Timbers coach Caleb Porter urges steadiness as Dallas threat looms
Your team is up 3-1 after the first leg of a home-away series and you're heading into enemy territory for Round 2 - what do you do?
If you're Portland Timbers head coach Caleb Porter - whose team is set to do battle once more against FC Dallas to decide the series winner - the answer is simple.
"We're going to keep doing exactly what we've been doing," Porter told reporters. "I know (the press) want me to come up with these great answers this week, but I'm going to come up with the same answers that I've been saying for the last seven games: 'Nothing is going to change.'"
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The Timbers head to Toyota Stadium on Sunday for the second leg of the Western Conference Championship, going into the match with a two-goal lead after winning the first leg at Providence Park 3-1. It's the kind of scoreline that should theoretically inspire confidence in Porter's troops.
But, Dallas is a team that can and has punished the Timbers before, beating them 4-1 in their last meeting in Texas during the 2015 regular season. And, with an away goal, Dallas has another distinct advantage in this second leg.
But, for Porter, changing his team's style to accommodate this new threat isn't in the cards - he's looking to take the game to Dallas and stay true with the style of play that made Portland competitive this year.
"There's this fallacy sometimes that you're either playing a defensive game or an attacking game, and good teams play a balanced game," Porter explained. "And that's what we've been doing, and that's what we're going to do in this game. We're certainly not going to sit back, and we're certainly not going to be reckless going forward.
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"They're going to be looking for a 2-0 win, no mystery there. But to do that they have to keep us from scoring, and if we do score, then they need three to push overtime, and if we score two they need five. So the worst thing we could do is sit back and try to hang on.
"We're going to look to score goals, but we're not going to do it in a reckless way, we'll do it in a very patient way and again it's just exactly what we've been doing home and away."