COLUMBUS, Ohio – Sunday’s MLS Cup (4 pm ET on ESPN and UniMas in USA; TSN1/4 and RDS2 in Canada) represents a rematch from just over two months ago.
On Sept. 26, the Portland Timbers came into MAPFRE Stadium and beat Columbus 2-1, getting a pair of goals from Fanendo Adi to defeat Crew SC. Despite failing to grab any points, Columbus were competitive against the Timbers, and Kei Kamara – he scored Crew SC’s lone goal that evening – is confident they’ll be able to put together a strong offensive showing in Sunday’s final.
“When they played here, I scored a goal against them, so I didn’t think it was that tough,” he said. “But we just play our game. They have two good center backs – I give them a lot of credit – [Nat] Borchers and [Liam] Ridgewell, but at the same time, the way we play, we score a lot of goals on the road, a lot of goals at home, and we just have to keep playing our game. I know it will show.”
Revenge won’t be on the minds of Columbus, who are far too focused on bringing home a trophy to worry about making amends for a regular season loss.
“I wouldn’t say revenge,” said Crew SC midfielder Tony Tchani. “At this point, there’s no revenge. You just want to win it. No matter what, you have to win it. It’s not about thinking about what happened in the past. We just have to focus and try to get the win.”
But for Crew SC head coach Gregg Berhalter, the loss was a teaching point. He said the match “certainly plays a factor in our minds,” but he expects two different squads to take the field on Sunday.
“We’ve analyzed that game, we looked at their strengths, we looked at what we could have done better, but I think they’re two different teams now,” he said. “You see the run that Portland went on since then, they’ve done a fantastic job. We know that’s a good team.
“If you look at us, I think we’ve progressed as well. We’ve had a lot of tough games [after] that, and we’ve certainly gotten better.”
Crew SC know how dangerous the Timbers can be. With the likes of Darlington Nagbe and Fanendo Adi firing on all cylinders, Ethan Finlay said Columbus will have to be wary of counterattacks.
“That’s something we identified we had to be better at,” he said. “That being said, I thought we had some good chances in that game early on [Sept. 26]. They obviously capitalized on their chances, but they’re a very good team. There’s a reason they’re here. We both have our strengths, and I think it’ll be a battle on Sunday.”
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For their part, the Timbers aren’t putting much stock in the earlier meeting, either. Head coach Caleb Porter acknowledged that Portland played a “good game” against Crew SC in September, but he is well aware that they’ll need to bring that again – and then some – to lift MLS Cup on Sunday.
“The past doesn’t determine the future. But the past does give you confidence and evidence of what you can accomplish in the future,” Porter said. “So we’re well aware that we went on that field and that we played a good game. And on that day we won the game. For us to do it again, we need to have a good game; it’s pretty simple.
Adi, the Timbers' goal scorer from the previous meeting, struck a similar chord.
“What has happened in the league was the league, but now is the Cup game, a one-leg game,” he said. “So we have to go there to prepare well against them. Of course we know how they’re going to play in the match with one or two things, but we just have to stick to our game plan like we did in the last game.”
