Published for Timbers2 fans — October 2026
By Toxlay Sports Editorial Team · Last updated October 23, 2026
⚽ Timbers2 Fans — The Kids Are Making History at Providence Park!
Pacific Division champions, a league-record defense, and the first playoff run in club history — T2 just won the first postseason game the club has ever played and now host a conference semifinal. Black shirts, red shards, full voice — this is the autumn to wear the axe.
The Club
Portland Timbers2 — T2 to everyone in the Rose City — is the reserve team of the Portland Timbers, announced on October 14, 2014 as the club’s own second side. T2 began play in the USL Championship in 2015, sat out the 2021 season, and joined MLS NEXT Pro for the league’s inaugural 2022 campaign — 2026 is the club’s fifth season in the league. There is no separate identity here, and that is the point: T2 carries the parent club’s identity wholesale — the axe crest, the green-and-gold tradition, and Portland’s “Soccer City USA” culture.
Home is Providence Park in downtown Portland — the first team’s historic ground, shared with the kids. Earlier homes included Merlo Field and Hillsboro Stadium, but since 2023 T2 have been back where they belong. When 7,882 fans turned up for a second team’s first-ever playoff match this October, the rest of the league understood what Portland already knew: this city shows up for its own.
The man in charge is Jack Cassidy, in his first season leading T2 in 2026 and a finalist for MLS NEXT Pro Coach of the Year. His year had a twist: on June 5, 2026, Cassidy was named interim head coach of the Timbers’ first team, and T2 assistant Andrés Flores — himself a former Timbers midfielder — led the second team through his absence. The unbeaten run was built straight through the change, and by the playoffs the club’s releases again named Cassidy as T2’s head coach.
And then there is the shirt — and here is where T2 surprises people. The 2026 home shirt is not the first team’s green. It is an adidas design in black with an all-over red geometric shard pattern, angular red fragments scattered across the front like shattered glass, a white crew-neck collar, the Timbers axe crest in white over the heart, “BANK OF AMERICA” in white capitals across the chest, and the name and number in solid white on a mostly black back. It is the fan-inspired apparel Portland fans are wearing into the biggest week in this young club’s life.
⭐ FAN FAVORITE
#47 Cervantes — Timbers2 Style Jersey
$59.99
The top scorer. Eleven league goals, ice in his veins from the penalty spot — the black-and-red No. 47 is the shirt of T2’s historic season. Fan-inspired apparel made for Timbers2 fans.
Last Season (2025): Close, Again — and the End of an Era
The 2025 season summed up the Dinkota years: streaky, entertaining, and ultimately short. T2 finished 10th in the Western Conference with 38 points — 10 wins, 12 losses and 6 draws — tying the club’s own MLS NEXT Pro points record while conceding 54 goals against 47 scored. Gage Guerra led the attack with 11 goals and a team-high 15 goal contributions, and goalkeeper Lukas Burns kept four clean sheets in 23 appearances, but the leak at the back never closed.
Decision Day, October 5, 2025, said it all: T2 beat St. Louis CITY2 2–1 at Providence Park through Mataeo Bunbury and Noah Santos — and still missed the playoffs. A win that wasn’t enough became the frustration that defined the era’s end. On October 13, 2025, the club declined head coach Serge Dinkota’s contract option, closing his two-year tenure at 18-22-16. The winter answer was a new coach, a defensive identity, and a wave of academy and college signings. Nobody in Portland called it a rebuild in public. Everybody knew.
Best Players Right Now
Daniel Cervantes — #47, forward. The goals of the 2026 story. Signed in February 2026 from CD Irapuato of Mexico’s Liga Expansión MX, the offseason arrival became T2’s top scorer with 11 league goals. His fingerprints are on the season’s biggest nights: the 72nd-minute goal in the 3–3 Ventura County comeback in May, the penalty winner in the 2–0 Cascadia win at Tacoma in July, and a two-penalty brace in the 2–2 draw at Ventura in August. The edge is part of the package — he was sent off 16 minutes into Decision Day and missed the quarterfinal squad entirely — which only raises the stakes for his semifinal stage.
Eric Izoita — #73, central midfielder. The 19-year-old Homegrown heartbeat of this team, a Timbers Academy product from Vancouver, Washington, named to the 2026 MLS NEXT Pro Best XI. Six goals and three assists — second-most on the team in both — plus 59 key passes, fourth-most in the entire league. He scored the winner in the May Cascadia shutout of Tacoma, his first MLS NEXT Pro goal, and scored again in the July win at Starfire. The pathway already paid out: a golazo on his MLS debut for the first team against Vancouver in March, and on September 25, 2026 a first-team Homegrown contract through 2027-28.
Sam Joseph — #91, goalkeeper. The 2026 MLS NEXT Pro Goalkeeper of the Year and a Best XI selection — the face of the meanest defense in the league. Back-to-back Goalkeeper of the Month awards for July and August, five clean sheets in that span alone, and the backstop for a league-record 14 regular-season clean sheets. His rise was fast: his first professional clean sheet came on March 23, 2026, in only his second appearance of the season. By October he was making five saves to win the first playoff game in club history.
Nicklas Lund — #61, center-back. The other Best XI Timber: a team-high 2,493 minutes, fourth-most in the league, a Defender of the Year finalist, and the scorer of the 67th-minute header in the wild May comeback against Ventura County. The wall has a name, and it is Lund.
Maximilian Kissel — #90, forward. Four league goals after signing from the University of Vermont — and the one that matters most: the 12th-minute opener in the playoff quarterfinal against St. Louis, pouncing on a rebound to score the first postseason goal in club history.
Lucas Fernandez-Kim — #35, attacking midfielder. The creator the club’s own Decision Day notes credited with a team-high six assists. His first professional assist set up Izoita’s May winner against Tacoma.
Star Spotlight
Two penalties, one point, in Thousand Oaks. August 23, 2026: T2’s unbeaten streak on the line away to Ventura County FC, and Daniel Cervantes scored both Portland goals from the penalty spot in a 2–2 draw before T2 won the shootout 4–2. Give Cervantes a dead ball in the box and he does not miss — and the three-draw season series turns the October 25 semifinal into a genuine grudge match.
The pathway pays out. September 25, 2026: Eric Izoita, 19 years old, signed a first-team Homegrown contract — the loudest pathway story of the Cassidy era. He had already scored on his MLS debut back in March, and still came back down to run T2’s midfield through the playoff push, finishing as a Best XI midfielder. This is why T2 exists, in one player.
The wall holds. October 16, 2026: Sam Joseph, Goalkeeper of the Year, made five saves to shut out St. Louis CITY2 in the first postseason match in club history — T2’s 15th clean sheet of 2026, extending a single-season league record his defense set. A goalkeeper who recorded his first professional shutout only in March finished October as the most decorated keeper in MLS NEXT Pro.
🔥 More Fan Favorites
The Best XI midfielder and the Goalkeeper of the Year, in black and red.
This Season (2026): The Wall, the Streak, and a First-Ever Playoff Run
Start with the numbers, because they are absurd for a second team: second in the Western Conference, third overall in the league, 57 points from 28 matches — 14 wins, just 4 defeats, 10 draws — and the 2026 Pacific Division title, the first divisional crown in club history. The identity is defense. Fourteen clean sheets set a new single-season MLS NEXT Pro record. Twenty-nine goals conceded was the second-fewest in the league. Nine road wins were the most anywhere. And the regular season closed on a 12-game unbeaten streak — the league’s longest — built on six come-from-behind results, five rescued in the 89th minute or later. The attack was modest, 37 goals. This team simply refused to lose.
Decision Day, September 20, 2026, was the whole season in 90 minutes. Away to Tacoma with the division on the line, Cervantes was sent off in the 16th minute, Tacoma led through Charlie Gaffney, and ten-man Portland still stole the point — substitute Gage Guerra’s 90th-minute header clinching the Pacific Division title and the No. 2 seed on the rivals’ own field. Then came October 16: T2’s first-ever playoff match, against a St. Louis CITY2 side Portland had chosen themselves in the Pick-Your-Opponent format. Kissel scored in the 12th minute, substitute Noah Santos doubled it in the 69th, Joseph made five saves for a 15th clean sheet, and 7,882 fans watched Timbers2 win a postseason game for the first time ever, 2–0. The unbeaten streak is now 13. The semifinal is at home.
🪓 Love the T2 kids? Wear it. Shop Fan Sportswear at Toxlay Sports →
Mark Your Calendar
Sunday, October 25, 2026 — vs. Ventura County FC, Providence Park (10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT). The Western Conference Semifinal, and the fourth meeting of 2026 between these clubs — the first three all drew, so somebody finally has to win. Tickets are free to the public via SeatGeek. The winner faces the Austin FC II / LAFC 2 winner in the Conference Final. Streams live on OneFootball and MLSNEXTPro.com.
Sunday, October 25, 2026 — the other semifinals. Chattanooga FC host CT United FC (5 p.m. ET), Crown Legacy FC host Columbus Crew 2 (7 p.m. ET), and Austin FC II host LAFC 2 (8:30 p.m. ET) — the Austin result decides who T2 would meet next, and where the road to the Cup runs.
October 30 – November 1, 2026 — Conference Finals. Win on Sunday and Timbers2 play for a place in the MLS NEXT Pro Cup final — one win from the biggest game in club history.
November 6–8, 2026 — MLS NEXT Pro Cup. The final, hosted by the finalist with the most regular-season points. T2 banked 57 — the dream of a home final is alive, and it runs through Providence Park.
Biggest Rivalries — The Wars
1. Tacoma Defiance — the Cascadia war, above all. The reserve-team echo of the Portland–Seattle feud, American soccer’s fiercest regional rivalry in miniature: Providence Park vs. Starfire, 175 miles of I-5 in between. In 2026 T2 did not lose to Tacoma once. May 31: a 1–0 home win on Izoita’s curled 11th-minute winner, his first MLS NEXT Pro goal. July 5: a 2–0 win at Starfire, Izoita again and a Cervantes penalty — Tacoma’s fifth straight defeat in the fixture. September 20: the ten-man, 90th-minute-equalizer draw that won Portland the Pacific Division title on Tacoma’s own field. Tacoma’s season then died in the Play-in round.
2. Ventura County FC — the wall T2 must finally break. Not a historic feud — a 2026 obsession. Three meetings, three draws, zero regulation wins either way: 0–0 in March (shootout lost 7–8, Joseph’s first professional clean sheet), 3–3 in May (T2 back from 3–1 down with half an hour left, shootout lost 6–7), 2–2 in August (Cervantes’s two penalties, shootout won 4–2). Ventura — LA Galaxy’s second team — finished No. 3 in the West and beat MNUFC2 3–2 in the quarterfinals. On October 25 at Providence Park, the fourth meeting decides a Conference Final place. Somebody finally has to win.
3. St. Louis CITY2 — the playoff victims. Historically this fixture belonged to St. Louis, the only club to reach the playoffs in all five MLS NEXT Pro seasons. 2026 flipped the script with stoppage-time cruelty: an 86th-minute equalizer and a 90+1′ winner away in July, a 90+4′ penalty equalizer and a shootout win in September — and then the quarterfinal, where T2 chose them in Pick-Your-Opponent and beat them 2–0 on October 16, sealed with a stoppage-time scuffle and three red cards. Portland owns this war now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where do Portland Timbers2 play their home games?
Timbers2 play at Providence Park in downtown Portland, Oregon — the same historic stadium as the Portland Timbers first team. Tickets for the Western Conference Semifinal against Ventura County FC on Sunday, October 25, 2026 are free to the public via SeatGeek.
Did Portland Timbers2 make the 2026 playoffs?
Yes — for the first time in club history. T2 won the Pacific Division title, finished second in the Western Conference with 57 points, beat St. Louis CITY2 2–0 in their first-ever playoff match on October 16, 2026, and host Ventura County FC in the Western Conference Semifinal on Sunday, October 25, 2026.
Who are Portland Timbers2’s best players?
Striker Daniel Cervantes (No. 47), the team’s top scorer with 11 league goals; midfielder Eric Izoita (No. 73), a 19-year-old Homegrown named to the league’s Best XI who signed a first-team contract in September 2026; and goalkeeper Sam Joseph (No. 91), the 2026 MLS NEXT Pro Goalkeeper of the Year behind a league-record 14 regular-season clean sheets.
What trophies has Portland Timbers2 won?
None yet — honestly. The 2026 Pacific Division title is the club’s first divisional crown, and 2026 also brought its first-ever playoff berth and first playoff win. The MLS NEXT Pro Cup is the prize still being chased this October.
⚽ Timbers2 Fan Shop
The full T2 trio — Cervantes, Izoita and Joseph in black and red.
Sources & official links: Portland Timbers2 official site · MLS NEXT Pro official site · Timbers2 tickets
Black shirts, red shards, a wall that will not break — Soccer City believes in the kids, Portland.
