Right off the bat, let’s be clear: the Thorns are not evil. They are a group of human women who play soccer professionally—emphatically not a shadowy warrior cult strong in the dark side of the Force. None of them would ever murder their dark mentor as part of the ancient, never-ending cycle of apprentice betraying master. I doubt any of them even owns a laser sword.
But, I mean…
You know what they say: a rose by any other name would be equally vicious and power-hungry
It’s not like they don’t want us to make that connection, right?
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So, if the Thorns were both fueled and consumed by a supernatural rage, and they did all own laser swords, and if their laser swords were the glowing red of a Dathomirian sunset, what would that look like? In other words, which Sith Lords best exemplify the essences of which Portland Thorns?
Lindsey Horan: Darth Vader
In the 2015/2016 offseason, the Thorns were coming off a dark year. Their season had been thrown into turmoil by the Clone Wars 2015 World Cup, they’d just shaken up their coaching staff, and the roster was undergoing an almost total rebuild. One bright spot on the horizon was Lindsey Horan, the immensely talented young American whose arrival had been foretold generations ago as the one who would bring balance to the Force. Like Vader, Horan does it all, by herself if she needs to: she defends, she sets attacks up, and she scores, sometimes all in a single play.
Christine Sinclair: Darth Sidious
Christine Sinclair may be one of the best goal scorers of all time, but for a player as immensely powerful as she is, her game is surprisingly understated. She’s cool and calculated, always lurking near goal when you least expect her, waiting for the fortuitous moment to strike. She makes an impact even when the other team thinks they’ve got her marked out of the game. And off the field, she’s famously quiet. She’s been in charge for years, and if you didn’t know what to look for, you might not even know it.
Tobin Heath: Darth Maul
A double-bladed lightsaber is the sword version of a cheeky nutmeg: few people can even control it without putting themselves in danger, let alone use it effectively in a duel. Some would call it unnecessarily flashy, but unnecessary flash is exactly what makes millions of people fall in love with the game. In my book, Tobin Heath gets unfairly labeled as all style and no substance too often, but the style? Nobody can deny the style.
Becky Sauerbrunn: Count Dooku
Count Dooku was a Jedi master—trained by none other than Yoda—who turned to the dark side late in his career, setting in motion key events in galactic history. While Becky Sauerbrunn has yet to put on a Thorns jersey, it’s not hard to imagine that one of the most decorated center backs of all time could be a difference maker for a team whose weak point has been defense in recent years. She’s already won two NWSL championships and two World Cups—a third NWSL ring, presumably suffused with dark energy and giving off a faint red glow, would be a great addition to that trophy case.
Mark Parsons: Darth Bane
Mark Parsons isn’t a Thorn, per se, but bear with me: Darth Bane was the ancient Sith lord who restructured an order on the brink of collapse. He introduced the rule of two, which limits the entire Sith order to a single master and their apprentice. When Parsons arrived in 2016, the Thorns were on shaky ground, and he restructured the team in a number of ways, bringing in a largely new roster and building a team-focused culture that prioritizes hard work and effort. The Thorns as we know them today wouldn’t exist without him.
Look through the names of past and present Portland Timbers broadcasters, and you’ll find a who’s who of American soccer media. Jake Zivin’s voice can be heard both locally on ROOT Sports and nationally on Fox Sports. Nat Borchers and Ross Smith both have their own place in Timbers history, on and off the field. Preceding them, John Strong is now the play-by-play voice of North American soccer on Fox Sports, while Robbie Earle is a staple of English Premier League studio coverage on NBC Sports. The common thread between them? They all got their start in American soccer broadcasting by covering the Portland Timbers.
A few weeks ago, Strong tweeted a picture of his television screen. On the screen were both him and Earle on the catwalk at Providence Park, filming a pregame segment. Nearly a decade younger, both men wore black suits with Stand Together pins on their left lapels. At that point in time, few could have predicted the highs to which their careers were about to ascend.
From 2011 to 2013, Strong and Earle were the voices of the Timbers, forging a unique relationship and chemistry early on. At the time, it was considered an odd pairing. Around MLS, the English personality was typically the play-by-play voice, while the American filled in as color analyst. Portland flipped the script.
“It was really the first time anyone had done that,” Strong said.
Before coming to Portland, Earle had a playing career in England, playing midfield for both Port Vale and Wimbledon. After hanging up his cleats, he spent ten years covering soccer in England until around 2010, when he decided to try his hand in America. One of the first people to reach out was Timbers President of Business Mike Golub, who sold him on the city and vision of a franchise that was about to enter Major League Soccer.
“It was immediately obvious to the team that as an option for our broadcast, this guy would bring instant credibility to our announcer team,” the Timbers’ vice president of broadcasting, Matt Smith, said.
And while the organization had to go across the pond to find Earle, Strong was right in their backyard. A talented yet inexperienced 25-year old radio broadcaster out of the University of Oregon, Strong covered some of the team’s final USL games and was chosen to continue broadcasting games in MLS.
The two leaned on one another during those years. If Strong needed to talk to the TV truck, Earle was prepared to cover for him. Earle, meanwhile, learned about American media, as well as how to always be prepared, from Strong.
“His unending patience with me,” Strong began. “The amount of battles that he fought for me that I didn’t realize at the time. Things I was just too young and stupid to realize that I was saying on the air that I didn’t need to be. I was way, way too young to have that job really, and the way Robbie acted as a firewall sometimes, with people that were annoyed with things that I have done or said that I didn’t know until years later—it was very appreciated.”
Strong and Earle’s first on-air MLS call in Colorado. (Photo courtesy of Strong)
Alongside Earle, Strong had another helping hand in longtime friend Erick Olson. Growing up, Strong and Olson had helped found the broadcasting program at Lake Oswego High, then spent their college years calling UO games together. In 2011, Strong asked Olson to help keep stats and spot from the booth. Olson knew his friend’s weaknesses and echoed how valuable Earle was during the early days of Strong’s career.
“We got the chance to start with not a whole lot of safety net, just a whole lot of trust,” Olson said. “It wasn’t like we were getting a ton of feedback, unless we sought it out, through college. So having Robbie come in and help us with those things was very beneficial.”
Strong still recalls a lot from his time with the Timbers. Over the phone, he named some of the early players from that 2011 team with painstaking detail, even recalling the health situation among the three goalkeepers at the time. Strong is a storyteller, and 2011 provided him with plenty of stories to tell.
There was the Timbers’ first home game against Chicago where, as the rain poured down, he couldn’t help but watch Earle, who looked stunned while absorbing the moment. The team won its first five home games—a feat no other expansion team before them had accomplished—blew out the eventual shield- and MLS Cup-winning Los Angeles Galaxy, and put an end to Real Salt Lake’s 18-game unbeaten streak.
In July, Strong spent the moments right before the Timbers and Sounders met in MLS for the first time watching the US Women’s National Team beat Brazil in the World Cup quarterfinal. That was his first time meeting Alexi Lalas, who came into the radio booth that day to watch the ending. Unfortunately for Timbers supporters, the game that followed didn’t have the same happy conclusion.
“There was such incredible energy in the building that day,” Strong said. “The Timbers led twice, but ultimately gave up a late equalizer on an Ozzie Alonso penalty. It was absolutely soul-crushing. That was one of the biggest gut-punch losses for the Timbers, really maybe even ever, because to lose in that way was rough.”
Over two years in Portland, Strong was never at a loss for words. But behind the scenes, there was one moment that came close: the team’s first-ever MLS game.
“I remember our first game against the Colorado Rapids where we talked about what opener we wanted, we didn’t want to get in the way of the club,” Earle said. “I remember the kick-off and turning to John to shake hands, which we did before every game for good luck, and he had tears streaming down his face. I didn’t realize how much the Portland Timbers meant to him as someone coming from the area, going to the lower leagues, working in football.
“In that first game in MLS, how emotionally it caught him. He had these Portland Timbers cufflinks on his shirt. It caught me off guard and made me say, ‘wow.’ If these are the emotions of a broadcaster who does very professional work, I was thinking about fans at home and the responsibility we had.”
It was those passionate fans that blew Earle away as soon as he arrived in Portland. He still believes that he and Strong had the best gig in MLS at the time, and still fondly cherishes the memories of passing fans lined up at the gates of Providence Park hours before every home game.
Growing up in England, and with experience playing in some of the most hostile environments in Europe, Earle compared Portland fans to some of the most passionate supporters in England.
“Not in terms of numbers, but in terms of love of the football club, [Portland] would probably be more like Newcastle United or Leeds United,” Earle said. “Two very strong identity clubs. When you go to those areas, you never see people in those cities wearing any other shirts. If you come from Leeds, you support Leeds. If you come from Newcastle, you wear black and white. I always think the Timbers are like that. The only soccer shirt you see people wearing with pride would be the Portland Timbers.”
According to Smith, when Earle was with the team, road dinners were full of stories that nobody on the TV crew could get enough of—stories of his time playing for a Wimbledon team nicknamed the “Crazy Gang,” and of playing for Jamaica. It was that paternal nature that helped Earle build great relationships among the entire broadcast crew, but particularly with Strong.
Strong and Earle with producer Jon Bradford (left) and Pat Brown (right) before their final home broadcast working for the Timbers. (Photo courtesy of Strong)
If there was a single moment that cemented the pair’s relationship, it came on October 2 in Vancouver.
Back in September, Strong had suffered from a case of pneumonia that later resulted in a collapsed lung. Just ten days after surgery, he made the trip to call the team’s 1–0 victory over the Whitecaps, but he was not himself.
“He came back a week or ten days too early,” Earle said. “He traveled up to Vancouver and didn’t look great in all honesty. He was quite pale and looked as though he was still not 100%. But, being John, he wanted to be back because he felt it was his responsibility.
“Thinking back on it, the one thing John brings to a broadcast is energy. When he came back, he didn’t have that same energy, and a couple of times I caught him having to catch a breath and take a moment.”
Strong later admitted the same thing. Back in 2011, he acted in haste.
“I should not have called that game,” Strong emphatically said. “I had no business doing that game. I looked sickly, I lost a bunch of weight, it was a disaster. But I was so desperate. I had finally gotten this dream job, and now it’s like it was being taken away.
“I remember doing that game in Vancouver and Robbie almost like a dad. He got emotional, having me back, and he gave me a big hug. It was a really nice moment even though I shouldn’t have been there.”
Looking back, those days meant a lot to Strong and Earle, but also to Olson. Watching his friend develop his career right in front of his eyes, in their hometown, was a special experience. Olson later accompanied Strong to the World Cup in Russia, but still reflects on 2011, which he knows was just the start of a long journey.
“Seeing something grow and, at the same time, watching my friend, who I had been broadcasting with since we were seniors in high school, grow into this role was special,” Olson said. “To go from the guy who is working really hard to make connections, to the guy who drives convincing people to put the Timbers on the radio so that there is a radio home for this professional team, to the guy who becomes the first TV broadcaster for this team. How much that meant and how hard he worked to get that done while at the same time making a real connection with the team. It was incredible”
So, back to that picture from the 2011 broadcast.
“Could any of us have predicted at game one that two and a half years later John would be the national voice on a network?” Smith asked. “I don’t think any of us would have predicted that, but by the time 2013 rolled around I was able to look at John’s peers around Major League Soccer and immediately knew that he was in the upper echelon of MLS announcers.”
For nearly a decade, the Timbers MLS history has been marked by inconsistent play on the field, an MLS Cup, and even a little bit of magic. But, through it all, there has been a talented television crew to tell the story. And it all began with John Strong and Robbie Earle back in 2011.
“Lots of people forget that the team was really darn competitive in 2011, right up until the end of the season,” Smith said. “There was a great atmosphere in Portland, a new expansion team that was upping the ante in Major League Soccer. But they were also competitive, and the Timbers were competing to be in the playoffs in year one. 2011 was exciting on all fronts, every aspect of it, and I think we had a great broadcast, great announcers, and the product we put on air was second to none.”
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.
Former Portland Timbers play-by-play commentator John Strong landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport expecting to make a quick connection to a cross-country flight to Washington DC. But on his way to the gate, he received an unforeseen email from Timbers owner and CEO Merritt Paulson asking where he was.
Strong knew to assume inclement weather on the east coast during the coming weekend. According to multiple reports, Hurricane Irma was projected to hit the DC area, but Strong anticipated that the team, and Major League Soccer, would postpone that weekend’s game against DC United just a day or two, and that he could bunker down in a hotel in the mean time. That idea was dashed just a few minutes later when he received another frantic message, this time from the Timbers’ vice president of broadcasting, Matt Smith.
“I’m thinking they delayed the game and we’d play it Monday,” Strong said. “I was still prepared to fly to DC. But [Paulson] responds in all caps, ‘DO NOT GET ON THE PLANE,’ and within seconds Smith is calling me saying, ‘where are you right now?’”
Strong, of course, was on his way to the nation’s capital, but those plans quickly changed. 285 regular-season games have gone on without a hitch since then, until March 19, when COVID-19 shut the entire league down. That game, nearly a decade ago, stood as the only time a Timbers game had been postponed in its MLS era, and it resulted in one of the craziest and most memorable days behind the scenes in the franchise’s MLS history.
Photo by Nikita Taparia
The team landed in Washington a day before the official postponement, arriving on Thursday night to an eerily empty Reagan Airport. It is team policy to arrive at road cities at least two days prior to an east coast game, so despite the rumblings about a potential hurricane, players and staff boarded the 2,800-mile flight to DC.
But in seeing how empty the airport was, with those passengers who were there scrambling to get out of the city, reality set in. By the time the team left the airport, Portland’s then-director of game operations, Nick Mansueto, couldn’t help but begin to contemplate a nightmare scenario—one that came to fruition 24 hours later.
“It was certainly a surreal feeling being at an airport, grabbing your bags, and being the only ones because everybody else in the airport is trying to leave,” Mansueto said. “It was strange to be the only group of people walking to the baggage claim, which made it all the more real and it hit home what exactly we were flying into.”
On Friday morning, just a day before the game was scheduled to be played, Mansueto recalls going outside to see weird cloud formations and feeling the wind pick up. Soon after, the call from the league came through: there would be no game that weekend, and the team would have to get out of DC. Players who boarded the bus expecting to head to training that morning were instead thrust into a crazy 24-hour experience that perfectly reflected the MLS 2.0 era.
One player who remembers that day well is former team captain Jack Jewsbury. He recalls the shock of switching mindsets from anticipating practice to having to turn around and fly right back across the country. As captain, Jewsbury left with the first group of players and would get to fly back out of Reagan.
“Nick [Mansueto] and his staff did as good as they could to get everyone on [flights], but you gotta think that everybody else in that area is trying to get out of there, too,” Jewsbury said. “It was a bit chaotic.”
Behind the scenes, Mansueto called it one of the most stressful and memorable experiences from his time with the team, one that involved booking an entire soccer team on cross-country flights in an ever-changing situation. The team was used to traveling in a controlled environment with tickets already printed, bags checked in, and expedited security lines. At that moment, Mansueto was just trying to get as many seats as he could together, and that meant securing two or three seats each on any planes departing out of Baltimore, Reagan, and Dulles airports—all at least an hour apart from one another without traffic—which meant lengthy layovers in four different cities.
“For me, it was important to get the guys out of there as quickly as possible,” Mansueto said. “If there were layovers, which there were, that was certainly a better situation than being stuck for an unknown amount of time in a city that you do not live in.”
By the time Jewsbury and the first group of players arrived at Reagan, they decided to enjoy a quick drink before the long journey home; after all, there would not be another game for a while.
“It was an odd feeling,” Jewsbury said. “You’re in your Timbers gear, you’re supposed to go to a game the next day, and you’re already coming back flying across the country. We had a few beers to settle the nerves a little bit because we had finally made it to the airport.”
Luckily, Jewsbury and the entire team arrived back in Portland in the coming days, but it’s easy to look back at that game and ask, “what if?”
In a way, it hurt the team to not play the game as scheduled. Back in May, DC United had become the first team to beat Portland at what was then Jeld-Wen Field, winning 3–2 in dramatic fashion. But by late August, the Timbers had caught lightning in a bottle, taking all six points from the Vancouver Whitecaps and Chivas USA in the span of four days.
Instead, the game was rescheduled for late October and became a do-or-die match for both teams. A Timbers win would have essentially guaranteed a spot in the playoffs if they could win or draw against Salt Lake City the following weekend. DC, meanwhile, needed all three points to stave off instant elimination. The game—which still holds an MLS record for most shots in a half of any MLS game since 2000—ultimately finished 1–1, with Kenny Cooper opening the scoring in the 24th minute, and Dwayne De Rosario scoring the equalizer in the 73rd. The Timbers were then forced to rely on another result; that game didn’t go their way, and the team was out before Decision Day.
“This is my hot take about 2011,” Strong said. “I think the Timbers win that game [if it had been played as originally scheduled] because they were playing with such confidence, and it was such a quick turnaround that they were running on adrenaline. By the time they played DC again at the end of the season, the team was out of gas.”
Jewsbury acknowledged Strong’s point, but he didn’t believe that one postponed game in August made that much of a difference in the team’s playoff fate that year. He did, however, agree that road points were hard to come by, and those three would have been extremely valuable.
“For me to say, ‘Hey, if we win that game, we are going to make the playoffs,’ is probably unfair, but we were in a groove,” Jewsbury admitted. “For a young team like we were, confidence was king. And we had that going at different times during the year, so to not get that one in hurt for sure, and you never know. We may have been able to grab that playoff spot, and you never know what is going to happen from there.”
That postponed game now stands as arguably one of the craziest forgotten stories from that 2011 season. Was John Strong right? Could the Timbers have actually snuck into the playoffs that year? We’ll never know for sure, but it’s a memorable flashpoint in what was an exciting inaugural MLS season for the Portland Timbers.
“Had the Timbers had the three points from the DC win, they would’ve come into the RSL game knowing that with a win they would’ve gotten in, or a draw might’ve been enough, depending on the result,” Strong said. “That’s always been my revisionist hot take. If it were not for that hurricane, the Timbers are the third expansion team ever to make the playoffs.”
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.
We’re in quarantine. Sports are on hold indefinitely. I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I’m getting tired of watching a ridiculous amount of Degrassi: The Next Generation—a show I chose purely because it has almost 400 episodes—in between pretending to do work for my online classes. So what else is there?
Watching old soccer games? Can be fun, but if you’re like me, you have a hard time focusing for an hour and a half on a sports match you’ve already seen. (Especially if you end up thinking about the current lack of sports and feeling sad about that instead.)
Books? Sure. I recently finished There There, which I definitely recommend checking out if you haven’t yet. I’m now working my way through a book about consciousness and octopuses—maybe more on that in a week or two. The thing is, I can only spend so much time reading every day, so that can’t be the only thing in my life.
Astrology? Now we’re onto something. I started a comparison between Jill Ellis’s and Vlatko Andonovski’s charts a couple months ago out of curiosity; I wanted to know what the stars had to say about their different coaching styles and appearances in the eyes of fans. While I never fully put anything together then, now seems like the perfect time to change that.
Photo by Nikita Taparia.
At its most basic level, astrology is about planets, signs, and houses. These are usually explained in terms of energy. Planets identify what energy is being dealt with—for instance, the sun describes one’s most basic self, while Mercury is about intellect and communication. Signs explain how that energy manifests itself, and houses express the areas of life in which that energy appears. For the purposes of this piece, I’m looking just at the first two, as the placement of houses changes every two hours and I don’t know Ellis’s or Andonovski’s exact time of birth. I’m also focusing on the inner, “personal,” planets, those which reflect on one’s individual personality.
Jill Ellis’ natal chart.
As mentioned above, one’s sun sign describes their most fundamental self. It’s the one we talk about when discussing astrology more generally—you’re usually an Aries if you’re born between March 21 and April 20, a Taurus from April 21 to May 20, and so on. In both Ellis’s and Andonovski’s cases, the sun falls in Virgo.
Vlatko Andonovski’s natal chart.
First and foremost, Virgos are analytical, always evaluating and fine-tuning details. Industrious and pragmatic, this placement bodes well for someone who coaches soccer at its highest level; it lends itself to a technical and tactically creative read of the game. We can see this in Ellis’s array of experimental formations and in Andonovski’s willingness to adapt his game plan in accordance with the strengths and weaknesses of the opponent. The stereotypical Virgo trait of attention to detail is relevant here as well; it speaks to both these coaches’ drive for constant improvement.
Moving down their charts, both coaches’ signs again align, as they both have moons in Taurus. While the sun represents one’s most basic identity, the moon turns this focus inwards to emotions and the subconscious self. Taurus is represented by the bull; it centers around stability and dependability. This placement tells us that Ellis and Andonovski are fundamentally nurturing people who are in control of their emotions.
As alluded to earlier, Mercury placements tell us about thinking and communication. For Ellis, this planet is again in Virgo, focused on practicality and logic. We see this in her trial-and-error approach when it comes to lineups—the infamous Allie Long in the center of a three-back experiment comes to mind. However, Ellis’s reason-based method of thinking also has its clear advantages, most notably when she outcoached Phil Neville’s England side in the 2019 World Cup semifinal. (Neville is an Aquarius, Capricorn Mercury, if you were wondering.)
Andonovski’s Mercury falls in Libra. Symbolized by a set of scales, Libra is about diplomacy and balance. This manifests itself in the way Andonovski manages his teams—he emphasized that the Reign FC squad was a family throughout the 2019 season, a clear indication of his value of unity. The Libra trait of conflict avoidance is also evident in Andonovski’s coaching; he tends to avoid direct play in favor of building through cohesive teamwork and picking the moments to strike.
Venus tells us about relationships—romantic or otherwise—and creativity. Libra is again present for Andonovski here. In this case, his chart tells us that he’s easy to get along with, something supported by the seemingly unanimous praise we hear from his players. Libra Venuses also thrive when expressing their imagination; Andonovski’s love of the game shines through in his meticulous research and tactically adaptable style of coaching.
In contrast, Ellis’ Venus is located in Leo, a sign associated with loyalty, pride, and radiance. Those with this placement are often charismatic in interpersonal relationships and crave admiration. Additionally, Leo Venuses are more likely to possess extravagant material belongings—or in Ellis’ case, to have peacocks basically living in her yard.
Leo also appears in Mars on Ellis’ chart. The planet tied to physical drive and initiative, a Leo Mars often indicates a visionary nature. This tends to make one a good leader, so long as their ego doesn’t get in the way. In Ellis’ case, this allowed her to confidently lead the USWNT for a number of years, although a conflict between pride and the humbling detail-oriented nature of her sun and Mercury could have led to thoroughness in some areas and an overconfident lack of oversight in others.
Like the other two inner planets, Andonovski’s Mars is in Libra. When three planets—or four, depending on who you ask—fall in the same sign or house, the energy described by that placement is often enhanced. (This is called a stellium.)
Libra Mars leads to the channeling of energy into intellectual or artistic pursuits. Whereas Mars often describes impulsive action, those with Libra placements are often more measured; they tend to consider all sides before making a decision. For Andonovski, this only accentuates his strengths as a coach. He is decisive, but not without ignoring reason.
Ellis exited the job of USWNT head coach boasting a 106-7-19 record and two World Cups, numbers that make it hard to dispute her success. While of course this isn’t fully due to her star chart, and of course the circumstances of one’s birth aren’t the sole indicator of whether or not one will be a good coach, Ellis’s placements lend themselves to confidence and intelligence in her work. While the same signs do not appear in all areas of Andonovski’s chart, that he and Ellis share sun and moon signs indicate that the calm analysis of Ellis’s coaching will not be lost. And a little more emphasis on teamwork never hurt anyone.
12-year old Anderson Mathews is like any other middle-school kid. He plays FIFA, enjoys collecting stickers and scarves, and secretly hopes that school will not return before his birthday. More than anything, he loves patches, soccer, and the Portland Timbers.
Mathews is a well-known member of the Timbers community, and his white Jeanderson jersey is often easy to spot in the stadium. Yet while his name may be Anderson, many fans know him by a different moniker: Ghost of Jeanderson, or GOJ for short. The nickname was given to him at a 2016 game in Seattle, when two members of the Soccer Touchdown Podcast mistook his name for Jeanderson, a former Timber who only played in three matches for the club. Both Mathews and Jeanderson were happy-go-lucky people, so the nickname ultimately stuck.
While Mathews may be young, he is a Timbers Army veteran. He attended his first Timbers game in 2012, when the team hosted Valencia in a friendly, a match he still has the scarf from. In 2016, he and his father traveled to the aforementioned Seattle game on the Timbers Army charter bus, where they made new friends and ultimately became dedicated fans. Now, his family is a staple among the thousands of supporters who fill the North End of Providence Park every home game.
It was a year after that first trip to Seattle that Mathews became intrigued by the patches that many Timbers Army supporters wore and collected. By 2017, that budding curiosity quickly became a hobby for both him and his family. After attending an away game at Cincinnati last season, Mathews came up with an idea. Collecting and trading patches was cool, but what if he could make some of his own?
When he returned home, he began to brainstorm an idea for his first away days patch.
“We lost terribly, but it was on St. Patrick’s day, so we made this patch that was Portland versus FC Cincinnati,” Mathews said. “It was in the shape of a shamrock, and it said PTFC versus FCC. We put a lot of detail into it. Last year I handed them out to all the people that went to Cincinnati.”
That patch became a hit, and sparked the idea to create a new and unique one for each time a new opponent plays the Portland Timbers. For the game against Nashville SC, Mathews and his family designed a patch in the shape of a guitar bearing the names of both teams, along with the phrase “Inaugural Game.” When the season resumes, the Timbers are scheduled to host Inter Miami. Right now, Mathews is thinking about shaping the patch like the Miami Vice logo with the words “PTFC versus Inter Miami,” but the concept is still being brainstormed.
This guitar patch was distributed to visiting Nashville SC supporters at the Timbers’ last home game.
While these patches may sound simple, it takes months to see an idea through to its final stages.
The first step is coming up with an idea. Then, Matthews’ dad takes colored pencils and sketches out the design. From there, he and his family make small corrections before sending them into the factory that will produce the patches in bulk. The factory makes one copy of the patch and sends an image back to the Mathews family for approval before producing roughly 100 patches to ship to Oregon.
Last year, Mathews and his family created his favorite patch yet: an old-fashioned travel suitcase that sported mini pennants representing different MLS franchises. The patch was nominated for an award at last year’s Patch Palooza Pizza Party, an annual gathering for patch collectors and traders in the Portland community.
This “Away Days” patch was nominated for an award last year. (Photo courtesy of Mathews)
Oftentimes, these patches sell out quickly, but no single patch received more positive feedback than one designed as a pair of car keys that read “Go home you bums.” This patch, representing a Timbers Army tradition, sold out within 15 minutes. The family hurriedly placed a second order.
“People are nuts for patches,” Mathews said. “If a patch sells out in 15 minutes, people get mad at you.”
The thing about patches is that they are popular among fans and players alike. For example, if you take a close look at the right sleeve of Zarek Valentin’s jean jacket that he wore before a home game against Seattle last season, you may notice a small, circular patch depicting a ghost with a soccer ball. That is the “Ghost of Jeanderson Patch,” one that Mathews’ family created back in 2016.
That particular picture was a surprise to Mathews, but he did know that Valentin was a fan of his patches. The two were first introduced to one another through the Soccer Touchdown Podcast. From there, they started to talk after games. In 2018, Mathews gifted Valentin his green jersey. Valentin kept that jersey with him, and during each game of the Timbers’ 2018 MLS Cup run he would send Mathews a picture of it.
Photo courtesy of Mathews
“When Zarek was a Timber, him and I hit it off,” Mathews said. “He would want to talk to me, and wanted to get some of the patches.
“Last year we made a mini patch jacket for his new baby which was a big hit,” Mathews added.
Over the years, Mathews and his family found success in creating these unique patches—even making some profits, which are ultimately redistributed.
“Any money left over from the patches we donate to charity, Mathews said. “Towards diabetes, cancer, just donating the money.”
When it comes time to finally deliver these patches at games, it is Mathews who makes the trip from section 102 to the top corner of 223 to personally deliver them. It allows him to meet new fans and potentially trade scarves. Even when there are no patches to deliver, he tries to carve out time to interact with visiting supporters before each home game. Well, most visiting supporters; there are some caveats.
“Here’s where I lay down the line,” Mathews started. “Seattle, I only go over to take pictures. Sometimes [I also don’t interact with] San Jose fans because they get a little too riled up.”
Those little moments of trading scarves and interacting with other soccer fans are what Mathews sorely misses right now. These days, most nights are spent anxiously thinking about and awaiting the return of MLS. When that happens, he will be ready to continue making and trading patches while supporting his favorite club. But, until then, Mathews will be at home doing what any other middle-school kid would be doing during this time of social distancing: playing FIFA, brainstorming new ideas for patches, and holding out hope that, for the first time, he won’t have to worry about school on his birthday.
Photo by Nikita Taparia. Ears via vippng.com. Edited by Leo Baudhuin.
From Charlie, Chistine Sinclair’s legendary Pomeranian, to Gabby Seiler’s Thor—who has his ownInstagram account—it’s hard to argue that the pets of the Portland Thorns aren’t well-documented. However, it’s significantly easier to make the case that the vast majority—if not all—of this content centers around dogs.
As a cat person who suddenly has a lot of time on my hands, I thought I’d push back against that trend and give a little attention to a pair of PTFC cats.
Becky Sauerbrunn, an exciting addition to the Thorns this offseason and a known cat lover, began fostering her current cats during her FC Kansas City days. A member of the Blue Crew, FCKC’s supporters’ group, worked at an animal hospital, and a number of players on the Kansas City squad were fostering animals from them. The players—who were only provided with housing when they were in season—got a pet while they were in market, and the animals got a temporary home. Sauerbrunn was among these players; she took in Missy, Olive, and their brother T-Pain in 2016.
While living under the care of Sauerbrunn, T-Pain was adopted. Sauerbrunn was resolute in her reaction, choosing to adopt T-Pain’s sisters herself. “I decided I wasn’t dealing with that sadness any more than I had to,” she tells me over email. “I convinced (guilt-tripped) my boyfriend into agreeing to it. And the rest is history.”
Missy (left in the photo above) is easily the more outgoing of the two. She’s the one who will welcome strangers and beg them for attention, while Olive, in stereotypical black cat form, will make herself scarce. “Missy is the type of cat who will greet you, meow constantly for pets, and climb right on your lap when you sit down,” says Sauerbrunn.
Sauerbrunn likens Missy to Emma Woodhouse, the protagonist of Jane Austen’s Emma. She points to Wikipedia’s description of Woodhouse to back this up: “a beautiful, high-spirited, intelligent, and ‘slightly’ spoiled young woman.” While, admittedly, I’ve never read the book, this seems like an apt characterization of the cat who wakes Sauerbrunn up at 7:00 a.m. with a paw to the face, purring (or who licks Sauerbrunn’s arm as she types a response to me, trying to convince her to reposition so she can take her rightful seat in Sauerbrunn’s lap).
Where Missy takes center stage, Olive is initially more on the periphery; Sauerbrunn compares her to Neville Longbottom from Harry Potter. “Early in the series he’s a little underestimated, flies under the radar, seems like a good dude but remains in the periphery of the main story,” she explains. “But, by the end, he’s leading Dumbledore’s Army, killing off a horcrux, and becoming a fan favorite. Olive has that effect on people.”
Developing appreciation goes both ways when it comes to Olive. People gradually warm up to her and she to them. “You have to earn her trust,” Sauerbrunn says, “and that takes time to prove that your intentions are pure. But when you earn that trust, you’re one of her humans for life and she’ll bless you with her amazing companionship.”
When it comes to the relationship between Missy and Olive, Missy loves to be the one in charge. “[She] will taunt and tease and pick fights with Olive, says Sauerbrunn. “But if you mess with Olive in any way, and Olive gives off any distress sign, Missy comes running and will literally fight the person.”
She describes an instance in which Olive wouldn’t leave a patch of sensitive skin alone, and Sauerbrunn’s boyfriend, Zola Short, attempted to put a soft cone around Olive’s neck to limit her access to the spot. Missy, sensing Olive’s discomfort, rushed to the rescue, executing a flying backwards kick that brought her into contact with Short’s stomach and forced him to release Olive. “I know I should’ve been more concerned for Zola,” Sauerbrunn recalls, “but I was just so proud of Missy that I couldn’t stop smiling.”
The love between Sauerbrunn and her cats is undisputedly mutual. “I thought that initially they’d be thrilled and then eventually the novelty would fade away and they’d leave us alone and go do cat stuff,” she says when asked how Missy and Olive are reacting to her being home more. “I was way wrong. They don’t leave us alone.”
“Do you know what? Yeah. It might take us a while to get to where we want to get to, but we’re gonna get there, and you can just remember this fucking goal.”
When the Thorns aired their first-ever home game, against the Reign, last weekend, I recognized almost nothing. Christine Sinclair, of course, was there, looking roughly the same as she had since 2005 and also roughly the same as she looks today. Other than her? Any familiar faces were shuffled out of place. Mana Shim sat on the bench, anonymous. Michelle Betos was in goal for the other team. Alex Morgan, well—that’s an article unto itself, the story of who Alex Morgan was in Portland, who people thought she was, who they wanted her to be, how they remember her today. Allie Long, I guess, was more or less the same player, but she didn’t look the same.
Weirdly, the Seattle Reign, in terms of personnel anyway, felt more familiar. The team underwent massive turnover between 2013 and 2014, but the bones of who they would be over the next few years were already in place. There was Laura Harvey, of course; on the field, there were Lu Barnes, Elli Reed, Keelin Winters, Jess Fishlock.
Ah, Jess Fishlock.
It’s strange to think that we ever didn’t know who Fishlock was, but back then, of course, pretty much nobody in the states did. This was the curse of coming from a country like Wales in 2013—even avid women’s soccer fans simply had no way of watching her. On that day, the commentators (Ann Schatz, may god bless her and keep her, was another familiar feature of that broadcast) explained we should watch the woman who looked kind of, but not really, like Megan Rapinoe.
The crowd didn’t know yet who Fishlock was, how they were supposed to respond to her, but on some instinctive level, she knew exactly who she was to them. “I love a big crowd,” she says of Providence Park. “It’s like a cauldron in there. It’s amazing.”
This is the thing about Fishlock: in her own way, she loves Portland, and Thorns fans, whether they admit it or not, need her. A villain, like a photographic negative, forms and sharpens a club’s vision of itself. Without an antagonist, there’s no reason to watch.
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Fishlock announced herself quickly that day. Despite playing for what would turn out to be an abysmal Reign side—”I already knew by that point it was going to be a slog,” she remembers—she was the best player on the field, for either team.
If you’re reading this, you probably don’t want to hear that. Keep in mind, though, that the actual soccer in the NWSL in 2013 was really rather bad. Few players could quite control the ball; fewer still could reliably pass it along the ground to another player.
Amid the chaos, Fishlock gave us a glimpse into the future. She was physical, of course, but unlike with the thoughtless and often bizarre violence being carried out by those around her (on both sides), there was a purpose to everything she did. As the game went on, she was clearly frustrated, but she was also laser-focused. Her frustration only seemed to sharpen her. This player—physical, athletic, wildly competitive, but incredibly skilled—was the embodiment of what the NWSL would become over the next six years. She was the ideal NWSL player before the NWSL really existed.
As the Thorns went up a goal, then two goals, as 16,000 fans clapped and sang and reveled in seeing their new team for the first time, she knew what had to happen.
“I don’t want us to leave here,” she remembers thinking, “and have them have a clean sheet… We were like, ‘fuck’—excuse my French—we were just like, ‘fuck, if we’re gonna lose, fine, we’re gonna fucking lose, but we’re gonna fucking score. Like, because we’re gonna make sure that these [the fans] are like, dead silent for like, a millisecond.’”
And then, right on cue, she did, cleanly slotting a half-volley just inside the post as Winters knocked Nikki Marshall over. Just as Fishlock had planned, the stadium was silent for a heartbeat. She pounded the crest on her shirt and pumped her fist, and Providence Park erupted.
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Fishlock is the perfect villain not because she’s physical, or even because she dives, but because she is undeniably very, very good. There was no shortage of fouls in that game, but if that was what mattered, Kaylyn Kyle would have been marked down as an enemy, too. What mattered was the goal—the spoiling of the Thorns’ home debut.
That moment, in retrospect, would prove more definitional for the Thorns—not as a team, necessarily, but as a club—than anything else that happened that season, including the championship win. It was as if everyone in the stadium, in unison, suddenly remembered a fundamental fact about the world. Here is our team; here is our enemy. Thus has it always been, and thus shall it ever be.
The end of that season ushered in an era of rapid change in Portland. Cindy Parlow Cone left. Paul Riley arrived in a whirlwind, then blew away in a cloud of dust. Kat Williamson left, then came back, then retired, Vero Boquete and Jessica McDonald both spent short, magnificent stints in Portland, Nadine Angerer became a fixture. Through it all, Thorns fans made regular pilgrimages to a concrete relic in the shadow of the Space Needle, hoping that this time they’d get to drive home victorious, fixing their ire on the diminutive Welshwoman when they didn’t.
“I actually miss her,” Nash Drake, the Thorns fan who composed the first tweet above, confessed to me. “The thing about Fishlock is that she understands what rivalry means… It’s kind of like two guys sitting around drinking beer and hitting each other.”
This is rivalry in its highest form: a drama that goes on as long as there’s something for it to go on about, but which both sides, at the end of the day, know they’re choosing to participate in. It’s real, but it’s also not real. We’re doing it because it’s fun.
Wouldn’t it be a shame if it turned out we couldn’t all be friends?
I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone that, given the state of the world, I have been struggling to collect myself and write about the good, good game. Still, when the Timbers’ re-aired their first-ever Major League Soccer home game, I vowed to shake off the malaise that had settled over me and write something about it.
It didn’t go great.
I struggled to watch the game, let alone write about it, and as the hours passed with no movement I decided to record snippets of what was going through my head.
*
I can’t even think about soccer right now.
Attempts to think back about the beginning of the Timbers’ season are met in my mind by a white void, full of nothing but static and anxiety.
I try to focus on the Timbers’s second match of 2020—their last match before all this took hold—and I know it was a 1-0 win. As I try to summon the match more fully to mind I find myself staring at my gloved hands, still glistening with a sheen of evaporating alcohol from the wipe I just used to disinfect my desk after a co-worker borrowed my workstation.
“I’m not sick,” he said.
“That’s not how this works,” I replied, exasperated.
It eventually comes to me. Diego Valeri on the volley. Sixty minutes of compact, defensive soccer. A reasonable fear of Walker Zimmerman at the back post. Three points.
**
Executive Order No. 20-12 has been announced.
Work has slowed to a halt and I find myself listening to podcasts as I wait to see how many more people I have to interact with today. I clean and count product, losing myself in the repetition and in the podcasts that play through the one earbud I have in.
Every soccer podcast that I listen to has become a movie review podcast. It is fine.
***
When I get home I sit on the couch and time passes swiftly.
Hummus and pita as something flickers on the television.
I know should watch the rebroadcast Timbers game, their first home match since joining MLS. I should rouse myself. I should write something.
More sitting. More screens.
Tonight, this is as close as I get.
****
I remember Jorge Perlaza’s goal.
Not so much the goal itself, although through repeated viewing over the last ten years it has been seared into my mind, but my feelings at the moment that it occurred.
Standing in the North End, drunk, after hours in line. Waving a flag too long. The rain.
The wild elation when Perlaza slots past Sean Johnson. Jumping up and down like a maniac. Hugging my best friend on one side. Hugging a stranger on the other.
*****
It is two days later and I am finally watching the match. My eyes are heavy from a combination of stress and allergies, but as the game begins I perk up.
I like this team. Captain Jack. Kenny Fucking Cooper. Futty. Rodney. Kalif.
But it is not just the RCTID folk heroes that bring a smile to my face. There is future Chivas USA survivor Steve Purdy; rock-solid Eric Brunner, whose career was cut short by concussions; and Jorge, the Timbers’ first Colombian.
Even James “Non-soccer Reasons” Marcelin and Jeremy “no-nickname-found” Hall warm my heart.
******
Ten minutes in and Cooper is dancing around Chicago players as though he weighed no more than a feather. This is the Kenny Cooper that we forget.
Moments later that dribbling has lead to nothing as Cooper fires a shot or a pass or maybe just an ill-timed muscle spasm off the leg of a defender and up into the air. This is the Kenny Cooper that we remember.
*******
Twenty-five minutes in and I am struck by how comforting it is to have a team full of imposing players.
In the 2011 home opener, the Timbers starting XI averaged just over 6’1”. In the 2020 home opener, the Timbers starting XI averaged a smidge over 5’10”.
The difference is stark on every contested header.
********
Twenty-nine minutes in and the goal comes. It is everything I wanted it to be.
Rodney to Kalif to Jorge. Cut inside. Pass the ball into the net.
I watch the cameras panning over wildly celebrating fans and pick out my best friend, waving a scarf in the air. He is just on the edge of the screen, but I can still make him out and I can tell that the one arm projecting from behind a waving flag: that is me.
*********
Thirty-one minutes in and Timber Joey is cutting his first slab off the log in the MLS era. Except, it looks like it might turn out to be a wedge rather than a slab.
**********
Thirty-eight minutes in and Rodney Wallace scores the goal that should have announced his presence to everyone in the North End. But in 2011 Rodney was playing left back and we all knew that left back goals are not repeatable.
***********
Forty-seven minutes in and Jorge Perlaza has scored his second goal of the night. He will go on to score only four more for the Timbers before being traded away midway through the 2012 season.
That is a bummer.
My god, it is raining hard.
************
Sixty-five minutes in and Kalif Alhassan looks so much worse than I remember.
He has so very many ideas and so little chance at executing them. Here he takes a shot on the volley that if he could connect with it would instantly be in the running for the best goal a Timbers player has ever scored. (Sorry, Darlington. Sorry, Diego.) But he never connects.
*************
Eighty-one minutes in and Marco Pappa scores that goal that Kalif wishes he had scored.
Pappa would go on to score once more against the Timbers: two years later for the Seattle Sounders during the Timbers’ abysmal 2014 season.
**************
Eighty-four minutes in and Futty scores the most 2011 Timbers goal possible: a flailing, stumbling, possibly double hand-ball that somehow emerged from the midst of no less than five defenders to end up over the line.
That is the 2011 that I remember.
***************
Eighty-seven minutes in and Darlington Nagbe has been on the pitch for several minutes now. He is only 20. He looks so little as the Timbers Army chant “Fools Rush In”.
****************
Ninety minutes in and the Timbers Army are singing “Tetris” but they are not Tetris-ing. This makes sense as Tetris-ing was not yet a thing in 2011, but there remains something strange about not seeing a mass of people bouncing back and forth as the song is sung.
The little differences like this are adding up. 2011 was a long time ago.
*****************
The game is over and I am left with a little bit of sadness.
In a year’s time, this team would be largely unrecognizable going into the hellmouth that was the 2012 season. And by the end of that year, only a handful of the players that were there at the beginning would remain. Now not a single player from the 2011 Timbers home opener is still on the roster.
The first years of every expansion team are full of upheaval. Everything comes and goes as the club struggles to figure out who they are.
In April of 2011 the Timbers were a team fueled by the crowd and the rain and the smell of fresh sawdust.
