Last season, Los Angeles Football Club defeated Portland 2-1 on the penultimate weekend of the regular season and 2-0 in the United States Open Cup. Prior to that, Portland had gone six matches against Los Angeles Football Club without dropping a single one since October 2020 (W3 D3).
In its MLS history, Los Angeles Football Club has won all five of its season openers. From 2012 to 2017, FC Dallas was the only team in league history to win its first match six times in a row.
Monday’s 1-0 victory over Sporting Kansas City marked only the fourth time in the Timbers’ 13 MLS seasons that they had won their opening match. They have only once started a season with two straight wins, in 2017, when they won 1-0 at the Los Angeles Galaxy in Southern California.
Only once in the previous six seasons (D1 L4) have the defending MLS Cup champions started their title defense with a victory. The Rapids defeated a Timbers team in their first-ever MLS match in 2011 by a score of 3-1, marking the second time a reigning champion has opened their season against the Timbers.
Juan Mosquera, a Colombian, and Yimmi Chara, a fellow Colombian, assisted on Portland’s lone goal in Monday’s victory. The Timbers have scored seven goals by Colombians since the end of last season (D. Asprilla4, S. Moreno2, J. Mosquera 1).
