Preview | Portland Timbers vs. LAFC - 2026 MLS Season

Saturday, April 11 | 1:45 p.m. PT

🏟 | Providence Park - Portland, OR

🖥 | WATCH: Apple TV, FOX | Coupang Play (Korea), SpoTV (Korea), Local Bar Partners

📻 | LISTEN: 710 AM ESPN, ESPN LA App, SiriusXM FC 157 KFWB 980 AM La Mera Mera (Spanish), & KYPA 1230 AM (Korean)

Coming off a 3-0 win over Cruz Azul in Concacaf Champions Cup and enoying the strongest start in club history, LAFC travels north to face the Portland Timbers in a Saturday afternoon matchup at Providence Park.

LAFC is in first place in both the Western Conference and the MLS Supporters’ Shield race, and stands unbeaten in all competitions with a record of 9W-0L-2D, including 5W-0L-1D in MLS play. The Black & Gold has outscored its MLS and Concacaf opponents by a combined 27-3.

LAFC’s 11-game unbeaten streak to open a season is a club record, and its current streak of six clean sheets to open an MLS season is a league record. But head coach Marc Dos Santos insists that there’s still room for growth. “We're not comfortable … we're a very uncomfortable group in a good way, and I think that is important if you want to keep growing,” Dos Santos said after LAFC’s 6-0 win over Orlando City last weekend.

Portland, meanwhile, is winless in its last five contests after beginning the season with a 3-2 home win over the Columbus Crew on Matchday 1. The Timbers are in 14th place in the West with a 1W-4L-1D record and have scored nine goals while conceding 15 for a -6 goal differential. Only two teams in MLS (Orlando and Montréal) have conceded more goals than the Timbers, who are 1W-1L-1D at Providence Park this year.

Portland, however, is one of the few Western Conference clubs that can claim equality with LAFC in head-to-head matchups. Each team has a record of 6W-6L-7D in the series, with the two sides splitting a pair of U.S. Open Cup meetings, one win apiece.

HOT START

LAFC’s 5W-0L-1D record is tied for the second-best start to a season in MLS history through six games in the league's post-shootout era.

Sporting Kansas City’s 2012 team holds the record through six games, beginning that year unbeaten (6-0-0) for 18 points. This LAFC team joins nine other clubs in second place, with 16 points through six games, including LAFC's 2019 squad.

SCOUTING PORTLAND

Norwegian DP forward Kristoffer Velde leads the Timbers in goals scored (two) and is third on the team in minutes played (509) behind goalkeeper James Pantemis and defender Finn Surman (540 mins. each) who have yet to come off the field for manager Phil Neville.

Portuguese attacker David Da Costa, Portland’s other Designated Player, missed the first three games of the year with a shoulder injury but has played in the last three, including his first 90-minute shift in last weekend’s loss to the Vancouver Whitecaps. 

In that match the Timbers held a late 2-1 lead and were on the brink of defeating the defending Western Conference champions before Vancouver scored two goals in second-half stoppage time to hand the Timbers a 3-2 road loss.

SECURITY IN THE BACK

LAFC forward Son Heung-Min leads MLS with seven assists and Denis Bouanga is coming off a first-half hat trick against Orlando, but the foundation of LAFC’s success thus far has been its defending.

Dos Santos said of the team’s league-record six clean sheets to start this MLS campaign: “We don't think about that too much. What we think about is how we work collectively as a team. We have our principles without the ball that we work on during the week, the ability that we have to defend our box, the ability that we have to close down spaces in critical areas, then the leadership of [goalkeeper] Hugo [Lloris]. 

“We don't go into games thinking about, ‘Oh, we have to keep clean sheet.’ We go into games thinking about what we have to do as a group, collectively.”

Defender Sergi Palencia added: “Marc, since the first day he wanted to be clear that in this team everybody has to work, everybody has to run, to be responsible defensively, and we are doing very well. We are conceding some chances, but we have the best goalkeeper in the league.”

ROTATION?

With a critical second leg coming up on Tuesday night in Mexico (against Cruz Azul in the Concacaf Champions Cup Quarterfinals), and considering Portland’s tricky artificial turf and a weather forecast calling for clouds and cool temperatures, Saturday could present an opportunity for Dos Santos to rest some of his usual contributors before the team boards its long flight to Puebla. 

“To me, the concept of a team is that everyone plays an important role,” Dos Santos said. “I don't want to coach a team where I depend on just one or two specific players … That is the team concept: everyone is important and everyone bears a responsibility.”

LAFC CAN WIN IF

It negates the home crowd with the opening goal. Timbers Army believes that this Portland team is better than its record and will express that sentiment in Saturday’s opening minutes. If LAFC can score first, the game will open up and home fans’ belief could waver. But that’s a big if. 

LAFC hasn’t won at Providence Park since 2022 and has only won twice there in nine tries (2W-4L-3D). The Black & Gold’s current hot streak won’t mean much once the first whistle blows. “We have a very humble group,” Dos Santos said. “Our group doesn't get too high or too low and that is a strength of ours.”

PORTLAND CAN WIN IF

Velde antagonizes the visitors. The Timbers’ 26-year-old winger is fast, fearless, and in his prime, and has posed a problem for LAFC in previous matchups, including a closed-door preseason friendly at BMO Stadium in February. If Velde can combine with Da Costa in the attacking third or create a moment of magic on his own, LAFC’s clean sheet streak and its unbeaten streak might both be in jeopardy.