Photo by Kelley L Cox/USA TODAY Sports
By RYAN TOLMICH
With his side down a goal against the San Jose Earthquakes, Rodney Wallace took matters into his own hands to almost singlehandedly keep the Portland Timbers playoff push alive.
Wallace scored a pair of goals in three minutes to erase a one-goal deficit as the Timbers topped the Earthquakes, 2-1, Saturday at Buck Shaw Stadium.
The midfielder scored the equalizing goal in the 71st minute via a looping effort that left Earthquakes Jon Busch helpless. Just moments later, Wallace netted what turned out to be the gamewinner by deflecting home a header from Liam Ridgewell off of a corner.
Wallace’s goalscoring contributions helped the Timbers keep pace in the playoff race, earning the midfielder recognition as SBI MLS Player of the Week. Wallace beat out Sebastian Fernandez, Robbie Keane and Obafemi Martins for this week’s honors.
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What did you think of Wallace’s performance? Which MLS player impressed you the most this weekend?
Share your thoughts below.
Love Timbers, love that luck was on their side, love the recognition here, and love Rodney Wallace. He has definitely been a spark since his return.
However, I’m puzzled to see the recognition here. Not to take anything away from the first goal, but it was a low, deflected shot and not as pure and pretty as it first looked (upper corner loop). The 2nd goal was as accidental as can be. RW out-Wondo’ed Wondo and was just in the right place and happened to unintentionally deflect the shot to goal. I think if I was standing there holding a beer the same result would have occurred.
That said, Wallace did play really well and was the spark that helped push the team in the second half to go out and get those goals.
It’s about time some of the lucky bounces landed Timbers way this week. It hasn’t happened much at all this year.