On a warm day in Portland, the early start had both teams sitting in the bright sunlight squinting to see the action, but for the first twenty minutes, there wasn't much to see as neither team had a shot on goal until the 20th minute, when Milwaukee's Boureima Kante broke down the left side and knocked a hard shot just high and wide left from 35 yards out. A few minutes later, Kante had another good chance from just inside the box to the Portland keeper's right, but Josh Saunders parried the shot wide and over the endline. The Timbers responded with a nearly identical shot two minutes later, with Jake Sagare's shot being parried over the endline in turn by Milwaukee's Jeff Richey.

In the 25th minute, Milwaukee's Karte once again had an open shot on the Timbers net after slipping in behind the Portland defense, but once again Saunders was up to the task to push the shot wide. Seven minutes later, the Wave United had another good look at goal when Jamar Beasley put a free kick from 30 yards out just over the crossbar.

The match turned ugly one minute later when Milwaukee's Joe Hammes body slammed Portland's Alan Gordon to the ground near the Timbers with a two-handed wrestling throw, and had both teams pushing and shoving after the incident. Apparently unseen by all of the officials, no calls were made at all as a result of the scrum. Gordon would leave the match at halftime as both teams went into the locker rooms at the half without having found the opposing net.

The Wave United had a good chance to take an early lead in the second half when a loose ball in the Timbers box was ripe for the taking as it bounced a few times waiting for someone to clear it or hit it towards net, but Saunders grabbed the ball just before Kante could get a foot on it.

In the 49th minute, the Timbers made their first shot on goal in the half count when Sagare made a run down the left side, and outran his defender to the endline, crossing a low pass to Byron Alvarez, who one-touched the ball past Richey from five yards out to give the Timbers a 1-0 lead.

The Timbers had a few good chances to widen the lead in the next few minutes as a Scot Thompson header off a free kick hit off the right post, and then in the 58th minute when Dan Antoniuk flicked on a header to Alvarez off a Timbers goal kick, with Alvarez missing just wide to the right from 30 yards out.

The Wave United finally had their first shot of the second half in the 59th minute when a low shot from former Timber Greg Howes from the goalkeeper's right was smothered by Saunders. Howes had another good chance five minutes later, but his shot from 10 yards out was right at Saunders for the easy save.

Milwaukee made their hope for a comeback more difficult in the 67th minute when second-half substitute Nino Marcantonio, who had been ejected after just 11 minutes in a game between these two teams earlier in Milwaukee, nearly repeated the feat by getting ejected after just 21 minutes in this game for striking Timbers defender Gavin Wilkinson, so the Wave United would have to play the last twenty-six minutes with only 10 men.

It appeared that the strategy had paid dividends for Milwaukee, however, when just a minute later, off a Johnny Torres free kick, Milwaukee's Todd Dusosky got his head on the ball just before the charging Timbers goalkeeper, and headed the ball over Saunders and into the net to level the score at 1-1.

For much of the rest of the match, it was one-way traffic for the Timbers as they looked for the game-winner, with rumors trickling through the crowd that Montreal had lost earlier today, and that the regular-season title was on the line. Super-sub Fadi Afash came on in the 73rd minute, and almost paid dividends immediately with a shot from the top of the box that forced a diving save from Richey. A minute later it was Afash again, hitting a shot just wide left from 10 yards after a nice combination of passes from Sagare and Antoniuk.

But Afash could not be kept off the board for long, when in the 77th minute, a diagonal pass from Hugo Alcaraz-Cuellar to Thompson was centered back to the top of the six yard box, where Afash, with his back to the goal, stopped the ball with his right foot, and as the ball dropped, deftly back-heeded the shot into the left side of the goal, stunning the Milwaukee defense and the nearly 8,000 in attendance with his spectacular footwork, and giving the Timbers a 2-1 lead, with the regular-season title within their grasp.

The best chance Milwaukee had to level the score came in stoppage time when a hard shot from Howes was collected by Saunders, and with the final whistle, the Portland Timbers found themselves atop the A-League as the Montreal/Richmond score had been announced just before the end of the game, and are riding a 10-game unbeaten streak into the playoffs as they play Seattle on Wednesay, the last team to beat the Timbers this season (on July 24).

Josh Saunders recorded four saves for the Timbers, while Jeff Richey was credited with two for the Wave United.