PORTLAND, Ore. – Take bets beforehand on which Portland Timber is most likely utter the phrase “road dogs,” and goalkeeper Steve Clark would be the overwhelming favorite. You could imagine somebody like Larrys Mabiala using it, combining the term with his Parisian accent to cast a clinical, sterile judgement on Portland’s road form. Maybe Diego Valeri, increasingly lyrical with his English, would vault it into a metaphor about, I don’t know … the transcendence of belief between home and road?
When Clark’s used it, though, as he did this weekend in Seattle, he’s used it as a sign of bravado.