Leo Baudhuin is a student journalist covering the Thorns and the NWSL. They love cats, climbing, and Gritty, and they’re always down to talk about astrology. (They’re a gemini, if you were wondering.)
Four games into 2024, the Portland Thorns sit at last place in the NWSL and are one of two teams in the league yet to record a win this year. Their most recent result: a 0-2 loss to the rival North Carolina Courage.
I was at a loss about what to write about that game until Tuesday; give or take some scorelines and player quotes, it feels about the same as pretty much every Thorns game this year. The team is obviously talented but isn’t playing at the level we know they can and let points slip due to defensive errors. Against North Carolina, Portland simply lost to a team that played better soccer, and I have no idea how much of that we should be attributing to players coming in and out of the team due to international breaks, how much of it was due to players still figuring out how to be on the same page as one another this early in the season, and how much of it we can pin on poor coaching.
Unsurprisingly, the last of those does seem to be a factor. Three days after the Courage loss, the Thorns announced an internal reorganization of the club, with now-former head coach Mike Norris named the new technical director and assistant coach Rob Gale serving as the team’s interim head coach.
“Thorns FC have set the standard for excellence in the league,” Thorns general manager Karina LeBlanc says in the club’s release. “These changes will help us maximize our strengths as we continuously pursue championship-level success.”
As LeBlanc alludes to, Portland prides themselves on being a model of excellence in American professional women’s soccer. Of course, that hasn’t always been the case off the field (a certain abusive former head coach and general manager come to mind). But their on-pitch success—capped off by a league-leading three championship titles—speaks for itself.
When a team with the reputation of Portland is on a winless streak, something eventually has to give. “Not a lot—if any—of the players on this roster have been in this position,” Norris said after the Courage loss. And that position—sitting on one point for games into the regular season after a disappointing end to last year—demanded change from the Thorns organization. In this case, the change was appointing Gale to an interim head coaching position.
I think the move was a good one; Norris spent over a season at Portland’s helm and, while he seems to genuinely care about the team, has struggled to deliver the kind of results the Thorns expect. Despite that, I think he has something to bring to a player development role, and I’m glad Portland was able to transition him into a position that allows him to play more to his strengths within the club. Obviously, the issue isn’t fully resolved until the Thorns name someone as their next head coach, but the club’s willingness to take action in moving toward a better fit for the role is a good start.
“What I find encouraging is that people are frustrated and people are pissed off that we’re not doing well and we care,” Becky Sauerbrunn said after the North Carolina game. That combination of frustration and caring is a catalyst for change.
The Thorns have shown that they’re ready to take that first step as an organization by opening up the search for a head coach that can better fit the team’s needs. And hopefully that shift—and the players’ hunger to be better—can help this team start to click in the right ways.
There’s no disputing that 2024 is a new era for the Portland Thorns. The club is under new ownership, majorly switched up their backline, have partnered with lesbian icon FLETCHER, and, on Sunday, lost their first ever home opener to reigning NWSL champions NJ/NY Gotham FC.
If one of those seems like it’s not like the others, it’s because it’s not: the Thorns are on something of an unprecedented losing streak, having failed to take a point out of their last four matches (unfortunately, a club record) across all competitions going back to last season.
Record aside, Sunday’s match looked to be a marked improvement on Portland’s season-opening 5-4 defeat in Kansas City. The Thorns looked more locked in, were making a collective effort to win balls (even if they struggled then use that possession to build out of pressure), and were ultimately denied from the scoreboard by two offside calls on two highlight-worthy Sophia Smith goals and a handful of brilliant saves from Gotham’s backline and goalkeeper Cassie Miller.
“I don’t think I could have asked for any more in terms of trying to win the game,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said. “I’m not sure we could have done more without coming away with one or three points.”
The defense thing
Naturally, when a team concedes five goals in a game—as the Thorns did against the Kansas City Current last week—their defense is going to be something of a focus in the next one.
It also wasn’t shocking to see the changes Norris opted to make in Portland’s backline, with Becky Sauerbrunn replacing Isabella Obaze and Reyna Reyes stepping in for Nicole Payne in the Thorns starting XI. (Sauerbrunn and Reyes had both been limited in their minutes the week prior, as both were returning from national team duty and reintegrating with their club team.) And the changes, to Norris’ credit, left the team looking noticeably more settled in defense.
“This week, we really focused on team defending,” Sauerbrunn said. “When the people in front of you are really putting a shift in, it makes it a lot more obvious and easy for the backline to know where they need to be.”
Not a small portion of that can be credited to Sauerbrunn. Portland had looked to be missing her leadership against the Current—an issue amplified by the team playing a goalkeeper with relatively limited NWSL minutes and three of their four defenders making their league debuts.
“She just oozes confidence in terms of what she gives off and the belief and confidence that she has in other players,” Norris said of Sauerbrunn. And that mindset spreads to the players around her: “When you’ve got somebody with Becky’s experience in the backline, I think the leadership, the communication part, I think it just helps to bring the best out of other people as well.”
Fortunately, that best in others came out, with the Thorns showing a commitment to win one-on-one battles—not just in defense, but across the field—that had been missing last game.
“Eyes are on the backline,” Sam Coffey said, “but it starts with our No. 9, it starts with our frontline […] just making sure we are being our most front-footed, aggressive selves all over the field, and I think we did a much better job of that tonight.”
Photo by Kelsey Baker.
Did things just not go Portland’s way?
The thing is: Gotham definitely got lucky with Smith being offside on both her disallowed goals. The other thing is: Portland’s attack wasn’t nearly as fluid as we know it can be.
The Thorns did generate a fair number of chances—15 shots for 1.24 expected goals to Gotham’s nine shots and 0.72 expected goals—and were unlucky with the Smith offside calls and a couple shots that sailed just wide, but they also bypassed building possession through working through the midfield, a method that has traditionally helped Portland maintain control of a game’s tempo and find their moments to break down their opposition’s defense. Instead, the Thorns tried to use their width to move the ball up the flanks. It’s a decision that’s not unfounded given the skill of Reyes, Marie Müller, Morgan Weaver, and Janine Beckie, but Portland thrives on being a team that can hurt their opponent in so many ways, and confining their attack to the flanks limits those options.
And it’s not that the Thorns didn’t look good in the moments they attacked through the midfield: Jesse Fleming sent a beautiful through ball to Smith toward the end of the first half, and Hina Sugita added a new energy to Portland’s offense when she subbed on for Fleming in the 78th minute.
“She came on, she had an impact,” Norris said of Hina, “and that’s all you can ask from anybody coming off the bench.”
Hina’s presence on the field added another wrinkle to the Thorns going forward, and her connection with Smith added a fluidity that was lacking from portions of Portland’s attacking game.
I know it’s early in the year, and Norris is still figuring out his starting lineup for the season, but I’m honestly surprised to see a player of her skill sitting on Portland’s bench for the first 75 minutes of the game—especially in a match that could have used her flare.
When do we start asking about Norris?
We’re two weeks into the season, and Portland is the only team to lose their first two games and sits in last place. (The San Diego Wave could match that opening run, but they’ve only played one regular season match this year.) The Thorns, as mentioned above, have also lost their first ever home opener and are on their longest losing streak across all competitions in club history.
I think a number of factors are responsible for that—new ownership and offseason defensive upheaval among them—but I also think we have to start asking questions about Norris if the results continue.
Fortunately, we’re not there quite yet; Norris seems like a coach who has the respect of his players, and he has time to turn things around.
I’m sorry, I don’t really know Dune, but the people seemed to like this Tweet
Like a handful of other American sports leagues and teams, the National Women’s Soccer League decided to commemorate Indigenous Peoples’ Day by releasing a statement on the Israeli-Palestine conflict.
“The NWSL mourns the tragic loss of life in Israel and condemns acts of terrorism,” the league wrote. “We remain hopeful for peace in the region and around the world.”
This CNN interview clip with Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian activist and politician and a supporter of nonviolent resistance against Israel, does a good job of summarizing what is currently at stake:
We have no problem with the NWSL mourning “the tragic loss of life in Israel.” But to identify Israel as the only victim of civilian deaths is a blatant erasure of the fact that the Israeli military has been enacting that same violence on Palestinians in the decades leading up to last weekend. It is irresponsible for the league to take the events of last weekend and strip them of context. To call the civilian deaths in Israel “terrorism”—in of itself a loaded word, especially when it pertains to a country in the Middle East—without making the same claim about the Israeli military is to blatantly refuse to acknowledge that the Israeli government has condoned that same violence against Palestinians for decades.
(It’s also worth noting that even nonviolent resistance to the Israeli military, like the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, has been likened to terrorism; the crime here seems to be more about resisting against a genocidal military power that the United States happens to back than about actual harm to civilians.)
The irony shouldn’t be lost that the NWSL, an American soccer league, did not make a post about Indigenous Peoples’ Day—and instead chose to call for support of a violent colonizing group.
This isn’t the first time the NWSL has refused to take a stance that might be seen as controversial to the American mainstream; we’re honestly not surprised with what they said here, even if we’re disappointed. But backing the movement for a free Palestine—and opposing the Israeli military’s human rights abuses and the settler-colonial logic that favors their occupation of Palestinian land—should not be a controversial take for any person, or league, who truly wants to dismantle oppressive structures worldwide.
Down Sophia Smith and on the second match of a two-game road trip, the Portland Thorns took on Racing Louisville on Saturday. Portland has yet to take points from two back-to-back road games this season, and they weren’t able to break that streak in Kentucky; after leaving with a draw against the Washington Spirit the weekend before, the Thorns fell 2-1 to Racing in a match that didn’t feel like Portland’s best work—even without Smith.
So, where did the Thorns go wrong?
Set pieces, for one. They’ve been one of Portland’s weaker points all season, and Racing took advantage. Both of Louisville’s goals—an Abby Erceg header and a brilliant strike from Thembi Kgatlana—came off corner kicks.
But that wasn’t the only thing Portland struggled with.
“We’re probably our own worst enemy,” defender Meghan Klingenberg said after the game. “We gave the ball away in spots that we don’t usually give the ball away in, and that led to some counterattacks and transitions that were difficult to defend because we were in a big shape. I think that typically doesn’t happen to this team.”
The first six minutes
Make no mistake: Racing was ready for this one. They came out with an aggressive press in midfield, showing organized marking and pressure when the Thorns had the ball and a commitment to pick off passes, go forward, and turn any chance they had into a shot.
“Credit to Louisville,” Thorns goalkeeper Bella Bixby said. “Their tactic was to be high-pressing and have all their numbers around the ball, and they did that well.”
The Thorns, for their part, were caught on the back foot and were rather lucky (more on that soon) to get out of those opening minutes without conceding a goal.
Perhaps just as impressive was Morgan Weaver, who won the ball off Louisville goalkeeper Katie Lund, took the ball to the left, and sent her shot into the back of the net in the sixth minute. It was a very Weaver goal: making something out of nothing, and—even if it wasn’t in the dying moments of a game—scoring for Portland at a time they really needed it. (In my game notes, I described the goal as, “Morgan Weaver doing Morgan Weaver things.”)
Even if Weaver scoring didn’t allow Portland to shift into the commanding attack we’re used to seeing them Thorns, it at least settled the game down and opened up chances for both sides.
Luck and Bella Bixby
As alluded to above, the Thorns were lucky to go into the half 1-0. Racing finished the match with 26 shots to Portland’s 15—a stat that normally favors the Thorns—putting nine of them on target to the Thorns’ four. They ended the game with 1.8 xG, with many of their best chances coming before Weaver’s goal in the first half:
That the Thorns didn’t concede early—and that Louisville wasn’t able to get on the scoresheet until Erceg broke through in the 60th minute—was largely due to two factors: luck and a stellar performance from Bixby.
In many of those opening chances, Racing struggled to direct their shots on frame, giving the Thorns a lucky break.
But Louisville did direct quite a few of those on target, calling on Bixby to make seven saves on the night. (Prior to Racing, she’d made an average of three and a half saves per game in regular season competition.)
“I definitely think it was one of my busier games in terms of goal-defending,” Bixby said. “I find myself in games, oftentimes, most busy with defending the box in terms of crosses.”
It wasn’t only that Bixby was busy in goal; even with the two goals against, she did well to defend her net. “A really big performance from her,” Portland head coach Mike Norris said. “She kept the [Thorns] in the game far longer than we probably should have been.”
Especially with a shaky—by her standards—middle of the 2023 season, it’s nice to see Bixby finding her form and giving Portland a fighting chance when they were on the back foot, even if they didn’t go on to win.
Formation or fatigue?
“They played a good game,” Klingenberg said of Louisville, “and I think their transition was pretty lethal. But I think we played right into it. We shot ourselves in our own foot.”
It’s not the first time Portland’s come up against that kind of pressure, Klingenberg said. And she’s right: the Thorns have had a target on their backs since the first time they stepped on the field as the reigning NWSL champions and beat the Orlando Pride 4-0 in their opener. And they’ve found ways to win despite that.
For some reason, though, Portland just wasn’t good enough in this one.
We can probably chalk some of it up to fatigue: the Thorns haven’t been home since before their matchup against the Spirit, and being on the road for that long can weigh on you.
“If we were more crisp, if we connected passes, if we skipped over top of their press, then we could have gotten past it,” Klingenberg said, and I think we can attribute at least some of that lack of sharpness to Portland’s road stint.
But I also wonder how much of it is up to tactics and the Thorns’ formation. As Jaiden wrote last week, it’s important for Norris to play to the strengths of the forwards he has available. In this case, that’s Weaver and Hannah Betfort. Weaver, obviously, got her goal, and Betfort got a couple chances off and showed well in her off-the-ball pressure, but I don’t think the Thorns were feeding the ball into either of them nearly enough.
I think some of that could’ve been helped by formation—maybe by pushing Olivia Moultrie more centrally into the space of Hina Sugita and asking Moultrie to open up space while Sugita takes on defenders on the wing.
I think a lot of that could’ve been helped by letting Crystal Dunn play before the 61st minute—maybe in the place of Moultrie and slipping Sugita into that wider position—and letting her open up space going forward. Even in her half hour on the field, Dunn tied Betfort and Weaver for first on the team in shots and was fourth in expected goals—despite playing significantly fewer minutes than everyone in front of her.
Tactics or tiredness, Portland has a chance to rest and regroup after this one. They have two weeks between Louisville and their next match against OL Reign, where they’ll take on a Seattle side that’s won only one of their last five matches but has a lot to play for with Megan Rapinoe appearing in her last Cascadia Rivalry game in Providence Park.
Last Saturday, the Portland Thorns earned their second consecutive 3-3 draw, fighting back from going down a goal three separate times against the North Carolina Courage.
“I think to find ourselves down three times, it’s probably hard for to wrap me head around,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said after the game, “but group kept pushing”—showing a resilience and rebound that Norris said he was “really proud of.”
So, let’s break all that down.
In defense of Emily Menges
Portland was unlucky to go down in the first minute, after a North Carolina cross deflected weirdly off of Thorns defender Emily Menges. It’s the third time the Thorns have conceded off an unfortunate deflection this year—the first being a Meaghan Nally own-goal against the San Diego Wave—and I’m not really sure what to make of that happening twice in the first month and a half of 2023 play. Are the new white kits cursed? Possibly.
North Carolina’s other two goals came in the forms of a brilliant individual effort from Kerolin and Courage rookie Olivia Wingate nutmegging Menges and getting off a cross to meet Victoria Pickett’s near-post run.
“I don’t want to be a team that’s conceded three goals,” Norris said, “but I didn’t think it was a poor defensive performance. I thought it was anything but that, to be honest.”
I don’t think Norris is outright wrong—it wasn’t an awful defensive performance—but the Thorns definitely could’ve been better on North Carolina’s third goal.
In that play, the Courage are working the ball up Portland’s left flank. As we’ve alluded to above, Kerolin sends a ball ahead to Wingate, who drives endline and ‘megs Menges. Klingenberg has been drawn out to mark Kerolin, so it’s center-back Kelli Hubly who has to step to Wingate, leaving Pickett in space.
As we see above, Hubly stepping leaves Natalia Kuikka marking two Courage players (Pickett near post and Tyler Lussi far post). Dunn and Sam Coffey have been standing at the top of the box and are just beginning their runs to cover—but it’s too late.
Of the goals, this one feels the most like a situation that could’ve been avoided with a little more communication and anticipation. Even if Menges doesn’t get beat here, the Thorns are defending three-on-three, which is a situation they’d want to avoid.
(In Menges’ defense, she also wasn’t the only Thorn to get beat on a North Carolina goal; Coffey dove in too early against Kerolin on the Courage’s second goal, getting beat and leaving Kerolin with far too much space in the center of the field.)
Still, I don’t think that’s a cause for concern, yet. Even though individual players got beat on North Carolina’s second and third goals, Portland’s other defenders weren’t able to effectively drop back and cover—an issue that will hopefully resolve itself as the team gets more used to playing together. Or as Crystal Dunn put it postgame, “We’re still early enough in the season where we know that it’s just these growing pains that we’re going to go through.”
Portland can still hurt you in so many ways
Outside of capitalizing on their chances, North Carolina, for their part, put together a pretty solid performance against the Thorns—especially in their work limiting Portland’s space in midfield. The Thorns, for their part, were forced to play wide or find quick passes through the center of the park, the latter of which they struggled to do consistently.
“We’re a team that’s at our best when we’re fluid,” Dunn said, “when we’re able to break teams down and not be stagnant.” Portland’s second goal was a prime example of that, she said.
In the buildup to the goal, we can see the Courage’s pressure—and the Thorns successfully playing out of that through quick passes. After Sophia Smith’s flick on to Meghan Klingenberg’s overlapping run, Dunn just has to push toward goal from where she’s sitting at the top of North Carolina’s box to get on the end of the cross.
Portland’s other two goals—the first from Dunn and the third from Olivia Moultrie—show another area where the Thorns found success: in their late runs out of midfield.
While we’re here, let’s take a moment to appreciate Moultrie’s game-tying goal—the cherry on top of her impressive performance off the bench.
The Portland Thorns’ 2023 Challenge Cup campaign began in a manner opposite how they started the NWSL regular season; rather than recording a four-goal victory, Portland came away from Wednesday’s match with a 1-0 defeat to the San Diego Wave.
It wasn’t a bad game by any means. With both teams putting out rotated lineups on short turnaround, the Thorns managed to hold San Diego to seven shots—only one of which was on target. The Wave’s lone goal wasn’t the result of San Diego putting together something brilliant or Portland doing anything wrong on the defensive end; it was the result of an incredibly unlucky deflection that ended in a Meaghan Nally own-goal.
“I feel a bit unfortunate, just in terms of the bounces,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said postgame, “but we move on.”
In lieu of an analysis of what worked and what didn’t from a team perspective—something that feels less meaningful given all the lineup changes and matches on short turnaround—I’m taking a look at three players who taught us something in their performances against San Diego.
1. Adriana Leon
Short-term loanee Adriana Leon made her Thorns debut less than a week after her first training session with the team.
“I still can’t really believe that I’m back here in the league and playing with Portland,” she said after the match.
Leon looked solid in her first 68 minutes as a Thorn. She showcased a willingness to get into tackles and push forward to put the Wave under pressure. Her two shots on the night—both of which forced San Diego goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan into diving saves—epitomized that pressure: In each instance, Leon intercepted a pass by the Wave defense, dribbled forward to set herself up, and got a shot off.
Her performance in the second half, especially, is what we can expect from Leon with the team, said Norris. “She’s a front-footed winger who likes to get in one-v-one duels from an attacking perspective and produce crosses,” he said. “And if she gets an eye for goal, she’ll take it.”
The key for Leon, as with any new player, will be developing chemistry with the rest of the Thorns’ attackers. “We haven’t had too much time to train together,” she said. “But I’m excited to see what we can pull off moving forward.”
Leon’s already shown her ability to pick out attacking opportunities; if she can do that in-step with Sophia Smith, Portland will have added another lethal wrinkle to their already talent-heavy attack.
After that game, Norris said he had no doubt Reyes would bounce back stronger—especially now that she had gotten her first-start nerves out of the way. That Norris was willing to give her the nod for a second game is a testament to his belief in her, a belief that seems well-founded given her performance against the Wave.
“I think she grew from her performance against Houston,” he said. “I think you can see her versatility being able to play on the left and right side, getting stuck into tackles, likes to play forward. I think she’s still coming to grips with the speed of the league, but happy with the start.”
Norris’ assessment feels accurate of what Reyes showed against San Diego. She looked more confident stepping to balls and using her body to shut down Rachel Hill, was willing to take players on on the dribble, and was able to connect with her teammates more often than not. (She recorded a 63% pass accuracy.) If Reyes continues to grow at the rate she has over these first couple games, she’ll cement herself as an invaluable piece of this team sooner rather than later.
3. Shelby Hogan
Sitting behind Bella Bixby in the goalkeeper depth chart, Hogan hasn’t had all that many chances to show what she can do. Still, she had an opportunity Wednesday night, and she made the most of it.
“I think the first thing that stood out was just her presence and her demeanor,” Norris said, “really calm and confident. Really composed, looked like she had a lot of games under her belt… I think it was solid confidence and a composed performance of somebody probably beyond her experience and her years.”
Even with the unlucky deflection-turned-own-goal, Hogan looked solid throughout the night. Her stellar positioning and solid handling made the couple times she came to claim a ball off a corner or cross look easy. And she was ready to deny San Diego’s Sofia Jakobsson an early chance.
It’s safe to say the Nadine Angerer goalkeeper development academy is alive and well.
Bonus: Emily Menges
Emily Menges made her first appearance for the Thorns since Aug. 24, 2022, when she came on as a second-half sub for Reyes. Especially given the last six months, it’s nice to see her back on the pitch and looking like she hasn’t missed a beat.
It isn’t easy to follow up a 4-0 season-opening home victory, but the Portland Thorns did just that Saturday in Kansas City. Portland’s 4-1 win over last year’s NWSL Championship runners-up—featuring a dominant first half and a Sophia Smith hat trick—positions them at the top of the NWSL table, tied on points with the San Diego Wave.
Despite soccer being a game of two halves, the match was something of a three-act performance: the opening 45 minutes where the Thorns dominated, Kansas City threatening and scoring early in the second half, and Smith doing Sophia Smith things in the last 10 minutes to dam the Current’s attempted comeback.
Here’s a takeaway from each of those.
1. The first half (or: Crystal Dunn)
As Jaiden wrote in their takeaways last week, the Thorns have started their 2023 season where they left off last year. Which is to say they’re still absolutely stacked with talented players who are used to playing together and won the NWSL Championship in 2022. And the Thorns have someone who was missing for much of their 2022 campaign: USWNT star, 2019 World Cup champion, and 2015 NWSL MVP Crystal Dunn.
It was Dunn who opened the scoring for Portland on Saturday, when Sam Coffey found her near post on a short corner kick and Dunn had time to control the ball, look up, and slot her shot past AD Franch.
The third-minute goal set the tone for Portland—and for Dunn’s performance, specifically—that first half.
“She was everywhere,” Smith said after the game, “defensively, offensively, spinning people.”
For Dunn, it was exactly the game she was looking for. “I literally love playing in the midfield,” she said. “It’s honestly where I feel like I’m most authentic to who I am as a player. When I’m able to connect with the forwards to be able to put them in the best position to succeed, it fills me with so much joy.”
And find her teammates she did. Dunn completed an impressive 92.3% of her passes against the Current—far ahead of anyone else on the team.
“She was doing it all,” Smith said. “It’s so much fun to play with her because you trust and you know that she’s going to be right there with you when you go to press and she’s going to be right there with you when you’re attacking.”
But Dunn wasn’t alone in her standout first half. “What I felt all of the first half was just us connecting and people making the right passes making the right decisions,” she said. “Even if it didn’t work out, it was collectively just getting back on the same page and working hard to win the ball back.”
2. Beginning the second half (or: the questions)
The thing is, we’ve seen the Thorns look really, really good this season, but we’ve seen them look really, really good against teams that are not at their best. The Orlando Pride were… not great when Portland beat them in their season opener, and Kansas City could almost field an entire star-studded XI from their injury report on Saturday.
That’s not to say that rookie Gabrielle Robinson didn’t make a few key blocks on Smith in the first half or that Franch’s positioning didn’t stifle a couple promising looks from the Thorns, but the Current’s defense was a very scrapped-together-last-minute kind of deal.
But something clearly happened during Kansas City’s halftime because they came out of the locker room ready to fight. After conceding all of one shot in the first half, the Thorns were caught on the back foot in the second, stuck defending as the Current forced one turnover and resulting chance after another.
“They fixed some things,” Portland head coach Mike Norris said. “They came up with a different energy, which we didn’t match. We had to ride that storm.” And though they did ride it, the Thorns didn’t come out unscathed; they conceded their first goal of the season to an unmarked Cece Kizer header in the 58th minute.
“I think how the team responds says a lot more about us riding the wave of momentum,” Dunn said. “We were able to get back into it, keep our heads high, staying together, everyone was positive. I think that’s really what this team is about—just being able to solve problems and do it in a way that’s positive and encouraging for everybody to kind of get on the same page.”
Although the Thorns were able to claw their way back into the game, the early second half is a good reminder that scoring four goals every match is probably not a sustainable practice, especially this season.
Maybe it’s just me still having flashbacks to 2019—does that one Courage game still haunt anyone else?—but there is a pretty large part of me that cares less about winning games 4-0 and more about Seeing That Mike Norris is Preparing for a World Cup Year.
“The key is for us to be consistent,” Norris said of upcoming international player absences, “just in terms of the environment that we create every day. The expectations that we have of the players is a big piece, regardless of who’s in or who’s not.”
All this is to say that the Thorns are really good right now, and it’s probably safe to assume that will hold true in the near future. But Portland hasn’t really played against another full-strength squad yet, and this is a year where we’ll have players in and out of the team more so than usual, and this is Norris’ first season as a head coach in this league. I’m not ready to make judgements about what we’ve seen so far means for the rest of the season yet. Still, I’m excited to watch what we have going in the meantime.
3. The last 10 minutes (or: Sophia Smith)
As mentioned above, the Current came out of the gates swinging in the second half, and it was the first time this year—in the admittedly small sample size of two games—we’ve seen the Thorns stuck trying to simply keep their opponents from scoring. The important part here is that KC cut Portland’s lead in half, and the Thorns needed something to turn the momentum back in their favor.
That something—or, rather, someone—was, unsurprisingly, Smith, who’d already put away a Portland penalty in the first half. In the 83rd minute, Smith scored her first goal in the run of play, taking on four Current players on the dribble before sneaking a shot past Franch.
“Soph is just out there doing Soph things,” Dunn said in the postgame press conference. “I expect nothing less.”
Soph continued to do Soph things in the 88th minute, finding space at the top of the box and sending a low ball into the back of the net. “I was so shocked that I had more than two seconds to think about what I was going to do,” she said. “That was definitely new to me.”
Bonus: KC takes an L (or three)
Mostly I am still obsessed with the KC photoshop here, although I do think there should be three Smiths.
The Oregon Ducks take on the Washington State Cougars at Papé Field in Eugene, Oregon on October 28, 2021 (Isaac Wasserman/ Eric Evans Photography)
Goalkeeper Leah Freeman standing on her head and pulling out an explosive save to keep her team in a game became almost routine for the University of Oregon junior in her time in Eugene—even in a 2022 season that saw her miss games due to both COVID-19 and a red card suspension. Now, her collegiate career is entering a new era: In spite of a hip surgery in December 2022 to repair a torn labrum, Freeman has made the transfer to Duke University ahead of the 2023 college soccer season.
Moving across the country and working her way back onto the pitch is a tremendous change for anyone—especially for Freeman, who had never been to North Carolina before she signed with the team. But it’s been relatively smooth, all things considered, she says.
“It’s hard to be injured,” Freeman says. “It’s hard to come into a new environment injured. But I think everyone around me has done everything they can in their capabilities to make me feel comfortable and make me feel welcome.”
The transfer also puts Freeman in a position to compete for a national championship, as she joins a squad that made it to the quarterfinals of the 2022 NCAA Tournament.
“Leah is one of the top goalkeepers in the country,” Duke head coach Robbie Church said in a press release. “She is very good with her feet, is an excellent shot stopper and is good on crosses. Leah has been playing at a high level at Oregon and was one of the top goalkeepers in the Pac-12 over the last three years. She has tremendous experience and is going to be a really good addition to our goalkeeping core.”
Still, the loss of a starting keeper will hit the Ducks hard. “When we do the scout on Oregon before we play them, there’s a giant circle on Leah Freeman,” Cori Callahan, goalkeeper coach at University of California, Berkeley, told meduring the 2022 fall soccer season. Callahan coached Freeman when she was growing up. “She’s the catalyst for that team,” Callahan says.
Freeman, originally from Berkeley, California, was a stalwart on the Ducks backline and off the pitch. In her three seasons at the UO, she set the school record for career shutouts and holds the record for lowest goals against average in program history. She was recognized for her goalkeeping prowess on November 8, when she was named Pac-12 goalkeeper of the year—the first Duck to win the honor.
Growing up in Berkeley played a big role in that. Freeman was able to watch collegiate women’s soccer powerhouses in the Cal and Stanford teams throughout her childhood. “She just had this fire and this enthusiasm for the game,” Callahan says. “She wanted to be great.” And that drive, alongside Freeman’s natural instincts, made her “a joy” for Callahan to train.
“At the right times, she made the right leaps and bounds,” Callahan says, alluding to Freeman’s private training and, later, the jump she made to join an elite club team in Danville, California, despite the commute. And having supportive parents didn’t hurt either.
So, Freeman made her way to Oregon. “I visited in May,” she says. “It was beautiful. The sun was out, and everything was really green”—a contrast from the less-forested landscape she was used to in the Bay Area.
Although Freeman was the first in her recruiting class to commit to the UO, then-club teammate Megan Rucker wound up joining her. The two were roommates beginning freshman year and grew especially close after living through the pandemic together. Rucker, in her words, “would literally do anything for that woman, as she would do for me.”
Despite Freeman and Rucker’s freshman year aligning with the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the two came into the team in a landmark year for a Ducks soccer program that was going through a rough patch. Their first season was also the first under UO head coach Graeme Abel, who had previously served as an assistant and goalkeeper coach on the USWNT.
“That class coming in and him coming in really lit a fire under us and showed us that we do have what it takes,” fifth-year Ducks midfielder Zoe Hasenauer says. “We can compete with anyone we need to.”
The Ducks proved as much that year when they beat Stanford, a perennial superstar in women’s college soccer, 2-1 their 2020 season in Freeman’s third match of her collegiate career. That same year, UO beat Cal at Berkeley—a personal success for Freeman in her hometown—and tallied 2-0 and 1-0 victories over Oregon State.
Freeman and her former team grew together from there, putting up back-to-back winning seasons in 2020 and 2021 for the first time in 40 years.
The Oregon Ducks take on the Washington State Cougars at Papé Field in Eugene, Oregon on October 28, 2021 (Isaac Wasserman/ Eric Evans Photography)
For Freeman, that development has also shown up in the expansion of her vocabulary.
As a Berkeley native, she’s used to the nearest water being the ocean, rather than the rivers and lakes she explores in the Pacific Northwest. “I’m not used to not being by a body of water,” she says, “and so I called the river and the lake the ocean for my first two years.” At Duke, she’ll be back to the ocean, but it will be to the east, not the west.
The growth is also apparent in her maturity as a player. She’d get stuck in her head as a freshman, she says, and wouldn’t necessarily know how to get out of that mindset.
It was advice from Coach Abel that broke her out of it. “The message was that fish have six-second memories,” Freeman says. Abel told her to have the memory of a fish.
“When you make a mistake, you have to have a six-second memory,” she says. “You have to forget about it because another play is going to happen.”
Freeman says she’d also gotten more fit since coming to the UO and grown more comfortable speaking up—on and off the field. “As a goalkeeper, you see everything,” she says. It was tricky for her to call things out to her defenders at first, though, especially playing behind veterans like Croix Soto and the now-graduated Mia Palmer.
“They wanted me to talk to them,” Freeman says, “and they were able to give me the confidence in my voice to actually speak up.”
At games, Freeman’s calls of “man”—signaling the approach of an opposing player to her teammate who has the ball — and directions to organize her defense cut through the cheering in the stands. Even when the clock isn’t running, she’s there taking a knee for the national anthem—a nod to Colin Kaepernick’s protest to draw attention to systemic racism and police brutality—or checking in with her teammates.
Abel sees Freeman’s growth as a huge asset to the team as a whole. “She’s gone from being a goalkeeper to being able to be a game-winner,” he says. “She has those big moments. The big players with big personalities have big moments.”
But Rucker says you wouldn’t even know Freeman plays soccer if you talked to her. “She’s so humble about it,” Rucker says, “and will try her hardest to make sure other people around her are getting the recognition as well, even though she should be getting a lot of credit for how far this program has come.”
And those across the country are taking note. Ahead of the 2022 season, Freeman was placed on Mac Hermann trophy watch list, an award given to the country’s best men’s and women’s Division I soccer players each year. She’s made various all Pac-12 teams, joined the U.S. U-20 Women’s National Team for camps in December 2021 and May 2022 and had the opportunity to train with the National Women’s Soccer League’s Kansas City Current the summer before her junior season.
Abel says she excelled in the Current’s environment. Freeman relished the chance to experience a week of day-to-day life as a professional athlete—and to explore Kansas City alongside former UO midfielder Chardonnay Curran, who was in her rookie season with the Current. Gaining mentorship from players like U.S.Women’s National Team goalkeeper AD Franch was invaluable, Freeman says, as well as understanding the little areas where she’ll have to grow her game to make the jump to the next level. For Abel, that means looking at the areas where a goalkeeper could be exposed in a faster-paced environment, like points to decision making and “being a little bit more advanced with your feet.”
“I knew I wanted to play soccer,” Freeman says, “but I never knew what it was going to be like. Being in that environment showed me that’s something I know I will be able to do. I will be able to get to that level if I put in the work.”
Beyond making that jump, Freeman says she wants to continue to grow as a goalkeeper and learn as much as she can from her political science classes. Although the last of these is a relatively new aspiration—Freeman says she wasn’t super invested in academics until college—the first two targets reflect ambitions she’s had for much of her life.
Freeman’s proven her abilities as a goalkeeper, Callahan says, but “she’s just as incredible of a human being off the field.”
That off-the field personality shows up in Rucker’s friendship with Freeman. “She has been my biggest support system,” Rucker says. “I literally would not be alive if it wasn’t for this girl.”
Freeman has been an irreplaceable presence in Rucker’s life—and for her teammates on the field. But now Freeman has new challenges ahead of her: recovering from an offseason hip surgery, moving across the country and filling the shoes of graduating Duke goalkeeper Ruthie Jones, who helped her team to a sixth-place NCAA regular season ranking and all the way to the quarterfinals in the postseason tournament.
“It’s a change and a new beginning,” Freeman says, “and I’m so excited for that new beginning.”
This story was originally written as a profile for Eugene Weekly in fall 2022, but it never ran, as Freeman transferred before its publication.
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