{"id":1699,"date":"2015-11-22T09:33:04","date_gmt":"2015-11-22T17:33:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/?p=1699"},"modified":"2015-11-22T09:33:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-22T17:33:27","slug":"one-step-from-mls-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/2015\/11\/22\/one-step-from-mls-cup-final\/","title":{"rendered":"One step from MLS Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Timbers are looking to carry their recent momentum into the 2015 MLS Cup as they start the Western Conference Finals today against FC Dallas at Providence Park at 4:30pm. \u00a0The second leg will be next Sunday in Texas.<\/p>\n<p>The Timbers are in the Western Conference Final for the second time in three years, having fallen to Real Salt Lake 5-2 on aggregate in 2013. \u00a0The Timbers were the top seed in the Western Conference that year, and after going head 1-0 on the road in the first leg, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timbers.com\/post\/2013\/11\/11\/mls-cup-playoffs-western-conference-championship-1st-leg-recap-real-salt-lake-4\">gave up four consecutive goals and were down 4-2 coming back home<\/a>, where they <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timbers.com\/post\/2013\/11\/25\/mls-cup-playoffs-western-conference-championship-2nd-leg-recap-portland-timbers-0\">lost 1-0<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Undefeated in their last six matches, the Timbers are carrying a lot of momentum into today&#8217;s match, including <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timbers.com\/post\/2015\/11\/01\/match-recap-portland-timbers-0-vancouver-whitecaps-fc-0-nov-1-2015\">shutting out the second seeded Vancouver Whitecaps<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.timbers.com\/post\/2015\/11\/08\/match-recap-vancouver-whitecaps-fc-0-portland-timbers-2-nov-8-2015\">2-0 on aggregate in the Conference Semifinals<\/a>. \u00a0FC Dallas advanced to the Conference Finals on penalty kicks after splitting 2-1 decisions with Seattle, with each time winning on their home field.<\/p>\n<p>Both sides will also have a lot of confidence in winning against long odds, as both have escaped seemingly dire circumstances to advance, the Timbers in the first round when they needed a late goal in overtime (as well as a shot off two posts in penalties) to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/2015\/10\/30\/one-for-the-ages-timbers-win-7-6-in-dramatic-11-round-penalties\/\">defeat Sporting Kansas City in the first round<\/a>, and Dallas needing a stoppage time goal to force overtime in the Conference Semifinals.<\/p>\n<p>The Timbers are looking to be the first of the eight most recent MLS expansion teams (going back to Toronto FC in 2007) to get to the MLS Cup Final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Portland Timbers are looking to carry their recent momentum into the 2015 MLS Cup as they start the Western Conference Finals today against FC Dallas at Providence Park at 4:30pm. \u00a0The second leg will be next Sunday in Texas. The Timbers are in the Western Conference Final for the second time in three years, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/skc102915-tifo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1702,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1699\/revisions\/1702"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdxcite.net\/soccercityusa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}