The Portland Timbers are confident after securing their longest unbeaten streak in franchise history. Their next opponent might not carry the same swagger given its road performances over the last three-plus seasons.
The Timbers will try to take advantage of the New England Revolution's woes away from home while extending their team-best streak Thursday night.
Portland (3-1-4) extended its unbeaten streak to six games (3-0-3) and finished off a nearly perfect April with a 3-2 win at Sporting Kansas City on Saturday. Rodney Wallace provided the tiebreaking goal in the 58th minute after the teams combined to score the other four in the first 33.
Ryan Johnson found the back of the net in the 24th and assisted on Darlington Nagbe's goal nine minutes later while helping the Timbers finish 3-0-1 for the month.
"It tells us that we can go into any game against any team, home or away, and play our identity and not hope to win but expect to win," coach Caleb Porter said. "If we perform like we did tonight, we'll be a tough team to beat."
The Timbers could prove a difficult team for the Revolution (2-3-2) to beat as they're 6-35-12 on the road since the beginning of the 2010 season and 0-2-1 in the past three games there, scoring one goal.
"(Portland) just got a pretty good result in Kansas City, so it's going to be a difficult game," goalkeeper Bobby Shuttleworth said.
The Revolution, though, did snap a 539-minute scoreless streak and five-game winless skid with a 2-0 win over Philadelphia on Saturday. Diego Fagundez scored the first goal by a New England player since the season opener, and Lee Nguyen had a goal and an assist.
The Revolution's only score in their previous game, a 4-1 road loss to New York on April 20, was an own goal.
"That was exactly what we were looking to do, to be dangerous on the attack, get chances and finish those chances," midfielder Ryan Guy said. "I think we could have probably finished a few more than we did, but the goals that we did score were quality goals."
In the lone meeting between these clubs last season, New England needed only Saer Sene's goal in the opening minute for a 1-0 victory March 24, 2012.
The Timbers routed the Revolution 3-0 in the only previous matchup in Portland on Sept. 16, 2011, as Nagbe and Diego Chara scored.
New England will be without Chris Tierney on Thursday after the defender was suspended one game for a reckless challenge the league said endangered the safety of Philadelphia forward Sebastien LeToux in Saturday's victory.
Tierney also was fined Wednesday by MLS's disciplinary committee.
