Portland Timbers Serve As Reminder That U.S. Does Have Soccer History
It might not be an unbroken line, but the Portland Timbers have a lot more history than your average MLS expansion team. Not only were they playing in the second division for the past 10 years, but they were, several other incarnations that stretched all the way back to the NASL. Steve Davis, SB Nation's resident bona fide soccer journalist, takes us on a walk down memory lane in honor of the Timbers playing their first MLS home game on Thursday:
The city’s part in the fabled North American Soccer League began in 1975, and Portland’s part was massive in the NASL’s salad days. Fans regularly packed the old Civic Stadium. And as in all NASL cities, important characters rose from the soccer theater, cultivated by the frenzy of it all. Clive Charles, who would become a massive soccer figure in the United States, was among the players who earned their wages in the place dubbed Soccer City U.S.A.
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