Interview with John Spencer

A little short, but still pretty interesting.

One thing right after another today. With the sad news of Kevin Goldthwaite's retirement -- due to, I suspect, injuries -- comes more roster news with a couple re-signings and some other, sadly enough, players dropped.

The first bit of news is very welcome to me, personally, as both our star goalkeeper Troy Perkins and up and coming center back defender David Horst were re-signed to new contracts of which we're not quite sure about the details.

I have yet to track down exactly who it might be but here are a couple of things I have found out:

• 1 Portland Timber is Retiring possibly more
• 2 or more Portland Timbers did not have their contracts renewed
• 1 DP Signing could be announced in the next two weeks as Wilkinson is in talks with an international player
• 2 or more Timbers will be getting their Green Cards and therefore will not be using an international slot

The 1 retiring player is not Adin Brown but I believe he is one "possibly more".

@MerrittPaulson will our first off season player transaction be closed after this weekend? your guess is as good as mine. and here i said i wouldnt tease...

Let the rumor mill start, however his next tweet was about bringing Spencer out of retirement to be a player/coach.

I have found over the past couple of years that the top coaches and managers of young men are not only able to prepare them to play in a match that week, but to also have the foresight to be able to prepare them for their future beyond soccer.
Being able to relate the lessons learned in training or in games to a bigger picture is essential for a coach to be successful, because the reality is that where they may be a soccer player for 90 minutes, they are a young man, student-athlete, and aspiring husband or father for the other 22 1/2 hours of the day.

Here we go again. This time it is Brian Umony, Peter Lowry, and Rodrigo Lopez. Don't forget to check out the rest of the Protected List articles here:

How it works:

• For each player we will post a front page article highlighting a specific players pros/cons and any stats (if available)
• 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.

Okay so I was sitting here and thinking at this pace we will not be able to vote on all of the players if we do it one at a time. So I am going to start doing them in batches (except for the bigger names). Don't forget to check out the other players in the Community Protected List section.

Read the full thing HERE.

Definitely a must read. It's from head coach Spencer and all the players.

"Words of thanks to the fans from the Timbers players and coaches."

The starting all-around forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is John Spencer.
How Acquired: Transferred for free from Scottish side Motherwell.
Years In Colorado: 2001 through 2004
How Departed: Retired after the 2004 season.
For the final player pick on the All-Time team I went with possibly the biggest heart the team has ever had (though Kimura gives him a run for his money) the wee Scotsman John Spencer.

So an article appeared in yesterday's TTB that I think warrants a bit more discussion with regards to the Timbers academies. Essentially what is happening is when the Timbers officially launch their academies this year they'll mandate that any player who signs up will not be allowed to play for their local high school anymore.

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.

The starting speed forward for the Rapids All-Time Team is Omar Cummings.
How Acquired: Drafted in the 3rd round (31st overall pick) in the 2007 Superdraft.
Years In Colorado: 2007 through present
This was the trickiest pick of the team. I went back and forth between a 4-4-2 and a 3-4-3, but eventually Cummings won out.

Unfortunately, Portland can't play the Whitecaps every week, but the Timbers looked good in their 2-1 victory. It's still a long road toward playoff contention and Houston winning tonight means the Timbers might be playing for the 10th spot. They'll be fighting against NY, Chivas and DC United (who have two points and a game in hand on Portland).

U.S. Soccer and the U.S. Futsal National Team will stage a player identification camp from Sept. 12-15 at Torrance's South Coast Soccer City (Daily Breeze file photo).

In a coup for Torrance's South Coast Soccer City the state-of-the-art 73,000-square-foot futsal facility that includes an international size field will host the U.

Their Words We have a sell out crowd tomorrow so it will be a great atmosphere. The most important thing is putting three points on the board. Fulham manager Martin Jol. Other Sources CCL play will have big effect on stretch run - from MLSsoccer.com's Jonah Freedman: Yes, we already know that of the five MLS sides in the competition, four are from the Western Conference.

• Emotions mixed as Spencer returns [MLS Soccer]
• Confidence key to Dynamo's success [Houston Chronicle]
• Camargo should bolster Dynamo [Houston Chronicle]

In Other News:

• MLS, NBC announce three-year broadcast deal [MLS Soccer]
• Major League Soccer moving to NBC, dropping Fox Soccer Channel [Washington Post]
• MLSers Donovan, Márquez grace cover of FIFA Soccer 12 [MLS Soccer]

This one is a long shot, but according to Scottish news site the Daily Record the Portland Timbers are interested in acquiring 26 year old Danish striker, Morten Rasmussen, from Celtic, one of the top Scottish Premier League clubs. According to the report Celtic is looking to offload the striker and there is interest from both the Timbers and Russian Premier League side FC Tom Tomsk.

Spencer Prior tweeted on the weekend that there is no football, only League and AFL on the telly in Australia.
Me mate even had to watch Rangers v St Johnstone to get a football fiz - geeez poor bugger!
And all my mates are wondering if the A-League will ever start again.
Get on with it - this break is killing us.

According to Bulgarian sports site Blitz.bg, CSKA Sofia will loan out 22 year old Irish striker Cillian Sheridan to the Portland Timbers during th summer transfer window. They claim it is with 99% certainty...

Of course, we'll still wait until the official word from the Portland Timbers to make any official announcement, but it is quite well known at this point that the Irish international has been trialing with the Portland Timbers for the last few days.

Big congratulations to the U.S. Men's National Team for beating Panama in the Gold Cup semi-finals. I'll have more on my thoughts about the actual game itself in an article later today. For now, though, congrats are in order. Now we look towards Saturday when the US takes on Mexico at... 6:00PM, a half hour after the Portland Timbers game starts.

Quick Recap:

Portland once again gives up an early goal in the 5th minute but fight back and take a lead only to squander it late. Portland ties 3-3.

First Half:

The Portland Timbers really came out like they had a lot to prove and that made them play tight. Their passes were not as accurate as they needed to be and they forced a lot of passes.

Children playing soccer between the walls of the castle in Rhodes, GreecePhoto: Spencer Olsen
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A reporter's cell phone goes off during an interview with coach Spencer. Bad idea.

Game of the Week DC United 3, Portland 2 The images from this one are both strange and unbelievable. I'll let this bold officiating crew grab the mic for a second. I mean... what? Hamid did come off his line twice, and I imagine that's a much easier call to make in Portland than in DC. But watching Hamid flip his lid not once but twice, Spencer gesturing wildly for Jewsbury to take the third

No Excuses

"'We've always said from day 1 that they arrived in Portland, ‘don't make excuses,'" Spencer said. "'If you're out there and you're on the field and wearing a Portland Timbers jersey we expect you to play well and win the game. Different teams maybe have different philosophies, I don't know.

The drafting season is over for MLS (or at least we all hope so). Today marked the Supplemental Draft, a 3 round affair for the league. It came and went rather quickly too. For the most part it was a mess to follow on Twitter though the teams and the league's main blogger SF did a respectable job keeping us up to date with each pick.

Toronto FC selected
Pick 8 JC Banks Midfielder University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Pick 13 Steven Beattie Forward Northern Kentucky
Pick 26 Spencer Thompson Forward Michigan State University
Pick 44 Scott Rojo Midfielder High Point University
Scott Rojo while playing for Carolina Dynamo
I am guessing that these young men just won a free trip to Turkey where Toronto FC is opening their training camp next month.

How come all the organisers of football, the media, the FFA, the whole lot of em run everything out of Sydney...or so it seems.
So tonights plan to "Save the Game" or some other such football fanfest, while of course an interesting intiative - but we hold it in Sydney.
Reckon Adelaide would have been better - at least they'd get a few fans!

Rumour is the Matildas will have just two friendlies at this stage, in May prior to the World Cup.
Surely they'll have more?
And the new Matildas Assistant Coach - Spencer Prior, former Norwich City, recent Fox Sports and Australian arrival and recent completion of all his Coaching Badges.