Social Media

The Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns FC have announced a new partnership with Chirpify, which will allow fans to conduct transactions in-stream on social media, including entering online giveaways, buying merchandise and donating to charitable partners of the Portland Timbers and Portland Thorns FC.

Once registered through Chirpify, all shipping, billing, and customer information will be automatically entered and makes entering Timbers and Thorns FC contests or purchasing merchandise as simple as replying to an official post on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram. 

Not only will Chirpify make transactions easier and faster for fans, they will also receive exclusive deals only offered through Chirpify. These exclusive offers will include contests, autograph vouchers and merchandise offers. When the Timbers and Thorns FC post contests and giveaways, fans that have registered with Chirpify can simply reply to the post to be eligible to win or to make a purchase.

For example, every home game fans that are registered with Chirpify will have the opportunity to enter to win autograph vouchers to use at post-game autograph signings with Timbers or Thorns FC players. Both teams will also give away signed merchandise and can’t buy game-day experiences.

Fans are encouraged to sign up now in order to take advantage of Timbers and Thorns FC promotions throughout the season. 

MLS's Armchair Analyst, Matthew Doyle, knows this 2013 MLS SuperDraft backwards and forwards. A veritable genius on tactical analysis, Doyle spent the whole of the past week at the MLS Combine looking and thinking about who should go where and why. 

He did a recent winners and losers take on the recent draft and had this to say on the Timbers second round pick-up of defender Dylan Tucker-Gangnes:

"First of all, I . . . could argue that he’s the most MLS-ready of the center backs on offer, so just on a nuts-and-bolts level, it was the right pick. As important, though, is that Portland took a kid who is Seattle born-and-bred, and University of Washington star, one pick before the Sounders were up. Seattle fans flipped their collective bean in the live chat, on Twitter and elsewhere."

Read the whole thing here. Safe to say, he loved the selection.

We’ve all heard the Timbers Army walking in a Timbers Wonderland, but this holiday season, the Portland Timbers wanted to see it.

The Timbers invited fans to share photos of their own Timbers Wonderland via Instagram using the special hashtag #TimbersWonderland between December 10 and December 17, showing off Timbers holiday spirit.

Ultimately, this photo of a hardworking lumberjack bringing in his own Timbers tree with a friend stood out above the rest to win the grand prize of $500 worth of Timbers gifts!

Other favorites included bright shining Christmas trees, #RCTID holiday stockings, and a bad Christmas sweater portrait with the one and only Santa. Clearly, the holiday spirit is in full affect across the Timbers Wonderland.
 

Happy holidays from the Portland Timbers!

David Meves (GoZips.com)

The Akron Zips continue their great run of play this week with two victories. The first was a 2-0 non-conference win over Penn State last Wednesday in University Park, PA. Akron took control early with a pair of first-half goals from standouts Reinaldo Brenes and Scott Caldwell to hold on for the win.

Akron followed that up with a 2-0 victory over Northern Illinois on a damp Saturday afternoon in Dekalb, IL. Working behind goals from Phil Fives and Brenes--his seventh goal in the last four matches--the Zips (9-1-2, 4-0-0 MAC) extended their win streak to six matches and pushed their run of consecutive shutouts to seven while out-shooting the defending MAC Tournament Champion Huskies, 18-8.

Caleb Porter's UA is now unbeaten in its last 42 conference matches (39-0-3), which is tied with Clemson (1972-80) for the second-longest run in NCAA history. Furman, which owns the all-time standard, went unbeaten in 46 straight league contests from 1999-2003.

Moreover, Akron goalkeeper David Meves (right)--now just one shutout away from the school's all-time record--was named to TopDrawerSoccer's Team of the Week. The Zips remain at No. 3 in their poll as well as MLSsoccer.com's MLS on Campus poll.

Tuesday night, UA goes back into non-conference action against Michigan (4:30pm PT, videostream at GoZips.com). Akron and head coach Porter has a special message for Zips fans looking to come to the match as they look to #FillTheHill at FirstEnergy Stadium - Cub Cadet Field:

Locally, the University of Portland women's team were in action Saturday night against No. 5 Bringham Young with at least one Timbers player among the sellout 4,979:

My Saturday night #gopilots #RCTID twitter.com/franckck/statu…

— franck songo (@franckck) October 14, 2012

Songo'o witnessed what maybe called the Pilots Goal of the Year from Portland-native Kendall Johnson who scored a cracker of a goal in the 81st minute. Sadly for UP,  it was not enough as they fell 2-1 to the Cougars. Nonetheless, just as Pilots men's team member & Timbers U-23s midfielder Steven Evans is being touted as potentially one of the best ever at UP, so too is the junior left back Johnson. As a recent Oregonian profile put it, "[UP head coach Garrett] Smith believes the Lincoln High School graduate has a chance to become the school's next national team player, joining elites such as Sophie Schmidt, Megan Rapinoe and Christine Sinclair."