This week, the Timbers Army was forced to retire a song that has been with them since they joined MLS in 2011, laying to rest a chant that has embodied the fiery optimism supporting Portland’s club since even before they joined the ranks of Major League Soccer five years ago. Sung to the chorus of Camptown Races, the chant proves how the Timbers Army has been not just full of grit, but full of faith from the start: We’re gonna win the league! We’re gonna win the league! I don’t know how, I don’t know when, we’re gonna win the league!
We do now how, we do know when: a 2-1 victory over Columbus Crew on Sunday, December 6th, 2015 saw the Portland Timbers—the newest addition to MLS, up until this year’s expansions in Orlando and New York—hoist the 2015 MLS Cup. Early goals from Diego Valeri and Rodney Wallace followed by some stout defending led by veterans Nat Borchers and Liam Ridgewell proved enough to bring the Cup home to Portland.
And what a homecoming it was. Fans thronged the airport on Monday as the champions of Major League Soccer landed at PDX. Then, despite the rain and having had less than 24 hours notice for the event, green-and-gold clad supporters thronged the streets as the Cup was paraded through downtown Portland. It was, truly, a hero’s welcome. And, for those familiar with Portland’s supporters, it was wonderfully unsurprising.
This summer, I wrote a piece about the Timbers Army, about their status as exemplars of what MLS supporters can and should be: passionate about not only their club, but about their community. Of course, the manager Caleb Porter and his players on the pitch deserve accolades for winning this trophy, for their remarkable end-of-season and playoff form that saw this improbable cup run come together. But after the analysis of the match has faded from memory, this trophy is about—and for—the fans of the Rose City.
And in truth, though they score no goals and make no saves, the Timbers Army had a hand in authoring this championship. If you are a footballer, keen on plying your trade in the States, then Portland is a place you want to be—perhaps the place you want to be. The manager is great, but managers come and go. The stadium is new, but all things age and fade. The fans, however, have proven a constant around whatever pitch the Timbers occupy, and a rowdy one at that. Soccer’s popularity in the US is on the rise, no doubt about it. But playing in front of a sell-out crowd is hardly a guarantee, and one that promises to ‘jump and clap and sing for victory’ throughout the full 90 minutes an even less common phenomenon.
But for five years in Portland, each and every home match has been just that. Take, for example, this table displaying the average deviation for home crowds in MLS, depending on whether a match is nationally or locally televised. The allure of your friends catching a glimpse of you on ESPN, alongside what is usually a marquee matchup, means that on average, 4,000 more people show up to a nationally-televised game in Los Angeles or Seattle, and a whopping 7,000 more fans drive to Gillette Stadium in New England to see the Revolution play before a nationwide TV audience.
Portland’s average differential?
Four. Four people. That’s the difference between one rowdy group of friends getting too drunk at the pre-game party to show up to the stadium. That’s one family getting food poisoning the night of the game, going home before kickoff.
That’s the Timbers Army.
And that omnipresent capacity attendance—combined with the Army’s notorious chanting—translates to a better product on the pitch. In a competition where national television and merchandising revenue are shared, where player contracts and transfers are negotiated centrally by the league (MLS is a single-entity corporation; clubs are not individual businesses but rather franchises), becoming the sort of mega-rich leviathan we see in the shape of Real Madrid or Bayern Munich is not an option. Granted, some clubs, such as Los Angeles Galaxy and NYCFC, have owners who are willing to pay their designated players—a class of player that is exempt from the league’s salary cap—much more than others. Still, when it comes to television revenue and increased fan base, and even when it comes to a third of your ticket sales, if you succeed, so too does the league; if you grow richer, so too do your rivals. In order to attract the best talent—and to keep the talent you already have on your roster—it is necessary to offer something more than just a paycheck: an experience that players want to have, a club they will be proud to be a part of.
And the Timbers, with their full-throated Army behind them, offer just that.
After a championship, there’s often talk of whether or not a team is capable of building a dynasty, defending the title and aiming toward a run of rings with the same group of players. Despite having drunk from the MLS Cup, in 2016, the Timbers are unlikely to be league favorites, and perhaps not even favorites to win the West. But today, I’m not interested in talking about this group of players, remarkable as they are. Right now, I’m not interested in whether or not Darlington Nagbe will be the cornerstone of a dynastic midfield in Portland.
In this trophy’s immediate wake, I want only to celebrate the dynasty that already exists at Providence Park, in Section 107, a dynasty that won’t ebb and flow as players come and go, but one that has proven itself every minute of every home match for five years, and long before the MLS came calling. I am interested in the enduring dynasty that is the Timbers Army.
The match day atmosphere in Portland has already proven enough to lure league veterans like Will Johnson and Nat Borchers to the rainy shores of the Willamette. Who will be the next key player who, once jeered by the Portland faithful, puts in his request to ply his trade in Portland? Who in this team of MLS Champions will stay for the length of his career, and who will leave for elsewhere this offseason? I couldn’t say. But I do know this: win or lose, rain or shine, Providence Park will be one of the best places on earth to watch a football match. That’s a dynasty that has been worth celebrating long before the 2015 MLS Cup Final—but its one that, the Army will agree, will happily add a league title to its history.