Sacre bleu! And that's enough stereotypical French speak for now... In any case, it appears that today's pre-season friendly against the Montreal Impact was not quite as fruitful as their previous game against the LA Galaxy earlier this week when they won 4-1 against the former MLS Champs.
In any case, as with the previous game we don't have too much information to go on for this match since we weren't there to actually cover it.

Fitness continued to be the focus for the Portland Timbers as they neared the end of their first week of preseason training in 2012. The sun shone brightly on the turf and allowed some players to shed their extra layers. Again the players participated in an 8v8 half field scrimmage after warming up and doing a few drills, but the consistent theme throughout the session was keeping everyone constantly in motion.

The draft is over and next Friday players report to Portland and the Portland Timbers are hinting they are not done adding to their roster. Rumors are swirling as to who and what position said player plays. All of these leaves us fans in what seems like an internal state of nervous energy.

So lets take a look at what the roster looks like and what we can piece together from tweets and quotes over the last few weeks.

By now we all know the story pretty well: the defense was crap at the beginning of the season, but by the end it was one of the Portland Timbers' strengths. Individual players improved, as did communication amongst them, and the front office augmented that development with a shrewd mid-season trade.

The votes are in and this is what we came up with:

1. Kalif Alhassan
2. Eric Alexander
3. Eric Brunner
4. Futty Danso
5. Diego Chara
6. Sal Zizzo
7. Jake Gleeson
8. Jorge Perlaza
9. Kenny Cooper
10. Jack Jewsbury
11. Troy Perkins

More after the jump

Here are the actual numbers:

Player Yes No Rank On the list Eric Alexander 13 3 2 Yes Kalif Alhassan 22 4 1 Yes Freddie Braun 0 10 20 No Adin Brown 0 11 20 No Chris Taylor 2 8 14 No Kevin Goldthwaite 0 10 20 No Spencer Thomspon 0 10 20 No Brian Umony 0 7 20 No Rodrigo Lopez 0 7 20 No Peter Lowry 0 7 20 No Ryan Pore 0 9 20 No Eddie Johnson 1 8 18 No Steve Purdy 1 8 18 No Eric Brunner 7 0 6 Yes Futty Danso 7 0 6 Yes David Horst 2 5 14 No Mike Chabala 3 4 13 No Rodney Wallace 2 5 14 No Lovel Palmer 2 5 14 No Diego Chara 8 0 3 Yes Jack Jewsbury 5 3 10 Yes Sal Zizzo 5 3 10 Yes Jorge Perlaza 8 0 3 Yes Kenny Cooper 6 2 9 Yes Bright Dike 5 3 10 No Troy Perkins 8 0 3 Yes Jake Gleeson 7 1 6 Yes Editors Picks

Here are the rest of the editors picks

Player Will's List To Protect Ryan's List To Protect Andy's List To Protect William's List To Protect Troy Perkins Yes Yes Yes Yes Kevin Goldthwaite No No No No Mike Chabala No Yes No No Eric Brunner Yes Yes Yes Yes Darlington Nagbe Auto Auto auto Auto Sal Zizzo No Yes No No Peter Lowry No No No no Bright Dike No No No no Eddie Johnson No No No no Kalif Alhassan Yes No Yes Yes David Horst Yes Yes Yes Yes Jack Jewsbury Yes Yes Yes Yes James Marcelin Yes No Yes no Jorge Perlaza No Yes Yes Yes Eric Alexander Yes No No no Rodrigo Lopez No No No no Jake Gleeson Yes Yes Yes Yes Diego Chara Yes Yes Yes Yes Rodney Wallace No No No no Ryan Pore No No No no Adin Brown No No No no Steve Purdy No No No no Brian Umony No No No no Chris Taylor No No No no Freddie Braun No No No no Lovel Palmer no No No no Spencer Thompson No No No no Kenny Cooper Yes Yes Yes Yes Futty Danso Yes Yes Yes Yes

Ryan Pore, Steve Purdy, and Eddie Johnson come on down! You are the next contestants on the Protected List! Check out previous entries 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.

The Timbers continued their post season training today, playing an 8v8 scrimmage which occasionally featured an extra attacking player going either way.

Bright Dike, James Marcelin and Steve Purdy worked off to the side with the Timbers strength and conditioning coach Karim Derqaoui early on before leaving the field early.

And another international weekend comes and goes. While no Portland Timbers were involved, yet again, I feel like I should update you guys a bit on the USMNT as well as how our guys did who were with their national teams.

So first, before we get to the players, the US team!

The USMNT played twice this past weekend (and then some) first against Honduras and then against Ecuador.

Today's practice took place at Jeld-Wen Field under overcast skies. By the end of practice the crisp breeze blowing through the stadium would be supplemented by just the slightest sprinkling of rain. As Captain Jack would later tell us, it was the kind of weather that lets you know it is time to do or die.

After a light regen training on Monday and a day off Tuesday, the Timbers got back to the usual intensity today in training at Jeld Wen Field.

It was a shorthanded practice, with Diego Chara, James Marcelin, Steve Purdy, Brian Umony and Futty Danso all with their national teams. The only other player missing was Freddie Braun, but his absence was not injury related.

With 6 games remaining I started thinking about the season and how the Portland Timbers got to be where they are now. The more I thought about it the more I came to realize that the Timbers season could have been much much worse, say Vancouver Whitecaps like (even they are figuring things out right now).

As many of you know by now, this past weekend was scheduled by FIFA as an international weekend meaning that the club world took a break (for the most part) in order to facilitate some national team games. The USA played twice against both Costa Rica and Belgium and lost both times. Such a shame..

Under a sunny, cloudless sky the Timbers continued their training today, focusing on one and two touch passing and possession.

Troy Perkins was mysteriously absent but Futty Danso continued his recover from injury, working with the full team for much of the practice.

More notes plus quotes from John Spencer after the jump.

Our boys had a good weekend to take it easy in the middle of their 2.5 weeks between matches, but it was definitely back to business on the practice field Monday morning.

We saw the return of Futty Danso this morning, as he worked out with a trainer to recover from his hamstring pull. We also saw Brian Umony rejoin the regular practice squad -- he looks to be mostly recovered from his knee injury.

William Conwell (who contributed to this report) and I attended our first Portland Timbers training session this morning, and even in this quiet week there's still some interesting news afoot.

Exhibit A: the presence of Alex Nimo, the former Benson HS star who played for the USL Timbers while on loan from Real Salt Lake from 2009-2010.

Sporting Kansas City's Kei Kamara and Teal Bunbury have been called up by their respective national teams. (Getty Images)

It will be a fairly slow week around these parts, seeing how MLS is pretty much off this weekend (except for two games). With a FIFA fixture on the calendar this weekend there are a full slew of MLSers involved in friendlies and even some World Cup qualifiers.

The Portland Timbers today announced that midfielder James Marcelin (Haiti) and defenders Steve Purdy (El Salvador) and Rodney Wallace (Costa Rica) have been called up by their respective national teams in order to participate in international matches scheduled from Sept. 2-6.

Timbers Press Release

Tonight's match will be our last home game for over 3 weeks as the Portland TImbers then head off to D.C. United and the Philadelphia Union for a couple of away matches while taking a week long break at the beginning of September (probably much deserved after this August's string of 7 matches). So take it in as much as possible and prepare yourself for some withdrawals.

The Portland Timbers struck twice in stoppage time for a dramatic, come-from-behind, 3-2 victory over the Vancouver Whitecaps in front of an announced crowd of more than 10,000 at JELD-WEN Field in Sunday's MLS Reserve League match.

Peter Lowry scored the game-winning goal in the waning seconds, finishing off a header from Steve Purdy to snatch the victory.

I'm in Wamic, OR right now! With no internet connection or anything like that. I'll be home before the game, but since I decided to take a mini-vacation to a lake out here I've had to schedule this post a few days prior. So hello from Friday!

Anyway, enough humor, we've got a game to preview.

Second road game in a row and a second chance for the guys to prove they can win when they're away from home. Unfortunately, this week's opponent isn't nearly as weak as the Chicago Fire were last weekend. The Columbus Crew, despite not having any big name players, is still third in the Eastern Conference with a 7-6-7 win-loss-draw history for the season.

Quick Recap:

Portland survives the first half and for the first time in a while do not allow a goal or an early goal. The second half brought the fireworks as all the goals were scored in this half.

First Half:

Portland tried a new line-up moving Jorge Perlaza up as a lone striker inserting a more defensive minded James Mareclin as a central mid.

By JOSE M. ROMERO

C.J. Sapong's goal celebration in Saturday's 2-1 Sporting Kansas City win against Portland was nothin Timbers fans hadn't seen before.

Sapong's 15th-minute goal and subsequent stop-and-drop, as if to emulate a falling tree, was one of those numbers others have used at Jeld-Wen Field.

Quick Recap:

Portland once again has a horrific start to the game, giving up 2 goals in the first 20 minutes of the game. They continue to work and get one back before half but to no avail as the 2nd half has no goals. Portland goes down 2-1.

First Half:

True to his word John Spencer made two major changes to the starting line-up.

SB Nation Soccer, the guys who essentially run everything soccer related here at SB Nation, has a fantastically well thought out article on parity in the MLS and how, at this point, perhaps continuing parity isn't such a great idea. Those of you who were fans of the old NASL will remember what happened when the teams were allowed to run wild and rampant.

(Note: Again, I've been trying to get this up for a while, but technical glitches have stopped me)

There's really two ways to look at the Gold Cup Callups: as an MLS fan, or as a USA fan.

For MLS fans, it's good and bad. The league saw 36 total callups, seven of which were for the US.

Here is a list of Major League Soccer players selected to participate in the 2011 Gold Cup. The Gold Cup begins on June 5th and ends on June 25th.

MLS Gold Cup Invites

Chicago Fire
Marco Pappa Guatemala

Colorado Rapids
Omar Cummings Jamaica
Tyrone Marshall -

Columbus Crew
Robbie Rogers USA

DC United
Dejan Jakovic Canada

Houston Dynamo
Andre Hainault Canada
Jermaine Taylor Jamaica
Je-Vaughn Watson Jamaica

New England Revolution
Shalrie Joseph Grenada
Benny Feilhaber USA

New York Red Bulls
Dwayne De Rosario Canada
Dane Richards Jamaica
Rafa Márquez Mexico
Juan Agudelo USA
Tim Ream USA

Los Angeles Galaxy
Donovan Ricketts Jamaica
Landon Donovan USA

Philadelphia Union
Carlos Ruiz Guatemala

Portland Timbers
Steve Purdy El Salvador

Real Salt Lake
Will Johnson Canada
Alvaro Saborio Costa Rica
Arturo Alvarez El Salvador
Nick Rimando USA

San Jose Earthquakes
Ryan Johnson Jamaica
Chris Wondolowski USA

Sporting Kansas City
Craig Rocastle Grenada
Stéphane Auvray Guadeloupe
Roger Espinoza Honduras
Shavar Thomas Jamaica

Toronro FC
Julian de Guzman Canada
Dicoy Williams Jamaica

Vancouver Whitecaps
Terry Dunfield Canada

I saw this list over at MLSSoccer.com and felt it was worth re-posting here for you all. I know after yesterday's call-up news for the Gold Cup a few of you were wanting a list of all MLS players called into action this summer.

So far it looks like New York, Kansas City, Salt Lake and even New England getting hammered by the call-ups.

Today was the day the CONCACAF nations participating in the regional championship had to have their final 23 man roster submitted. There are quite a few MLS players on these rosters, including our own Steve Purdy and some of them could be gone as long as 1 month. So the question how does it affect the Portland Timbers?

EL SALVADOR
1 Miguel Angel Montes 02/12/80 GK2 Moises Xavier Garcia 26/06/90 DF3 Marvin Rene Gonzalez 17/04/82 DF4 Steve Purdy 02/05/85 MD5 Victor Samuel Turcios 04/13/88 MD6 Shawn Martin 15/02/87 MD7 Ramon Sanchez 25/05/82 MD8 William Osael Romero 18/04/86 MD9 Rudis Corrales 11/06/79 AT10 Eliseo Quintanilla 02/05/83 MD11 Rodolfo Zelaya 07/03/88 AT12 Arturo Alvarez 28/06/85 MD13 Deris Areil Umanzor 01/07/80 DF14 Dennis Jonathan Alas 01/10/85 MD15 Edwin Sanchez 02/21/90 MD16 Jaime Enrique Alas 07/30/89 MD17 Mark Lester Blanco 01/17/89 AT18 Dagoberto Portillo 16/11/79 GK19 Reynaldo Hernandez 09/11/84 DF20 Andres Flores 31.

With today's announcement of the United States Gold Cup roster the region's most important edition (the winner goes to the Confederations Cup), it becomes apparent that the Seattle Sounders are poised to be an MLS side that can take advantage of weakened rosters throughout the league for nearly a month.

It's the Friday before the weekend's slew of games and you know what that means: PREVIEWS! As you can expect, there are an assortment of previews from around the league, including some others concerning the Portland Timbers vs. Columbus Crew match up.

Aside from that we have some interesting pieces regarding the Timbers training from yesterday, an Alaska Airlines "chant" sheet from a commercial they were recently shooting, and an article surrounding the connection between left and right back defenders Rodney Wallace and Jeremy Hall.

Ryan Gates already doled out the news in brief yesterday that Futty Danso, Jake Gleeson and Steve Purdy were each called up for national team duty. This editorial is more about how to fill in the holes left by our soon departing team mates.

For both Steve Purdy and Jake Gleeson this is probably a non-issue.

Sometimes life isn't flaming rainbows, towel ninjas and shaving bunnies. Instead it is preparing for your most heated rival and finding out that the desired formation and lineup will have to change - again. The Seattle Sounders did not play poorly against the Portland Timbers. Both teams' goals were in fact indicative of their very style of play.

First of all, my deepest apologies for the headline. I don't usually do the pun thing, and now you see why.

TFC had its first home game of the season hosting Portland Timbers, the second expansion team of MLS in 2011. Toronto had a dire performance against Vancouver the week before.

By JOSE M. ROMERO

The Colorado Rapids first celebrated themselves, then picked up right where they left off last season and scored a resounding 3-1 win over the Portland Timbers in the MLS opener for both clubs and inaugural game for Portland Saturday night at Dick's Sporting Good Park.

Darlington Nagbe in action against the LA Galaxy. (photo via MLS)

Both the Portland Timbers and Vancouver Whitecaps got some MLS action yesterday, the first for the Timbers. Each did fairly well in their preseason MLS debuts too.

The Timbers continued their unbeaten pre-season with a 1-1 draw against the LA Galaxy.

BY ADAM SERRANO

CARSON, CALIF - There will be a number of firsts this year for the Portland Timbers in their inaugural season and on Tuesday, the club added another. The Timbers played their first match against MLS competition and continued their unbeaten pre-season with a 1-1 draw against the LA Galaxy.

En la MLS siempre pasan cosas raras... El salvadoreño Andrés Flores se fue a probar al Portland Timbers, que está haciendo la pretemporada en California. Anoche el equipo donde también juega Steve Purdy hizo un amistoso con el Ventura County Fusion... Lo curioso es que El Ruso no jugó para el Timbers sino para el [.

El Ruso Andrés Flores ya está entrenando en el equipo Portland Timbers, que está haciendo la pretemporada en Ventura, California. ¿Podrá quedarse? En el mismo equipo está Steve Purdy, ya confirmado, quien utlizará el número 25.