Annual Portland Samurais statement 

Annual Portland Samurais statement 

Last Sunday the Portland Samurais played their last 2022 season game, besides not reaching the playoffs and fishing with 7-11 record, the 2022 season will be remembered as success 

During the same time last year, this franchise them know as the Dallas Diesel were releasing a statement announcing the intention to relocate. Now one year later we decided to release a new statement this time praising the city of Portland and the Great state of Oregon 

Despite the lack of success on the turf, the Portland fans has showed up and filled up Providence Park every game, it was a roller-coaster season, many ups and downs, losing streaks, winning streaks, melted leads in the 4th quarter the fans always were on our side rooting and supporting us, the Portland fan base is know for their loyalty and love for their teams, The Trail Blazers sold out every home game between 1977 and 1995, a span of 814 consecutive games, the second-longest streak in American sports history and the MLS  Timbers season ticket waiting list has reached 10,000+, the longest waiting list in MLS, with the GSL Samurais the story repeated itself, with great attendances in every game. 

Another high point this year was the Tokyo Dome game, the Samurais in the east was a big hit, the atmosphere at the Dome was electrifying with Japanese fans providing loudness and a amazing home field advantage for our team.

On the field despite the struggles, a progress was visible, the team was able to improve the overall record to 7-11, a upgraded whem compared with the 2021 record (5-13), once again the team suffered with a poor defense, with will be the priority to fix this off-season, one factor that also was a challenge to the team was the schedule, the Samurais faced 8 from the 14 teams that reached the playoffs,  really tough games.

For the future, the team pretend to stay in the Portland Area for a long time, the Providence Park despite it small capacity is a pretty good and modern stadium, plus there's expectations about new stadiums in the Portland area, such as a new ballpark for a potential MLB expansion or relocation and the new Reser Stadium with a 40.000 capacity and modern facilities that will be opened by the Oregon State Beavers (College team who will also play some games at Providence Park this year) around the 2024 season, in this case the team would do a schedule similar to the Beavers splitting the games between Providence Park and Reser Stadium, something similar with the Colorado Cabras and the Wisconsin Stags of the GSL.

Basically, we're compromising to stay in Portland Area for many years as possible