MLS teams have built soccer-specific stadiums throughout America. They serve as anchors for a sport that seemed destined to never take root in the United States. Since the league began, 16 cities have built new stadiums, with another under construction in St. Paul and three more planned elsewhere.
All of these stadiums follow a similar blueprint: something in the neighborhood of 20,000 seats, a handful of premium seats and luxury boxes in prime locations, all of the seats designed for comfort and gorgeous views of the field.
Then there is Portland. Not like the sparkling new palaces designed just for soccer in the United States, its uniqueness makes it the best stadium in MLS.
Now called Providence Park, it was Civic Stadium, or Multnomah Stadium, in its previous lifetimes. The edifice dates back to the 1920s, when the Multnomah Athletic Club built it to serve as a centerpiece for the club's track and field teams.
Since then, it's hosted all manner of sporting events, from football to baseball to soccer.
Walk around the perimeter of the stadium, or through its concourses, and it looks like the minor league baseball stadium that it used to be. The concourses don't have enough space. The entryways are narrow. The bench seats are aged and oddly sticky.
Close your eyes and you can almost imagine being at the dog-track races that the stadium once held. Open them, however, and you will see the Timbers faithful filling the stadium to the wooden rafters that reflect — and amplify — the crowd noise.
My first Providence Park experience was three weeks ago, when expansion team Los Angeles FC made its first visit. Portland scored early in the second half, off a rebound, to take a 1-0 lead. LAFC tied the match with a wonderful Carlos Vela strike with 20 minutes left. Then, with 10 minutes to play, Timbers forward Samuel Armenteros picked up the ball in his own half, skittered through the LAFC defense on a counterattack, and lashed a powerful strike into the bottom left-hand corner of the net.
