Don't get Diego angry (if you're playing the Timbers)

Diego Chara tackles Jay DeMerit of Vancouver during a game last season.

(Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

For all the passion and noise coming from the Timbers Army every home matchday, the Timbers themselves rarely let their feelings get the better of them in 2011. No team in the league committed fewer fouls over the season.

Now, there’s always the question in interpreting foul statistics whether a low number represents good discipline or a lack of intensity.

However you look at it, there was one player who bucked the overall trend of the team. From the MLS team with the least fouls came the individual with the most fouls: Diego Chara.

In 28 games for the Timbers, Chara committed 64 fouls, a team and league high. For his trouble, he picked up no fewer than seven yellow cards (also a team high), but never pushed his luck to the point of a straight red or a second yellow. He was the Timbers' bulldog in 2011, the one player most willing to tackle hard to win the ball or stop an opposing move.

That aggression turned into wins.

When Chara was more active and more aggressive, the Timbers’ were significantly better. Chara ranged from 0-5 fouls per match in his 28 games, and a split within those numbers reveals the Timbers' success.

The Timbers won half of the games in which Chara fouled three or more times, but only one in five of those in which Chara was present, but committed less than three fouls. A loss was more than twice as likely in the lower-fouling games.

Chara’s offensive output: two goals and four assists; was split evenly between the two fouling segments, with a goal and two assists in each. It’s a small sample, but it doesn’t suggest that there’s much of an offensive trade-off to his more aggressive matches.

March 12th brings the Timbers’ 2012 MLS opener at home to Philadelphia. I for one will be watching Diego closely and hoping to see the hard-nosed midfield play that was so important to Timbers fans last season.