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Kickin’ It with James Pantemis
Category: Not Soccer
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The start of the 2024 season brings a new food menu to fans at Providence Park. Earlier this week, I attended the annual food tasting event at to try out the new options.
This was my most anticipated event outside of the openers, finales, and playoffs.
There were definitely hits, but also, unfortunately, some misses.
Head chef Garrett Boisture’s in-house culinary menu will feature new items such as chimichurri tri-tip sandwiches, Hawaiian loaded nachos, kalua pork bowls, loaded BBQ nachos, kalbi beef rice wraps, and s’mores donut holes. The event featured local hospitality partners including Cha Cha Cha, Killer Burger, Humble Pie, Society Pie, Reyka Vodka, Aviation Gin, 10 Barrel Brewing, and Precept Wine Battle Creek Cellars. Portland Timbers CEO Heather Davis was also in attendance.
At the event, Heather Watkins, the CRO and co-founder of Portland-based Bold Reuse, discussed the implementation of her company’s programming at Providence Park. The group will eliminate single-use plastics at games.
@timbersfc POV: I’m Dylan and ordered one of everything and you steal all of my food #foodiereview #mls #foodtok #newfood #foodie #portland
Without further ado, here’s a look at this year’s Providence Park menu offerings. Of course, everyone has different tastes and preferences, so be sure to pick your favorites!
The entrees
Society Pie: Different toppings for pizza available, but how could you ever go wrong with a slice of pepperoni?
Grade: 7.5/10
Chimichurri Tri-Tip Sandwich: The sauce is solid, and the meat is cooked to perfection, but it doesn’t have enough seasoning and has too much bread.
Grade: 6/10
Loaded BBQ Nacho: This was one of my favorite items on the list. The only issue is you’ve got to eat these quickly, before the chips get soggy. The entree comes with chips, jalapeños, chicken, cheese, and beans.
Grade: 8/10
Hawaiian Loaded Nacho: This was the best item on the menu, in my opinion. Kalua pork with mac salad and chips? Yes, please.
Grade: 8.75/10
Kalua Pork Bowl: This one’s the same concept as the Hawaiian Loaded Nacho, but with rice instead. Unfortunately, the rice was a bit dried up. so that took it from first place to second.
Grade: 8.25/10
Kalua Jackfruit Bowl: This one’s a great vegetarian alternative, with jackfruit instead of kalua pork.
Grade: 8/10
Kalbi Beef Rice Wrap: It’s cooked and presented very well. The beef could use a bit more seasoning, but this is a solid option.
Grade: 7.25/10
Killer Burger: They’re still one of my favorite burgers in the city. There is an option for everyone.
Grade: 7.75/10
Dessert
S’mores Donut Holes: This was what I was most excited to try, but it was a something of a let down. It needs a bit more marshmallow and chocolate drizzle.
Grade: 6.5/10
Humble Pie: Marionberry pie? Sign me up! I wished there was a bit more punch to the flavor, but it’s definitely a good option.
Grade: 7/10
Drinks
Browne Family Vineyards: If you’re trying to do something lighter than a beer, this is a good option. The taste is not overwhelming at all—if anything, it could be stronger.
Grade: 7/10
10 Barrel Brewing: They literally have something for everyone. Whatever you’re up for, there is a drink for you. The overall menu is fantastic.
Grade: 8/10
Aviation American Gin: Hi, Ryan Reynolds! (Okay, he wasn’t there, because he didn’t want to upstage anyone.) The gin and mixed drinks this group comes up with is absolutely superb. If I’m ever at a game as a fan, they’ll be my first choice.
Grade: 8.25/10
Thank you
This was such a fun experience!
Last year this event was held during the first day of the snowstorm, and I wasn’t able to attend. I am so glad my bad luck didn’t strike twice.
Thanks to all of the staff, hospitality partners, and everyone in attendance for making this an amazing time.
Categories
On the NWSL and Israel
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:
MUST-WATCH interview on CNN. Genuinely shocked they have aired it. pic.twitter.com/madjVCpBOb
— David Adler (@davidrkadler) October 8, 2023
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.
— Leo and Jaiden
Love means nothing in tennis, but tennis means love to me. This sport has given me so much and always been there for me. As long as I can remember, I have been a fan. When I got my first job, I used my first paycheck to to buy a racket. I’ve played competitively over half my life. I’ve been a tennis coach for a decade.
Tennis is a work of art, a song you can’t get out of your side—and a fun one. There’s nothing like it. Everyone in tennis starts with blank canvases or blank piece of paper, but it turns into a masterpiece or hit. It has never been just a sport; tennis has always been more than that. Thank you for the people in my life, teaching me values, and to appreciate everything I have.
In 2019 I went to the Australian Open for the first time. There was never a time I was happier or felt more at home. Every fan spoke tennis terminology, loved the sport, and clapped the same way.
In 2020, work consumed all of my time. I didn’t have time for anything or anybody. I wanted to be left alone. There didn’t seem to be anything that could change my mind. Luckily, there was something telling me to return to paradise. Right when I landed in Melbourne, all those feelings came rushing back.
Thank you to the AO for making me fall in love with tennis again, but waking me up to everything is that important to me.
The Australian Open is the first of four grand slams in a calendar year for the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women’s Tennis Association. The French Open, Wimbledon, and US Open follow the AO.
For those new to Tennis, here are a few things you will want to know:
- The AO draw consists of 128 singles players for men and women.
- There is also men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles draws.
- 32 players in the singles draws are seeded
- A singles champion will need to win 7 matches in 2 weeks to hold the trophy
- The Australian Open is played on hard court and held at Melbourne Park
- The bounce on hard courts are natural/standard
- The only other major on hardcourt is the US Open
- The Importance of Serving
- Men tend to serve upwards of 120mph
- Less serves returned, more points won off serve,
- Women tend to serve upwards of 100mph
- More serves returned, less points won off serve
- Men tend to serve upwards of 120mph
- Tennis Terminology 101
- Ace: Serve that lands in the box and is untouched by returner
- Winner: A shot that lands in the court which the player across the net is unable to touch before the second bounce.
- Groundstroke: A forehand (usually one hand) or backhand (men: 1 + 2 hands typically, women: 2 hands typically).
- Slice: A backspin shot (usually on the backhand)
- Drop Shot: A shot that lands barely over the net with the intention of landing twice before opponent arrives.
- Types of Spin
- Topspin: forward rotation (commonly seen on groundstrokes)
- Backspin: (commonly seen on a backhand slice or drop shot)
- Flat: little to no spin
Who are the favorites to win the 2023 Australian Open?
Tier 1: No S***, Sherlock!
From the ATP, Novak Djokovic (Serbia) returns for the first time since 2021. Weeks before the 2022 AO, he had his visa revoked due to his vaccination status, making him ineligible to participate.
Djokovic is second all-time in the ATP. With 21 career titles, he stands just one grand slam behind Rafael Nadal’s all-time record. He won the last three editions of the AO that he played in: in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Djokovic is coming off a title in Adelaide, where he notably defeated three seeded players in Daniil Medvedev (No. 8), Denis Shapovalov (No. 22), and Sebastian Korda (No. 31), respectively.
Expect Djokovic to come highly motivated to tie Nadal for the grand slam titles record.
Can anyone stop him? Not likely. Djokovic can turn defense to offense with one shot, has no weaknesses, and mentally invincible.
Draftking Odds: -110
There’s a whole lot to like in this video, including:
The shot, obviously;
The handling of the power from the Kazakh fella;
The way even Bublik jumps to his feet when it happens;
Very strong shot of the year candidate for January 1st by Iga Swiatek.pic.twitter.com/sji4KoG67T
— Ben Rothenberg (@BenRothenberg) January 1, 2023
In the WTA, Iga Świątek (Poland) is coming off a historic and dominant 2022. She won eight titles, including two grand slams and her 37-match win streak surpasses that of any woman this century. And she is only 21.
Last year, the WTA lost their No. 1 and defending AO champion, Ash Barty (Former No.1, Australia) to retirement. Świątek has taken the mantle and become the undisputed No. 1.
Most recently, Świątek and Team Poland made the semi-finals of the United Cup, an ATP and WTA combined team tournament. She was 3-1 with wins over Yulia Putintseva (No. 51, Kazakhstan), Belinda Bencic (No. 13, Switzerland), and Martina Trevisan (No. 22, Italy), with her only loss coming against American Jessica Pegula (No. 3).
Even though Świątek is coming off a tough loss against Pegula, she is mentally the toughest player on tour. Expect her team to have her ready for the AO.
She has been a fierce advocate for mental health. Iga contributes a lot of her success to the sports psychologist who travels with her, Daria Abramowicz.
It is not a surprise to see her as the favorite. She is one of the best movers of all time, elite defensively, packs a powerful forehand, automatic backhand, and an improving serve.
Draftking Odds: +225
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┻┳| •.•) only djokovic and federer have
┳┻|⊂ﾉ won more consecutive matches
┻┳| than swiatek this century— wta (@WTA) June 4, 2022
Tier 2: They Aren’t Pretenders, They’re Contenders!
Interesting words from Nadal about the new #AusOpen balls. "Better for who hits flat. After two shots, they lose pressure".
— José Morgado (@josemorgado) January 14, 2023
Effect of New Tennis Balls:
- Dunlop has been the official partner of the AO since 2019 and they have introduced a new ball to be used at the 2023 edition.
- According to Rafa, this puts players like him at a disadvantage. He relies on a topspin (heavy spin) playstyle which seems to lose its effectiveness after a few shots.
- Players who rely on a lot spin, will have trouble adjusting and getting a feel for their shots.
- Players who hit flat (little to no spin) will have an advantage in the tournament.
- Players listed in favorites & contenders have seen little to no issues with the ball and excelled in lead-up matches.
- Fun Fact? Not really…
- Nadal is winless with this Dunlop ball being used in his matches.
ATP:
- Rafa Nadal, No. 2 – Spain: The legend leads the ATP in all-time grand slam victories, with 22. The new balls being used for the tournament will not suit his topspin heavy playstyle. He is coming off a winless United Cup with Spain that consisted of two 3-set losses. This may be his worst form entering a major, but he remains the toughest out in any grand slam.
Odds: +1700 - Daniil Medvedev, No. 8: The 2021 US Open champion and former No. 1 is coming off a strong showing in Adelaide, where he made the semi-finals before losing to Djokovic. The new balls will suit his flat groundstrokes and power. Expect a strong showing from Medvedev, as his best performances have always come on hard courts. He is one of the flattest hitters on tour, the hard court surface and balls should suit his game the most.
Odds: +550 - Taylor Fritz, No. 9 – USA: The Indian Wells champion is coming off a terrific start to 2023, with a strong United Cup showing. He helped lead the United States to the inaugural title along with Pegula, Madison Keys, and Frances Tiafoe. Fritz went 4-1 with wins over Jiri Lehecka (No. 78), Sascha Zverev (No. 13), Hubert Hurkacz (No. 11), and Matteo Berrettini (No. 14). His only loss was to Cameron Norrie (No. 12). The top ranked American will look to become the first American men’s Grand Slam champion since Andy Roddick in 2003. Along with Medvedev, Fritz does not play with much spin. His powerful flatter groundstrokes will serve him well with the balls.
Odds: +1700 - Stefanos Tsitsipas, No. 4 – Greece: The three-time AO semifinalist is in peak form. He recently posted a 4-0 singles record at the United Cup, leading Greece to a top four finish. Tsitsipas had wins over Grigor Dimitrov (No. 29, Bulgaria), David Goffin (No. 53, Belgium), Borna Coric (No. 23, Croatia), and Berrettini (No. 14, Italy). He plays with intensity and has the firepower to back it up, could this major be his?
Odds: +1400 - Dark Horses: Felix Auger-Aliassime (No. 7, Canada), Hubert Hurkacz (No. 11, Poland), Cameron Norrie (No. 12, England), Casper Rudd (No.3, Norway), Jannik Sinner (No.16, Italy), Frances Tiafoe (No. 17, USA)
- Key Injuries: Carlos Alcaraz (No. 1, Spain)
- Fun to Watch: Tiafoe, the second-ranked American, is coming off an undefeated week at United Cup and a semi-final appearance at the 2022 US Open. He’s been one of the most entertaining players on tour. He possesses a forehand that can be hit with lots of spin or flattened out while his backhand is one hit quite flat or with as a slice for backspin. Tiafoe could make another deep run.
🗣 "I just beat the LeBron of tennis"
Frances Tiafoe and Coco Gauff's rivalry = 😂😂#AustralianOpen | #TennisPlaysforPeace pic.twitter.com/14fMzesEuG
— Eurosport (@eurosport) January 11, 2023
WTA:
- Jessica Pegula, No. 3 – USA: The No. 1 American is coming off a wonderful United Cup win and a 4-1 singles record. The highlight of her week came in a 6-2 6-2 victory against Świątek. Pegula had not won a match versus Świątek since 2019 and was 0-4 head-to-head in 2022. This monumental win makes her one of the favorites. These new balls are suiting her powerfully accurate flatter groundstrokes. She has taken her hard-hitting to an extra gear, so far this year.
Odds: +1200 - Ons Jabeur, No. 2 – Tunisia: The Tunisian is the highest-ranked player in African and Arab ATP and WTA tennis history. Jabeur is coming off back to back final appearances at Wimbledon and the US Open. Her slice backhand, drop shots, and forehand will work well with the change of tennis balls at the AO. Is the third time the charm?
Odds: +1400 - Belinda Bencic, No. 13 – Switzerland: The 2020 Olympic gold medalist is one of the favorites after winning Adelaide this month. She scored victories over Garbiñe Muguruza (No. 58), Anna Kalinskaya (No. 64), Caroline Garcia (No. 4), Veronika Kudermetova (No. 9), and Daria Kasatkina (No. 8). Bencic plays with less spin and has pinpoint accuracy on her shots which have adjusted extremely well to the new Dunlop balls. If her first serve percentage can stay a high percentage, she has a chance to win it all. However, her weakness remains the second serve as opponents typically have attacked this shot.
After battling injuries and inconsistent form, Bencic is back and ready for her first major win.
Odds: +2000belinda is coming for it watch out
— Courtney Nguyen (@FortyDeuceTwits) January 14, 2023
- Dark Horses: Danielle Collins (No. 11, USA), Caroline Garcia (No. 4, France), Coco Gauff (No. 7, USA), Daria Kasatkina (No. 8), Madison Keys (No. 13, USA), Petra Kvitova (No. 15, Czech Republic), Elena Rybakina (No. 25, Kazakhstan) , Aryna Sabalenka (No. 5), Maria Sakkari (No. 6, Greece)
- Key Injuries: Paula Badosa (No. 11, Spain), Ajla Tomljanovich (No. 35, Australia)
- Fun to Watch: Jabeur has the most variety and shots in her repertoire. The WTA is lucky to have a player that plays a unique brand of tennis.
- Honorable Mentions: Gauff, Bianca Andreescu (No. 43, Canada), Alize Cornet (No 34, France), Kasatkina
Future WTA & ATP Stars
- Linda Fruhirtova – 17 years old, N0. 82, Czech Republic
- The Fruhirtova sisters, Linda & Brenda are both in the AO tournament.
- Brenda Fruhirtova 15 years old, No. 136, Czech Republic
- Qinwen Zheng – 20 years old, , No. 28, China
- Holger Rune – 19 years old, No. 10, Denmark
- Jack Draper – 21 years old, No. 40, England
Interesting to watch 15 year old Fruhvirtova play Cornet tonite. She practiced at my Academy for a few weeks in January and was very impressive, playing sets with WTA pros and competing with them showing confidence and skill…She’s got it….
— Chris Evert (@ChrissieEvert) April 14, 2021
*She ended up winning in 3 sets
Final Predictions:
Semifinals:
Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Daniil Medvedev
Novak Djokovic vs Taylor Fritz
Finals:
Stefanos Tsitsipas vs Novak Djokovic
Winner: Novak Djokovic
Semifinals:
Iga Swiatek vs Jessica Pegula
Caroline Garcia vs Belinda Bencic
Finals:
Jessica Pegula vs Belinda Bencic
Winner: Jessica “JPEG” Pegula
Categories
Takeaways: Thorns 2, Red Stars 2
It’s been a few games since we have provided a recap, but honestly, soccer has felt insignificant against the horrors of the world. Since we last wrote, the Thorns drew 1-1 against the Washington Spirit, and fell 0-2 in their first loss of the regular season against the Dash.
The Thorns tied for the third time in the 2022 season against the Red Stars on Saturday night, 2-2.
Hina Sugita’s and Sophia Smith’s goals leveled the score after a Thorns deficit, and both were scored off of set pieces. The Thorns have been unable to create a goal in the run of play in three games—and that pattern held true in Chicago where they were unable to generate the game-winner.
Maybe it’s so many lackluster or frustrating games in a row, but I’m finding it hard to feel happy when watching the Thorns play. It’s not for a lack of effort on the players’ part—there are many brilliant things happening on the pitch. Sugita scored her first NWSL regular season goal. Meaghan Nally dominated her passing game, with a 94% accuracy on her 59 passes. Sophia Smith is still an absolute force on the field and in front of goal. Sam Coffey is having one of the most complete rookie seasons the NWSL has ever seen, assisting both of the goals on Saturday.
Coffey and Smith spoke post-game about the dissatisfaction the team felt toward their recent results, despite seeing growth on the field.
It’s from that dissatisfaction that growth is born, as players push themselves to be better than they were the day before. But, how come that same mentality doesn’t seem to exist off the pitch?
The state of the world has become so untenable that not even my favorite team playing my favorite sport seems to bring joy. If that’s my personal perspective, I cannot imagine the mentality of the players who have to work and preform for the public each week.
Three mass shootings in the past two weeks, targeting people of marginalized identities—Vietnamese, Black, Latinx children. Yet, nothing is being done. There is no change or growth coming from these tragedies; we are just forced to be scared and numb to these horrors.
Soccer is a game. It is not a microcosm of life. It isn’t meant to solve world peace or cure cancer. But it is meant to be fun.
Seeing players—people—visibly frustrated and disappointed on and off the pitch is understandable. You can’t expect them to play or be their best selves when they aren’t protected and safe, just as you can’t expect people to enjoy the product in the same way.
The Thorns’ game against the Red Stars was probably as perfect as a metaphor as I could be searching for here. They went down early, and immediately rallied back, leveling the score. Near the end of the first half, they let another transitional goal in, and went into the locker room down.
Yet, they persevered. They didn’t give up, didn’t stop fighting. They got that equalizing goal off of Smith assisting herself via volley. They kept driving at the goal, even when they weren’t being successful. They wanted at least a point on the road, and the Thorns got just that.
It may not have been what they wanted, especially off the back of three games in which they earned just two points. But sometimes in the circumstances you are placed in, you don’t need to thrive, just survive. And that’s what the Thorns are doing. They are surviving, picking up points when they can. That’s what we all should be doing right now.
Note: this article contains transphobic and racist social media posts, including a manipulated photo showing a person in blackface, and discusses racist, transphobic, and anti-semitic right-wing rhetoric and violence.
You’ve heard, I’m sure, that the Portland Thorns—the organization currently led by two very nice Canadian women, one of whom said in her introduction to the press that she wanted to create “the most connected, purpose-driven club in the world”—chose a player named Sydny Nasello out of the University of South Florida in this year’s college draft. I imagine you’ve also seen the social media activity fans dug up the instant her name was called. In case you haven’t, here are some screenshots:
I don’t know Nasello. I don’t know, when it comes down to it, exactly why she chose to retweet these things, nor do I know if her views have changed since the most recent one above, from November 7, 2020. But I have spent enough time on the internet to know that retweeting usually serves the purpose of amplifying a message that a user agrees with, and I am aware enough of our current political moment to know that these particular posts suggest a specific worldview. Everything I am about to say is based on that information.
Working with the assumption that retweets mean endorsement, let’s consider the three above one at a time.
The first one indicates that the retweeter denies the reality of trans identity. This is a belief so obviously harmful that it requires no further explanation.
The second one is a little harder to parse, but here I feel that a bare retweet, with no added comment, implies the retweeter has a positive view of the little boy raising money to build a 30-foot wall on our southern border.
The last one, by the former president’s greasy-haired son, no less, alludes to the widespread pro-racial justice, anti-police protests in the summer of 2020, equating anger over centuries of well-documented state-sanctioned violence against Black people with anger over an election that some people believe, without evidence, was stolen. It also alludes to baseless conservative claims that racial justice protesters turned many cities—Portland included—into smoking, lawless ruins ruled by roving antifa gangs.
If our assumption that the retweeter agrees with these things is correct, her views are firmly in line with those of the archetypal Trump voter. Not the reluctant fiscal conservative, not the ordinary rich person who doesn’t want to pay higher taxes; the flag-waving, grievance-driven fanatic.
These tweets reflect a worldview basically reducible to a single principle: no person or group of people has an inherent right to exist, much less the right to be treated with dignity and respect, to express themselves, to participate in the political process, to have complete bodily autonomy, to move freely, or to form associations with others as they choose to do so.
This view denies trans people the legitimacy of their lived and felt reality, denies people uprooted by conflict the right to seek asylum, and denies people living in extreme poverty the right to be treated like human beings at all. To people whose views are in line with these tweets, those rights are only accorded to those with the means to seize them, whether by physical, economic, or political power. To the extent that any person or group of people cannot do so, even (or perhaps especially) if that inability is caused by longstanding institutionalized oppression, this is taken as evidence of inherent inferiority and unworthiness not just of those rights, but ultimately of continuing to live.
Conveniently, there’s a word for this world view: fascism.
Again, it’s impossible to ascribe, with absolute certainty, a set of beliefs to someone you’ve never met, but everything I know about the world leads me to believe that someone who would amplify these messages on their personal social media probably thinks this way, broadly speaking.
A couple hours after she was drafted, Nasello tweeted a Notes app statement containing the kind of non-apology apology we expect from public figures who have been caught expressing views they still wholeheartedly embrace but fear will get them “canceled”:
Nasello can play coy all she wants. She can come up to the teacher’s desk and say “I’m sorry if I offended anyone” with her eyes shyly lowered while she fidgets her hands behind her back. But we all know, and I imagine she knows, that she’s dodging the real issue. The problem is not that she might, at some time, have made some abstract group of people feel “not supported.” The problem is that she has deliberately and repeatedly indicated that she believes some groups of people are inherently less valuable than others. If she does not hold that belief, I don’t know why she would have retweeted Charlie Kirk saying as much. If she’s changed her mind since then, surely she could have said so specifically in her statement.
There are also two Twitter “likes” by Nasello’s account that I want to highlight:
These stand out to me not because they express particularly more extreme or dangerous views than the three retweets I included above, but because of their tone. To me—again, because I have spent a fair amount of time on the internet and can recognize alt-right rhetoric—they add a particular hard edge to the basic outline illustrated by the retweets discussed above.
They are noteworthy because they exemplify what is perhaps the most terrifying aspect of the radical right as it currently exists in America: the way that to the extreme right’s adherents, all of this, the casual cruelty and dehumanization and undermining of democratic norms, is a big fucking joke. The modern right was birthed on the internet, by millions of people memeing about things like the Holocaust, trying to outdo one another in edginess, screaming racial slurs on Xbox Live, all for the lulz at first, until at some point the joke became, “let’s stage a torchlight march where we chant ‘Jews will not replace us,'” and the punchline had a body count.
Once again, I do not know Nasello’s intention here, but I think it’s fair to say that the act of clicking what’s called the “like” button usually indicates agreement or appreciation. So: in that light, let’s consider the two tweets above.
I will confess that I’m not sure what the joke is supposed to be in the first one. In part, it seems it’s simply intended to be shocking for the sake of being shocking. One point being made is that anyone (“libs”) who would feel belittled or insulted (“offended” or “triggered”) by blackface is clearly an idiot and therefore that blackface is inherently funny; all the more funny to portray one of the country’s best-known left-wing figures, a woman who presumably understands why blackface is harmful to Black people, wearing it.
There’s some second layer here, too. At the end of 2020, LeBron James’s longtime contract with Coca-Cola ran out, which I assume is the reference being made. I suppose we’re intended to make some connection between Black people (because James is Black, get it?) and Coke, something about how brands have given in to the Woke Mob and will now only endorse people of color. I think? If I’m right about that connection, there’s an added element about James being not just a very rich and famous Black man, but one who is fairly outspoken about racism, which racists do not like.
The joke is nonsensical, as far as I can tell, but in short, it mocks 1) the idea that racism is bad, 2) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez thinking that racism is bad, and 3) corporations wanting to appear not to be racist.
The second tweet isn’t a joke so much as an exemplification of the way the online right expresses approval of its heroes, in slangy terms that gesture toward irony but, as with everything in this world, are anything but. Beating an antifa protester with a stick is termed “based,” while here Trump’s ultranationalist chest-thumping amid a deadly pandemic his administration exacerbated is “hard.” He’s just another memelord, in this view. Calling migrants rapists and criminals is a meme, sexual assault is a meme, racist violence is a meme.
That the views expressed in the posts I’ve included here reflect the outlook of a larger and larger majority of one of the two mainstream political parties in this country is irrelevant to the fact that this outlook is straightforward, by-the-book fascism. This is the single most vile and dangerous ideology that human beings have ever invented, and it’s here right now, and we cannot pretend that we don’t see it.
For the third time, let me reiterate that I don’t know Nasello, so to some degree, all this is conjecture. I think, however, that it’s quite reasonable, as conjecture goes.
And I want to be abundantly clear about the appropriate answer to a person who espouses this kind of extreme right ideology. There is no room for tolerance when it comes to fascism. Fascism is about power, and its proponents do not deal in good-faith dialogue and debate. This set of views is so dangerous not only because it involves wishing harm on certain groups of people; the additional danger is that it seeks to perpetrate that harm through the destruction of the democratic process and anyone who dissents. If we let ourselves be drawn into a facetious discussion about the legitimacy of these views, pretending that somewhere between “we should overthrow the government and install a white nationalist autocracy” and “all human beings are inherently valuable” lies a reasonable middle ground, we’ve already lost.
The Thorns say they didn’t know about all this before drafting Nasello. Fine; I have no reason not to believe them. That’s a serious unforced error, but fortunately it has a simple solution: the Thorns must release Nasello’s rights. An organization cannot seriously claim to respect the rights of women, Black and brown people, and the LGBT+ community while allowing someone with these views onto its payroll. In the Rose City, there is no football for fascists.
Categories
The Three Marks of Existence
I tried to write about Mark Parsons, who recently completed his sixth and final season as the coach of the Portland Thorns. It didn’t work. Instead I just thought about the passage of time and my experience of it. That’s what this is:
Aniccā (Impermanence)
I was 16 the first time I felt old. I was in the hall at South Eugene High School and something involving a slightly younger person happened—I have completely forgotten what—but I remember with crystalline clarity that suddenly I felt like this:
It’s absurd to feel old at 16, or perhaps any of the ages that I have been thus far. But the essence of feeling old has nothing to do with objective age. It’s about being old-er. Thus, it is possible to feel old at almost any age. One of the main ways to feel old is what I felt in the hallway that day: realizing that you know things that younger people do not.
Sometimes you look at a younger person and think, “How could you care so much about [thing]?” Sometimes you look at them and think, “Good lord, don’t do that.” Sometimes, a little cruelly, it’s “Just wait until [bad thing happens].”
The other face of feeling old (aside from mysterious bodily pain, which I would not experience until some years after the hallway incident) is the sense that the world and the people in it have shifted under your feet. You drive by a house you used to live in and it’s been painted and had all the leaky windows replaced, or it’s not a house at all anymore, it’s a condo. You go to a Thorns game and it hits you—feeling old always hits you all at once, never incrementally—that there are only two players on the roster who were there when you started your foolish little hobby of writing about them whether anybody wanted you to or not.
This is all a roundabout way of saying: things change. The “they knocked my old house down” feeling and the “what do you kids know” feeling are two sides of the same coin. Something goes away, something else gets renewed. Everything dies, and the wellspring of youth is infinite. That’s all you can count on.
Anattā (Not-self)
Where is the essence of a soccer team to be found? Is it in the players? The stadium? The manager? The ownership? The fans? Clearly not: almost all of those things have changed for the Thorns over the last six years. If they are all changeable, how can we say that a club that exists today also existed nine years ago? 20? 100?
During the pandemic, I aged a good 10 years. That was the effect of more or less sitting in my house doing absolutely fuck all for something like 15 months. What I mean is that the experience was ultimately good for me.
For instance, one night last spring I realized that I’d been waking up with a vague fear tickling at the corners of my mind every day for months. Upon reflection, I realized that the fear was the fear of death, that it was probably time to deal with that fear head on, and further, that nothing in my life had given me the tools to do so. I decided to look for God.
In that hallway at South Eugene High School, 15 years ago (15 normal Earth years, not 15 pandemic years), I’d never have believed I would one day write that sentence. But I’m not that old-feeling 16-year-old anymore. You sit around long enough, becoming incrementally more Patty-and-Selma-like all the time, and eventually you might realize that the question—the question, the only question, the burning, impossible question—isn’t “does God exist,” or “what am I supposed to do while I’m here,” but “why is there something instead of nothing?” The answer to the question, which is unanswerable, is the thing we call “God.” That is what I have come to think, anyway.
I bring this up because 1) becoming curious about the nature of the universe was what led me, in a roundabout way, to the title and structure of this article, and 2) to illustrate that things will happen to you that you don’t expect. You will change in ways that might not make sense. This is both wonderful and terrifying: wonderful because it means that you are never stuck one way; terrifying because it also means that there’s no “you” to speak of, really. Not one that persists, or is under your control.
The me I was in 2007 is no more or less me than the one I was when I started to think about death last spring. The only one that exists at all is the one typing these words right now.
The Portland Thorns, too, are only ever exactly as they are in a given moment. There’s no higher level of abstraction. At one moment in 2016, they were this:
Once earlier this year, they were this:
Another time, they were this:
So right at this moment, what are the Portland Thorns? Where can I go to see them?
Inevitably, we have to conclude that they do not exist. We use their name as a semantic convenience, but it does not point to any continuous thing. The Thorns are not Mark Parsons, AD Franch, Midge Purce, or “Iko Iko”. Nor are they Sophia Smith, a big red drum, Gavin Wilkinson, Rhian Wilkinson, or even Christine Sinclair. They are not a pressing team or a counterattacking team. They are not defensively sound, nor do they have trouble finishing. They are simply there, or not.
Duḥkha (Suffering)
The supply of suffering is infinite. It is the sting of a playoff loss, the sunburn one gets at an afternoon game in August. It is when Tobin Heath’s rights get snapped up in an expansion draft for no good reason.
We cannot stop these things from happening (please do wear sunscreen). Pain will happen. Loss will happen. Suffering is adjacent, but different: its root is in clinging. We cling to players and coaches, clearly. We cling to the idea of winning everything, to the high of a championship, to the moment when a player is one on one with the keeper and is surely, surely going to score. There is nothing here (see above). It’s like trying to scoop up sand with a sieve. Once we understand this, we can begin to get free.
It is only in letting go that we can fully experience anything. If we relinquish expectation, we start to feel that the very fact of the game is a miracle. The weight and texture of the ball, the sun and the rain, the existence of feet. We see that the moment a player is one on one with the keeper is a spark of magic, regardless of what happens next (what happens next doesn’t exist, until it does). The goal itself is an unalloyed joy, if we let it stand by itself.
Even the pain of loss, if we look at it right, is a thing to experience, to open ourselves up to. It doesn’t last. Or you might feel it today, but not tomorrow, and then again the next day. It is not us.
In this way, nothing is ever old. Everything is as new as the moment when we take it in. The world is remade in each moment, and so are we. May we always remember this. May we never feel old.
Categories
Takeaways: Thorns 0, Kansas City 0
The Thorns suffered an utterly disappointing scoreless tie against bottom-of-the-table Kansas City on Sunday afternoon. While the game could have been momentous for several reasons, including Meghan Klingenberg reaching 10,000 career NWSL minutes, and marking the first time that the Thorns played against AD Franch (who made several great saves), this game is one that is going to be quickly forgotten.
In the 85th minute, it looked like the Thorns would eke out a win when Morgan Weaver was awarded a penalty and Christine Sinclair stepped up to the spot to take it. It unceremoniously went off the lower left post, even after AD dived to the left, keeping the score at 0–0.
In the early second half, Kristen Hamilton scored a goal that was called back due to a foul on Becky Sauerbrunn, and it seemed that maybe this would be the spark of intensity that the Thorns so desperately needed. But again, nothing came of it. The Thorns remained flat and lifeless, looking as though they had little desire to play this game.
Despite being close to soccer-specific Children’s Mercy Park, Kansas City’s home games take place on a baseball field with an extremely narrow and poorly sod soccer field crammed into it (the team has announced it will move to Children’s Mercy Park next year, but the fact they ever played on this field sends a message). The Thorns, who normally thrive off a high press and the ability to get wide, were unable to create space between themselves, causing passes and crosses and shots to all go out of bounds to no one. Mark Parsons noted after the game that “the team wasn’t able to play the type of soccer that they wanted to play.”
That field—and a litany of other factors—made the game hard to watch. It wasn’t just that the team wasn’t playing as well or as organically as they normally do, but that everything going on in the background made it impossible to focus.
In the four days since the Thorns’ last game and the partial dismissal of Gavin Wilkinson (from only the Thorns side of his job), there has been no time to process the sheer amount of trauma that has occurred. Just the day before, broadcasters at the Pride-Gotham game zoomed in on Orlando backup keeper Brittany Wilson and repeatedly misidentified her as Mana Shim. With the endless onslaught of harmful mistakes and disinterest from the league, it’s hard to compartmentalize what is going on. I can’t imagine what it’s like for the players, for whom soccer isn’t a fun distraction, but a job.
Watching the game on Paramount Plus on my laptop felt like a fever dream. I couldn’t conceptualize how 1,600 miles away these people were being asked to play soccer as if there wasn’t a reckoning happening within the league. The quality of the broadcast, which sounded ripped from FIFA 2010, complete with LMFAO playing at each corner kick, felt like a slap in the face. Not only can the league not listen to players, but they seem completely unwilling to invest in them, either.
The camera’s low vantage point and tight angle made it so that no more than half the players could be seen at any given moment. Players moved in and out of frame in dreamlike apparitions. The Thorns’ white jerseys looked as though they were outlined in black crayon, making them look cartoonish and animated. At one point, Larroquette did a bicycle kick at midfield just to advance the ball seven yards. I instantly did a double take to check that I wasn’t mashing buttons on a Playstation controller.
All in all, it felt like a rerun of a game from the inaugural 2013 season, one whose final score I already knew. It was hard to get invested and feel as though anything was at stake, when in reality, there’s a lot on the line. The Thorns only have four more games this season, and have choked on their lead, leaving only one point between them and Reign in the race for the shield.
But that brings me back to my original point. It was impossible to focus on the game because there is so much more at stake than a soccer game or title right now. Everyone on that pitch carried an incredible weight on their shoulders for 90 minutes. Once they step off the field, the weight remains squarely on them, getting straight onto phone calls and trying to fight for the league. There really is no escape for these players as they are constantly told they aren’t worthy, whether they’re being made to play on a horrible pitch or being asked in a postgame presser to recount their involvement in the initial 2015 investigations within the club.
As the season winds to a close and the games pick up in intensity and importance for the postseason bracket, I find myself disconnecting with the game more and more. The Thorns could lose every game from here on out, but I would still support them just as much as if they won all of those games 5–0. The players’ mental and physical health is the most important, and if they choose to protest at Wednesday’s game, I will fully support and understand. If I as a fan can’t focus on the game, how can the players?
Categories
Notes on a Loss
Last night the Thorns played soccer against the Houston Dash in the heaviest, most surreal context I’ve ever experienced while reporting on the sport.
As for the game: Portland lost 2–3, thanks in part to a Dash penalty scored off a harsh handball call against Becky Sauerbrunn. After Kristie Mewis notched Houston’s second goal in the 23rd minute, the Thorns seemed to wake up and kick their attack into gear. With Houston’s press collapsing two and three players toward the ball, Portland had ample space to work with and had success both from wide areas and stretching the Dash back line enough to find through passes. Christine Sinclair had a cracking finish, Sophia Smith nutmegged Jane Campbell for her goal, and for a while, things hummed along almost shockingly well. Portland dominated statistically, beating Houston in shots by more than double and shots on goal by nearly double.
But as one of my group chats pointed out last night, there’s perhaps no better sign that a team is struggling to focus than when they keep conceding. Refereeing complaints aside, communication got jumbled, marks were lost, and the Thorns let in goals they normally wouldn’t.
I can’t express how strange it felt to be sitting in the press box as the stadium emptied out, players hugging and commiserating on the field below, this thick heaviness in the air, as Stevie Wonder and Lizzo blared on the PA.
The players and the fans had each staged their own protests during the game; players from both teams, like the teams in the night’s previous two games had done, gathered in the center circle in the sixth minute, commemorating the six years that Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly had to carry on in silence. For their part, the Riveters set off red and black smoke in the 24th minute, representing Farrelly and Shim’s numbers when they played for the Thorns—Farrelly wore #24, and Shim wore #6 (2 + 4).
Now here we were, processing, the players doing so under the harsh glare of the stadium lights, as the usual rhythm of a game day wound to a close.
Mark Parsons and Meghan Klingenberg spoke to the media after the game. I briefly tried to be reflective about last night and failed, so I’m going to offer some of their reflections instead.
Parsons on the responsibilities coaches have toward their players:
“You sign up to be a coach, and the first thing on the list is to be able to protect people, the health and safety and well being of people, players, but also as a head coach, you’re responsible for staff. It’s the first commitment you make, and it’s the simplest one to keep, and I’m so yeah, I’m so sorry, and sad that, that hasn’t been met, and players have suffered. How we got here, it’s really, really, really tough to think about how we got here. And we have to be honest in reflection and learning, but we have to make sure—and I think everyone keeps saying we—everyone in any position of leadership has to work to make sure that players are safe. That we have relentless policies and protocols in place to make sure that [we, who are] given this honor and and special privilege being around some of the best professionals, the best leaders, the best women are the right people. We absolutely have failed there… This is this is just embarrassingly heartbreaking.”
Klingenberg on the need to shift power into the players’ hands:
“This has been a really dark and heavy week, for everyone in the league, fans, players, coaching staff. It’s just been a lot. I think with that type of heaviness comes the realization that things need to change. And we’ve been doing a lot of grieving for our fellow players. We’ve been doing a lot of pathfinding, we’ve been doing a lot of, having big discussions about where this league should go, and how it should look. The one thing that keeps coming back to me and to us over and over and over again, is that without any say in the league, without any power, and without the financial resources to protect ourselves, and this will continue happening. So to me, there needs to be big structural changes within the league to protect these players. Because we’re vulnerable without a voice, we’re vulnerable without the financial means to protect ourselves, and that is something that cannot continue.”
Klingenberg on the emotions of the last week:
“I feel sad. I feel angry. I think what I feel depends on what time of the day it is. I feel a little bit of guilt.
Because, you know, I never want there to be any silent bystander in this league. And not because I think that people are bad or want bad things to happen to other players. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s just that the players felt scared, and there’s no way to get out of a bad situation. These coaches get passed around, and so even if you speak up, it doesn’t feel like you’ll be protected. I think a lot of that goes back to the WPS and magicJack [where Klingenberg played as a WPS rookie]. It’s been really hard, because I know, I was on a team where things weren’t right, on a lot of levels, but there was only one person that ever spoke out about it, and that’s Ella Masar. And I think that we need to have a type of reckoning there too, because we need to protect each other, and we need to stand up for each other.
But it’s scary. It’s scary when you think that your career’s on the line and your dreams could be dashed. So I never want to put this on players, ever. I don’t think it’s on them. So yeah, I’m feeling a wide range of emotions. I also feel a bit of joy, that things are starting to change, and there’s discussion. And maybe we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of competing feelings.”
Klingenberg on finding joy amid the darkness:
“For us, as players, a lot of times when things are hard outside of the game, we use the game as his place where we can immerse ourselves. And we can just be Megan on a pitch. But that’s been really hard to do this week. Because, as you know, what’s been happening is in our faces all the time, outside of the game, inside the game, so tonight, when I was hyping the team up, I told them that I wanted them to play— My greatest hope for them today was that they played like they were kids again, and to remember what it felt like when you were on the schoolyard or in the streets or in your backyard, and play with that type of passion and joy. I think that, you know, even if the result didn’t come out the way that we want it, I could still feel that joy from a lot of players, and I think we did a lot of really good stuff. So I just want to keep that going for the team because you know, they deserve it.”
It was, by many of the usual metrics, a lovely Sunday afternoon at Providence Park. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and the Portland Timbers won their seventh game in eight attempts, continuing an improbable run up the Western Conference table that has them positioned to contend as the weather finally begins to turn and the MLS season enters its final stage.
But the result, a 1–0 Timbers victory on the strength of a late headed goal from the Polish marksman Jarosław Niezgoda, felt like little more than a sideshow.
This Timbers victory should have been the second game of the weekend played at Providence Park. The Portland Thorns were supposed to take the field first, on Saturday, for a derby match against their northern rival, OL Reign.
That match did not happen. In its place, after all games across the NWSL were suspended following the horrifying revelations reported by The Athletic last week regarding the conduct of former Thorns manager Paul Riley, Thorns supporters rallied outside the stadium in support of the players Riley abused and those who remain within an American soccer league that has at every turn disregarded their safety.
They also called for the firing of Timbers and Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson, who has emerged again as a lightning rod for anger.
Timbers fans last called en masse for Wilkinson’s firing in the autumn of 2012, when the club was suffering through a miserable season on the field. They were wrong then. The Timbers won the Western Conference the next season and an MLS Cup two years later, and Wilkinson’s prowess as a soccer executive has proven beyond any significant doubt many times since.
They’re not wrong now. This time, the frustration is not that Wilkinson can’t pick soccer players. It is that he, along with Timbers and Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and the club’s president of business Mike Golub, failed to ensure that Riley’s career ended after they were made aware of the allegations of his predatory, coercive, absolutely despicable behavior towards their players.
The club investigated Riley following the 2015 season and, with his contract expiring, let him walk. We don’t know exactly what that investigation turned up, and we don’t know exactly how seriously the club endeavored to communicate to the NWSL and Riley’s future employers that he was an active danger to their players too.
What it looks like, lacking that information, and knowing the connections between the Wilkinson and one of the men responsible for hiring Riley to his next job, is that the Thorns, like the Catholic Church, simply moved an ill-behaved coach on to his next parish, consequences be damned.
Sinead Farrelly. Mana Shim. How many others there are—both among those who spoke anonymously to The Athletic and those who weren’t reached or chose not to be interviewed—we don’t yet and will probably never know.
Timbers players Saturday released a statement expressing their support for NWSL players, while Giovani Savarese and other members of the Timbers coaching staff wore teal ribbons in a show of solidarity.
Savarese and his team entered Sunday in a difficult position. Around them in the stadium, and particularly in a vociferous North End, the supporters called—colorfully, loudly, and repeatedly—for their boss to be fired.
The Timbers Army, singing and chanting to the beat of a drum branded with the logo of the Rose City Riveters, made their position known from pregame to the final whistle. Banners hung or hoisted in the North End included “Believe, Support, and Protect NWSL Players,” “Protect the Players, Cut the Rot Out,” and, most memorably, a simple, “You Knew,” along with plenty of two-sticks aimed specifically at Wilkinson.
All the team on the field could do was focus on the task at hand, no matter how trivial it felt taking place in the middle of one of the biggest storms in franchise history.
Knowing a win would cement their status as in the West’s top four with Real Salt Lake’s loss on Saturday, the Timbers faced a Miami side in desperate need of points to keep their distant playoff hopes alive.
Starting without Sebastian Blanco, whose return to fitness was so critical in their revival this fall, and with Diego Valeri suspended for yellow card accumulation, the Timbers lacked a measure of attacking inventiveness in the first half. But Miami was rarely more than ponderous going forward themselves, with the Timbers comfortably defending deep and looking to break with pace.
When Blanco was introduced with a quarter of an hour to go in the second half and no score, the Timbers quickly began to rack up chances. It was thanks only to some excellent emergency defending from Miami’s three center backs, led by Leandro Gonzalez Pirez that the game remained level for as long as it did, and thanks to some very soft defending in the middle of that box that Niezgoda was allowed to freely position himself in the path of a Blanco corner seven minutes from time and nod in the opener.
Miami thought they had equalized just moments later when substitute Julian Carranza headed a cross past Clark, but the goal was ruled out for a push on Dario Zuparic. Miami manager Phil Neville said after the game that his team was “robbed,” and perhaps in a narrow sense, he was right. The whistle on Carranza was soft, one of a number of marginal calls that so often decide close, pedestrian late-season games.
But in a broader sense, his team did not take advantage of the opportunity presented to them in Blanco’s reduced fitness and Valeri’s suspension. They lost the expected goals battle by nearly two and only forced Steve Clark into a pair of notable saves, one on an uninspired Gonzalo Higuain, the other on Brek Shea.
Miami had one more great chance after Carranza’s equalizer was ruled out, deep into stoppage time, but Gonzalez Pirez, outstanding on the other end of the field, sent his open look well wide. That was it. The Timbers are now seven points clear of fifth, on a glide path to hosting a playoff game.
Afterwards, Savarese and Clark were asked about the NWSL. For many of the supporters, the afternoon ended with that subject—and the club’s response to it—foremost in mind. The Timbers Army and the Rose City Riveters are extraordinary in the American sporting landscape for the outspokenness and seriousness with which they take their sociopolitical commitments.
They also, in recent history, have been extraordinary for their effectiveness. The supporters, with the help of others across the MLS, namely in Seattle, stared down the league and won its fight to fly the Iron Front in 2019. The coming fight to hold the organization accountable for its role in perpetuating Riley’s career will, in many ways, be a much bigger challenge.
Paulson’s most enduring trait in a decade-plus as a major league owner, right alongside his passion and inability to stay off Twitter, has been his loyalty to and faith in Wilkinson—a loyalty that has been richly rewarded in on-the-field success.
This scandal is not not going away any time soon. U.S. Soccer and FIFA have opened investigations. The NWSL remains in turmoil, with the Thorns scheduled to play the Houston Dash at home on Wednesday night. Their current manager, Mark Parsons, who is vacating the role in a matter of weeks, has not faced the media since the story broke.
The level of protest at this, a Timbers game, not a Thorns game, made that plain It is as yet unclear what is coming next for Riley and everyone who passed the buck and did the bare minimum instead of stopping him cold. But it is obvious, if there was ever a doubt, that Portland fans are going to keep close score.