MLS 2016 week 1: Portland Timbers 2-1 Columbus Crew
The rematch of the 2015 MLS championship game turned in favor of the Timbers for the second consecutive time.
Here is what coach Porter had to say after the victory:
“I think this game was crucial for a lot of reasons,” Porter said in his postgame press conference. “Obviously we wanted to get three points; we talked about getting off to a good start. But it’s crucial also to put a marker down a little bit. This talk about being complacent and this talk about all these teams wanting to beat us even more, it’s just talk. And we showed today how hungry we are. And we showed today that we picked up right where we left off, that last year wasn’t an anomaly.
And we showed today that we can be even better, and I’m confident that we can go to another level. That was a big emphasis for us in this game, and we showed how dangerous we can be playing on the break. We have to finish the play off, we should have been up 2-0, maybe even 3-0, and put the game pretty much to bed.
For the start of the game, it’s what we expected to see, the banner from winning in 2015, that was amazing. And I think the emotion took us into the game and we did very well.”
