Author: Katelyn Best

Katelyn Best writes about the Thorns and the NWSL, among other things. She is the reigning taco champion of the North American women’s soccer circuit.

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Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Washington Spirit 0

Photo by Kris Lattimore

The Thorns put together a convincing 1–0 win against Washington yesterday to close out the Olympic period seven points clear at the top of the table. Portland earned 16 of a possible 18 points since Christine Sinclair and the USWNT cohort left for Tokyo, only dropping one result in a draw against Gotham.

The game-winner, a sweet header that Simone Charley bounced in off the bottom of the crossbar, was assisted by a gorgeous cross from Olivia Moultrie, who is famously only 15 years old. Moultrie only played 45 minutes—Mark Parsons said after the game that the team is ramping up her minutes gradually—but it was her most impressive outing yet. In contrast to previous games, where many of her minutes have been in garbage time, here she helped set the tone playing a key position in what would turn out to be a calm, competent win.

The Thorns had a numerical advantage in the midfield, with four players there to the Spirit’s three, which Washington tried to neutralize a few ways. First, they were selective about which of the four they left unmarked. Most often this was Angela Salem, the deepest-lying midfielder (though occasionally Rodríguez and Salem would be swapped). Instead of marking her tightly, center forward Ashley Sanchez used careful positioning to cut Salem off as a passing option from the Thorns defense.

When Salem did get the ball, oftentimes Washington would actively drop away from her, preferring to get into a defensive shape rather than trying to win the ball or even force a particular pass. As a result, Salem had the most touches—about .75 per minute—she’s had in any of the last four games, as well as the most attempted passes and the second-highest passing accuracy, at 85.4%.

Leaving Salem largely alone meant players were always available to tightly guard Rocky Rodríguez, Celeste Boureille, and Moultrie, and accordingly, the Thorns found little joy playing through the middle. The Spirit were also selective in marking Meghan Klingenberg and Christen Westphal: they were allowed to send an aimless long ball up the flank, or pass back to the center backs, but were consistently blocked from more targeted forward passes. When they tried to link up with a midfielder, wingers Trinity Rodman or Ashley Hatch would close them down aggressively.

Finally, Washington defended pretty compactly, both horizontally and vertically. That often had the effect of encouraging hopeful long balls, and it also sometimes stretched the Thorns’ back line, as the Spirit would keep dropping as the center backs advanced, and Kling and Westphal pushed higher and higher into the space they were given:

A screenshot showing Washington in their defensive shape, with Kelli Hubly, who is carrying the ball, being left open.

Portland’s defense isn’t egregiously out of shape here, but you can see both Kling and Westphal advancing up the wings, with Kelli Hubly being given few passing options. Five minutes after this, the Spirit came within inches of scoring—stopped only by Westphal’s heroic save off the line—after Menges took a hard touch and gave up the ball with the two outside backs in an even more attacking posture.

So, how did the Thorns manage to score? Moultrie’s impressive crossing ability aside, I would like to call attention to how she positioned herself on the play leading up to it. In the shot below, the problem Washington is about to have is quite clear: with left back Anna Heilferty tracking Simone Charley, Moultrie has a big ol’ space in front of her. Here Boureille has just passed to Emily Menges, who will find Moultrie as she runs into that space.

A screenshot showing Olivia Moultrie unmarked on the right wing, with a large space in front of her, as Celeste Boureille is passing the ball from the midfield back to Emily Mentes.

This was well read by the teen, who found a way to leverage the Spirit’s defensive strategy against them. While Moultrie was generally closely watched by Andi Sullivan while in that central pocket in front of the Spirit’s back line, here she’s figured out that if she drifts wide, the Washington midfield loses track of her, with Tori Huster, Dorian Bailey, and Sullivan worrying about Rodríguez, Boureille, and Salem, respectively.

Just after this screenshot, Hatch could tell what was about to happen—she pointed back toward Moultrie—but she seems to have been torn between dropping back to pick up Moultrie and continuing to watch Westphal, as she was asked to do throughout the game.

Charley also played a key role in setting this up, as she dragged Heilferty inside to open up that space on the right. This isn’t flashy stuff, just a well-worked play that found a weakness in Washington’s defensive setup.

Outside of the near miss in the first half, Portland also defended well, and Washington struggled to find many chances. Overall, this was the most decisive performance yet over the full 90 minutes by this junior Thorns team.

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Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 2, Pride 1

Photo by Kris Lattimore

The Thorns bested the Orlando Pride 2–1 on Sunday in a dominant performance capped off with a headed goal by Marissa Everett and a wondergoal by Sophia Smith. Marisa Viggiano’s freakish (in a good way) strike in second-half stoppage time capped the scoring off.

After the game, Mark Parsons pointed out that initially, Orlando stayed compact centrally and tried to keep the Thorns confined to wide areas. Forwards Crystal Thomas and Taylor Kornieck would drop down in the half spaces to help defend, but the Pride generally didn’t try to win the ball back there, instead aiming to keep Portland from passing into the center of the field. Here Kelli Hubly has just received the ball from Meghan Klingenberg. With Thomas and Kornieck flanking Meggie Dougherty Howard, the Pride have blocked off all the passing lanes toward the center.

A screenshot that shows Kelli Hubly with the ball on the left wing, with Crystal Thomas and Taylor Kornieck dropped deep to help Meggie Dougherty Howard defend.

Orlando did, however, let Portland switch the ball to the weak side. Just after the shot above, Hubly will send a long pass to Natalia Kuikka. The Pride generally didn’t attack the ball when Kuikka or Kling had it.

Because they weren’t challenged much out wide, Kuikka and Kling had a lot of time and space to create from those areas, either sending in crosses or combining with teammates who over- or underlapped them. They ended the game with 89 and 91 touches, respectively, and 51 and 59 passes. That’s around 20 more touches and ten more passes than each of them had last week against Gotham.

In the second half, Marc Skinner reorganized, benching midfielder Erika Tymrak, moving Syd Leroux to the wing, and bringing on forward Abi Kim to play in a 4-4-2 alongside Kornieck. Now the Pride did attack the ball on the wing, including when Kuikka and Kling were carrying it, but they tended to send only one player at a time to do so. That often meant that the two outside backs, who are both strong dribblers, simply bypassed the pressure and found a central pass.

I wrote in my last recap that one of the Thorns’ strengths is the consistency in the way they play each game, especially on the defensive side. They do try to win the ball on the wing (a subject for another post), and are often successful, presumably because the whole team has drilled that trap over and over again.

I’m not sure how you can expect to switch defensive strategies mid-game like Orlando did against a team that specifically does not do that and have things go well—especially, to be frank, given that the Thorns have better players! Outside backs Kylie Strom and Courtney Petersen both got beaten wide by the likes of Morgan Weaver, Smith, and the two outside backs multiple times, outclassed both skill-wise and physically, and looked very frustrated by the end of the first half.

To rewind a bit, when the Thorns don’t succeed in winning the ball on the wing, they know where they’re supposed to run after, and they all do it very quickly—again, presumably because they’ve practiced it a lot.

That’s another problem Orlando had: Portland got a number of good chances on transition simply because the Pride didn’t seem to think of that possibility and didn’t respond fast enough. The setup to Smith’s gorgeous strike is one example of this.

Below, center back Ali Krieger is winding up to take a free kick. Midfielder Dougherty Howard is open, but Krieger—maybe preemptively wary of Smith and Everett pressuring Dougherty Howard from behind?—is going to pass to Petersen, pushed out of frame up on the left wing, where the arrow points.

Right center back Ali Krieger is about to take a long free kick from Orlando's defensive half. An arrow indicates that Orlando left back Courtney Peterson is pushed far up the left wing, out of frame, leaving a wide gap on Portland's right.

This one is blurry, so I circled the ball. It wasn’t a good kick, so it’s falling in the direction of the arrow, to the feet of Rocky Rodríguez, not Petersen. It’s hard to tell in the screenshot, but Smith is anticipating where Rodríguez will pass: ahead of her run, into the massive Orlando-free space that’s there because five of the team’s outfield players were just pushing toward goal.Portland's defensive half is shown. The ball, which is in midair, is circled, with an arrow indicating its trajectory. It is falling toward Rocky Rodriguez.

Rodríguez indeed passes there—with a clever first-touch tap—and Smith is basically free and clear to sprint up Portland’s right wing. Petersen chases her, getting in a shove from behind at one point, but Smith keeps running, stays outside Orlando’s stranded center backs, and fires off a sweet right-footed strike from the top of the 18.

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Soccer Thorns

Thorns 2, Louisville 0: Takeaways: Stream of Consciousness Edition

Photo by Nikita Taparia

The Thorns earned a comfortable if unspectacular three points on the road today against Racing Louisville FC. With much of the starting lineup away with the US and Canadian national teams to prepare for the Olympics, we saw a return to a B-side Thorns lineup that we’ve gotten pretty familiar with by now.

So far we’ve always done these recaps in a list format, but I don’t feel like doing that tonight, so I’m just going to let this one ~flow~.

Something I find interesting about this iteration of the Thorns is the consistency of tactics from game to game, regardless of lineup or opponent. It’s not like they don’t adjust at all, but they’ve played the same formation since the 2020 Challenge Cup, and their defensive strategy, especially, is very consistent regardless of who’s on the field. This hasn’t always been Mark Parsons’s approach; the first few years I covered the team saw them deploy multiple shapes in each season and use pressing systems that changed depending on player availability.

What’s remarkable about this on the defensive side is that in the past, when the back line wasn’t consistent—often the case when Emily Sonnett and Ellie Carpenter were in and out of national team camps and players like Emily Menges and Meghan Klingenberg dealt with injuries—its performance suffered. But this season has already seen at least as much defensive turnover as any past Parsons season (I think it’s more, but I’m not going to dig up my 2017–2018 notebook to check, sorry), and the team has the third fewest goals allowed in the league, behind North Carolina and the ungodly lucky Gotham FC.

I’m… not sure why that is. It might be as simple as “the team has a lot of depth,” which they do. But it feels like there’s more than that—the press is so organized and effective, and the team’s quality in that area changes basically not at all, regardless of lineup.

Anyway, back to today: we did see some changes, importantly with Celeste Boureille and Marissa Everett slotting in for Lindsey Horan and Christine Sinclair. With Crystal Dunn also out, Rocky Rodríguez and Angela Salem both started, where they’ve been tagging in for each other. Those changes did make a difference offensively; there’s simply no replacing the creative genius those players provide, and the Thorns spent most of their attacking energy moving up the wings, and quite a bit of it sending in aimless crosses. On that point, though, it also has to be said that Louisville did well to stay compact centrally and force the Thorns wide. They didn’t press high, and once they dropped into their defensive block, Portland wasn’t able to break them down.

The Thorns’ distribution actions against Louisville (attacking toward the top). I am so sorry about the absolutely godawful quality, but the website only works for me on mobile now. Hopefully you can see my point, which is the little pocket around the 18 where there’s not much going on. Also note the number of crosses, and their redness.

On the other hand—and this brings me back to my earlier point about the defense—Boureille did a bang-up job defensively, notching three tackles and running the length of the field, Horan-like, throughout the 90 minutes. Angela Salem, as always, was a bulldog, shutting down the handful of Louisville attacks that made their way into Portland’s defensive third, and ending the game with four chances created.

The Everett-Sinc difference is even bigger, and probably represents the biggest change in what the team is capable of going forward. Everett does the hard defensive work well, and she managed to get into the box at the right moment a number of times, but she is simply not Christine Sinclair, OC, and she’s not the same kind of link between the midfield and the forwards as the captain is.

So in short, where the full Thorns team can score any number of ways, this lineup was more or less limited to a subset of that toolbox: set pieces, balls over the top, and quick transition plays. They had a few decent looks on transition in the first half, but ultimately either lacked precision in finishing or hesitated too long and couldn’t move the ball fast enough through the final third.

But the goals came anyway, the first from a confidently shot Rocky Rodríguez penalty (after she was fouled off a corner kick), and the second when Simone Charley found the end of a sweet lofted pass by Menges (after a corner kick Kling took short), marking the defender’s first-ever Thorns assist.

The game had been all but over for a while by the time the thing this game will be remembered for happened. Fifteen-year-old Olivia Moultrie usurped Ellie Carpenter as the youngest-ever player to get minutes in an NWSL game when she subbed in for Salem after 83 minutes. And after all the noise around whether she should be allowed to sign a professional contract, the lawsuit, the media blitz, the numberless tweets—perhaps unsurprisingly, she was fine. She didn’t stand out as great, but she didn’t get bodied, either. She won the ball a couple times, lost it a couple, made some passes. Pretty standard stuff for a late-game sub, which is very impressive given her age.

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Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 3, Racing Louisville 0

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns coasted to a confident 3–0 win against Racing Louisville last night on the strength of goals by Angela Salem (!!!), Rocky Rodríguez, and Lindsey Horan. Although Louisville struggled to put together much of an attack, it was one of Portland’s most complete performances all year. Even with Christine Sinclair unavailable, their usual game plan worked exactly the way it was supposed to, and just as important, the gals showed progress against their perennial bugbear of ludicrously unlucky finishing.

1. The press, perfected

On the defensive side of the ball, Portland’s press clicked last night better than it has all season, barring maybe the 5–0 Red Stars blowout. They didn’t do anything new, they just looked extremely well-organized at the same scheme they’ve been implementing all season.

In broad strokes, the Thorns’ pressing strategy in the defensive phase consists of encouraging their opponent to move wide, cutting off options into the center of the field, and trapping them on the wings. Here’s an example of how that worked last night:

As Tony points out, most players aren’t pressing the ball here, but constricting the space and limiting Louisville’s options when it comes to passing centrally. After chasing the ball to outside back Emily Fox on the left wing, Fox only has one option, which is to pass backwards to center back Kaleigh Riehl. Riehl, in turn, has no options going forward and has to throw the ball away.

The Thorns also deployed a suffocating counter-press that bore fruit several times—including a moment that led indirectly to Salem’s opening goal in the eighth minute.

The Thorns have just lost possession here, but—because of Rodríguez, Weaver, and Horan cutting off passing lanes, and Simone Charley hovering near Fox—Louisville midfielder Freja Olofsson has nowhere to pass but straight back:

Riehl receives the pass, but quickly gets hemmed in herself, as Weaver and Charley both charge toward her, and Rodríguez and Dunn mark Olofsson and Fox, respectively, eliminating them both as options:

Dunn and Rodríguez close in and, with no remaining choice besides booting the ball to the moon, Riehl dribbles straight into the trap the four Thorns players have created:

From here, Weaver strips the ball off Riehl, dribbles a few yards to the left, and takes a powerful shot that bounces off a Louisville defender for a Thorns corner. Racing is sloppy clearing the ball on Kling’s initial service, and it eventually falls to Salem, who scores.

2. The midfield balanced structure and fluidity

The midfield last night consisted of Salem, Rodríguez, Horan, and Dunn, who slotted in for Christine Sinclair as the captain had already departed for the international break. The beautiful thing about this group is that Dunn, Rodríguez, and Horan can all play any central midfield role, so what we saw was quite a bit of fluidity among the group. Dunn, nominally the No. 10, would drop deep fairly often, with Horan and Rodríguez often making runs into the box ahead of her. Salem, the No. 6, had the most restricted role, but still roamed quite a bit.

Heat maps for Dunn (left) and Salem (right) are below:

Data from Wyscout, courtesy of NWSL Analitica

It’s clear which player is which. Salem, the No. 6, has more actions in Portland’s defensive half (of course, Portland spent most of their time attacking, so no one did a ton back there), while Dunn hung out a lot in the space between Louisville’s midfield and defense, as well as getting into the box. But there’s also non-negligible overlap between the two players; Dunn dropped deeper at times, and Salem also got forward into that same pocket outside the 18.

After the game, Salem noted that the midfield “felt really fluid” and explained the group has been working on their organization, saying, “Sometimes with [our] midfield, we’re not always balanced, because we have such an attacking mindset in there. The focus has really been on just creating balance and holding space and staying disciplined. I think the midfielders all did that tonight.”

Here are the two No. 8s, Horan (left) and Rodríguez (right):

Data from Wyscout, courtesy of NWSL Analitica

These two have a little less freedom than Dunn, but only horizontally, as each of them mostly sticks to one side of the field. Vertically, they both spend significant time in both halves of the field.

Like the team’s press, none of this is new—what I wrote above is the definition of a box-to-box midfielder—but last night, it all snapped into place in a new way, with everyone choosing their moments to get forward while staying attuned to the movements of the other three and ensuring they weren’t leaving areas of empty space. Salem is the holding mid, but all three of the others could be seen playing deeper than her at times. This is what you get when you put together three players who are all among the best in the world at their preferred position, and almost as good at a handful of others, and give them a few months to train together.

One other thing I want to point out from those heat maps: Horan? She does a lot! We all know this, but even if you know it, she does more than you probably realize.

3. Some numbers

This was another very lopsided match: The Thorns registered 28 shots to Louisville’s 4, putting 12 on frame. Louisville had zero shots on target.

As dire as Racing’s offense was, however, it’s also worth noting that defensively, they put up more of a fight than Chicago in their big loss, or the Reign in their Challenge Cup match. Obviously, they didn’t succeed in stopping Portland’s attack, but there was visible organization in their press, so it’s not like they rolled out the welcome mat for the Thorns. In the first half, they won 25 duels to the Thorns’ 17. That dropped to 23 and 26, respectively, in the second half, likely as Louisville’s arduous journey to Portland caught up with them.

Finally, Portland significantly out-possessed and out-passed their opponents: 59.6% to 41.4%, and 517 to 375 total passes, respectively. As with the duel numbers, the second half was substantially more lopsided in both respects.

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Soccer Thorns

Exclusive Interview: Madison Pogarch

Photo by Lucas Muller
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Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Portland 5, Chicago 0

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns finally put it all together yesterday. In a 5–0 dismantling of the Red Stars, the moments of disconnect and bad luck that had kept Portland from dominating throughout the Challenge Cup fell away, and the girls in (black and) red looked like the fully armed and operational battle station we’ve been waiting for.

Sophia Smith scored a brace, though I’d argue she scored two and a half, as it was her powerful shot that deflected into the net off Tierna Davidson. A Christine Sinclair penalty and a right-place, right-time finish by Tyler Lussi—who pounced when Alyssa Naeher fumbled a save—closed out the scoring.

Read on for some of my takeaways from the weekend:

1. Reversion (progression?) to the mean

This was clearly Portland’s best performance to date, but it didn’t represent a huge leap in quality as much as it did all the pieces finally falling into place. We all knew the Thorns were good; that they hadn’t been this good before Sunday really does look like a combination of bad luck and insufficient time training as a full squad. These goals were always coming. It was only a question of which unlucky opponent they’d get unloaded on.

To review some numbers: the Thorns posted more than 20 shots in two of their five Challenge Cup games, including 26 in the final and 29, a club record, against the Reign. They ended Sunday’s game with 22, including 10 on target and 18 from inside the box.

Look at the xG for the 1–1 Challenge Cup final and the 5–0 regular season opener, and you may notice some similarities:

A lot of the chances that went wasted against Tacoma and Gotham came down to bad luck—Sophia Smith, in particular, looked totally snakebit last weekend—but yesterday, the team also solved a lot of the little miscommunications and disconnects that have shown up in previous games.

“We got everyone up to speed,” said Mark Parsons after the game. “What we saw today happened just before the FIFA [international] players broke off. We were playing like this for a couple weeks. Everyone returned, and what are we on now? Week three, week four? Around the same time the understanding became, rather than people thinking about what we need to do, it’s more subconscious and they’re just doing and having fun.”

2. The midfield had plenty of time and space

The Red Stars changed things up for Sunday and lined up in a 4-3-3, I assume because they were short a midfielder with Morgan Gautrat unavailable. This proved to be a mistake.

To start with, there’s an obvious numerical imbalance in the midfield, with Portland lining up in their usual diamond shape: Chicago’s No. 10, Vanessa DiBernardo, was largely tasked with marking Rocky Rodríguez, while Danielle Colaprico and Julie Ertz rotated between Christine Sinclair, Lindsey Horan, and Crystal Dunn. (When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound good for the Red Stars, does it?) Chicago’s wingers would sometimes help with Portland’s No. 8s, but since they were also responsible for Christen Westphal and Meghan Klingenberg, that always left either Dunn or Horan unmarked.

Still, with a sufficiently organized press, all that can be okay. Except the Red Stars’ press was not organized. This is just before Kling drew the penalty that led to Portland’s second goal:

The defensive disorganization is obvious: Dunn looks to have at least four passes available at this moment. Just before this, Ertz did succeed in forcing Rocky to pass backwards. On the other hand, DiBernardo has gotten lost, caught in the open because she wasn’t sure whether to press the back line or cut off a passing lane, and Colaprico has been caught ball-chasing and left Sinc open. In other words, not only are the Red Stars outnumbered in the center of the field, they aren’t effective in using the numbers they do have.

Making matters even worse, the mismatch wasn’t just numerical, but personnel-related, at many positions. Rocky turned DiBernardo a number of times, Christen Westphal handled Kealia Watt with ease, and Smith and Morgan Weaver stretched Chicago’s back line like taffy.

3. Portland shredded the Red Stars in transition

Speaking of which, two goals yesterday—and a handful of good chances—came from quick attacks in transition, either off counterattacks originating in the Thorns’ defensive third or from fast restarts by AD Franch. Smith and Weaver looked unstoppable, with Weaver sprinting at the back line to receive a long pass and Smith making the second run behind her. Franch’s distribution, not just fast but pinpoint accurate, is also to be lauded here.

This was another area where Chicago’s disorganization, and eventually (understandably!), a palpable sense of defeat, undid them. In the sequence leading to Smith’s second goal, three of the Red Stars’ defenders are sprinting shoulder-to-shoulder toward their goal after her. Then Arin Wright tries to hold Smith offside in what looks like a spur-of-the-moment decision—and ironically, Wright is herself the one keeping Smith onside, albeit just barely:

It’s a small moment, but it feels emblematic of how far out of step Chicago was throughout the game.

In short, we shouldn’t expect Portland to be this dominant in every game—but we did get a good look at the tools that are available when the squad is at full strength.

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Soccer Thorns

Four Takeaways: Portland 2, Tacoma 0

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns earned their third victory of the Challenge Cup last night, a 2–0 win over OL Reign, which clinched their spot in the championship on May 8. A beautiful free kick by Lindsey Horan in the 17th minute and a weird chaos goal by Simone Charley early in the second half were the difference between the two teams. Here are a few of my takeaways from the match:

1. “I hope [my rose] never dies” -Crystal Alyssia Dunn Soubrier

Crystal Dunn made her long-awaited Thorns debut last night, and as promised, she’s getting a lot of freedom to roam and create. On paper, she slotted in at the No. 8 in the midfield diamond, but she played that role a little differently from how Rocky Rodríguez has been handling it. She was very much still in a box-to-box role, but tended to sit higher up the field in the attack, often swapping places with Christine Sinclair as she found space between the Reign’s lines.

We’ve been misled a little—Merritt Paulson said at least once Dunn would be playing at forward—but I love her in this position, especially since it lets both Sophia Smith and Simone Charley fit in the lineup. Mark Parsons’s attitude toward this role seems not unlike how he outlined Tobin Heath’s job; in short, get her the ball in possession and let her figure it out.

At times, Dunn, Smith, and Horan looked to not quite be on the same page as each other and the rest of the team, but that’s understandable given how little training time they’ve gotten since the international window ended.

2. The Reign didn’t really show up

The team formerly known as the Seattle Reign put up a pretty lackluster opposition last night. For a lot of the first half, they struggled to defend in an organized way, often giving the Thorns too much time and space, not choosing the right moments to press, and leaving players unmarked and passing lanes open. I am struck by this image of all of Becky Sauerbrunn’s passes, which shows how content the Reign were to let her make one particular entry pass into the final third over and over:

A map showing Becky Sauerbrunn's passes

When the Reign did apply pressure, they often focused on Lindsey Horan, and they did succeed in turning her back towards her defense a number of times. At other moments, though, she either broke through the pressure or combined with Sinclair or Dunn to keep moving the ball forward. On top of those players’ individual skill, Portland often had an overload in the midfield, with Natalia Kuikka and Meghan Klingenberg pushing forward and Smith dropping back.

The Thorns also found a number of chances on good old-fashioned balls over the top, as Sauerbrunn and Kelli Hubly were both given as much time as they wanted throughout the first half. Again, sometimes that didn’t matter—Hubly hit a few that were pretty aimless—but with Charley’s speed and dribbling ability up top, that route is a real threat for the Thorns.

The Reign switched on more in the second half, especially once Jess Fishlock and Megan Rapinoe came on. Those two players both looked to have some ideas going forward, and Fishlock in particular (no surprises here) provided defensive grit the midfield had mostly lacked. Nevertheless, Tacoma’s back line kept making weird errors, and their offense was unlucky on the handful of chances they put together.

3. Um?

Sort of a subsection to the last one: I don’t want to take anything away from Lindsey Horan’s free kick, which was gorgeous, but it’s not hard to see what’s about to happen here. I’m not sure why the Reign were set up like this:

A screenshot showing Lindsey Horan lining up a free kick, with an arrow showing the path the ball will take

4. Some highlights from the stats

Like they did against Kansas City, Portland significantly out-passed the Reign, with 79.5% accuracy at full time against their opponents’ 71.3%. Six Thorns starters completed at least 80% of their passes, led by Kuikka at 86.2%.

Charley had a record-breaking night:

And most remarkably, the Thorns as a group broke their record for most shots in a competitive match:

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Three Takeaways: Portland 2, Kansas City 1

Photo by Kris Lattimore

The Thorns kicked off their 2021 Challenge Cup last night with a 2–1 win against the nameless team from Kansas City, thanks to goals by Rocky Rodríguez and Tyler Lussi. What was mostly a routine and successful first game by a Portland team missing a number of players to international duty and injury turned sour toward the end. Danielle Chesky issued a record-setting four red cards, one to Mark Parsons, and a mass scuffle broke out between the two teams. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Things started well and were mostly normal

Up until the last three minutes of this game (more on that later), it really felt like the story was going to be that this was a solid first outing for a short-staffed Thorns side against a brand-new Kansas City team that looked to still be finding their feet and struggled to dictate the game.

The Thorns started a few players in new positions—Rodríguez at the No. 6, Marissa Everett at the No. 10, and most delightfully, Kling at the No. 8 (again, more on that later)—but stuck with the 4-4-2 diamond from last season and deployed a game plan we’re used to seeing. They mostly defended well, working to keep KC out of the center of the field and looking to trap them on the wings. Offensively, they found success on set pieces and through direct attacks in transition, as well as using combinations between Kling, Rodríguez, and the overlapping runs of Madison Pogarch and Christen Westphal to break lines of pressure and get into dangerous areas.

Kansas City, meanwhile, often looked to trap Portland centrally. It sometimes worked, but more often ended either in a foul or with Kling or Rodríguez breaking the pressure and sending the ball into empty space between KC’s midfield and back line. In the second half, the visitors started to find more success defensively—while Portland’s defensive structure sometimes broke down—but the Thorns held on for the win despite a second-half goal by Amy Rodriguez shortly after Portland’s second. At the end of the game, one stat painted a clear picture of the gap between the two teams: Kansas City had just one player with a passing accuracy of 80% or higher, center back Rachel Corsie, while Portland had five, including Rodríguez.

All in all, it was a strong debut for Portland—not without some miscommunications and errors, but fewer than we might expect in a more normal year.

2. Meghan Klingenberg had a big day

Much of the Thorns’ offense last night went through Kling, who translated her status as a leader in the locker room into a shift as team captain—playing in central midfield!

I never would have anticipated this move from Mark Parsons, but as the game played out, it made sense. For one thing, Kling has always been an attacking-minded player, both as an outside back and at UNC, where she did shifts on all three lines. In addition, this Thorns formation involves the two No. 8s spending a lot of time out wide, something that added a new wrinkle to Lindsey Horan’s play last year. In that sense, her role last night shared similarities with her usual spot at left back: she linked up with Po to create wide overloads, sent in crosses, and defended the wing.

But she also did some things I’ve never seen her do with my own eyes. She dribbled and passed through the center of the field, broke through pressure from Kansas City, and worked to set up chances centrally. She looked confident under pressure and set a lot of Portland’s attacks in motion. It was strange to watch, like seeing your school librarian at the grocery store, but also very fun and on the whole pretty successful. When I asked her about it after the game, she had this to say:

“Well, Katelyn Best, I think that, you know, that happens to me all the time in practice, and now everybody just gets to see it in the game [laughs] You know, in rondos and all these different things, I’m asked to handle pressure from all sides… I’ve been asking for years to play in the [No.] 10—give me a shot, give me a chance, Mark, give me a tryout! And I finally got one, so hopefully I lived up to the tryout… I think last time, I talked to Anson [Dorrance] this morning because it’s his birthday. And I told him that I was going to be playing in the [No.] 8 and he’s like, ‘oh, you’ll be fine. You played there for for us in college.’ So it made me feel better about it.”

3. Uhhhhhh

After a mostly straightforward 89 minutes, things got weird. There’s no need for me to rehash what we all saw, but I do want to say that multiple things can be true, and these are some things I believe to be true:

  1. Danielle Chesky has a bad reputation for a reason; she’s already officiated games that turned ugly, she missed a number of clear calls in this one, and she probably should not be working at this level anymore. The quality of refereeing in the women’s game is a real issue and reflects a disparity with men’s soccer.
  2. Morgan Weaver deserved a yellow. She clearly wrapped her arm around Kristen Edmonds’s waist, which seemed to be what caused them to both fall down. She then very clearly shoved Edmonds. That’s not nothing! Obviously Edmonds escalated and deserved to see red for that, but it defies reason to say Weaver did nothing wrong.
  3. We’ve all been guilty of using language that seems innocuous to us, but might be loaded for other groups for reasons we don’t see in the moment. It’s a crucial skill for those of us with privilege—whether that’s based on race, gender, orientation, whatever—to be able to listen to marginalized people and admit when we made a mistake.
Categories
Not Soccer

Opinion: PTFC Partnership with the Portland Business Alliance Is Hypocritical

Earlier this week, the PTFC front office released a combined Timbers and Thorns scarf with a heart pattern and the words “here for Portland” on each side. It’s a cute design, and plenty of fans will probably buy it, especially since a portion of proceeds will go to support local small businesses. But the scarf isn’t just PTFC merch—the team designed it in collaboration with the Portland Business Alliance, the powerful business advocacy group whose board of directors is chaired by Timbers President of Business Operations Mike Golub.

As many readers are aware, the PBA has a long history of taking positions on important issues that place it at odds with PTFC’s loudly progressive fanbase. Worse still, some of the causes the PBA has championed directly conflict with the club’s stated values.

Climate Crisis

The area of most naked hypocrisy when it comes to PTFC’s partnership with the PBA is the issue of climate change. The club lists the environment as a focus area of “Stand Together,” its philanthropic arm. It notes that its “Score a Goal, Plant a Tree” program, a laudable partnership with Friends of Trees, has resulted in the capture of 171,120 pounds of carbon dioxide since 2011. Providence Park’s 2019 expansion received a LEED gold certification. Merritt Paulson has talked about his concern about climate change multiple times, in one tweet calling it “the defining global human issue of our time”—a stance I agree with.

Yet in this context, the club’s public alignment with the PBA is troubling. The business group has historically opposed local and regional legislation aimed at curbing climate change. In 2018, the group sent a letter to a federal regulatory agency indicating their membership’s support for the proposed Jordan Cove liquefied natural gas terminal.

That project, which is still sitting in regulatory purgatory, would involve a “100-foot-wide swath of slashed-and-burned, chemically maintained, plantless dirt (2,000 acres) from Malin to Coos Bay and trespasses over the lands of hundreds of private property owners without their consent,” according to Street Roots. It would also pass under 400 streams and five rivers, using horizontal drilling, a technique that can leach drilling fluids into waterways. The terminal is also located in a liquefaction zone, which will turn into quicksand in the event of a major earthquake; a leak would be enormously destructive to oyster farms and fisheries. And this project is an export terminal, meaning that the gas—produced by hydraulic fracking, which is a nightmare all its own—wouldn’t even be put to use by Oregon businesses.

In 2018, the PBA opposed Measure 26-201, the Portland Clean Energy Initiative, which proposed “a one percent business license surcharge from businesses that make at least $1 billion annually, and use it to fund environmentally friendly projects like weatherizing homes, training people for green jobs, and upping the city’s use of clean energy,” according to the Portland Mercury (the measure passed). The group physically locked its office doors to avoid talking to three faith leaders who wanted to deliver a letter urging them to drop their opposition to the measure, rather absurdly citing staff safety concerns.

And in 2017, the PBA successfully sued the city over a local ordinance restricting the construction of facilities for the transfer or storage of fossil fuels. The city later appealed the decision and won.

Housing

If the club has been less vocal about the housing crisis, this is no doubt still an issue of concern for many fans. Portland, like other west coast cities, has a housing shortage of staggering proportions. One study from PSU found that “in a one-year period, nearly 40,000 people in greater Portland experienced an episode of homelessness and 105,000 households faced housing insecurity.” This is Portland’s most visible issue, and its most urgent. It is a human rights disaster, and it should be the shame of every city government for the last 20 years that a solution has not been found. It should also be said that since homelessness affects Black Portlanders disproportionately, this is also a race issue—and the club has made a visible effort on that front.

The PBA, like other Portlanders, professes concern about homelessness, but that concern has generally emphasized the unsightliness of homeless encampments and their supposed impact on business, favoring camp sweeps as part of the solution to homelessness.

In one incident, they pushed the city to crack down on a group serving free meals at Director Park—which they referred to as “feeds” in communications with parks employees—on the basis they did not have a permit to do so.

But most visibly, the PBA runs Clean & Safe, a taxpayer-funded organization that picks up trash downtown and, less innocuously, pays an armed private security force to patrol the area and keep houseless people away from business entrances. Those security guards, according to the Mercury, seem to be completely unaccountable to the public. Even the Portland Police Bureau has a process for reporting officer misconduct; the security staff on Clean & Safe’s payroll are supposedly accountable to the police commissioner (Mayor Ted Wheeler), but an audit “finds no evidence that this has ever happened.”

As the Willamette Week reported earlier this year, even some downtown business owners are unhappy with Clean & Safe. That unhappiness largely stems from the fact that the fees that businesses pay the group go, in part, to pay salaries and overhead for the PBA, not to pay for any actual services.

It’s worth noting that the PBA has, in the past, urged support for more shelter beds. But to people who study the issue, emergency shelters are a stopgap solution, at best, and are often rejected by the people they’re intended to serve for very good reasons.

Takeaway

This is just a cursory look at two of the issues the PBA is most egregiously wrong on. They’ve also opposed a mandate for bike parking in new construction, supported discriminatory sit-lie laws, and voiced weirdly fierce opposition to the Better Naito project, and are generally anti-tax, even opposing taxes that Portlanders have voted for in order to fund needed services.

In short, this is a group concerned with the bottom line of their members above all else. To me, that’s at odds with the way PTFC has positioned itself over the years, and with much of the truly commendable work the club has done in the community. Fans on Twitter were upset about this announcement, and I believe that anger is justified. If the club professes to be a community-centered organization, this partnership calls that into serious question.

Categories
Not Soccer Thorns

A Definitive Ranking of the Best Eleven Photos from Thorns Media Day

Simone Charley. Unrelated to the photos from Thorns media day. Photo by Kris Lattimore.

Well, you saw the title of this post. Let’s not waste any time gabbing away, hm?

11.

This one is good because Meaghan Nally’s friends and family get to enjoy her radiant smile, and also her enemies can see how strong and healthy her teeth are to know she will not be easily defeated.

10.

You’re in the front row at a One Direction concert, and Harry Styles points right at you.

9.

Four women who went to Harvard Law are starting a boutique firm together. The office is a casual environment—one of them even brings her dog to work—and they do lots of pro-bono work for low-SES and undocumented clients. “We’re sort of like a family,” they say.

8.

A true story about me is that one time Nadine Angerer called me a “soft egg,” which I guess means I’m squishy and delicate? It wasn’t an insult, but it also wasn’t a compliment. It was just an observation, like everything Germans say. Then she laughed good naturedly like this:

7.

The most popular girl in school asks you to prom. She could have gone with anyone, but she chose you, the eccentric loner who eats lunch in the library and listens to bands no one else has heard of. You’re so different from everyone else, and she just wants to get to know you.

6.

The girl who sits next to you in pre-calc asks you to prom. Your only real interactions are checking your homework together and passing notes about substitute teachers. She knows you don’t know each other very well but she thinks you’re really funny and thought it might be fun to hang out for the night? She really hopes this isn’t weird.

5.

I like this photo because Crystal Dunn is being very clear about what club she plays for.

4.

You’re sixteen years old and you just read one of your poems at an open mic night for the first time. Your big sister is going to college an hour away, and you invited her, but you weren’t sure if she’d come—but she did, and she’s so proud of you.

3.

This season on The Bachelorette:

2.

She is the captain of this battle station and she will gladly crash it into Alpha Centauri before she gives an inch to the insurgent scum, damn it!

1.

Oh, hello. Surprised to see me in your chambers? I’ve been waiting for you. That’s right, I know all about what happened to the queen’s prized jewels. The captain of the guard awaits only my command. You won’t last long in Her Majesty’s dungeon—and just when we were getting to be such good friends! Unless… we can work something out?