The year 2010 is over and to commemorate the year I picked a few stories we ran from the pre-season of  2010.  This will be a four part series of remembering 2010 running into next week looking back three months at a time.  2011 will be an amazing amount of Timbers’ firsts, so lock in your DDs and Happy New Year.

Note: The dates listed are when the story was posted and not always when the match or event occurred.  Fun can lead to hangovers and late posts. The full archives of 2010 are always located on the right sidebar.

January 7, 2010 – USSF 2nd Divsion, USL/NASL Agreement

Finally, after months of back and forth, America’s 2nd division is set and ready for play. The United Soccer League (USL) and the North American Soccer League (NASL) will play in the same league separated by two conferences… Read the rest

Kip Kesgard of the Oregon Live Timbers Blog did a two part piece on player updates and a recap of the 2010.

Timbers Weekend: MLS Player Updates and Part 1 of Timbers Rewind for 2010

Timbers Weekend: Part 2 of Timbers Rewind for 2010

Oregon Live Timbers coverage

Cheers to all! It’s an exciting time as we enter into the new year and continue towards a new era in Timbers soccer. But before we step into 2011, Dropping Timber would like to offer a few different perspectives on what’s been an interesting off-season so far. Here’s 3 editorial columns that we serve up as food for thought:

No Pity in the Rose City, Right? by Kevin Fong
Digging Deeper into the Perkins Deal by Michael Pearson
The Timbers, La Mia Famiglia by Paul Eisl

The European mid-season transfer window is approaching, which is the time of year when most European clubs allow transfers between countries. England, Germany, Italy, Spain, France, Scotland and Denmark all have a transfer window opening during the month.

The rumors about who may be incoming to MSL are flying, so we have listed out some potential Timbers signees. The site MLS Rumors does a good job linking to rumors of incoming players, so we have provided a link to their site for each player for further reading. We tried to focus solely on players mentioned in Timbers-specific rumors, or who haven’t been tied to a specific MLS team other than Portland.

The poll results are in and you had many different opinions about your top moments of 2010. As reported on mao’s Football Show the Sunflower Goal was undoubtedly your favorite moment. Followed by Khalif’s fantastic chip over the keeper in Puerto Rico and OJ’s game winner at Qwest. For the full results click here.

Mandjou Keita scored his first goal for Pune FC of the Indian I-League. Keita was the Timber’s leading scorer in 2009, but after his return in 2010 he just wasn’t the same old King Keita.

Cronin speaks to MLSsoccer.com about his return to DC.

“I was in between flights going down to Mexico going on vacation with some family, and I just got a message from John Spencer [Portland manager], and he told me to give him a call back,” he told MLSsoccer.com. “I gave him a call back, had about 20 minutes to get on my next flight, and [he] told me the news.”

Read the full article here.

Twitter user Varchild told Ian Joy (Joypaulian) he’d like to see him in the booth doing commentary.  Joy replied he’d come to Portland “in a heartbeat” to do color alongside John Strong. View the Tweet

Joy doing color commentary on 95.5 FM was the brightest spot of the Timbers 3-0 loss to A.C. St. Louis.  What do you say John Strong?

Dropping Timber is running a year end poll. Full results will be announced Tuesday at 4pm on Mao Football Show on cascadia.fm.  We are asking people to pick their top 3 Timbers moments of the year.

Click on the links to remember some of the stories from the year.  They will open a new window so you won’t lose this page.

The Candidates

• Kalif Alhassan’s goal at Puerto Rico
• Kit Unveiling
• Logo Unveiling
• Timbers Army Television Commercial
• Sunflower Goal – Ryan Pore
• Manchester City friendly at UP
• Pore’s Header vs. Vancouver (April 29)
• Rodrigo Lopez free kick winner v. Boca Juniors
• First four players signing presser
• Kings of Cascadia Tifo
• Timbers Draft Dax McCarty – Trade him to DC United for Rodney Wallace
• 2011 Openers Announced
• Scot Thompson Retires
• Stadium Groundbreaking
• Dike hat-trick at Kitsap
• 2010 Cascadia Cup Champions
• 2010 Home opener – Hoxie and the handball
• 107ist

… Read the rest