It’s been exactly one month since the Portland Timbers’ 2019 season ended. It was October 19, 2019, and the team lost, 2-1, in Utah. Zarek Valentin didn’t get on the field that day, but he was in uniform, just as he’d been 29 other times that season. Only five times over the course of the season did injury keep the 28-year-old out of Portland’s team.
The numbers were the same the year before, when Valentin dressed 40 times. Thirty-one times in 2017. Twenty-nine in 2016, his first season with the club. Over four years in Portland, Valentin was selected for his team’s gameday 18 on 129 occasions – and those are only the numbers in league play.