Portland Timbers
Also written as Portland.
The club
Portland Timbers are a Major League Soccer club based in Portland, Oregon, playing in the Western Conference. The football feed refers to the club simply as "Portland". This is the Portland Timbers, the men's MLS club, not Portland Timbers 2, the club's own reserve and development side in MLS Next Pro, and not Portland Thorns FC, the NWSL women's club that Timbers owner Merritt Paulson also founded, in 2012, and which was sold to new ownership in the 2023 offseason. The three organisations share the Timbers name and Portland roots but are separate entities.
The current club describes itself as a phoenix club and the fourth soccer franchise to carry the Timbers name in Portland, tracing its lineage to the original Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League, who played from 1975 to 1982, reached Soccer Bowl '75 in their first season and lost 2-0 to the Tampa Bay Rowdies, and folded in November 1982 after owner Louisiana-Pacific could not complete a sale of the club. A further Timbers side played in the second-tier USL from 2001 to 2010, finishing with the league's best regular-season record in 2004 and 2009, before owner Merritt Paulson, who had bought that USL club in 2007, was awarded a Major League Soccer expansion franchise on March 20, 2009. Portland Timbers began MLS play in 2011.
The home ground is Providence Park, a stadium on the same site since 1893, when it opened as sports fields known as Multnomah Field. The stadium structure now standing dates to 1926, when it opened as Multnomah Stadium at a cost of $502,000. The city of Portland bought it in 1966 and renamed it Civic Stadium. It became PGE Park in 2001 after Portland General Electric bought the naming rights, then Jeld-Wen Field from 2011, and has been Providence Park since 2014 under a naming-rights deal with Providence Health & Services. It was reconfigured for MLS in 2011 to a capacity of 18,627 and expanded again in 2019 in an $85 million renovation that added a three-deck east end, taking capacity to 25,218. The club's supporters are organised as the Timbers Army. Club colours are ponderosa green and moss green, and the club badge carries an axe and three chevrons forming a pine tree, representing the three separate professional leagues the Timbers name has competed in.
The current head coach is Martí Cifuentes, hired during the 2026 season. He succeeded Phil Neville, who left the post on May 25, 2026, with Jack Cassidy, who also coaches Portland Timbers 2, serving as interim head coach in between. Owner is Peregrine Sports, under Merritt Paulson; the 2026 club leadership includes Heather Davis and Ned Grabavoy.
Recent seasons
Detailed season-by-season league standings and points totals across the 2020s were not established from the sources read here beyond the following: Portland won the 2020 MLS is Back Tournament, played that year because of the disrupted pandemic MLS calendar, beating Orlando City SC 2-1 in the final. In 2026, Portland had taken 14 points from their first 14 league games at the point Phil Neville left the job in May. As of August 23, 2026, Portland sat ninth in the Western Conference with a record of 8 wins, 9 losses and 4 draws from 21 matches, 28 points, 38 goals for and 37 against.
Honours and landmarks
Portland Timbers have won the MLS Cup once, in 2015. They also won the MLS is Back Tournament in 2020. As an MLS club they have won the Cascadia Cup, contested annually with Seattle Sounders FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC, in 2012 and 2017. The earlier NASL-era Timbers reached Soccer Bowl '75 as runners-up in the franchise's very first season, 1975. A full list of conference or Supporters' Shield honours was not established from the sources read here.
Diego Valeri, who played for the club from 2013 to 2021, is Portland's all-time leading goalscorer with 100 goals in all competitions, 82 of them in 242 regular-season appearances. In 2017 he set the MLS record for scoring in nine consecutive games, between July 29 and September 24 that year, finished the season with 21 goals and 11 assists, becoming only the second player in league history to record at least 20 goals and 10 assists in a season, and was awarded the Landon Donovan MVP Award on December 4, 2017. The identity of the club's all-time leading appearance-maker was not established from the sources read here.
Notable scorelines
Portland's first MLS Cup, on December 6, 2015, was won 2-1 away to Columbus Crew SC at MAPFRE Stadium in Columbus, Ohio, in front of 21,747. Diego Valeri scored after just 27 seconds, then the fastest goal in MLS Cup final history, after Columbus goalkeeper Steve Clark mishandled a back-pass, and Rodney Wallace headed in a second in the seventh minute in a passage of play in which the assistant referee missed a ball going out of play before the Timbers scored. Kei Kamara pulled a goal back for Columbus in the 18th minute, but Portland held on. Jair Marrufo refereed and Valeri was named the match's Most Valuable Player. It was the first men's professional sports championship won by a Portland team since the Trail Blazers' 1977 NBA title.
In the 2026 MLS season Portland beat Sporting Kansas City 6-0 at home on May 9. On July 16, 2026, under interim coach Jack Cassidy, they won 5-1 away to Seattle Sounders, reported as Portland's largest margin of victory in the clubs' MLS-era head-to-head series. Portland also lost 1-4 at home to Vancouver Whitecaps on March 7, 2026, and 3-4 at home to San Jose Earthquakes on May 23, 2026. The club's all-time biggest win and heaviest defeat across its full history were not established from the sources read here.
Head-to-head notes
Portland Timbers, Seattle Sounders FC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC contest the Cascadia Cup, an unofficial regional trophy awarded on results between the three clubs each season, reflecting a rivalry between the three Pacific Northwest cities that predates all three clubs' MLS entries. Portland have won the Cascadia Cup as an MLS club in 2012 and 2017. The July 16, 2026 result, a 5-1 Portland win at Seattle, was described in the sources read here as the largest margin in the Portland-Seattle MLS-era series, implying Portland have not otherwise beaten Seattle by a wider margin since joining MLS in 2011. Beyond that, a full head-to-head record against either Seattle or Vancouver was not established from the sources read here.
Right now (2026/27)
Martí Cifuentes is head coach, hired during the 2026 season after Phil Neville departed on May 25, 2026, and after Jack Cassidy, who also coaches the club's MLS Next Pro side Portland Timbers 2, had spells as interim head coach. As of August 23, 2026, Portland were ninth in the Western Conference on 28 points from 21 matches, 8 wins, 9 losses and 4 draws, with 38 goals scored and 37 conceded. Under Cassidy's interim charge they beat Seattle Sounders 5-1 away on July 16, 2026, the biggest margin of victory in the clubs' MLS-era rivalry. Earlier in the season they had also beaten Sporting Kansas City 6-0 at home on May 9, but lost at home to Vancouver Whitecaps 1-4 on March 7 and to San Jose Earthquakes 3-4 on May 23. Portland's playoff position, remaining fixtures and any further results since August 23, 2026 were not established from the sources read here.
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portland_Timbers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_MLS_Cup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Providence_Park https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_Portland_Timbers_season https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diego_Valeri
Researched and written for not4quarters. Where a fact could not be established from the sources read, this page says so rather than guessing.