Month: October 2021

Categories
Soccer Thorns

A Little Worse for Wear, the Thorns Are Finally over the Finish Line

Photo by Matt Wolfe.

What strange times we’ve all lived through.

The end of this Thorns season—only the second-weirdest NWSL season because 2020 happened—came with a shrug last night, somehow sudden despite being the latest-ever closing weekend in the league’s nine-year history. If we had visions of the Thorns thundering down the stretch in Mark Parsons’s last year in Portland, growing in power until they peaked in the playoffs and won the last and biggest trophy left to win, well. They could still peak in the playoffs. They could certainly still win the big trophy. But things haven’t gone quite like that.

The season ender was, above all, weird. I’d been expecting a win; North Carolina have not been good (and weren’t good last night), and the possibility of the first decent home crowd in more than two months seemed to bode well, motivation-wise. Instead, the Thorns did more of their weird thing that they do, their frustrating thing where they look like the dominant side for most of the game, string together some beautiful attacking sequences, look like they generally have the right idea, and never manage to put the ball in the back of the net.

With that said, let’s look at how the Thorns approached NC. This team talks a lot about how they deploy the same formation against every opponent, but they do make smaller-scale tweaks against specific teams. Against the Courage last night, rather than pressing one forward and having the other available to combine or receive a through pass if the first forward won the ball, they used the non-pressing forward to mark NC’s strong-side outside back.

They also pressed the back line less than they generally do, period. Here’s a shot of the Courage defense getting lots of time on the ball, with the Thorns’ attackers gently encouraging them to keep to one side of the field but otherwise not interfering. Sophia Smith is loosely marking NC left back Carson Pickett in the bottom left of the image.

A screenshot showing North Carolina's half of the field as the Thorns defend. Carolina CB Abby Erceg has the ball and is being given lots of space, with the Thorns not pressing the back line at all. Both Carolina full backs are pushed well forward. Sophia Smith is hovering by left back Carson Pickett near the halfway line.

At first, this seems almost backwards. Generally speaking, offenses try to make their shape as big as possible, while a team in its defensive phase tries to shrink the available space. But here, as Mark Parsons explained after the game, the Thorns wanted to let the Courage spread out like this. “When their backline has time on the ball,” he said, “they get bigger, and when you win it, you have a lot of space to exploit, which you saw, I think, multiple times through the first half.”

As you can see in the screenshot above, both Pickett and Merritt Mathias, the NC right back, are pushed well up the field. Abby Erceg is taking her time on the ball, scanning the field for a pass. Eventually, she passed to Denise O’Sullivan in the center of the field, who was immediately forced to go back to Erceg under aggressive pressure from Angela Salem, bringing us to the moment below:

Here the Thorns have succeeded in confining Erceg to a little pocket on the left flank. She can’t pass to Pickett, who Smith is still covering. She could go back to O’Sullivan, but Salem is ready to pounce if she does so. She can either hit one over the top toward Jessica McDonald and Lynn Williams, or she can try to find a pass through the Thorns’ midfield line to Debinha, who’s hovering behind Yazmeen Ryan in this shot.

Ultimately, she chooses the second option, which brings us to the defensive advantage of Portland dropping one forward at a time back to mark an attacking fullback. “You look at McDonald and Williams, their biggest threat is in behind,” Parsons said. Marking one outside back with a forward lets all four defenders stay home, narrowing the channels Williams and McDonald have to get in behind.

There’s a second piece, too: “We wanted to make sure that that space wasn’t there, but they get there through their 10s.” Keeping four defenders home frees up one of them to step to the Courage No. 10s, Debinha and Amy Rodriguez, which is exactly what happened here. As soon as Erceg passed to Debinha, Kelli Hubly was in motion, springing forward to whack the ball into outer space.

Ideally, instead of a whack, they’d make a long pass into all that space created by the Thorns’ permissive pressing strategy, and Morgan Weaver or Christine Sinclair would burst through and have an easy chance on goal. That almost happened a few times, but, as Parsons said, the team ultimately “didn’t quite take advantage of those counter attacks.”

But: having already clinched the Supporters Shield, the Thorns didn’t need to win this game, which was perhaps what dictated the vibe as the game went on. After a handful of good chances in the first half, including some beautiful combinations between Portland’s attacking corps, the second half was a bit of a slog. The Thorns only posted five shots (compared to 14 in the first half), with just one on goal.

The Courage, meanwhile, were fighting to avoid elimination from the playoffs and played increasingly desperate as time marched on. It was a strange sight. Much of the individual brilliance the Courage have always had was still there, with Debinha and A-Rod both making some eye-popping, if useless, solo plays, but the machine broke down a long time ago. These days, we’re all just trying to get by.

As for the Thorns’ fate in the weeks to come: they get a bye in the first round of the playoffs, courtesy of the Shield. In the semifinal, they’ll play the winner of next weekend’s Chicago-Gotham matchup. I think it’s likely they beat either of those teams and make it to the final, but after that, it’s anyone’s game.

I genuinely don’t know what to make of Portland’s form right now. Last night after the whistle, the defense gathered for a group hug, celebrating their 13th regular-season shutout, which is a new league record. The team  was all smiles as they climbed the stairs to greet the fans and learn the winner of the Riveters Player of the Year, who—very deservedly—was Angela Salem.

They’re a good soccer team, broadly speaking. The best in the league, you might argue! It seems cruel at this point, after everything they’ve been through, to pick nits about the defense getting a little lucky a few times last night, or to ask whether the team is having a scoring issue. Parsons spoke about the need to keep improving heading into the semifinal, and he’s right. Hopefully Lindsey Horan, Crystal Dunn, and Rocky Rodríguez are all fully healthy by then, too, which will help.

As ever, the emphasis postgame was on togetherness. The last two years have been brutal for everyone in this league, and it’s hard not to assume that the last month in particular derailed the Thorns’ hoped-for late-season progression curve. But pain can lead to growth, too, and if the team is as happy to have made it this far as they seem to be, maybe that’s enough.

“This is a special group,” Kling said postgame. “It’s a real family. We’ve been through a lot this year—hard times—whether it’s health, COVID, the abuse scandals that have happened, and I think we’ve used all of these things to come together and to talk about it and to get stronger.”

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Still a Top Pro, Angela Salem Works Toward a Coaching License

Photo by Nikita Taparia
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Categories
Soccer Timbers

Asprilla Bicycle Steals Show as Timbers Beat San Jose

Photo by Matthew Wolfe.

There have been precious few uncomplicated good things about the Portland Timbers’ 2021 season.

Long before last night, Dairon Asprilla was one of those things. A career-long inconsistent, temperamental depth player turned—seemingly out of the blue—into an everyday starter, hustle machine, and consistent goal scorer, one of the first names on the team sheet each week, all year long.

The improbability of a player like Asprilla, at 29 years old, in his seventh season with the club, making the turn and having a season like he’s had this year is difficult to overstate.

The one thing that Asprilla has always had, from the moment he arrived in Portland, is knack for the late-season spectacular. And on Wednesday night, with the Timbers hosting the San Jose Earthquakes in the thick of a battle for playoff positioning, he delivered the kind of signature moment to punctuate this career year that only he could. In the 55th minute, with the Timbers leading San Jose 1–0, Santiago Moreno, spotting a streaking Asprilla, slightly overhit his through pass. It should have been an easy play for Earthquakes goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski.

But as Marcinkowski came to claim the ball ahead of Asprilla, he bobbled and spilled it on the top left corner of the box. Asprilla controlled the ball with his back to goal, popped it up into the air with his first touch, and then, still going backwards, away from goal, launched an exquisite arching bicycle kick that sailed over the retreating Marcinkowski’s head and in one hop nestled into the back of the net.

A bicycle kick goal in any game, at any level of soccer, is a rarity to savor. A bicycle kick goal like this one—with Asprilla picking up a loose ball, back to goal, setting himself up, and still getting the power and precision on the overhead required to beat the defense, is like little else you’ll ever see.

In a vacuum, it was an astonishing moment. Add in all of Asprilla’s history in Portland, and it was the that much more extraordinary.

After all, it was just two seasons ago that Asprilla scored a similarly jaw-dropping bicycle kick in a game not for the Timbers, but for T2, facing not the Earthquakes in a crunch MLS match, but the Las Vegas Lights in a sleepy USL encounter. And keep in mind, Asprilla was not a rookie that March night at Merlo Field. He was approaching his 27th birthday, having scored a grand total of five regular-season MLS goals in four years in the league. He looked for all the world like an entertaining player who had neither the ability nor the mentality to be an everyday contributor for the big club.

But perhaps because of that spark, that feeling that Asprilla could be a special player if only he could get the support he needed and mentally lock himself in, the Timbers stuck with him. It is a testament to the club’s faith and Asprilla’s faith in himself that he’s still with the Timbers this year to produce a season like the one he’s had and this goal that no one in Portland will ever forget.

The accolades poured in almost immediately, from Alyssa Milano, from SportsCenter, and from newspapers around the world. Asprilla is deserving of every one.

From a competitive standpoint, the goal—as Asprilla’s always do at this time of the year—mattered a great deal as well. It all but put away the Earthquakes, handing the Timbers a massive three points and stopping their three-game skid.

Otherwise, it was a night of positives for Giovani Savarese’s team. Santiago Moreno turned in by far his best performance for the club, the defense kept its first clean sheet in nearly a month, and, perhaps most importantly, the attack threatened consistently and scored twice with Sebastian Blanco sitting on the bench.

The Timbers’ first goal, which came with just more than ten minutes to play in the first half, was excellent in its own right. Bill Tuiloma, back at his natural position at center back, brought the ball out of defense and pinged an entry pass in to Yimmi Chará, who combined with Felipe Mora and hit Moreno, who returned the ball to Mora, who whipped a dangerous low cross into the middle that Diego Chará stabbed in to open the scoring.

It was quietly one of the best team goals of the season—made by the excellent central attacking midfield play of Yimmi Chará, the equally excellent center forward play of Mora, and the awareness of Diego Chará, the captain, making up the numbers to unbalance the Earthquakes defense and finishing instinctively.

That one goal would have been enough. The Timbers were compact defensively, allowing the Earthquakes nearly 60% possession and getting out-passed 490–336, but San Jose lacked the creativity or cohesion to break Portland down. Though they eventually took 17 shots, they located just five on target. Steve Clark’s only memorable save came from very little shortly after the restart, when a quick spin and shot from Jeremy Ebobisse on top of the box had Clark stretching to turn it wide. Other than that, and a scuffed chance in the opening ten minutes, Ebobisse had little to show for his return to Providence Park.

The Timbers could have run up the score further in this one as well, with Blanco nearly scoring the night’s second world-class goal on a signature slaloming run through the box shortly after coming on, but San Jose made it to the final whistle with a respectable scoreline intact.

The Timbers now get a full off week before they travel to Utah to face Real Salt Lake for a playoff-positioning six-pointer, one that they should have Blanco back in the starting lineup for. But when that game kicks off, and for many games to come, we’ll all still be basking in the glow of that Asprilla moment—reminder, amidst a difficult season and continued, righteous, painful acrimony between the club and its supporters, of what a joy this sport can be.

Categories
Soccer Timbers

Timbers Fall Limply in Colorado

Photo by Kris Lattimore.

As bad as Wednesday’s streak-busting collapse against the Vancouver Whitecaps was, the Portland Timbers’ 2–0 loss to the Colorado Rapids in Commerce City on Saturday night was equally limp.

With Sebastian Blanco and Dairon Asprilla out of the lineup, the Timbers’ typically lethal counter attack was muted, and soft defending on the wings and in the box meant that they never stood much of a chance against one of the league’s most competent sides.

The LA Galaxy’s home draw with Dallas and Minnesota’s home draw with LAFC means that the Timbers’ no-show didn’t cost any ground in the Western Conference standings. They’re still on track to host a home playoff game in November. But home playoff game or not, this performance dumped another glass of cold water on the notion that the Timbers might challenge the West’s elite to get back to MLS Cup.

The Rapids don’t have Portland’s pop, nor do they have a single player with the pedigree or ability of a Blanco or Diego Chará. But they are, in many ways, the Timbers’ antithesis—a team stacked from back to front and front to back with solid, proven MLS players. Acquiring talent within the league, on a budget, steadily over the course of three years, has pushed the Rapids back into the upper echelon of MLS.

On Saturday night, with the Timbers dragging in the altitude, they went about their business with relative ease. The game settled into a slow, stolid pattern after a period of early Colorado pressure, with the Timbers set up in their patented late-season defensive banks of four and trying to play on the break through a re-called Diego Valeri making his first start since the end of July.

But with Blanco and Asprilla on the bench, the Timbers lacked verticality, while the Rapids struggled to muster either the creativity or the energy necessary to break Portland down.

Colorado had few chances apart from an early corner, content to swing the ball languidly around their midfield, but as the half wore on, they began to work their wingbacks into space on both sides on the field and get runners in the box. Even as the half wound quietly down, it felt like single great cross could undo the Timbers’ defense—and in first-half stoppage time, a telling cross is finally what the Rapids got. Wingback Braian Galván got the ball deep on the left wing, whipped a cross into the middle of the six-yard box, and the veteran Dominic Badji, on his second tour in Colorado, nipped between Dario Zuparic and Renzo Zambrano and planted his header into the far corner.

It was a classic center forward’s goal, and coming just a minute before the halftime whistle, it changed completely the complexion of the game.

The Timbers started the second half with a new sense of attacking urgency and quickly generated their best pressure of the game, a stinging Valeri shot forcing William Yarbrough into his best save of the night five minutes after the restart.

But the change in momentum was brief. The Rapids nearly added a second goal just two minutes later when Danny Wilson had a free run at a corner and glanced his header just wide. Just after the hour mark, they put another one away on another frustrating defensive sequence.

Wilson played a long ball in the direction of a breaking Galván, and a backtracking Yimmi Chará misplayed it, allowing Galván to send a cross into the penalty area from the byline. Larrys Mabiala attempted to clear it, but succeeded only in flicking the ball into the path of an onrushing Diego Rubio, who headed it past Steve Clark.

That was, for all intents and purposes, the end of the drama. Rubio nearly scored again just minutes later, hitting the post with another header, and Clark stood strong to turn away a clean Cole Bassett chance on the break just several minutes after that.

The Timbers never mounted a significant response, and it seemed that Giovani Savarese, whose response after going down 2–0 was to introduce the trio of George Fochive, Marvin Loría, and Jose Carlos Van Rankin, could sense that his team had neither the legs nor the will to claw their way back into the game.

Savarese said after the match that he thought it was a “good game.” It was not. The Timbers were bloodless, finishing with an expected goal tally of just 0.3, and the Rapids dispatched them as coolly as you would expect a veteran, playoff-bound team to. Colorado is never a particularly easy trip, especially late in the year, and especially this year, given the formidable team that Robin Fraser has mustered. But even given all that, and given the short turnaround and squad rotation, this was a meek showing.

The Timbers’ final three games, all against Western Conference teams currently outside the playoff positions, should provide them with an opportunity to boost both their standing in the table and their collective confidence heading into the postseason. We know that the Timbers, on their day, can play with anyone in the league. The last two months proved that. The problem is that this team’s flaws are so glaring, and the underlying numbers are so unfavorable, that it is not at all difficult to see them ending this up-and-down campaign on the kind of low they endured in August.

The Timbers have conceded the second most goals in the West and again have one of the conference’s worst goal differences. The season, much like the club as a whole, is hanging by a thread right now. There is remains time to right the ship, but it’s quickly melting away.

Categories
Soccer

Horan honored for 100th cap, Smith stands out in the USWNT’s 0-0 draw against Korea Republic

Photo by Brad Smith/ISI Photos

Before forward Lindsey Horan ran onto the field for her 105th cap with the United States women’s national team, she took a second to soak in the moment.

She surveyed the sold-out crowd at Kansas City, Kansas’, Children’s Mercy Park, draped in red, white and blue, not a single empty seat in sight. To her left stood a framed jersey that read 100. On her right was her immediate family, their words drowned out by the applause that reverberated from the south deck to the American Outlaws’ supporters section that temporarily occupied The Cauldron.

Before the game, Horan’s sports psychologist told her to take in every single moment, no matter how big or small. What came of it was an afternoon full of emotion and gratitude.

“I’ve cried about seven times today, ” Horan said.

In the hour leading up to the match, the Coloradan experienced one of the “most special moments” of her career. Forward Carli Lloyd –– about to play in her second-to-last game with the national team –– approached Horan with a jersey. On it, the number 10 sat below the name “HORAN.”

As she absorbed the scene before kickoff, Horan couldn’t help but think about what transpired in the locker room and what it took for her to arrive at that very moment.

“The players on this team are so good and the standard for this team is so high,” Horan said. “To be able to play, work, come into camp and get the opportunity to play for the national team for 100 caps is such an honor.”

Unfortunately for Horan and the USWNT, the on-field result –– a 0-0 draw against the Korea Republic –– wasn’t nearly as memorable. The team failed to win a home game for the first time in 22 attempts and it has been 60 home matches since an opponent held the USWNT scoreless on home soil.

Still, Horan provided some of the United States’ best first-half chances. In the 13th minute, her shot from outside the box deflected off the left post. Six minutes later, the Coloradan got free between defenders at the back post, but couldn’t put enough power on the cross from Kelly O’Hara to beat Korea keeper Younggeul Yoon.

“In the two years I’ve been in this job, I can’t remember that [Horan] has had a bad game or even an average one,” coach Vlatko Andonovski said. “She’s always been above average or super good. Tonight she controlled the tempo of the team, controlled the tempo of the game and had a great mindset.”

All three Thorns played heavy minutes in the USWNT’s draw Wednesday night. Horan and defender Becky Sauerbrunn both started while forward Sophia Smith subbed in in at halftime. Seven players who currently play for the Thorns or have played for the club in the past made Andonovski’s game day roster against South Korea. Some other familiar names? Tobin Heath, Emily Sonnett, Adrianna “AD” Franch and Alex Morgan.

Franch started in goal and kept a clean sheet in her first “home” game with the United States. A native of Salina, Kansas, “AD” recorded her only save in the 35th minutes to help her team secure the clean sheet.

Smith, making just her ninth appearance with the national team, entered the game right after halftime and made an immediate impact. While she didn’t find the back of the net, Smith’s runs into space resulted in dangerous attacking opportunities. When she couldn’t get in behind Korea’s defense, Smith was more than comfortable dribbling past defenders on her own, leaving them in her wake.

“Tonight was one of the first times I’ve felt like [Smith] was at her most confident,” Horan said. “That was really cool for me to see. She was driving at players, pressing, attacking. She can be so special. I’m so proud of her and I think she’s going to be a bright light on this team.”

On Wednesday night, Smith showed why she’s been a constant presence in the USWNT’s camps since the Olympics. After the game, she received a ringing endorsement from Andonovski.

“Ever since she came in there was always something happening,” Andonovski said. “Unfortunately for her, she was either a step short or she took a little too long of a touch. When all that gets corrected with more minutes and more games, she’s going to take care of that and I think she’s going to be unstoppable.”

Again, the United States’ drew 0-0 on Wednesday. But the night wasn’t just about the final result. It was about Smith finding her rhythm with the national team and Horan coming into her own as both a veteran and the next number ten on the USWNT.

“I’ve worked so hard to get to this moment and be a consistent player for this national team. Now I’m more of a vet and more of an older player. So what’s next? That was my change in mindset tonight.”

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Dash 0

Credit: Matthew Wolfe

For the Thorns, the 2021 season has been all about building a strong mentality and culture. Through interviews and post-game pressers, Thorns players and coaches have spoken about the importance of their culture shift to their success this season. Back in August, Christine Sinclair said that “[the Thorns] want to put [themselves] in the best position to win, and not by chance,” which has been the byproduct of a team that has fun together—and fights and gives everything for each other. 

Since Sinc spoke in August, a reckoning has occurred in the league, with its shockwaves landing firmly in the Thorns’ locker room. In a turnaround from the recent four-game winless streak that’s had people doubting the team’s chances of winning the Shield—something they were favored to do for the majority of the season—the team managed to pull out a win against Houston, looking the best they had against the Dash all year.

The season isn’t over yet, with one last home game against the Courage to go, but I think last night’s win against Houston to claim the shield was a culmination of an entire season’s worth of work both on and off the field. So, in honor of that, here are some things that went really well for the Thorns. 

High Press

Historically, the Thorns have struggled to break down the Dash’s back line. In the Thorns’ 1–0 win in July, they recorded 14 shots, dramatically lower than usual. Just a few weeks ago in October, the Thorns lost 2–3, putting only nine of 26 shots on target. Forwards Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver (among others) like to sit high, ready to either get the ball at their feet or receive a long ball over the top, and over the course of the season, the Thorns have struggled to score when they weren’t able to press high and sit along the back line. But last night, Smith and Weaver were able to find all sorts of space between the Dash’s defense, and exploited it well, combining for six shots.

One moment that exemplified the ever-strengthening Thorns mentality was a shot by Sophia Smith in the first half. She was played a ball in from Meghan Klingenberg and after taking one touch to settle it, sent it rocketing towards the goal. She missed, but the important element of the shot was Smith having the confidence to take it early. So many times over the course of the season we have watched Smith dribble towards the goal, only to end up passing it straight to the keeper, and it’s much better for her to test the keeper with a harder, earlier shot than not. 

Strong midfield diamond

The Thorns have clearly found their ideal starting midfield with Sinclair, Rocky Rodríguez, Angela Salem, and Lindsey Horan (it’s wild that they still have Dunn on the bench to bring on). The passing chart below shows how important it is that the midfield keep their shape in order to dictate play throughout the center of the field. The heavier lines extending from Rocky and Horan’s bubbles indicate the volume of passes that each player gave and received, showing how they maintained possession, continuously feeding balls forward toward the pressing forwards.

Mark Parsons said post-game, “we knew we needed to control everything we can to put it in our favor,” which manifested in the form of the midfield being first to what felt like every ball. They dominated the center of the pitch, intercepting Houston passes and serving as the catalyst for counterattacks, many of which nearly paid off. 

Credit: Arielle Dror

When looking back at the season holistically, the Thorns struggled to reintegrate their international players after the Olympic break, largely due to the bulk of them being in the midfield. Finally having a consistent lineup over the past few months has let the Thorns implement the tactics they have been working on, allowing them to improve each game.

Brick-wall Bixby

Bella Bixby and the Thorns defense earned their 12th clean sheet of the season, and Bixby’s eighth. While a lot of the glory goes to the forwards and midfield for scoring, the defense has been quietly and consistently dictating games all season. Outside backs Kling and Natalia Kuikka had the most touches out of both teams on Sunday, and center backs Becky Sauerbrunn and Emily Menges contributed to the 48 duels won.

A quote from Bixby sums up the defense’s mentality quite nicely: “despite having big outcome-based goals, we have been extremely process-based, and [are] really just taking it one game at a time.” Bixby, who became the Thorns’ starting keeper after AD Franch went to Kansas City, has excelled at the position. She exudes confidence when directing her back line and stays focused until the final minutes, which yesterday was when the majority of the Dash’s crosses and shots came in. Plus, watching her palm the ball on saves is just epic. 

With one more regular-season game to go before postseason, the Thorns are in a good place to continue growing and proving that their elite mentality is what sets them apart.

As Horan said after the game, the Thorns set out to win everything this season—and now the elusive quadruple is within reach.

Categories
Not Soccer Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 0, Kansas City 0

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns suffered an utterly disappointing scoreless tie against bottom-of-the-table Kansas City on Sunday afternoon. While the game could have been momentous for several reasons, including Meghan Klingenberg reaching 10,000 career NWSL minutes, and marking the first time that the Thorns played against AD Franch (who made several great saves), this game is one that is going to be quickly forgotten. 

In the 85th minute, it looked like the Thorns would eke out a win when Morgan Weaver was awarded a penalty and Christine Sinclair stepped up to the spot to take it. It unceremoniously went off the lower left post, even after AD dived to the left, keeping the score at 0–0. 

In the early second half, Kristen Hamilton scored a goal that was called back due to a foul on Becky Sauerbrunn, and it seemed that maybe this would be the spark of intensity that the Thorns so desperately needed. But again, nothing came of it. The Thorns remained flat and lifeless, looking as though they had little desire to play this game.

Despite being close to soccer-specific Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City’s home games take place on a baseball field with an extremely narrow and poorly sod soccer field crammed into it (the team has announced it will move to Children’s Mercy Park next year, but the fact they ever played on this field sends a message). The Thorns, who normally thrive off a high press and the ability to get wide, were unable to create space between themselves, causing passes and crosses and shots to all go out of bounds to no one. Mark Parsons noted after the game that “the team wasn’t able to play the type of soccer that they wanted to play.”

That field—and a litany of other factors—made the game hard to watch. It wasn’t just that the team wasn’t playing as well or as organically as they normally do, but that everything going on in the background made it impossible to focus.

In the four days since the Thorns’ last game and the partial dismissal of Gavin Wilkinson (from only the Thorns side of his job), there has been no time to process the sheer amount of trauma that has occurred. Just the day before, broadcasters at the Pride-Gotham game zoomed in on Orlando backup keeper Brittany Wilson and repeatedly misidentified her as Mana Shim. With the endless onslaught of harmful mistakes and disinterest from the league, it’s hard to compartmentalize what is going on. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the players, for whom soccer isn’t a fun distraction, but a job.

Watching the game on Paramount Plus on my laptop felt like a fever dream. I couldn’t conceptualize how 1,600 miles away these people were being asked to play soccer as if there wasn’t a reckoning happening within the league. The quality of the broadcast, which sounded ripped from FIFA 2010, complete with LMFAO playing at each corner kick, felt like a slap in the face. Not only can the league not listen to players, but they seem completely unwilling to invest in them, either. 

The camera’s low vantage point and tight angle made it so that no more than half the players could be seen at any given moment. Players moved in and out of frame in dreamlike apparitions. The Thorns’ white jerseys looked as though they were outlined in black crayon, making them look cartoonish and animated. At one point, Larroquette did a bicycle kick at midfield just to advance the ball seven yards. I instantly did a double take to check that I wasn’t mashing buttons on a Playstation controller.  

All in all, it felt like a rerun of a game from the inaugural 2013 season, one whose final score I already knew. It was hard to get invested and feel as though anything was at stake, when in reality, there’s a lot on the line. The Thorns only have four more games this season, and have choked on their lead, leaving only one point between them and Reign in the race for the shield. 

But that brings me back to my original point. It was impossible to focus on the game because there is so much more at stake than a soccer game or title right now. Everyone on that pitch carried an incredible weight on their shoulders for 90 minutes. Once they step off the field, the weight remains squarely on them, getting straight onto phone calls and trying to fight for the league. There really is no escape for these players as they are constantly told they aren’t worthy, whether they’re being made to play on a horrible pitch or being asked in a postgame presser to recount their involvement in the initial 2015 investigations within the club. 

As the season winds to a close and the games pick up in intensity and importance for the postseason bracket, I find myself disconnecting with the game more and more. The Thorns could lose every game from here on out, but I would still support them just as much as if they won all of those games 5–0. The players’ mental and physical health is the most important, and if they choose to protest at Wednesday’s game, I will fully support and understand. If I as a fan can’t focus on the game, how can the players?

Categories
Not Soccer Soccer Thorns

Notes on a Loss

Photo by Matthew Wolfe.

Last night the Thorns played soccer against the Houston Dash in the heaviest, most surreal context I’ve ever experienced while reporting on the sport.

As for the game: Portland lost 2–3, thanks in part to a Dash penalty scored off a harsh handball call against Becky Sauerbrunn. After Kristie Mewis notched Houston’s second goal in the 23rd minute, the Thorns seemed to wake up and kick their attack into gear. With Houston’s press collapsing two and three players toward the ball, Portland had ample space to work with and had success both from wide areas and stretching the Dash back line enough to find through passes. Christine Sinclair had a cracking finish, Sophia Smith nutmegged Jane Campbell for her goal, and for a while, things hummed along almost shockingly well. Portland dominated statistically, beating Houston in shots by more than double and shots on goal by nearly double.

But as one of my group chats pointed out last night, there’s perhaps no better sign that a team is struggling to focus than when they keep conceding. Refereeing complaints aside, communication got jumbled, marks were lost, and the Thorns let in goals they normally wouldn’t.

I can’t express how strange it felt to be sitting in the press box as the stadium emptied out, players hugging and commiserating on the field below, this thick heaviness in the air, as Stevie Wonder and Lizzo blared on the PA.

The players and the fans had each staged their own protests during the game; players from both teams, like the teams in the night’s previous two games had done, gathered in the center circle in the sixth minute, commemorating the six years that Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly had to carry on in silence. For their part, the Riveters set off red and black smoke in the 24th minute, representing Farrelly and Shim’s numbers when they played for the Thorns—Farrelly wore #24, and Shim wore #6 (2 + 4).

Now here we were, processing, the players doing so under the harsh glare of the stadium lights, as the usual rhythm of a game day wound to a close.

Mark Parsons and Meghan Klingenberg spoke to the media after the game. I briefly tried to be reflective about last night and failed, so I’m going to offer some of their reflections instead.

Parsons on the responsibilities coaches have toward their players:

“You sign up to be a coach, and the first thing on the list is to be able to protect people, the health and safety and well being of people, players, but also as a head coach, you’re responsible for staff. It’s the first commitment you make, and it’s the simplest one to keep, and I’m so yeah, I’m so sorry, and sad that, that hasn’t been met, and players have suffered. How we got here, it’s really, really, really tough to think about how we got here. And we have to be honest in reflection and learning, but we have to make sure—and I think everyone keeps saying we—everyone in any position of leadership has to work to make sure that players are safe. That we have relentless policies and protocols in place to make sure that [we, who are] given this honor and and special privilege being around some of the best professionals, the best leaders, the best women are the right people. We absolutely have failed there… This is this is just embarrassingly heartbreaking.”

Klingenberg on the need to shift power into the players’ hands:

“This has been a really dark and heavy week, for everyone in the league, fans, players, coaching staff. It’s just been a lot. I think with that type of heaviness comes the realization that things need to change. And we’ve been doing a lot of grieving for our fellow players. We’ve been doing a lot of pathfinding, we’ve been doing a lot of, having big discussions about where this league should go, and how it should look. The one thing that keeps coming back to me and to us over and over and over again, is that without any say in the league, without any power, and without the financial resources to protect ourselves, and this will continue happening. So to me, there needs to be big structural changes within the league to protect these players. Because we’re vulnerable without a voice, we’re vulnerable without the financial means to protect ourselves, and that is something that cannot continue.”

Klingenberg on the emotions of the last week:

“I feel sad. I feel angry. I think what I feel depends on what time of the day it is. I feel a little bit of guilt.

Because, you know, I never want there to be any silent bystander in this league. And not because I think that people are bad or want bad things to happen to other players. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s just that the players felt scared, and there’s no way to get out of a bad situation. These coaches get passed around, and so even if you speak up, it doesn’t feel like you’ll be protected. I think a lot of that goes back to the WPS and magicJack [where Klingenberg played as a WPS rookie]. It’s been really hard, because I know, I was on a team where things weren’t right, on a lot of levels, but there was only one person that ever spoke out about it, and that’s Ella Masar. And I think that we need to have a type of reckoning there too, because we need to protect each other, and we need to stand up for each other.

 

But it’s scary. It’s scary when you think that your career’s on the line and your dreams could be dashed. So I never want to put this on players, ever. I don’t think it’s on them. So yeah, I’m feeling a wide range of emotions. I also feel a bit of joy, that things are starting to change, and there’s discussion. And maybe we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of competing feelings.”

Klingenberg on finding joy amid the darkness:

“For us, as players, a lot of times when things are hard outside of the game, we use the game as his place where we can immerse ourselves. And we can just be Megan on a pitch. But that’s been really hard to do this week. Because, as you know, what’s been happening is in our faces all the time, outside of the game, inside the game, so tonight, when I was hyping the team up, I told them that I wanted them to play— My greatest hope for them today was that they played like they were kids again, and to remember what it felt like when you were on the schoolyard or in the streets or in your backyard, and play with that type of passion and joy. I think that, you know, even if the result didn’t come out the way that we want it, I could still feel that joy from a lot of players, and I think we did a lot of really good stuff. So I just want to keep that going for the team because you know, they deserve it.”

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Statement from the Rose City Review on Paul Riley

Credit: Matthew Wolfe

On Thursday, The Athletic reported that former Thorns head coach Paul Riley sexually abused and coerced multiple players during his tenures with multiple professional women’s soccer teams—including his time in Portland. Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim brought these reports to the attention of front offices, commissioners, and other league officials, but by no means are they the only survivors of Riley’s abuse.

Although Riley has been fired, NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird and general counsel Lisa Levine have resigned, and SafeSport—a questionable place to turn—is now investigating the allegations against Riley, we, at the Rose City Review, find lack of transparency and action until this point to be unacceptable.

It’s not enough for coaches and managers to apologize for hiring known abusers, as OL Reign owner Bill Predmore apologized for hiring former head coach Farid Benstiti in a press conference on Friday. “Getting it wrong” is not an excuse when there are known, credible accusations against a man. The systems of complacency within the NWSL run deep. We’ve seen them play out time and time again this year, with the terminations of Riley, Benstiti, and Richie Burke. And we’ve seen that same lack of transparency around the firing of Christy Holly, Alyse LaHue, and Tom Torres.

And it’s not enough for Riley to resign when the people who covered up his abuse remain in power. According to The Athletic’s report, Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and general manager Gavin Wilkinson released Riley from the club after investigating Shim’s allegations against him, but neither the club nor the league publicly acknowledged those accusations or that there had been an investigation. Despite knowing that Riley was a sexual abuser, Paulson, Wilkinson, and the NWSL let the league hire Riley for another job, placing him in yet another position of power.

We believe the Thorns’s statement on the report does not adequately address the harm the club has caused—nor does it outline a plan to keep players safe in the future. Merritt Paulson’s open letter, while outlining positive steps forward for the club, does little to acknowledge the complicit behavior of the Thorns’ front office. The “North Star” that he references as what is best for the players and techinical will need to involve the removal of Gavin Wilkinson to create a more safe and open environment. 

We support Mana Shim, Sinead Farelly, Kaiya McCollough, and everyone else who has come forward about abuse—publicly or privately.

We stand with the NWSL Players Association and their three demands. We commend the NWSLPA for the work they’re doing to push better league conditions and create avenues through which players can report abuse, but that work should have never fallen on them. 

The steps outlined in Paulson’s letter are positive, and we will be following up to ensure that he follows through on them. But we believe that the club’s current plan is not enough. We feel it is unacceptable that Gavin Wilkinson remains the club GM, given his role in covering up Riley’s abuse. We are calling for his removal from the Thorns and Timbers organization.

You can donate to the NWSLPA via PayPal.

Categories
Not Soccer Soccer Thorns Timbers

Club’s Handling of Riley Predominates as Timbers Win

Photo by Matthew Wolfe.

It was, by many of the usual metrics, a lovely Sunday afternoon at Providence Park. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and the Portland Timbers won their seventh game in eight attempts, continuing an improbable run up the Western Conference table that has them positioned to contend as the weather finally begins to turn and the MLS season enters its final stage.

But the result, a 1–0 Timbers victory on the strength of a late headed goal from the Polish marksman Jarosław Niezgoda, felt like little more than a sideshow.

This Timbers victory should have been the second game of the weekend played at Providence Park. The Portland Thorns were supposed to take the field first, on Saturday, for a derby match against their northern rival, OL Reign.

That match did not happen. In its place, after all games across the NWSL were suspended following the horrifying revelations reported by The Athletic last week regarding the conduct of former Thorns manager Paul Riley, Thorns supporters rallied outside the stadium in support of the players Riley abused and those who remain within an American soccer league that has at every turn disregarded their safety.

They also called for the firing of Timbers and Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson, who has emerged again as a lightning rod for anger.

Timbers fans last called en masse for Wilkinson’s firing in the autumn of 2012, when the club was suffering through a miserable season on the field. They were wrong then. The Timbers won the Western Conference the next season and an MLS Cup two years later, and Wilkinson’s prowess as a soccer executive has proven beyond any significant doubt many times since.

They’re not wrong now. This time, the frustration is not that Wilkinson can’t pick soccer players. It is that he, along with Timbers and Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and the club’s president of business Mike Golub, failed to ensure that Riley’s career ended after they were made aware of the allegations of his predatory, coercive, absolutely despicable behavior towards their players.

The club investigated Riley following the 2015 season and, with his contract expiring, let him walk. We don’t know exactly what that investigation turned up, and we don’t know exactly how seriously the club endeavored to communicate to the NWSL and Riley’s future employers that he was an active danger to their players too.

What it looks like, lacking that information, and knowing the connections between the Wilkinson and one of the men responsible for hiring Riley to his next job, is that the Thorns, like the Catholic Church, simply moved an ill-behaved coach on to his next parish, consequences be damned.

Sinead Farrelly. Mana Shim. How many others there are—both among those who spoke anonymously to The Athletic and those who weren’t reached or chose not to be interviewed—we don’t yet and will probably never know.

Timbers players Saturday released a statement expressing their support for NWSL players, while Giovani Savarese and other members of the Timbers coaching staff wore teal ribbons in a show of solidarity.

Savarese and his team entered Sunday in a difficult position. Around them in the stadium, and particularly in a vociferous North End, the supporters called—colorfully, loudly, and repeatedly—for their boss to be fired.

The Timbers Army, singing and chanting to the beat of a drum branded with the logo of the Rose City Riveters, made their position known from pregame to the final whistle. Banners hung or hoisted in the North End included “Believe, Support, and Protect NWSL Players,” “Protect the Players, Cut the Rot Out,” and, most memorably, a simple, “You Knew,” along with plenty of two-sticks aimed specifically at Wilkinson.

All the team on the field could do was focus on the task at hand, no matter how trivial it felt taking place in the middle of one of the biggest storms in franchise history.

Knowing a win would cement their status as in the West’s top four with Real Salt Lake’s loss on Saturday, the Timbers faced a Miami side in desperate need of points to keep their distant playoff hopes alive.

Starting without Sebastian Blanco, whose return to fitness was so critical in their revival this fall, and with Diego Valeri suspended for yellow card accumulation, the Timbers lacked a measure of attacking inventiveness in the first half. But Miami was rarely more than ponderous going forward themselves, with the Timbers comfortably defending deep and looking to break with pace.

When Blanco was introduced with a quarter of an hour to go in the second half and no score, the Timbers quickly began to rack up chances. It was thanks only to some excellent emergency defending from Miami’s three center backs, led by Leandro Gonzalez Pirez that the game remained level for as long as it did, and thanks to some very soft defending in the middle of that box that Niezgoda was allowed to freely position himself in the path of a Blanco corner seven minutes from time and nod in the opener.

Miami thought they had equalized just moments later when substitute Julian Carranza headed a cross past Clark, but the goal was ruled out for a push on Dario Zuparic. Miami manager Phil Neville said after the game that his team was “robbed,” and perhaps in a narrow sense, he was right. The whistle on Carranza was soft, one of a number of marginal calls that so often decide close, pedestrian late-season games.

But in a broader sense, his team did not take advantage of the opportunity presented to them in Blanco’s reduced fitness and Valeri’s suspension. They lost the expected goals battle by nearly two and only forced Steve Clark into a pair of notable saves, one on an uninspired Gonzalo Higuain, the other on Brek Shea.

Miami had one more great chance after Carranza’s equalizer was ruled out, deep into stoppage time, but Gonzalez Pirez, outstanding on the other end of the field, sent his open look well wide. That was it. The Timbers are now seven points clear of fifth, on a glide path to hosting a playoff game.

Afterwards, Savarese and Clark were asked about the NWSL. For many of the supporters, the afternoon ended with that subject—and the club’s response to it—foremost in mind. The Timbers Army and the Rose City Riveters are extraordinary in the American sporting landscape for the outspokenness and seriousness with which they take their sociopolitical commitments.

They also, in recent history, have been extraordinary for their effectiveness. The supporters, with the help of others across the MLS, namely in Seattle, stared down the league and won its fight to fly the Iron Front in 2019. The coming fight to hold the organization accountable for its role in perpetuating Riley’s career will, in many ways, be a much bigger challenge.

Paulson’s most enduring trait in a decade-plus as a major league owner, right alongside his passion and inability to stay off Twitter, has been his loyalty to and faith in Wilkinson—a loyalty that has been richly rewarded in on-the-field success.

This scandal is not not going away any time soon. U.S. Soccer and FIFA have opened investigations. The NWSL remains in turmoil, with the Thorns scheduled to play the Houston Dash at home on Wednesday night. Their current manager, Mark Parsons, who is vacating the role in a matter of weeks, has not faced the media since the story broke.

The level of protest at this, a Timbers game, not a Thorns game, made that plain It is as yet unclear what is coming next for Riley and everyone who passed the buck and did the bare minimum instead of stopping him cold. But it is obvious, if there was ever a doubt, that Portland fans are going to keep close score.