In your face, Elliott Tire & Service! More significantly, however, that’s Seattle’s Safeco Field to the right there, which is next door to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Sounders. The Portland Timbers will join the Sounders in the MLS in 2011, and to inaugurate their new league rivalry, the Portland franchise has planted a billboard right in the Sounders’ backyard. Since this photo is on the Timbers’ Facebook page (found via The Slanch Report), it’s no secret that they’re trying to goose fans into taking this rivalry seriously. That’s so cute.
But from what I understand, there is already a rivalry between the Sounders and the Timbers that doesn’t require much prodding; the two teams have battled off and on since they first met in 1975, when both were in the NASL. When they do play each other in nonleague contests, it can get pretty raucous. Also, throw the Vancouver Whitecaps — who will also join the MLS in 2011 — and you have a nice three-way Pac. Northwest rumble.
Anyway, Timbers fans are just as likely to be mad about this billboard as Sounders fans are. The Portland faithful are still fuming over their new logo.
Still, it’s hard to take this thing too seriously; it is the Pacific Northwest, after all. I know that if someone put up a Dodgers billboard on Mission Street in The City, it would be in flames within minutes. And that’s a mild reaction compared to, say, someone erecting an Auburn football billboard in Tuscaloosa.
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Timbers plant flag in Sounders backyard [MLS Insider]
Portland Timbers Rattle Some Seattle Cages [The Slanch Report]
