BEAVERTON, Ore. – “I don’t know if you had a chance to be in the dressing room, afterward,” Portland Timbers defender Larrys Mabiala said to the assembled media. “The joy, the happiness we had was something awesome.”
It was five days after the Timbers had eliminated rival Seattle Sounders FC on penalty kicks in the Audi 2018 MLS Cup Playoffs Western Conference Semifinals, and aside from the chaos of the postgame locker room media scrum, Tuesday was the first time Mabiala and his teammates had talked to the press since qualifying for the Western Conference Championship.