The MLS 2025 season continues with one more match on Friday night when two sides currently in the playoff spots in the Western Conference meet when the Portland Timbers host the San Jose Earthquakes in a good looking contest.
This is another match where if you are looking for full coverage then it is the MLS Season Pass on Apple TV which will be your friend but the bookmaker live streams will show the game in full, although you’ll need to be a night owl given that kick off is 3.30am UK time.
Portland Timbers
It wasn’t really clear what we should make of the Portland Timbers going into the campaign because they lost one of their star players in Evander pretty close to the beginning of the season. They had replaced him with David da Costa but nobody knew how that was going to play out. I think it is fair to say that the Timbers will be delighted with how they have gone in the first half of the season and there is probably a bit of natural improvement to come from them in the second half of the campaign too, which is no bad thing.
Portland go into this match in fourth spot in the table and a win here would move them second in the Western Conference ahead of the remainder of the weekend action. The Timbers are now 5-3-0 at home since the opening week of the season and have scored 14 goals in those eight matches so they are in a real groove on home soil. Portland might just be creaking defensively though. They haven’t kept a clean sheet in four matches which will start to concern Phil Neville.
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San Jose Earthquakes
There was always going to be a marked improvement in the San Jose Earthquakes this season from last. You don’t employ a coach with the reputation of Bruce Arena if you don’t want a significant bounce on what has gone before, the question was always how much better would the Californian outfit be. The answer has been much better. They have had something of an entertaining ride this term but they sit in eighth spot going into this match with their sights set on a postseason run.
San Jose begin the weekend as the third highest scorers in the MLS this term, the highest in the Western Conference. They have the biggest xG total in the whole of MLS this season so they are creating plenty of chances, and in the main they are putting most of them away too. They are now down to fifth worst for xGA when they were the worst a few weeks ago so there are signs that they are coming good under the work of Arena in that department. They will want to further show that here against a Portland side with a vibrant attack.
Betting
I’m not a massive fan of backing away teams in MLS but we have to be wary of the fact that we are at the stage of the season where teams are missing players to the Gold Cup and Portland Timbers are one of those caught up in that with their keeper Maxime Crepeau and regular centre-back Kamal Miller both away with Canada. In contrast, the San Jose Earthquakes have avoided international call ups and should fancy their chances of getting a result here, not least because they have already beaten Portland twice this season.
San Jose lost in St Louis last time out but the schedule went massively against them there having played on the west coast on the Wednesday night and then the early kick off in the Midwest on the Saturday and Bruce Arena was forced to rotate his men for that game. That won’t be the case here though. The Earthquakes are fresh having not had to play last week and prior to that St Louis loss they were on a six-match unbeaten run. They hadn’t conceded in three away games prior to that too and with Chicho Arango hopefully fit after another fortnight to recover taking San Jose to avoid defeat here feels like the play. They are suddenly not conceding and Portland haven’t kept a clean sheet in four so if San Jose score it could be enough to get a result.
Tips
Back San Jose Earthquakes (+0.5AH) to beat Portland Timbers for a 3/10 stake at 1.92 with Unibet
