Featured image: Courtesy of Dan Morrison and bethlehemsteelsoccer.org

Against the expectation of many in the US, the United States Football Association's first international tour in Scandinavia in the summer of 1916 had been a great success. The cash-strapped USFA had come out of the trip in the black—the Swedish FA had paid for the tour thanks to the backing of a leading Swedish newspaper—and the team had performed well to garner a 3–1–2 record despite having been put together only days before departure to Europe without the benefit of tryouts.

As we all know, tonight the Portland Timbers will take on southern California side Chivas USA is round 2 of the Timbers' tournament. Tonight is an important game for both the Timbers and Chivas USA as each will want to prove that Monday's performance was a fluke, not a trend. Not to say the Timbers were terrible, but their performance left something to be desired.

We've already known a bit about the preseason details including the upcoming pre-season tournament with Chivas USA, the San Jose Earthquakes and AIK of Sweden, but until today we didn't know too much else. Well, today's that has all changed with the Timbers releasing almost everything we could have asked for.

So the first pre-season tournament game has come and gone. Honestly, it wasn't the result or performance that I was hoping for. Granted a few key players were missing: Eric Brunner, Kris Boyd, Franck Songo'o to name a few, but I still expected more from a home opener and I expect more from them tomorrow night against Chivas USA, a team which suffered a disappointed 2-nil loss against Swedish side AIK.

Timbers-AIK cooperation explained

AIK Media interviews Gavin Wilkinson and gives the run down on how the teams came together. The other interview about the partnership in Swedish was very revealing (such as a Portland to Stockholm trip is not as likely, but a return of AIK is more likely). I'll have to write up about it.

Tomorrow marks the end of the pre-season festivities which means that the regular season kicks off in just 9 more days. Well, technically the MLS season will kick off in about a week, but the Timbers don't actually play anybody until the Monday after. In any case, it's all very exciting and I absolutely can't wait.

The Portland Timbers got a taste of what forward Kris Boyd can do first hand during their match with AIK on March 4 at JELD-WEN Field. The Scottish forward notched his first ever goal in a Timbers shirt in the seventh minute, and the defense held off a physical AIK attack to help the Timbers win 1 to 0.

The Portland Timbers defeated AIK 1 to 0 with a consistent effort. While they didn't have the best night in terms of ball possession and passing, they did match AIK's intensity and physical presence most of the night. We provide ratings for each player that appeared along with a general evaluation of the Timbers' effort.

Walking out under the Timbers Army. Experience it here.

The Road Trip crew did a behind the scenes look with AIK and the last clips are from the match on Sunday with a hair raising entrance to "PTFC". Good stuff.

This is it! The wait is finally over! I know we've been flooding you guys with content today and that's because, as with everybody else in this city, we're pretty damn excited about tonight's match. It's been a long time coming and now that it's finally here, I'm not even really sure what to do with myself.

Eleven time Swedish champions AIK Stockholm have unveiled their adidas 2012/13 home jersey. The new kit celebrates the 75th Anniversary of the club's legendary stadium the Råsunda. According to...

By Chris Wright

We seem to have enjoyed a real slew of looooooong-range boomers recently (not least this humdinger from AIK's Alexander Milosevic), but Stefan Ishizaki's awesome effort for Elfsborg in their 2-0 away win over Orebro in the Swedish Allsvenskan yesterday.