The Portland Timbers secured a 0-0 draw with the Houston Dynamo away from home thanks to some heroic goalkeeping from Aljaz Ivacic, and stalwart defending from Larrys Mabiala and Bill Tuiloma.
Barring a few blunders from Josecarlos Van Rankin that Ivacic cleaned up spectacularly, the Timbers played extremely well in the first half. I thought that, especially toward the end of the opening 45 minutes, they found a lot of joy attacking the wide areas and sending in dangerous low crosses, particularly down their left-hand side through Sebastian Blanco and Claudio Bravo.
The second half went almost entirely the way of the Dynamo, who attacked the Portland defense relentlessly, and drew another spectacular save out of Ivacic to keep the Dynamo off the scoresheet.