Practicing patience can be one of the hardest endeavors in any aspect of life, be that personally, professionally, or when your favorite soccer team hires a new head coach with a drastically different approach to the game than the previous one. Encouraging patience from a group of supporters more than eager to see their team return to relevancy might be even harder.
Rome was not built in a day, and after an extremely disappointing 2-1 loss to an Austin FC side dwelling near the bottom of the Western Conference, the Portland Timbers are hopeful ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle's line, "Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet," will ring true for new man in the dugout Marti Cifuentes.
Audrey Lippert
Cifuentes knew the vision he and his coaching staff see for the club and this current group of players would be a marathon rather than a sprint, even after the 3-1 win he enjoyed against Club Tijuana in Leagues Cup on August 13 – His first match in charge following a lengthy visa approval process.
"We wanted to have a good balance [of new ideas], but sometimes you as well get a bit excited when the group is very open and very ready in some ways to take instruction," said Cifuentes after his team saw over 60-percent possession, 15 shots to eight, nearly double the amount of passes, and scored three well-worked goals against the club currently occupying third-place in the Liga MX table.
"But I think, yeah, I'm aware that it's going to be some up-and-downs, but especially to see how the players try to do most of the ideas ... It was very strong," Cifuentes continued.
Those players spent the bulk of July and August clawing their way out of a 14 points from 14 matches start to the 2026 season, winning six, drawing two, and losing three across all competitions from July 16 to August 19. But the aforementioned loss against Los Verdes on Saturday seemed to knock the strong summer wind out of a lot of Timbers supporters, both online and in the stadium.