Portland Timbers 2026 Preview, Part One: The Road Traveled

The 2026 MLS season is here! In a three-part special, we will preview the upcoming Portland Timbers season and give you all of the storylines to follow and knowledge you need to impress your friends with as another great footy crusade begins.

We will be diving into tactical gameplans, players to watch, the stakes of it all, and everything you'll need for this season. Starting off: a recap of the offseason thus far, moves the team made, and how it all portends for this season.

This is Part One of the season preview. Be on the lookout for Part Two and Part Three coming later this week!

For the first time in what feels like a lifetime, the Portland Timbers did not start an offseason with some kind of great drama. Leaving locker room dustups, contract disputes, and passive-aggressive social media posts in the past, the 2026 offseason was the most "normal" one the Timbers had seen in some time.

That doesn't mean things didn't happen, though. Let's recap the road traveled before we turn to the road ahead – starting with those that will sadly not be joining the crazy train that is PTFC.

Who's out?

The great restructuring of Portland's roster continued, with the team bidding farewell to a few mainstays.

Longtime Timbers stalwarts Dario Zuparic and Christian Paredes left the Timbers in free agency. In addition, longtime MLS veteran keeper Maxime Crepeau left after finally losing the two-year long goalkeeper battle to James Pantemis.

Midseason acquisitions Felipe Carballo and Matias Rojas also were let go, after neither failed to make an impression during the 2025 season.

But perhaps the biggest and most shocking departure was that of David Ayala. The blossoming Argentine midfield star was traded to defending MLS Cup champs Inter Miami for $2 million in Allocation Money. While it was a surprise to see the presumptive future of Portland's midfield shipped off, it very much sounds like this was a scenario of Timbers GM Ned Grabavoy making the most of a situation where a player was very unlikely to sign a new contract, and capitalizing on getting as much value on a return that he could.

Lastly, the club also said goodbye to Designated Player Johnathan Rodriguez. The forward, who was so dynamic and effective in 2024, was hampered by injuries in 2025, and so the club waived him and exercised a buyout to get his contract off the books.

So that's... a lot of important players. Who's left??

Well the good news is that a lot of last year's most important players are still here! That's good, right? ....Right??

Portland's forward line remains essentially unchanged from 2025. Felipe Mora and Kevin Kelsy are the top-two strikers, with Kelsy likely to have the chance to claim the number one spot outright. Gage Guerra, hero of Game Two of the first round of the playoffs last year, will also be in the mix as well. On the wings, Antony is still around and will seek to rediscover his first half of last season form in 2026. Omir Fernandez and Ariel Lassiter are also still rostered as jack-0f-all-trades depth options, although the former is among several injured players that will color the start of the season.

But the real star of the Timbers' attacking corps will be Kristoffer Velde, the DP winger whose fierce and fiery attitude made him a star on the field– although not necessarily the box scores. Much will be expected of him this season, and we'll chat more about that in Part Two.

The midfield, while sparse, still has David Da Costa, Joao Ortiz, and the ageless and imperious legend that is Diego Chara. Da Costa will start the season on the injury list too, but a lot will be expected of him in his second year in MLS.

The backline also is pretty unchanged: Finn Surman and Kamal Miller will start the year as centerbacks no. 1 and no. 2, with Zac McGraw as depth once he, like Fernandez and Da Costa, returns from injury. Jimer Fory and Juan Mosquera are back to cause chaos as fullbacks, with Eric Miller signing on for at least one more year of "play me wherever, I guess" depth and Ian Smith entering his sophomore year as an MLS fullback.

James Pantemis, Hunter Sulte, and Trey Muse make up the goalkeeping contingent. Pants is the number one, and Sulte and Muse will be duking it out for the backup job probably all year long.

Huh. Nice! Anyone new I should care about?

Why yes, dear reader, as a matter of fact there are! And these new additions, while few, are actually pretty decent.

Portland kicked things off with signing right back Brandon Bye as a free agent this winter, continuing Grabavoy's trend of bringing in veteran MLS players to bolster the squad. Bye, 30, is set to be valuable fullback depth for Mosquera. And I also would not be surprised if he winds up winning the starting spot outright by year's end – but that's for another article.

The Timbers then exercised the axiom of "so nice, it's gotta work twice, right?" and went back to Oceania to sign another young centerback out of the A-league. This time, it was Alex Bonetig, a 23-year-old Australian defender who will undoubtedly have a healthy rivalry and budding partnership with Kiwi Finn Surman on the backline.

To round out the high-profile signings, the Timbers swung an ambitious trade to land 24-year-old midfielder Cole Bassett. The box-to-box dynamo adds an intriguing new dimension to Portland's midfield, which we will break down in more depth in Part Two.

For what it's worth, Bassett is the only one out of the three who comes in as an out-and-out starter. But do not be shocked if all three of the above are starting regularly by year's end.

Oh, and homegrown fullback Sawyer Jura will also be a full first team player this year as well. While he isn't exactly new and is obviously still developing as a player, don't be surprised if the 19-year-old becomes a regular fixture on team sheets before long.

Cool! All of those players will go along nicely with the other additions Portland made!

....Stares in Anakin Skywalker meme....

...They'll go along nicely with the other additions Portland made, right...?

Unfortunately, Portland's incomings have been few this winter. You might be noticing the big glaring hole in defensive midfield that the Timbers have yet to address, and yeah you'd be focusing on the right spot. Portland also is in need of a playmaking winger to complement Velde and provide service to the strikers, and could also probably use one more centerback.

And while it sounds like work on more acquisitions is still ongoing, nothing is done as of time of publishing. Even if deals get done this week, it will take time to integrate any new additions. So it will likely be at least 2-3 matches after any signings before they get the chance to make their mark.

As has unfortunately become tradition, the Timbers' offseason business will extend into the actual season yet again.

Well, now I'm bummed out. Thanks! How should I feel about the offseason as a whole, blog boy?

Not as bad as you could have, but not as good as you should have.

Building off of a promising albeit short return to the playoffs proper last season, Portland had a chance to capitalize on momentum and really point the ship towards that mythical land of "consistent competitiveness" that they've preached as the goal for years now. Instead, they are still without a marquee addition that truly raises the ceiling for the squad.

Bye, Bonetig, and Bassett are all smart additions (especially Bassett), and all three have the chance to become upgrades and/or quality depth at important positions in 2026. But none of them jump off the page in a "oh, that guy is going to win Portland some games" kind of way.

All that being said, it hasn't been a bad offseason for Portland. Outside of Ayala, the core of the team is still intact. You can see who is going to be relied upon to be the difference makers this year. Velde is already a leader, Surman and Kelsy are young players poised to make a leap, and Da Costa very much has it in him to elevate to a higher level in 2026. Portland didn't bring in any more high-level difference makers because they believe they already have the high-level difference makers they need.

Your mileage with that belief... may vary. As I've written before, this is a "prove it" year for the Timbers, putting both the coaching chops of Phil Neville and the roster build ethos of Ned Grabavoy to the test. But within the context of that belief, this offseason was right about what the powers that be on Morrison Street wanted it to be, I think.

Now, the next step is how it all plays out on the field in 2026. And so that is where our three-part season preview will turn towards next, when we preview the brass tacks of Portland's anticipated tactics.

Coming Wednesday, the Portland Timbers 2026 Preview, Part Two: "Phil Neville & The Dribbly Boys".