Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers will play 2 straight

TUKWILA, Wash. – Through a quirk of schedules, the Seattle Sounders will face archrival Portland in each of their next two matches.

The first comes at 7:30 p.m. tonight in the quarter- finals of the U.S. Open Cup at Starfire Sports Stadium. The next is a nationally televised MLS match Sunday at CenturyLink Field.

And good luck getting coach Sigi Schmid to pick one as more important.

“Entering a competition we want to win it, so the Open Cup is important to us,” he said. “And certainly the league match is important to us. They’re equally important. We’re going to try to win the game (today); and then we’ll focus on winning on Sunday.”

U.S. national team defender DeAndre Yedlin is back and available, while U.S. team captain Clint Dempsey likely won’t play until Sunday.