Timbers 2025 regular season schedule released
Portland opens their season at home on February 23 against a familiar foe
Two months after the 2024 edition ended, we now have the roadmap for the 2025 MLS season.
The schedule for the Portland Timbers 2025 season — the 50th anniversary season for the Green & Gold — was released today. The Timbers will open the season at home on February 23 against the same team that ended their 2024 season: the Vancouver Whitecaps. Portland is set to begin its Cascadia Cup defense, and perhaps enact a little bit of revenge, at 1 p.m. at Providence Park.
Once again, every MLS team will be playing a 34 game slate, with 17 matches at home and 17 on the road. With the inclusion of new boys San Diego FC, the conferences are once again equal. Therefore, Portland will be playing every Western Conference team twice — once in Providence Park and once away.
They will be playing six Eastern Conference teams as well. Portland will travel to face Nashville SC, Orlando City SC, and Toronto FC away. They will host MLS Cup finalists New York Red Bulls, the New England Revolution, and for the first time ever FC Cincinnati to round out their inter-conference batch of games.
The home match against New England (set for July 5) will be significant as it will be the first time that Caleb Porter will return to Providence Park to coach against the Timbers since he left the club after the 2017 season. Assuming he still has his job then, it will mark the first time that a former head coach of the Timbers returns to Portland as head coach of an opponent in the MLS era.
After the season opener, the now even slate of Cascadia Cup matches include Portland heading to BC Place to face the ‘Caps on May 31, and hosting the Seattle Sounders at Providence Park on May 17. The Timbers’ Cascadia finale will be on the penultimate matchday of the season in Seattle on October 4. So Portland may yet again be in line to lift the Cascadia Cup on enemy soil, for the second year in a row.
Portland will head to San Diego on August 23 to face SDFC for the first time in franchise history. Portland hosts San Diego on the final regular season matchday of the season, so Timbers fans will have to wait until Decision Day to see the newest MLS franchise up close.
The MLS schedule makers have once again decided to barrel through a number of FIFA international breaks, and the league will take a pause from June 15 — 24 for the Gold Cup and Club World Cup, the latter of which is being played in the United States for the first time.
The Leagues Cup tournament between MLS and Liga MX clubs will run from July 29 to August 31. Notably, MLS will not be pausing league matches for the tournament this year. It is to be believed that the Leagues Cup will shift to a more classic cup-style competition, with Cup games sandwiched between league fixtures.
To honor and celebrate their 50th year as a club, the Timbers have numerous theme nights planned. These include the Spirit of 75 Night (6/13), a 10th Anniversary of Winning MLS Cup Celebration (7/16), 50th Anniversary Night (7/19), and most importantly: Diego Chara Bobblehead Night (8/16).
You can see Portland’s full 2025 regular season schedule here.
It would be the most late-MLS Timbers thing ever to confine their 50th anniversary celebration to basically that one game against MNU. They should be celebrating a different piece of it every home game this season - there's a lot to celebrate in 50 years of history! I hope they're doing more than just one night's worth of commemoration.
And no, the other ones don't count as "50th Anniversary nights" - one's basically a 70's theme night, one's a well-deserved celebration of Diego Chara, and one's an Uncle Rico tribute night, pretty much (why exactly are we celebrating a decade's worth of one trophy?).
I hope and trust I'll get more excited about the coming season than I am right now. I am so unhappy with ownership and management that I feel like I should go with Evander wherever that may be. I don't know who will be on this team right now. I haven't seen any aggressive moves from the GM. And I don't remember the last time that I heard anything at all from MP. I feel a bit sympathetic for Neville for some reason. I wonder why that is?