Kicking off this Thursday night at Swangard Stadium, Vancouver Whitecaps FC (10W-5L-15D) will play Pacific Northwest rivals Portland Timbers (13W-7L-10D) in the first round of the USSF D-2 Pro League playoffs. Tickets for Thursday's tilt start at $21.50 and are now available at all Ticketmaster
Ticket Centres, by phone at 604.280.4400 and online at
whitecapsfc.com
.
As the fifth seed in the USSF D-2 playoff standings, Whitecaps FC will host the first leg of the two-match, aggregate score series on Thursday night, October 7, at 7:30 p.m. PT. The second leg will take place in Portland, Oregon, on Thanksgiving Sunday, October 10, at 6 p.m. PT. With the Timbers' home of PGE Park currently undergoing renovations, Portland will host Vancouver at Merlo Field on the campus of the University of Portland.
The playoff series will be the fifth and sixth meetings of 2010 involving the 2011 Major League Soccer expansion cousins. In their four regular season matches this season, Whitecaps FC struggled to a 0W-2L-2D record versus the Timbers. This included a 2-2 draw at Swangard in their regular season finale on Saturday afternoon.
Last season, Whitecaps FC and the Timbers played in a memorable playoff series that Vancouver won 5-4 on aggregate. After winning the first leg at home 2-1, the 'Caps and Timbers played out a thrilling 3-3 draw at Portland's PGE Park in the United Soccer Leagues First Division (USL-1) semifinals. Vancouver's upset over the 2009 USL-1 regular season champions took them to the USL-1 Championship Series versus Canadian arch-rivals Montreal Impact.
Of the 12 clubs that played in USSF D-2 this season, the top eight clubs qualified for the playoffs. Rochester Rhinos claimed the number one seed as the overall regular season winner and will now play eighth-place Puerto Rico Islanders. Carolina RailHawks took top spot in the NASL conference and as the second overall seed, they will match up against seventh-place NSC Minnesota Stars. The other first round playoff series sees third-place Austin Aztex up against sixth-place Montreal Impact. Complete playoff schedule is available at
ussoccer.com
.
The first round, semifinals, and championship final will be played as two-match, aggregate score series. The first round of the playoffs will take place between Wednesday, October 6, to Sunday, October 10. The four first-round winners will move on to the semifinals, with the winner of the Portland/Vancouver series to face the winner of Rochester/Puerto Rico series, while the winner of the Austin/Montreal series take on the winner of the Carolina/Minnesota series. The semifinals will take place between Wednesday, October 13, and Sunday, October 17. The USSF D-2 championship final series will be played over two weekends. The first leg of the final is set for the weekend of October 23 & 24, while the second leg will take place during the weekend of October 30 & 31.
