Portland Timbers, Football

The Portland Timbers are an American professional soccer club based in Portland, Oregon. The Timbers compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member club of the league's Western Conference. The Timbers have played their home games at Providence Park since 2011 when the team began play as an expansion team in the league. The club was founded in 2009, when the city of Portland was awarded an expansion berth to Major League Soccer. The team is owned by Peregrine Sports under the majority ownership of Merritt Paulson, whose companies had acquired the then-USL Pro team in 2007 and later established the Portland Thorns women's team in 2012. The club is a phoenix club, and the fourth soccer franchise based in Portland to carry the legacy of the Timbers name, which originated with the original team, in the North American Soccer League in 1975. In 2013, the Timbers finished the regular season in first place in the Western Conference, clinching both their first-ever playoff appearance and a CONCACAF Champions League berth. In 2015, the franchise won the Western Conference Finals in the playoffs, and their first major trophy, the MLS Cup. In 2017, the club again finished the regular season in first place in the Western Conference.