Portland Timbers captain Diego Valeri will be available Saturday when the club travels to play Real Salt Lake in the first round of the 2019 MLS Cup Playoffs.

“He’s training fully,” Timbers coach Giovanni Savarese said Wednesday. “He will be available for this weekend.”

Valeri missed Portland’s final two games of the regular season due to a calf injury, but could play an important role for the club in the postseason. Valeri finished the 2019 regular season with eight goals and 16 assists in 29 starts (31 appearances). Last year, he tallied four goals and two assists in six postseason starts to help lead the Timbers to the 2018 MLS Cup Final.

The 33-year-old Argentine is Portland’s career leader in both goals and assists and has long been the face of the organization, but it remains unclear as to whether Valeri will return to the club in 2020. Valeri and the Timbers reached an impasse in contract negotiations in September, raising the possibility that the Timbers captain may not return to the club next season.

Valeri has said that he won’t talk about the negotiations publicly until the end of the season out of respect to his teammates and because Portland still has important games to play this year.

-- Jamie Goldberg | jgoldberg@oregonian.com

503-853-3761 | @jamiebgoldberg

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