Felipe Mora had a goal and an assist and Evander da Silva Ferreira also scored as the visiting Portland Timbers defeated Austin FC 2-1 on Sunday in a key, late-season Western Conference match.
It was just the Timbers’ second road win of the season and its first since April 29 against St. Louis City and snapped an eight-match road winless streak.
Portland (9-11-9, 36 points) moved into ninth place and above the wild-card playoff line while improving to 3-1-1 since Miles Joseph took over as interim coach on Aug. 21. The Timbers have scored at least two goals in each of those five matches.
The Timbers found the net in the 39th minute as Dairon Asprilla outfought a pair of Austin defenders just inside the box before crossing a pass to the far side.
Asprilla’s pass rattled off Verde midfielder Alex Ring before bouncing directly to the left foot of Portland’s Mora, who made short work of the easy chance by beating Austin keeper Brad Stuver to the center of the goal.
Portland added to its advantage in the 64th minute when Evander was in the perfect spot in the goalmouth to receive a chested assist from Mora after a spot-on pass across the box by Yimmi Chara. Evander ripped the shot past Stuver and into the bottom-left corner.
The Verde (9-13-6, 33 points) cut their deficit in half in the 78th minute as Sebastian Driussi booted home a rebound of his own shot that was blocked initially by Portland goalkeeper David Bingham. The scoring play began with a pass deep into the zone by Ring.
The two goals allowed by the Verde sent them to 45 allowed, tying Austin with the LA Galaxy and Atlanta for the most goals allowed in MLS.
The defeat was the fourth straight at home across all competitions for Austin, the most in club history and dropped the Verde into 12th place in the 14-team conference with six games to play in the regular season.
–Field Level Media
