Defending MLS Cup champion Portland misses playoffs on final day

There will be a new champion in Major League Soccer this season.

The Portland Timbers, last year's MLS Cup victor, closed out a bitterly disappointing campaign on Sunday - Caleb Porter's team missing the playoffs by virtue of a crushing 4-1 loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps.

The result left the club in seventh place in the Western Conference, one adrift of the final playoff spot.

Portland's loss is the gain of three other conference foes, as Seattle (fourth), Sporting Kansas City (fifth), and Real Salt Lake (sixth) will all be involved in the postseason.

The situation was nothing new to the Timbers, who entered the final day of the regular season still fighting for a playoff spot in each of the last two years. In 2015, in particular, a win vaulted the club to third in the conference en route to an MLS Cup run.

Unfortunately for Porter and company, the outcome wasn't quite as favourable this time around.

Given that Sunday's contest was away from the friendly confines of Providence Park, maybe the one-sided defeat shouldn't have come as much of a surprise.

The Timbers went winless on the road this season (0-11-6), the final day setback signaling their seventh consecutive road loss.

"I think when you look at a final game like this, everything is out the door," Porter said ahead of the contest, according to Jamie Goldberg of The Oregonian.

"You don't really care about the past ... The fact that we haven't won on the road and all these story lines don't matter. We win and we're in."

Turns out, it did matter.