Community Discussion Post: Favorite Moment
With the 2023 Timbers and Thorns seasons in the book, what's the moment you will remember the most fondly?
The leaves have almost finished falling off of the tress, the cold weather is truly settling in, and Providence Park has gone dark for the year. The seasons of the Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns have wrapped up, with both teams ultimately failing to reach their goals for 2023.
Despite the disappointing ends to the year, there were still plenty of moments to look back on fondly. Both teams hit some serious high points over the course of the year, and those moments deserve to be celebrated.
So before roster moves are announced and we fully turn the page to next year, let’s all take a moment to reflect and celebrate out favorite moments for each team this season. I’ll kick it off:
Thorns: Morgan Weaver pointing to the badge
The ending of the NWSL season was once again frantic, with the standings being unbelievably tight right up until the final weekend.
The Thorns entered that stretch run on uncertain footing, having just lost Sophia Smith to injury and enduring a stretch of uneven results. Then, their most heated rivals OL Reign came to town in September. Portland needed a win to keep pace with the top of the standings, hadn’t beaten the Reign since June, and hadn’t registered a regular season win over the Reign in Providence Park since 2018.
And so of course Hina Sugita and Morgan Weaver did the business, with Weaver having a special message for the Reign fans after putting the game to bed:
It was a statement — in more ways than one. Portland emphatically stamped dominance over their rivals in 2023, showed that they were going to fight right up until the last game, injuries be damned, and proclaimed with pride whose house it was.
For Weaver especially, who encompasses so much of what makes the Thorns amazing and good, to have that moment was special. It went under-appreciated from national media, but Weaver turned in a career season in 2023. To cap it off with a mic-drop moment against Portland’s biggest rival in icing the first home win over them in five years was wholly deserved, and produced one of the best moments of the Thorns season.
As she stated after the game, “This is Portland. This is our home.”
Timbers: Diego Valeri Day
Yeah yeah, I know many of you might have been expecting 4-1 over Seattle here. While that game was absolutely electric, the mid-July game against the Crew when Diego Valeri entered the Ring of Honor holds a special place in my heart.
In hindsight, that game represented the final emotional high that Portland would never reach again this season. It featured so many incredible storylines: the Timbers legend Diego Valeri ascending to his proper place in the rafters, El Maestro’s emotional halftime speech and joyous sprint over to the North End, and of course a wild back-and-forth win for Portland.
We didn’t know it at the time, but we were also witnessing the final regular season victory of the Giovanni Savarese era. About a month later, Gio would be dismissed and the Timbers would begin an uncertain new age.
But for that evening, it was joy and triumph. It was a celebration of perhaps the greatest Timber of all time. It was a night where Timbers fans could forget the ills of the season and revel in a great moment.
And of course, it all culminated in what very well might wind up being Sebastian Blanco’s last goal in a Timbers shirt. Scoring the winner for his good friend Valeri, enjoying the jubilations of Providence Park once again — it truly was a moment that could not have been scripted better for Seba. While it would (will?) be heartbreaking to see Blanco depart the Timbers this offseason, this moment would ultimately be very fitting, if albeit tragic, poetry to end his time in Rose City.
Beating Seattle is always great. But for me, this moment was special.
There’s my takes — and I want to hear yours, dear subscriber. What stands out as your favorite moment of the 2023 season for the Thorns and Timbers? Sound off in the comments below!
The Thorns community, as witnessed by 25,000 people standing and cheering through a downpour for 120 minutes and not one person left early despite the loss. Anywhere else, that never happens.
The ten-player comeback win over Carolina. Had it all; disaster, triumph, The Damned taking a L…plus an unusually clever match from Mike Norris.