The Portland Thorns depart the NWSL Challenge Cup in the semifinals after losing 1–0 to the Houston Dash on a Rachel Daly header. The Thorns defense, excellent all tournament, could only be breached after Sophie Schmidt’s header hit the bar and left Britt Eckerstrom stranded.
Lindsey Horan was listed as an available sub but was dressed in street clothes on the bench. Horan recorded the second most minutes of the team through the opening stages (aside from Christine Sinclair, of course) and Celeste Boureille took her place.
After the game, Mark Parsons said that the team had left it all on the field against North Carolina to get the win, and they played their worst game of the tournament today. The Dash kept Portland under constant pressure in midfield that they couldn’t play their way out of, and despite how well the Thorns defended, they can’t have too many complaints about being sent home at this stage.
The Thorns have defended well all tournament, but just couldn’t make their attack work
The Thorns stuck with the diamond this game, with Morgan Weaver and Simone Charley, their best available strike partnership, up top. With Boureille bogged down deep in midfield trying to handle Houston’s strikers dropping deep, those two had very little in the way of support, and were often tasked with chasing down balls over the top just to try to stretch play at all. Raquel Rodríguez had too much to do to offer much support either. In fact, the brightest attacking spark came from substitute Emily Ogle, who in her role as a deep playmaker provided some of the best service from deep the Thorns were able to manage all game.
That’s telling. The Thorns are a team that like to work their way into shooting opportunities on a second or third pass to maximize the expected goal average of any given attack, and get into the position to make those decisive passes with incisive running. Rodríguez, one of the Thorns’ best attacking players this tournament, couldn’t get forward to do what she does best, and the team was too slow to recognize that they needed more quality passing from deep to unlock the Dash.
On the other end, however, Kelli Hubly and Emily Menges were both excellent, with Menges making several decisive tackles to break up counterattacks, most memorably to stop a Nichelle Prince run where it looked like she would be in on goal.
Houston had plenty of attacks this game despite having a minimal amount of possession. They went on the break quickly whenever they forced a turnover. But despite all that, the Thorns restricted them to very few good chances. They just turned one of their two into a goal.
Attacks from out wide look as bad as ever
Crosses are always a low percentage attack. See Portland’s efforts late on in the opening stages of the tournament, and North Carolina’s efforts against Portland. They looked particularly pointless here, with Houston connecting on only two of fourteen crosses and Portland only three of twelve. In part, it’s down to timely defensive interventions in the middle of the park from the Thorns, but they also mostly just let Houston have that space. Of course, it doesn’t matter how inefficient a team’s attack is sometimes: all it takes is a moment of chaos for a team to score, and Houston produced more of those than Portland.
Houston’s pressure in midfield was about the only thing that was working anyone
The Dash had many of the best attacks of the game, but couldn’t create many shooting opportunities. The Thorns had most of the possession, but couldn’t do anything with it. Just about the only effective play happening anywhere for most of the game was Houston’s midfield pressure. Rachel Daly and Nichelle Prince are two extremely active forwards: one or two would almost always be putting pressure on the Thorns backline while they were trying to play from deep, which meant that most of the Thorns possession in the game took place well away from goal.
Houston’s back line played very high to compress the space available to Thorns midfielders, and in that space, they were able to bring a ton of bodies in to break up any attempt by Salem or Boureille to play forward. Whenever Sinclair had the ball, they were quick to close her down. Ogle and Gabby Seiler came on in midfield after halftime and improved the situation by getting better passing from that area, but even though Weaver and Charley are fast, neither of them are really strikers that thrive on balls over the top. They like to play to their feet and attack their defender, and Houston didn’t let anyone on the Thorns have that.
The final game of the Thorns Extended NWSL Challenge Cup Preseason ended in a scoreless draw. A late Chicago winner last night means that the Thorns will be squaring directly up with the North Carolina Courage in the quarterfinals.
The Thorns haven’t had the most productive tournament in terms of goals, but if we look at these games as a challenge for a rebuilding squad to test themselves against, they’re getting what they came here for. They’ve faced off against the toughest teams in the tournament and are about to go against the best once again.
New look Reign are not pretty, but they’re effective
OL Reign have been a real mystery so far this tournament. They have a different style of play than anyone in the league has ever had. It hasn’t been great to look at, and the Reign didn’t have a single shot through 30 minutes of this game. But the Reign did not need a win today, and Portland did. New Reign coach Farid Benstiti has made it a point for his team to not lose in this tournament, and his team played a specific game to prevent that above all.
Parsons got his forward rotation wrong
The Thorns started with Simone Charley and Morgan Weaver up top, and with Portland very comfortably parked directly in front of the Reign box in the first half, it seemed like kind of a waste.
You see, Simone Charley Ran Track. She’s fast. She’s also a sprinter who usually does not last 90 minutes because of how much she puts into every forward run. Charley was putting up a real fight pressing the Reign backline in the first half. But with the Reign sitting very deep, it felt like a waste. Charley’s best moments are in the open field where she can put defenders on skates, create separation from her defenders, and create. Up against a set defense, however, she and the rest of the team struggled to do more than cross the ball somewhat aimlessly.
As the game opened up in the second half, Charley came off for Tyler Lussi in what was pretty clearly a planned substitution at the 60 minute mark. Unfortunately, the first few actions of the second half were Charley’s best of the game, with her crossing into the center where no one was waiting, only to put the second service over the bar.
There’s obviously no telling how games will go ahead of time. But most people could probably have told you that the game was going to open up the more that it went on. It was a shame not to have her speed on the break as both teams got more frantic. The rotation in the first game against North Carolina, with Lussi and Marissa Everett eating up minutes and pressing the backline only for Weaver and Charley to come on later, may be one we see against the Courage a second time on Friday.
A makeshift backline once again gets the job done
Emily Menges was not available for selection today after showing up as questionable on the injury report. With Becky Sauerbrunn out for the tournament, Meghan Klingenberg was the only locked-in first choice Thorns player in defense going up against a Reign team that looked, on paper, very strong. Bethany Balcer had to depart early, but Jodie Taylor and Sofia Huerta are both highly experienced NWSL attackers. Yes, the Reign played conservatively, but all three forwards are more than capable of making things happen on their own.
And basically nothing happened. The Reign couldn’t put a single shot in for the first 35 minutes, and when they grew into the game in the second half, a defensive setup that could have been shaky ended up looking solid.
Kelli Hubly has now started three games for the Thorns in central defense. One or two mishaps aside, Hubly looked solid, putting in some strong tackles on Reign forward Yuka Momiki to keep the most dangerous Reign player pretty contained. Christen Westphal looks totally comfortable at right back for this team, providing important offense down the flank.
Katelyn and Tyler review the first two Thorns games of the NWSL Challenge Cup, discuss the suburban Utah masterpiece that forms its setting (including the playground), talk the Thorns diamond and their excitement about the young players on display.
Portland Thorns team in Black Lives Matter warmups. Rob Gray / ISI Photos
The NWSL Challenge Cup has begun, marking the return of live professional sports to the United States.
In a reminder of just how much has been going on in the world outside the NWSL bubble, all the starting players wore Black Lives Matter warm-up shirts and Black Lives Matter armbands throughout the game, and took a knee for the national anthem. Which was played by a saxophonist in a suit, with slicked-back hair, who could not resist getting in some delicious licks at the end of a very smooth rendition of the Star-Spangled banner.
This strange image just about summed up the odd sensations of watching live sports again: the seriousness of the threats against life around the globe—Black life in particular—weighs on us all. We stand in solidarity.
The Thorns played better than expected for a young squad who saw significant departures in the off-season, and it was only a late defensive lapse that cost the Thorns a point in stoppage time. Leaving Lynn Williams unmarked is a very familiar way to lose against North Carolina, but the competitiveness showed by a young team in what was effectively a preseason game was admirable. Simone Charley notched her first goal for the team off a Lindsey Horan header for the only Thorns goal in a 2-1 opening day loss.
1. Raquel Rodríguez is the real deal
The Thorns swapping an iconic defender in Emily Sonnett for the player taken after her in the 2016 College Draft was a huge moment in the off-season. Rodríguez (affectionately called “Rocky”) has been a solid NWSL contributor for years, but did a midfield already stacked with talent really need another attacking player?
Yes, it turns out. Rodríguez was a killer addition in midfield, keeping the team ticking over well, holding the ball up and waiting for support, and even putting in some impressive defensive play. Getting overrun by North Carolina’s four midfielders has been an issue for the Thorns in the past, and Rodríguez’s competitive energy and strength were much-needed additions. It looks like this pairing with Lindsey Horan might work out after all.
2. Bella Bixby is ready for the spotlight
She got thrown directly into the fire against the team that shoots more than any other team in the league, but Milwaukie, Oregon’s own Bella Bixby had an impressive NWSL debut. She got tempted off her line unadvisedly for the Courage’s first goal, but otherwise showed well in her first competitive minutes, getting called upon regularly to defend her near post, nabbing everything she could in the air and holding some real rockets from distance.
AD Franch being a late scratch for the whole tournament was bad news for the team. But this is such a weird tournament, one where the Thorns get to try out stuff they normally wouldn’t. Giving Bixby a chance after two years with the club feels right, and she didn’t disappoint. It’s hard to feel like the future isn’t secure.
3. Parsons has some clever squad management plans
Seeing Tyler Lussi and the newly-signed Marissa Everett in the starting lineup threw a few people for a loop. While both players who have made an impact in their minutes for the club, they seem like they would be further down the depth chart than others. After halftime though, it quickly became clear what the plan was: Morgan Weaver and Simone Charley were double-subbed on for the starting forwards and immediately went to work, with Charley scoring and both looking dangerous the remainder of the game.
Charley has been minutes-limited in her time with the club, even in normal NWSL play. She’s clearly a sprinter who leaves it all on the field, and up against tired defenses, this could be a real game changer. Weaver is still getting used to professional fitness. Especially in the opening stages of this tournament, both can be maximized by holding them in reserve from the start. And with five substitutions now allowed per game, why not? It’s a pretty different approach to soccer than most people think of (where your best players must always start) but it’s worth a shot, and it will be interesting to see if it stays the same through the knockout rounds.
4. Aggressive defense works, except when it doesn’t
The Thorns defense has many qualities. They are not as fast as the North Carolina Courage’s attackers. Therefore, they should sit back as deep as they can, right?
Wrong. Becky Sauerbrunn, playing in her first game in Thorns colors, played her markers incredibly aggressively, coming well upfield to head away from Lynn Williams. Kelli Hubly, starting her first game in a while, looked excellent going to ground to win balls near the edge of North Carolina’s penalty box to unsettle them and prevent them from having an easy time building out of the back. It’s hard to say it didn’t work.
And yet, at the same time, the winning goal was conceded because Sauerbrunn was caught upfield trying to cut out a pass, which left two Courage players unmarked at the back post, when most would probably say that the team should have been trying to protect a point.
There’s no doubting that the Thorns made a real impact on the Courage’s midfield buildup in this game, and it cut down on their shooting opportunities throughout. Looking a little foolish once or twice on the break is normally a trade-off that the team will take. Some one has to step up and be the hero in that kind of situation, and looking at Bixby’s face after she conceded, she clearly felt like it should have been her. Those kinds of decisions will get more automatic for her in the future, but she shouldn’t feel too bad about it: the team made a calculated gamble—one that meant that they would sometimes end up in those situations.
With the NWSL set to become the first American sports league to attempt a restart, the eight teams—minus the Orlando Pride, who, as we learned Monday, will sit out due to multiple positive COVID-19 tests on the team—that will participate in the Challenge Cup released their rosters yesterday.
One thing is certain: between a huge amount of offseason tumult and a stack of last-minute contracts—not to mention yesterday’s announcement that Tobin Heath will not participate—this won’t be a Thorns team we’ve ever seen before. A few of our thoughts on the newly announced roster are below.
Katelyn Best
Let’s just have fun, ok?
The Thorns, presumably, had a plan heading into this season. Amid whispers of a needed culture change, the club sent half the roster packing, snagged two promising young forwards at the draft, and made moves for Becky Sauerbrunn and Rocky Rodríguez. Fill in a few more blanks, and it’s easy to envision a good soccer team materializing—but those blanks never got filled. What we’re left with is pieces to a whole that never got finished.
Things were cast into even more doubt last week with the departure of Ellie Carpenter. With her departure, Sauerbrunn—a legendary but aging, and slowing, center back—starts to look less adequate as the season’s big defensive acquisition. The team has options at right back, but it’s hard to envision any of them filling Carpenter’s shoes on day one against North Carolina.
But here’s the good news: soccer is a game. More good news: this “season” isn’t real. Even more good news: historically, the Thorns have played some of their most fun, memorable games without their veterans. This isn’t the same as a World Cup or an Olympics—Lindsey Horan and Christine Sinclair will be there—but the tight schedule means we’re sure to see more squad rotation than we normally would. The sheer volume of new names on this roster means it’s impossible to guess which players are going to be the Meg Morrises or Simone Charleys of this tournament.
That’s not to mention the proven names new to this Thorns roster; Rodríguez obviously falls into that category, as does, I would argue, Sophia Smith. This group of forwards, in particular, is mostly quite young, and none of them are French, but I’d bet they’re going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Wacky stuff is going to happen in this tournament. Let’s enjoy it, yeah?
Photo by Nikita Taparia
The Lindsey Horan conundrum
I have this theory that’s going to sound ridiculous when I say it, but bear with me: Horan is a problem. More specifically, the role Horan plays for the Thorns is a problem.
In 2016 and 2017, Portland deployed Horan and Amandine Henry in the central midfield as dual No. 8s. Both could play disruptor, both could set plays in motion, and both could make forward runs and score themselves. They would trade off on these duties, one sitting back while the other pushed into the attack, and this worked because Henry is just as good at all those things as Horan.
When Henry left, Mark Parsons wanted to continue using the same system, swapping Andressinha in alongside Horan. This went… less well. Andressinha simply isn’t a strong or physical enough player to fill that role. Since then, a succession of players have been tapped to fill that third midfield slot, including Celeste Boureille, Dagný Brynjarsdóttir, and Gabby Seiler. Boureille, for a moment in 2018, worked well; she doesn’t have Henry or Horan’s creative brilliance, but she proved to be a good disruptor deep in midfield. Seiler, for a still briefer moment in 2019, looked even more promising. But none of them have played as Horan’s double like Henry did—unsurprising, seeing as none of them are in the conversation for being the best central midfielder in the world.
This is the question: is there another player anywhere on earth capable of playing a second No. 8 alongside Horan as effectively as Henry did?
Parsons intends to try again with Rodríguez. On its face at least, this makes a lot more sense than trying to convert Andressinha into a No. 8 did, seeing as Rodríguez has played a box-to-box role in the NWSL, you know, ever, although never in the same system; at Sky Blue, she played alongside Sarah Killion, a much more defensive player than Horan. The question is how well Rodríguez can partner with a player who, at any moment, can show up anywhere on the field.
I’d describe myself as curious, leaning toward optimistic about this. At any rate, I’m excited to see Rodríguez, who I think has been underperforming for a few years, in a new environment. And if it doesn’t turn out? Try her at right back, why not!
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Leo Baudhuin
What the heck is going on with defense?
With all of nine players listed as defenders on this roster, one presumably would not have as many questions about Portland’s back line as I do. With a schedule that has the Thorns playing their opening three games over the course of nine days, rotation is going to happen, and I think it’s going to happen sooner than we expect.
If you look at a back four of Meghan Klingenberg, Emily Menges, Sauerbrunn, and Katherine Reynolds, something comes to the forefront pretty quickly: three of them are over 30 and two of them aren’t particularly fast. (Menges, of course, is the exception in both these statements, and Sauerbrunn isn’t slow, per se, but as Katelyn points out above, she’s definitely past her peak.) And while they’re all very capable players, the quartet leaves something to be desired against a fast, high-pressing North Carolina.
On the other hand, Parsons isn’t exactly known for throwing young players into the line of fire. But if these games don’t really matter, there’s no time like the present to experiment, right? Yeah, there’s still Kelli Hubly and Christen Westphal—and where is Seiler going to play? As the No. 6 in a diamond midfield? Somewhere in defense?—but I personally think it would be very cool if Madison Pogarch got the start on Saturday. And why not give Meaghan Nally and Autumn Smithers some time in this tournament while we’re at it?
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Some good news
Guess what I remembered today? Two-time NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year Adrianna Franch still plays for the Thorns. Not only that, but she won’t be missing games that she could be playing with the Thorns for national team duty.
Given the experimentation we’re going to see with this team, having arguably the best keeper in the league—and undisputedly the one with the best handling—means, worst comes to worst, at least we’ll see some great goalkeeping.
Tyler Nguyen
Young attackers will be in the spotlight
Tobin Heath has chosen to stay at home for this tournament. That is her right as a player, and it’s one that all the players in the NWSL have, as guaranteed by the negotiations between the player’s association and the league. Looking at the state of coronavirus cases in the US and Utah specifically, it’s a perfectly reasonable decision to make, and knowing how much she lives for soccer, it has to be an incredibly painful one.
What it means for the team is that, with the departures of Midge Purce, Hayley Raso, and Caitlin Foord in the offseason, no regular-rotation players from the 2019 forward line will play in the NWSL Challenge Cup. Sure, Christine Sinclair is listed as a forward, but you and I both know that’s not how it works, and in a compressed schedule, it’s even less how it works. Sinclair is simply not going to be running around full tilt for 90 minutes on three day’s rest, as much as I’m sure she wants to.
No, the forward line is going to a rotation of players who, while extremely talented, haven’t proven themselves as starters in the NWSL yet. This is going to be an attacking bullpen with no hierarchy and no secure starting places. Expectations are high for some of the talent on hand, but there’s quite a bit of depth, so the team can afford to take some risks if things need to be shifted around.
Heath has such gravity in the team and is so important that when she’s in the team they will almost always play in a very specific way, with Heath one of the three up front drifting inside. No one plays exactly how she does, so without her, Parsons has experimented with back threes, relying on wingbacks for depth. But with Carpenter’s departure, the team has only one proven attacking option from deep in Klingenberg.
So where is the attack going to come from? Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver, the Thorns’ first-round draft picks, were both wide players who specialized in cutting inside and shooting in college. The Thorns could, in theory, play only them up top and load up another player in midfield to get more creation there. That would mean leaving Simone Charley and Tyler Lussi out of lineups though, and both are high-energy players whose styles of play, in totally different ways, can completely throw defenses off guard. Charley’s ability with the ball at her feet on the break, and Lussi’s combination of strength and shooting mastery will both likely prove useful up against different defenses. Marissa Everett showed off a knack for poaching shots in her limited minutes last year, impressing the team enough to earn a contract this year, and Anika Rodriguez, yet another undrafted player the Thorns picked up this offseason, flashed some creative passing playing alongside Ashley Sanchez at UCLA. The depth probably doesn’t even end there. Parsons loves throwing young defenders into the fray as attackers: this is where Pogarch got her first minutes for the club, so the new defenders could absolutely see some minutes there. The possibilities seem endless. It’s now on these young players to make the most of their opportunities.
As the NWSL gears up to meet in Utah for the 2020 Challenge Cup, Katelyn Best chats with Thorns defender and NWSL Players Association Treasurer Emily Menges. The NWSLPA was closely involved in the decision to restart, winning guaranteed contracts for players regardless of whether they participate or not. They touch on her offseason playing in the demonstration AFC international club competition for the Melbourne Victory and what classic works of American literature she’s been plowing her way through in quarantine.
On what would have been the home opening weekend for the Chicago Red Stars, Katelyn Best and Tyler Nguyen join Sandra Herrera and Claire Watkins of Southside Trap (the premier Chicago Red Stars podcast) to talk through the nuttiness of the 4–4 Red Stars/Thorns draw last year.
A ludicrous, sloppy, and magical game more reminiscent of 2014 than the modern NWSL era, it featured some season-defining play from Meghan Klingenberg, some breakout moments from Midge Purce and Gabby Seiler, and the greatest team goal in NWSL history—scored by Michele Vasconcelos against a Thorns defense that could only gawk as the Red Stars attack passed them by.
Those words kicked off the Rileyball era of the Portland Thorns, and how prophetic they turned out to be. The Thorns won the title in 2013, but they didn’t do it “their way.” In 2014, with a new coach at the helm, they sought to be the most entertaining team in the world. What happened? Katelyn and Tyler look on, astonished, at Portland’s place in one of the wackiest NWSL seasons in history. Were they good? Unclear.
Red Smoke Radio returns. It’s now the third year of operation of the world’s only Portland Thorns podcast. We’ve tried as hard as we can to make it both the most informative, in-depth show that it can be while also being totally irreverent.
The third season kicks off with a brand new logo as well as a brand new Thorns team to consider. Katelyn and Tyler review the team’s departures and try to provide some context as to why they were so extensive. The buzzword around the club is culture, so what does that mean for how they determined who leaves and who stays?
“It’s frustrating for soccer to not have the exposure that it needs. As media continues to change, it’s getting harder and harder. I just read in Portland they’re removing their beat reporter […]”
-Major League Soccer Commissioner Don Garber, February 26, 2020
Subsidized soccer coverage in Portland is over.
At the end of last season, the Oregonian moved its beat writer off assignment to the NBA, and they don’t plan to replace her. The Portland Mercury removed their main weekly soccer freelancer from off a regular schedule. The Athletic exchanged their local beat writers for a regional one. As it stands, there are no dedicated, independent soccer writers left in Soccer City, USA.
This is all happening at a time when soccer in Portland is more popular than ever. The Timbers have sold out every game since they’ve been in MLS. The Thorns drew an average of just over 20,000 fans per game last season. The product on the field gets better every year, the storylines more dramatic. All while publications act like soccer writing is not bringing them enough interest to warrant dedicated coverage.
During our time at Stumptown Footy, we’ve been producing high-quality journalistic and analytical content for around $2–3 an hour (those of us who were getting paid at all, that is) on a website that was supposed to be just for fans. We are fans, but we’ve always taken pride in our craft. We hold ourselves to high standards, and we feel that we can hold our work up against the work of professionals.
We know there is a market for soccer writing in Portland because we hear people asking for one. Fans have high standards for the writing they want to read. The click-obsessed, ad-revenue-driven business model is destroying journalism. Great publications are failing, local papers across the country are being sold for parts to media conglomerates, and readers aren’t getting the coverage they deserve on the topics they care about.
So we’re doing it ourselves, and it’s up to you to prove us right.
Rose City Review is going to be everything we love to do. Ridiculous posts and in-depth analysis, alongside the best inside access to the players an outsider can get. Who knows, we might even launch into a non-soccer topic now and again.
Some content each week will always be free; the rest will be accessible to subscribers for just $2 a month. There won’t be a comment section, because comment sections are a shoddy facsimile of a real community. Instead, we want to expand the ways we interact with our audience away from the din. One place that’s going to happen is a dedicated Discord channel where subscribers will be able to chat with each other about the games and the latest news, as well as talk directly to us. You’ll be able to ask us all the burning questions on your minds and let us know what you’d like to see covered.
Above all, we want to do the work that we’re passionate about. We love Portland soccer, and we think it deserves our best effort. We hope you’ll join us.
