"If you don't make the playoffs, you basically clean house at the end of the season," Perkins said. "There's a lot of pressure and there should be."

Not sure if Cleaning house is the answer if the Timbers don't make the playoffs this year. Especially if there are some injuries and the fact that the West is deeper than the East.

Well, with a little time separating us from the season I thought I would take a little time to recount some of my favorite moments from the season, you know the ones that really stuck with me as a relatively new soccer fan. These are sequenced in order of my preference, and are subject to my personal memory at the time.

Time for the midfielders and don't forgot to vote for the others here.

How it works

• Vote by posting a Yes (to Protect) or No (don't Protect) in the subject of a comment, then explain why in the message
• We (the editors) will keep track of all the yes/no votes for each player
• At the end of the whole roster we will total up the results and post the community's Protected list
• Your list will be compared to the list of each contributing editor
• The only player we will not be voting on is Darlington Nagbe as he is automatically protected based on his Generations Adidas Status.

Will Cooper make it three matches in a row?

The Lines
Cooper 5:1
Jewsbury 4:1
Perlaza 7:1
Nagbe 7:1
Chara 6:1
Dike 11:1
Zizzo 11:1
Alhassan 18:1
Defense 8:1
Field 13:1

Side Bets
Nagbe picks up an another assist, pays 3:1
Perkins shutout, pays 4:1
Cooper brace, pays 50:1
Timbers remain in wildcard spot on Monday 3:1
First person to make the connection between the picture of the bill below and the Red Bulls gets $10

The Rules
-Everyone gets $20 in monopoly money each week to bet with.

The house got cleaned out last week, so the lines are going to have to tighten up a bit. Thank goodness Kenny Cooper didn't pull off a hat trick (250:1 payout) or we'd have to close shop right now.

Advice from the Gambling Insider

It's a tough night to pick between Nagbe, Cooper and Perlaza.

Portland Setup: Portland set up in a variation of a 4-4-2 with two holding midfielders in Jewsbury and Chara. Chara and Zizzo would take turns moving forward partnering with Nagbe in the center behind Johnson. Zizzo played wide right and Nagbe played wide left but could often be found central with Cooper moving out wide to the left.

About 90 Rapids fans traveled to Portland to support the Rapids, and they were joined by yours truly and 7 of my family members. That's all of us up in the SW corner of Jeld-Wen Field on the left. The Rapids needed all the support they could get in front of about 20,000 Timbers fans who had only seen one loss this season, before the Rapids came to town.

The Kansas City Athletics found themselves behind from the start as they started their attempt to qualify for their second straight US Open Cup in a qualifier against the Iowa Menace. The Athletics only had 10 men on the field from the start against the Menace. Talking with some Kyle Perkins of the Athletics after the game I found that a lot of factors went into them playing with only 10 players.

"The goalkeeper is the lone eagle, the man of mystery, the last defender. Less the keeper of a goal than the keeper of a dream." - Vladimir Nabokov

They're a breed apart, to be sure. Sympathy for Perkins and all the other oft-maligned netminders?