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All the Timbers needed was a draw. They didn’t have to slay Goliath. They just needed to bruise him. And while Portland had been unquestionably terrible at winning soccer matches for the two months leading up to Saturday’s regular season finale against San Diego, draws — well, the Timbers did draws really well. Notch an MLS-leading 12th one of those, and Portland would’ve been on its way to the seven-seed in the Western Conference, securing a spot in the actual playoffs for the first time since 2021. Forget the second-half spiral that saw the Timbers win one match since July 25 while tumbling from fourth place in the standings. Forget an offense that had scored one goal or less in 10 of its last 14 matches. Forget that the last time the Timbers had a must-win under Neville, Portland face-planted 5-0 in last year’s win-or-go-home wildcard match against Vancouver. The Timbers just needed a tie against San Diego, a result the team had already achieved against the MLS newcomer in August on the road. Phil Neville ditched his traditional sweats and instead wore a black suit on the sideline. By the time Neville came into his post-match press conference, he had changed into a cream-colored sweatshirt with a retro image of Providence Park and a Timbers bus on the front. His hair was tidy and he wore a collared shirt underneath. The suit? Soaked. For the last two hours, the Portland manager pleaded, stomped and barked in a downpour for his team to get better in a match where better never came. The Timbers were competitive for a spell, fell down a goal midway through the first half, and opened up the second by allowing a pair of goals in the first four minutes. San Diego finished off its rout with Pellegrino’s second goal in the 63rd minute. The skies opened up around the 70th as the final regular-season match in Portland’s 50th anniversary season turned into a party for supporters from an expansion club. At the final whistle, one end of Providence Park saw San Diego celebrating in front of its large group of traveling fans, with cheers and songs and drums celebrating the club’s first-place finish atop the Western Conference table. At the other end, Neville and the soaked Timbers took a beating from the Timbers Army. Neville made sure he and the team took that in before heading into the locker room yet again without a win. Before the questions began, the coach had a message. “I’ll start by saying that’s a massively disappointing night,” Neville said. “I think we owe the supporters an apology for that. When you think about the first game this season, the Vancouver game in the play-in and this one, there’s a similar sort of pattern and I have to take full responsibility for that.” Neville’s been consistent with that throughout his tenure. Aside from complaints about officiating, the manager has never publicly blamed anyone for a loss during his time with Portland other than himself. He’ll say things like he didn’t pick the right team, or throw out generalities about a position group needing to step up, but largely, Neville has owned it when things aren’t going well. It’s not that transfer-designated player Kristoffer Velde has yet to score a goal for Portland. Or that season-long designated player David Da Costa’s last assist came in August and his last goal came in July. Or that Antony hasn’t been the same player since he came back from injury. Or that, whether coincidence or not, the offense has disappeared since Santiago Moreno decided not to show up in Dallas. Or that Evander scored a club-record 22 goals across all competitions this year for Cincinnati. After everything that happened in the last year — Evander’s departure, the strengthening of the backline, Jonathan Rodriguez’s injury, Moreno’s departure, Antony’s injury, the additions of Velde, Matias Rojas and Felipe Carballo, Carballo’s injury — the Timbers ended up being one game worse than a season ago. That’s one win and 24 fewer goals to celebrate from an offense that went from the fourth-best in MLS to the 24th. It’s on me, Neville has said again and again. The frustration of 2025 for Portland is that the flashes are there. This is a team that went 11 matches with only one loss earlier in the season. This is a team that saw significant development of Finn Surman on defense and, for the first half of the year, Antony on offense. This is a team that has seen Velde tally a season’s worth of near-misses in just two months. “His stats are through the roof in terms of everything else he’s doing apart from putting the ball in the back of the net,” Neville said. Latest Timbers news Portland Timbers face wildcard game after Decision Day defeat Portland Timbers allow others to choose their fate but clinch spot in MLS playoffs Sounders defeat Timbers for first home win in rivalry since 2017 But the Timbers need Velde — or someone — to put the ball in the back of the net. “We’re all in now. We’re now in the business of winner-take-all. There’s no ifs or buts, there’s no excuses, there’s no messing around,” Neville said. “It’s now delivery time. We’ve been saying that for the last two to three months. I’d say people thought you could probably walk into the playoffs, we were always in that seventh position, but you’ve got to earn the right to do it. And we haven’t earned the right to do it.” The Timbers will host Real Salt Lake on Wednesday at Providence Park with the winner advancing to the first round of the MLS playoffs. Salt Lake shut out the Timbers at Providence Park in their last meeting back in July and on Saturday picked up a draw when it needed one, 2-2 at St. Louis. Momentum is in Salt Lake’s favor. Portland’s performances in big games over the last two seasons are in Salt Lake’s favor. A loss would be a failure, Neville said. A win could be a foundation to build upon. And while Saturday it seemed the Rubik’s Cube Neville’s been working on all year was as jumbled as it’s ever been, there’s still a game left to put it together. “We didn’t want to be in this game,” Neville said. “But the fact is, we have to deliver.”
