday night genuinely interesting: Portland parted ways with head coach Phil Neville shortly after the World Cup break started and then named Timbers2 head coach Jack Cassidy as interim manager. During that, they began searching for a permanent replacement. Cassidy has been solid with T2, leading them to a 6-2-4 start and then he pulled off the Seattle result. So, credit where it is due.
But then you toss in a new wrinkle, Portland is set to hire Spanish manager Marti Cifuentes, with the announcement pending his work visa approval this week. Cifuentes most recently managed Leicester City in the Championship before departing in January and has never coached in MLS, let alone in America.
As of this writing, it is unclear whether or not he’ll even be in on the bench on Wednesday or if Cassidy will still be running things. Either way, Portland is mid-transition, a team figuring out the system, the staff, and who exactly is in charge. For Dallas, there is uncertainty in the scouting for that, but that is also an edge to play into. A team playing for two coaches at once is a team with a head on a swivel.