New Postcards of the Cascadia Rivalry

Saturday night wrote another chapter on the long running series of the rivalry between the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders. The second of three matches they will dispute this season, was played again in Providence Park rendered a battle where both teams had little over the other. It was a chess game were the big pieces had little wiggle room, and it took the subtlety of a slight deflection on Timbers wing back Juan Mosquera’s hard shot on goal in minute 55 to decide whether they split points, or whether the three points stayed in Portland or drove on the I-5 North to Seattle.

The Cascadia rivalry between Timbers and Sounders is one oldest of all the clubs currently playing in MLS, dating back to May 2, 1975. That is not the oldest in US Soccer between existing clubs, that title belongs to two New York City Clubs–New York Athletic Club (NYAC) and the Brooklyn St. George’s Club–dating back to the 19th Century. and yes, people did play football back then.

Over the decades, this rivalry has pitted the fan bases to a duel of wits, chants, tifos, memes, and often transpiring to players celebrations, and last Saturday wasn’t an exception. The derby left a new postcard for rivalry history when Timbers mascot Timber Joey, standing on his victory log platform, pulled out what it look like a flounder or a halibut, and literally followed the common slogan of the Cascadia Derby, “gut the fish”, in reference to the Seattle club.

With a specially sponsored fillet knife by Benchmark, Timber Joey, an avid fisherman himself, cleaned up the fish to the delight and chants of the Timbers Army supporters group still gathering in the North End after regulation time, and rumor has it, it was served for dinner the next day.

The Seattle v Portland rivalry while out spent by newer clubs exhibiting budgets the size of small nations, brand new sparking stadiums, and the signings of the biggest stars on the football sky, the tradition of ingenuity of the Cascadia supporters is the real fuel of what a colleague has coined as the “Classico” of Derbies in MLS.