Portland 0 - 0 El Paso

A match report with 11 game photos and 3 video clips:

http://www.soccercityusa.com/timbers/elp061902.htm

On a personal note.. please, please, please is there anything that will ever get the Patriots to stop the dives, and rolling around on the pitch like they have a broken leg every time someone touches them? At least a dozen times tonight Patriots players stopped play for a least a minute to roll around like they had a compound fracture. The only player who actually got hurt was the starting keeper, who got kicked in the nose by his own player.

It gets really old after awhile, and it really degrades the game, and the league. Your backup keeper looked sharp though, and made a few great saves.

Video clips? Brush off your desk Allison, looks like your getting back to back "commies" this year.

One of the previous posts talked about Latin soccer "at its finest"...That's one of those things. It's how they slow down matches; on the road especially.

Thanks for your website, Allison. It's pretty darn cool.

Incidentally, the "backup" goalkeeper, Jesse Llamas, is actually the starter, who I guess had to come back from a leg injury a little sooner than expected.

I saw one yellow awarded for "diving" in a Battery match this year - must not have caught-on on the left coast. Great stuff A-llison.

Nope. Might as well get used to it. (Heck I have)

I thought it drew the match out a little too long. C'mon the announced injury time in the first half was 8 minutes, which probably turned into 15 minutes from all the falling babies after the 45th. At one point of the match there where 2 players down in two separate areas of the pitch. Is this a normal behavior of El Paso? I remember last year they did close to the same "tactics", at least the ref gave the keeper a yellow for wasting time while playing with his hurt leg. Also, what's up with the El Paso trainers taking so long to come on the pitch after a player is down? What a waste of time. I guess they know their players are going to roll around and cry for a few minutes and then get up like nothing happenend. Well there is my rant. I hope the diving comes to a stop, it takes away from the level of play. At least dive if it's going to work, if it doesn't don't roll around crying until someone sees you!

If you've lived in South Texas very long and have been around soccer you have heard the phrase "the romance of the game" repeated over and over again. Part of the "romance" is the play acting. It runs rampant through the Latin teams. A few players in MLS bring it with them but lose it fairly quickly...except I thought El Matador soaked it a lot, even doing some dives in the WC this year. You don't see it much in MLS despite the number of Latin players because, I would hazard a guess, of peer pressure.

LOL.

I have been going around the net and reading some of the Timber's fans responses about the game. I don't know maybe its me, but I think it is damn funny how some of these people seem so "offended" by our tactics, like if it were someting new. By now everyone around this league knows that El Paso's road behavior is nothing but shameful displays of respect for the game. Everyone, including some of the followers of this team have condemmed this crap. There is nothing we (the fans on this forum) can do to get our players to stop pulling this crap.

As a huge fan of the Pat's, I have accepted this, maybe some people around the league should as well (Some fans from Vancouver have, or so it seems) - The El Paso Patriots are (and probably always be) the worst behaved road team in this league. It obvious the Pat's are not embarassed by their antics, because on every road trip they pull this crap.

Also stop asking if we can do anything about getting them to stop pulling that crap. As long as they stress this whole "latin" game crap, it will still remain.

Excessive diving may be good tactics on occasion
BUT it does kill the fluidity of the game and bores/annoys spectators.

Teams seem to forget that pro soccer is sports ENTERTAINMNET. Coaches and players lose sight of this big picture and think only about the competitive aspect of the game. Even if it means playing ugly soccer (dives, excessive defensive tactics, etc...) They forget that happy fans will come back, fill the stands and provide the necessary gate money to pay their salaries IF they are entertained by good quality soccer.

This is one of many reasons why the sport isn't growing as fast as it should. The entertainment value just isn't there. While soccer purists may find some redeeming aspects in boring but result-oriented soccer, a great majority of new fans fail to appreciate these finer points and are often disappointed by a poor show. Hence, we lose them to some other form of entertainment...

I, for one, would rather watch an exciting, action filled game EVEN if it means that my team loses in its effort. At least, I can say that they tried hard and came up short. I was entertained and WILL come back for more...

Am I the only one out there thinking this way ?