Portland Timbers veteran Liam Ridgewell will continue to wear the captain's armband this season.
Timbers coach Caleb Porter has been giving Ridgewell, who took over as captain in 2015, the armband during preseason games and said Tuesday that he was "confident" in the 32-year-old's ability to lead the club.
"He wants to be a good leader for this team and he wants to be a guy that's representing the club in the right way," Porter said.
Questions about whether Ridgewell would remain Portland's captain this year arose last October when he and teammate Jake Gleeson were arrested in Lake Oswego on suspicion of drunk driving.
But the charges against Ridgewell were dropped in January after a judge ruled that officers did not have probable cause or reasonable suspicion to detain him.
Ridgewell apologized for the situation in January and said that he had learned from his mistakes and was ready to move forward.
"I trust Liam's ability to lead," Porter said. "We all make mistakes. We don't take those things lightly as well, but I'm not just going to abandon my players on mistakes... He knows in representing the club, it's important that he does the right things on and off the pitch and I'm confident that he will do that moving forward."
While the charges against Ridgewell were dropped, Gleeson plead no contest to his charges in November and was allowed to enter an alcohol diversion program.
Major League Soccer is still in the process of conducting an internal investigation into the arrests.
Last week, the Timbers announced that Gleeson would be taking a lead role in a new partnership between the City of Portland and the Timbers that supports Vision Zero, a road safety initiative that aims to end "traffic violence in the city" and work to "eliminate deaths and serious injuries on the community's streets by 2025." As team captain, Ridgewell will play a significant role in supporting the initiative as well.
Porter said that the club did not take the arrests lightly and expects players to take accountability for their actions and learn from their mistakes.
He said he was pleased that the players and team would be partnering with the city to turn the situation into something positive for the community.
"Obviously, there was a mistake made," Porter said. "We haven't taken it lightly. The league is reviewing it. We've reviewed it. We've held them accountable, but we do need to move on from it and we believe in these players' character. We believe that mistake won't happen again and we believe that these players have learned from it."
-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com
503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg
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