If you give an ear to Portland's Caleb Porter, he'd have you believe that his Timbers side have had a tough and tiring week after travelling coast to coast for two away matches in the space of five days.
Sunday's Cascadia Cup clash with Vancouver will make it three games in nine days, but will the Caps be facing a tired team lacking freshness? Whitecaps coach Carl Robinson is having none of it.
"Listen, I read Caleb Porter's comments about the schedule and it's difficult," Robinson told AFTN at training on Friday. "Every team goes through it. We went through three games in seven days. He's worried we'll be fresher than them. We won't, because he rested eight guys that are going to start.
"I think the one guy who is actually going to start as well is the goalkeeper, so maybe there's two players who actually played in the game that will play on Sunday."
Robinson is referring to the fact that for all of Porter's bluster, the Timbers coach made eight changes to his starting line up for Wednesday's night match up at Chivas.
"The freshness won't be an issue," Robinson told us. "Obviously it's a derby game and I think all the mind games, they all start and everything. All I can do is focus on my team."
Not only does Portland's squad rotation see their top players rested, it also made little difference to the result against Chivas and Portland extended their unbeaten streak to six games following a pretty horrible start to the season.
On-loan striker Fanendo Adi grabbed a brace, his first for his new club, as the Timbers ran to a fairly comfortable 2-0 victory over the hapless Goats. Now just sitting one point behind Vancouver, just outside the playoff places in the standings, things may finally be starting to click for Portland.
"They're a good team," Robinson admitted. "I said all along they're probably a year down the line. We're not a year down the line, we're probably three or four months down the line. They've got more experience than us.
"Both teams are pretty similar. They like to try and play in a certain way, they're quick in the transition side of it and they like to entertain. Portland were very entertaining last year to watch. It's going to be a very interesting game."
When it's a local derby though gameplans and form often tend to go out the window, and records don't count for much. Of course there is one big monkey on the Whitecaps back.
"Never won there, so everyone keeps telling me" Robinson joked with us before we even got our first question out on Friday. And for all that the players told me how comfortable they playing in Portland, it still is a valid issue.
For Robinson, no matter what mutterings may be coming out of the Timbers camp, he feels the Whitecaps are heading there as the underdogs but it will be a great test to see just how far his team have come a third of the way into the season.
"I said last week it's going to be a good marker to see where we are and it will be a good marker for us because I think they haven't lost in 22 games at home, so you can read all the reports you want about who might be the favourite for the game and all that lot but if he says anything other than his team then I think he'll be trying them games on."