This all started on an outside concourse at Rochester's Frontier Field on July 11, 2003. Well, it probably didn't, but I'd like to think it did.
During my 2003 A-League trip up and down the east coast, I visited Rochester on that day, something I had wanted to do for several years. I wanted to see what the big deal was in Rochester, why they drew so many people to Frontier Field when so many A-League teams struggle with attendance, and to experience it all first-hand. Before I even arrived, Rhinos president Frank DuRoss invited me to say hello to him before the game, which I did, and he had given me a tour of the stadium before the gates had even opened, and seemed more than happy to welcome me to Rochester, and to answer all my questions.
During our conversation on the concourse behind the skyboxes, I couldn't help asking about why the Rhinos had not traveled west in several years. Of course, this had been a point that caused endless entertainment on the USL message boards, the fact that the Rhinos didn't seem to want to go west while all of the rest of the teams had made trips to the opposite coast over the past several years. As of July 11, 2003, it had been almost exactly three years since the Rhinos had ventured to the West Coast, and I mentioned to him that I'd love to see the Rhinos come west and play the Timbers. In fact, I may have phrased in such a way that the Rhinos "owed" the Timbers a trip west, since the Timbers had come to Rochester in 2001 and had lost an overtime game to the Rhinos here at Frontier Field. Frank's response was that he'd love to come west to play the Timbers, and I think I mentioned something about "holding him to that". I'm not sure I actually said it, but I surely was thinking it. But I'm not sure I believed it would happen anytime soon.
Then in late 2003, after the tentative schedule had been set at the league meetings in Tampa, I started to hear rumors that maybe the Rhinos were going to come west this year. In fact, the actual phrase that was told me by an insider was "The Rhinos are due to visit the NW, aren't they???." Until the schedule was released, I would have no way of confirming it, and of course everything is tentative until the schedule is finalized, but it was nice to think it might happen.
And of course, when the schedule finally came out in late January, I found out the hints had been correct: the Rhinos were indeed coming west, to play the Timbers and Sounders on June 17 and June 19. So June 17 has been marked on my calendar ever since.
In the early days of the A-League Timbers, they had been dubbed "Rochester of the West". Of course this was from the local press, not the team or the fans, but it had stuck with some A-League fans, and has been a difficult standard to live up to. In some ways, the Timbers have succeeded. They have the largest supporters group in the league by far in the Timbers Army, but attendances have not grown as hoped, and the team has had limited success on the field. But as it turned out, Rochester will arrive in the Rose City with the Timbers playing perhaps the best soccer they have played since they joined the A-League, and with the Rhinos also off to a strong start, the match that will be played at PGE Park on Thursday night may be one of the most interesting matchups of the first half of the A-League schedule.
The Raging Rhinos arrive in Portland with a record of 7 wins, 2 losses, and one draw, but have had a relatively soft early schedule. Statistically, they have played the league's weakest schedule to this point, having only played one team that is currently above .500 (Atlanta), and losing that match 1-0 on their own pitch against a tired Atlanta team, who had beaten the Timbers 4-3 the night before in Atlanta. But the Rhinos performance in those matches has been convincing, scoring 17 goals so far this season (4th best in the A-League) and giving up only 6 (3rd best). The Rhinos have some potent scorers up front, with Corey Woolfolk tied for second place in goal scoring with 7 goals, and Chris Carrieri tied for eighth with 4 goals. Carrieri, who the Rhinos signed earlier this season after being released by MLS's Colorado Rapids in March, is fifth in the league in points with 13, while Woolfolk is tied for third with 15 points. Woolfolk has played most of his matches this year as a second-half substitute, and has scored his 7 goals in only 421 minutes played (the equivalent of just under 5 matches), so his scoring prowess has been very potent in his limited minutes so far in 2004.
Goalkeeper Theo Zagar, who was acquired before the 2004 season from the Toronto Lynx after several successful seasons there, is in third place among A-League keepers with a .542 goals against average, and is considered one of the league's premier keepers.
But the early season schedule the Rhinos have faced may not have placed Zagar in front of the kind of attack he will be facing in Portland on Thursday night. Timbers rookie Alan Gordon has shocked the A-League, and even the Portland faithful, by storming out to the league lead in goals with 10 goals in his first nine games. Gordon also leads the league with 21 points, and teammate Byron Alvarez, with 5 goals and 2 assists, is also among the league leaders in both points and goals. The Timbers also have three players among the top 10 in the A-League for assists in midfielders Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar, Jake Sagare, and Alex Bengard. Goalkeeper Josh Saunders has given up 1.219 goals per game so far this year, with most of those goals given up in two games, a 4-3 loss at Atlanta, and a 3-2 overtime win at home against Milwaukee, but has compiled a record of 17 wins, 6 losses, and 2 ties since joining the Timbers in 2003.
The Timbers early season schedule has not been an easy one, with back-to-back wins over Seattle, wins at Vancouver and at Blackbaud Stadium against the defending league champion Charleston Battery, and coming back from a 2nd half two goal deficit to Milwaukee to steal a 3-2 overtime win. The Timbers' two losses have been a one-goal loss in a wild 4-3 game against the league's hottest team, the Atlanta Silverbacks, and a one goal overtime loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. With a record of 7 wins and 2 losses, the Timbers sit atop the Western Conference standings, tied with the Minnesota Thunder but with a match-in-hand. The Timbers also lead the A-League in scoring with 22 goals.
Coming off a disappointing 1-0 overtime loss to the Whitecaps this past Saturday, the Timbers will have something to prove with a strong showing against the A-League's model franchise. On the other hand, the Rhinos are entering the strongest part of their 2004 schedule, with their next five A-League games being against the Timbers, Sounders, Kickers, and the league-leading Montreal impact twice. The Rhinos will be looking to get their long road trip off to a good start, and having not won a match on the West Coast since a 4-0 win over the long-lost San Francisco Bay Seals in August of 1998, I'm sure it's a monkey the Rhinos would love to get off their back before heading up to Seattle on Saturday.
So we have the league's most storied franchise against a Timbers side off to their strongest start since entering the A-League. The team with the league's largest home crowds will face the team with the most fanatic supporters group. The league's #2 and #3 teams in terms of points per game feature four of the league's leading scorers, and two of the league's best goalkeepers. Both teams also feature strong players who will likely be coming off the bench, in Rochester's Corey Woolfolk, and Portland's Andrew Gregor, a two-team All-league midfielder who the Timbers acquired recently, and has only seen limited playing time due to nagging injuries.
It's a match that Timbers fans have been anticipating since the Timbers were reborn into the A-League on May 11, 2001. For the Rhinos and their fans, it's a bit of a venture into the unknown, a long road trip that the Rhinos have not faced since July of 2000. It's sure to make for an interesting Thursday at PGE Park.
Thinking back to the concourse at Frontier Field and my talk with Frank DuRoss, it's nice to think that my comments about the Rhinos coming west to Portland stuck in the back of his head, and had something to do with the Rhinos scheduling a game in Portland in 2004. Did it really? Probably not.
But no matter what the reason or motivation, the Rhinos are finally coming west.
