Category: Thorns

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Reign 2, Thorns 1

Photo by Nikita Taparia

The Thorns fell 1–2 to their rivals from the north on Sunday. It was an exciting game that may be remembered as the moment the Reign completed their transformation into the superteam they’ve looked like on paper since the arrivals of Dzsenifer Maroszán, Rose Lavelle, and Eugenie Le Sommer.

Back under our old friend Laura Harvey and playing for the first time ever at the Seahawks’s Lumen Field, the Reign employed a clever game plan that both maximized their strengths and capitalized on the weaknesses in Portland’s setup.

Let’s take a look at the Reign’s first goal, which exemplifies both sides of that equation. In the screenshot below, Portland has just won possession off a Reign goal kick, and Maroszán is chasing Lindsey Horan, limiting her passing options:

Horan’s options on the left side of the field are cut off; most players would also see the passing lane to Rocky Rodríguez, in the center circle, as being blocked by Rose Lavelle, leaving Christen Westphal on the right as the only option. She’s wide open, too! But whether it’s because Horan isn’t at 100% mentally—she hasn’t looked like she’s quite clicked back into place with the team in the last couple games—or because she’s Lindsey Horan and has completed this pass plenty of times, she opts for Rodríguez. Lavelle scoops up the pass, Maroszán and Jess Fishlock close in, and Fishlock finds Megan Rapinoe sprinting up the Reign’s left wing:

Clearly, the Thorns are in big trouble now. Westphal and Natalia Kuikka were both pushing forward, leaving tons of space behind them. At this moment, Kuikka is dropping back but has to keep her eye on Le Sommer on the right, while Westphal is miles behind Pinoe, so Emily Menges and Becky Sauerbrunn are left in the lurch. Menges is left guarding Pinoe one on one, and that’s the ballgame.

Portland’s defense found themselves resorting to heroics a number of times in the game, as the Reign took advantage of that wide space. They also cleverly deployed Maroszán in a false No. 9 role, using her to press the Thorns’ deeper-lying players on defense and then combine with the midfield once her team won the ball. She was effective both with her pressing, as we saw above, and as a creator, notching two chances created on the stat sheet.

Defensively, Tacoma aimed to make the center of the field as claustrophobic as possible for Portland’s dangerous midfield. They used a low line of engagement, generally not pressing above the halfway line, but pestered the Thorns midfield aggressively in their own half. Here it also has to be said that the current Reign midfield of Fishlock, Lavelle, and Quinn—plus Maroszán, in practice—rivals the Thorns’ for the best in the league. Fishlock, obviously, eats nails for breakfast, Quinn is a gold medal-winning No. 6, and Lavelle is demonstrating she can be a destroyer in addition to an offensive wizard. In short: a formidable trio!

OL also tended to stay compact horizontally, the better to crowd the central midfield. In doing that, they often ignored the Thorns’ outside backs as they pushed forward in the attack. That left Kuikka and Westphal (and anyone else who found themselves wide of the goal area) open to send in crosses, but with the Reign defense packed in tight as Portland tended to be slow to find those options, only one cross out of 18 total found its mark.

This is where things get a little more nuanced. No doubt this was one of Portland’s poorer performances this year, but I also think it was a closer match than a 2–1 scoreline would imply. The defensive strategy I just outlined, like all defensive strategies, had some vulnerabilities. In particular, pressing always opens up space somewhere on the field, and in Tacoma’s case, that space was between their midfield and back line, which is quite a dangerous area of the field to leave space in!

Below, Angela Salem has just won the ball off of Kristen McNabb (I think) and tapped it to the white area that I think is Rodríguez, who is about to find Crystal Dunn in a big comfortable pocket ahead of the Reign defense:

After this, Fishlock and Quinn kept following the ball as the Thorns passed it around, Sophia Smith and Christine Sinclair stretched the OL back line, and Smith ended up with a clear shot at the goal—which she sent straight to Sarah Bouhaddi.

Smith had a handful of similar chances where the Reign midfield’s aggressive orientation toward the ball came back to bite them, ending the game with a team-leading six shots. In other words, the space was there, the Thorns were just too slow and inconsistent in recognizing and capitalizing on it.

That particular chance was a microcosm of Portland’s issues as a whole. A number of players, including Rodríguez and Menges, looked gassed from the starting whistle. This team has had an exhausting schedule in August, playing five games in 16 days. Smith in particular, though, seemed to exemplify what Mark Parsons identified postgame as the real fallout of that schedule.

“Physically I thought, some of the players today, they still looked like they could go,” he said. “But mentally, definitely. Mentally and emotionally, there was a little more in the tank for them, a little less in the tank for us.”

We’ve seen Smith struggle with finishing this season, but from the press box at least, this looked like a slightly different issue. Where in the past, she’s sometimes seemed to be overthinking where to place the ball once she gets in on goal, on Sunday she tended to find those chances and just… kick.

This isn’t to single Smith out—the team was a beat slow across the board, and understandably so. The full week of rest and training ahead is sorely needed, and hopefully the Thorns emerge looking more like themselves.

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 2, Gotham 1

Credit: Matthew Wolfe

In what Mark Parsons called the “toughest game of [their] intense five-game streak,” the Thorns came away with all three points against Gotham FC last night. Last night’s game was the fourth meeting of the Thorns and Gotham this year, and marked their second win (the other two were ties).  

Fresh off their ICC win, the Thorns marketed the game as the  homecoming of their Olympians. It was bittersweet to not see AD Franch welcomed back to Providence Park alongside Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Christine Sinclair, but that’s business. Parsons wasted no time in slotting the Olympians back into the starting XI, even if that meant deploying them in different positions from their usual. Sinc played the attacking No. 9 instead of her normal distributing role as the No. 10, where Dunn played instead.

To the eye, the Thorns dominated the first half, attacking relentlessly. The numbers told a somewhat different story. While the Thorns did outshoot Gotham 15–1 with seven shots on target, they were only able to score once in the run of play. Postgame, Parsons said he was disappointed that they hadn’t put more of their many opportunities. The lack of goals resulted from misplaced or overshot passes in the final third, where players took one too many touches or played the ball behind a player who was open on goal.

And despite their overall dominance, there were moments where the team looked a little disjointed. Their passing accuracy was only 75%, and they completed 200 passes, 100 less than Gotham did. With more time back, I expect these numbers to rise, but it will be difficult to find the cohesion the Thorns experienced during the Olympic window with victory tours and national team camps expected to take players out. 

Horan, in her first 90-minute appearance for the Thorns since the July 11th game against Gotham, put in a solid shift. She did have a few noticeable mistakes, like early in the first half, when she received the ball unmarked at the top of the 18 and passed it behind Sophia Smith instead of opting to shoot, sending the ball out of play. However, Horan ended the match with the most touches (68), and an above-average passing accuracy of 80%. That she did so well statistically despite struggling to find teammates at certain moments points to how much more dominant this midfield can be when all the Olympians are fully reintegrated.

While individual players may have been off their rhythms at times, the team as a whole knew their job and were successful in keeping a high press. Parsons spoke about how during the Olympic window the Thorns kept their integrity and didn’t change how they played just because half their starters were gone. Gotham started the match in a 3-5-2, attempting to clog the midfield lanes, but the Thorns’ high press was able to overwhelm their formation.

As you can see on the passing map below, Smith, Dunn, and Sinc all pressed high, and were able to find themselves in 1v1 situations with the Gotham defenders.

Credit: Antonio Maza

Rocky Rodríguez and Angela Salem were able to find them with balls over the top, bypassing the overcrowded midfield, which is where many of the Thorns’ shots came from.

The passing map also shows how crucial Salem was as the No. 6. In 65 minutes, she had two key passes and was 100% on accurate long balls, making 28 completed passes. Her distribution helped to connect the back line to the forwards and work the ball around Gotham, exploiting the available space. Salem is a true No. 6, the deepest midfielder, and was replaced by Moultrie, who is still finding her footing and which position she’s most comfortable in. Without a dedicated holding midfielder, the midfield lost its shape, causing most of the play to go through Horan on the left side. 

This shift forced Yazmeen Ryan to drop back, not able to press nearly as high as Sophia had. These subtle changes resulted in a significant decrease in shots taken, with only five in the second half, and led to “poor buildup, pressing, and fatigue” as Parsons said postgame. The Thorns’ 40.8% possession shows that although they’re dangerous, last night didn’t quite represent their full potential, and they continue to lose focus as games reach the 70th minute.  

Sophia Smith deserves a shoutout, too. In the half she played, she was  one of the most dangerous players on the pitch. Parsons said that her not making the Olympic roster, while heartbreaking, was ultimately one of the best things for her as a Thorn, as it provided the consistency she needs to grow. With 100% passing accuracy and three shots on target, she was lethal up top, slicing apart Gotham’s back line and beating players on the dribble, including Erika Skroski, whose ankles she destroyed to get her goal.

Postgame, Smith said she has been working on her off-ball runs, and that work is showing results. As she gets more time to grow (she is only 21, as the commentators never fail to remind us), she will develop into one of the most lethal threats in the league. 

The Thorns go again against the Reign on Saturday, and while there isn’t much time to prepare, hopefully the rhythm and connection between the Olympic players and the team will grow, leading to a game that is equally dominant to the eye and on paper. 

Categories
ICC Soccer Thorns

Game Notes: ICC Day 1

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

In the opening games of the WICC at Providence Park yesterday, Lyon played beat Barcelona 3–2 in an exciting, high-quality match. Later in the evening, the Portland Thorns played the Houston Dash to a 2-2 tie. The match went to penalties, and the Thorns came out on top, beating Houston 3–1 in the shootout.

But I come to you bringing observations of the 90+ minutes of each game, whether you were cheering for Lyonnais, Barcelona, the Thorns, or the Dash.

FC Barcelona vs Olympique Lyonnais

1. Olympique Lyonnais made the most of their back line while countering. With Barça disorganized defensively after attacking, and some of their players spread out to follow their marks, OL opened up to find space immediately, and their back line sent passes up wide or through the middle. This tactic was used in one of Lyon’s attempts on goal late in the first half, which nearly succeeded. Barça’s defense was often unprepared and didn’t anticipate the sudden switch of speed.

2. Barça used their midfield and attacking third to send crosses through Lyon’s defensive line whenever they were caught flat, which happened often during the first half. Lyon was slow to counter at times, allowing Barça to move in for crosses and runs. Because Lyon’s defensive line was often so flat, they were caught having to rush back on defense to adjust for an incoming shot or pass.

3. The two teams’ ball movement differed visibly. Lyon used fluid movement switching from one side to the other and using passes and runs up the sidelines, while Barça attacked more centrally, sending passes straight through the middle, as well as using many more crosses. That difference was pivotal to the result of the game. Lyon’s passes and runs from wide areas helped spread out Barça’s defense and created gaps to allow Lyon players through their lines. On the other end, Barça’s crosses helped them move the ball efficiently when Lyon’s own defense was slow to recover and drop back.

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

Portland Thorns vs Houston Dash

1. Early on, Portland’s starters struggled with their movement around the field, but gradually settled in as the game continued. The beginning of the match was a little messy, and it took me longer than usual to analyze the teams’ formations and movement, and to gain an understanding of how the two teams were approaching their opponent. As the game progressed, however, the Thorns’ movement improved. Some players started to switch sides to get into more comfortable positions and to confuse any defenders marking them. Forwards Sophia Smith and Taylor Porter, for example, often switched sides. After some of the chaos settled, the Thorns worked their way into the game.

2. The Houston Dash used the width of the field to pressure the Thorns centrally. The Thorns’ 4-1-2-1-2 formation meant they had a lot of players in the central midfield and were able to push several players forward when needed. With the center crowded with Thorns players, Houston had to find an alternative to breaking Portland’s defensive lines. They used the wings on offense, but used their own defensive line to pressure the center of the field and prevent Thorns attackers from getting chances centrally and in Houston’s box.

3. Subs from the Thorns at the beginning of the second half changed things up. With the Dash leading 2–0, a change was needed to at least catch up to the Dash. When Emily Menges, Simone Charley, and Hannah Betfort joined the fray, Charley’s speed meant counter attacks were in order. Bringing the ball forward for attacks more often led to more and more scoring opportunities, including corners—one of which gave the Thorns their first goal.

Categories
ICC Soccer Thorns

My Favorite Things

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

A lot of good things that I liked happened last night. Here is a list of the best things that happened, in my opinion:

1. Seven total hype reels throughout the evening

2. Barcelona playing in a super-organized possession-based style, which I would bet not a huge amount of money, but some money, that no team has ever done in Providence Park before

3. Wendie Renard (tall)

4. Mariona goals (two)

5. When Amandine Henry scored in the North End

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

6. Melvine Malard goal

7. The ideal combo of sophistication and technical prowess, on the one hand, and yakety sax defensive errors on the other; maybe the best soccer game I’ve ever seen in person

8. Captain Hubly

9. When the Thorns rotated as much of the team as possible because the same 15ish players have been doing everything for like a month and a half, they’ve been on the road two weeks in a row, and the team has four games in the space of 12 days, so a bunch of players got their first starts and minutes

10. When Natalia Kuikka scored with her head after telling her roommate Angela Salem she was going to score with her head

11. When Olivia Moultrie did a direct free kick and it went in the goal, it was still cool even though the Houston keeper should have been able to save it

12. When Rachel Daly got mad

13. When it went to penalties

14. The sky

15. Shelby Hogan’s first penalty save

16. Shelby Hogan’s second penalty save

17. You can guess what this one is

18. When Simone Charley scored the winning penalty

19. That lineup, doing That

Categories
ICC Soccer Thorns

WICC Preview: FC Barcelona and Olympique Lyonnais

Ana-Maria Crnogorčević will make her return to Providence Park with Barcelona. Photo by Kris Lattimore.
To view this content, you must be a member of the Rose City Review Patreon
Unlock with Patreon
Already a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.
Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Pride 1

Photo by Nikita Taparia

The Thorns extended their unbeaten streak with a hard-fought 1–1 tie against the Orlando Pride yesterday evening, thanks to Simone Charley’s fourth headed goal of the season. The Thorns beat the Pride 2–1 just a few weeks ago, but that was before then-coach Marc Skinner abruptly left for Manchester United. The Pride they played tonight, under interim head coach Becky Burleigh, was more physical and harder to break down, but the Thorns were able to dig deep and find a point on the road. 

At the outset, the Thorns appeared tight and disjointed. Despite only two changes to the starting eleven from the previous week—with Natalia Kuikka getting the start over Christen Westphal and Marissa Everett stepping in for an injured Celeste Boureille—the team struggled to find a rhythm in the early minutes. That was a departure from previous games, where they’ve started on the front foot: the Thorns have scored 11 times in the first 15 minutes this season, a league record.

Last night was a different story: defensively, the Thorns trailed in the first half, winning 43% of their duels. And it was the Pride who found the back of the net early with a header from Jodie Taylor in the 13th minute. The Pride’s initial run of momentum came off of a 4-v-1 battle against Sophia Smith at the top of the 18, where Smith was offered no support or options to get the momentum on Portland’s side.

After the break, though, the Thorns turned things around. In the postgame presser, Charley and Meghan Klingenberg both framed that change as a shift to “Thorns Soccer,” which refers to the core principles that the team follows. Basically, the players hold each other accountable, focus on process over results, and play the same way regardless of who’s on the field. This consistency allows for them build momentum through a game, to where they can score with ease and class.

And that’s what happened: Charley, who is absolutely on fire, recorded her fifth goal of the season off a free kick by Klingenberg that looked straight off of the training ground. Although the goal didn’t come until the 78 minute, the Thorns had been building for a goal throughout the second half. They recorded three shots on target (up from just one in the first half) and only allowed the Pride four shots total, which is much more typical of the Thorns’ dominant, offense-focused style. 

After the game, the players talked about their first-half struggle in finding a rhythm and acting on what the other team was presenting them with. “Somebody is always going to be open, and we need to find that opportunity,” said Kling after the match. She added that once the Thorns are able to find open spaces in game and make adjustments on the fly, they’ll be “scary good.”

Watching that first-to-second-half shift, it’s clear that the Thorns are more than capable of making necessary tactical adjustments and executing plans, and it’s more of a matter of finding the confidence to adjust on the fly, rather than being too shaken to act without having to wait for a break to discuss what to do. 

The Thorns Soccer that Charley and Kling discussed in the post-game conference was also present on an individual level. Parsons cited that nine players were out for this match, but that those absences showed the depth of the team culture, as players went a full 90 and didn’t relent.

With Portland’s five international players still out, many players have gotten more minutes than they did in the first half of the season, but the tactics that they employ don’t change. Angela Salem, who got deservedly high praise from Parsons postgame, had the second-most touches (77) and the most chances created (5), as well as boasting a 78% passing accuracy. She’s a pivotal player in the midfield, acting as the glue to help facilitate movement forward and maintain possession. Against Orlando, Salem was one of the most successful in exploiting the space that the Pride left open and has made an exceptionally strong case to keep her starting spot on the team, as her visions and consistency are emblematic of the Thorns culture that the team has been cultivating all season. 

Another player it’s impossible not to talk about is Olivia Moultrie, who recorded her second professional start against the Pride and played 82 minutes, nearly double what she played last week. And although she recorded the second fewest touches with 39, her work ethic on the field to recover, pressure, and infiltrate the open space opens up the field for her teammates. Especially in the second half, Moultrie played end to end, making several tackles back in her own 18-yard box, showing that she has the mental fortitude to play with the Thorns. 

As the Thorns head into a busy few weeks, with five games in sixteen days thanks to the Women’s International Champions Cup, it’s crucial that they maintain the momentum they have built during the Olympic period. For this team to succeed, every player has to deeply believe in the “Thorns Soccer” culture that allowed them to get back a point on the road against Orlando.

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Washington Spirit 0

Photo by Kris Lattimore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Dash 0

Photo by Nikita Taparia

From the second the whistle blew, the Thorns looked like they were going to dominate the Dash, with Sophia Smith scoring the fastest Thorns goal ever 32 seconds into the match. However, Smith’s goal would be the only one that Portland scored that night, holding the Dash to a 1–0 win on the road.

As a team who has “struggled with scoring,” said Kelli Hubly after the match,” it was really special to score early on the road.” Putting themselves on the board early was a needed confidence boost. However, the Thorns struggled to add to that tally, despite playing a great defensive game. 

Here are a couple of my takeaways from the match:

1. 90-minute defensive mentality

The Thorns were dominant against the Pride last week, holding a 2–0 lead for 93 minutes. Then, in the last minute of stoppage time, they conceded on a strike from outside the box. This week against the Dash, the Thorns immediately worked on correcting their mistakes, remaining committed to defense until the very end of stoppage time.

The Thorns led the Dash on duels won, interceptions, tackles, and aerial duels, spread not just across the defense but the midfield and forwards as well. One area of defense where the Thorns did particularly well was tracking back on wide balls that Houston would attempt to play. By preventing players like Jasmyne Spencer and Makamae Gomera-Stevens from getting crosses or passes off inside the 18-yard box after quick turnovers, the Thorns successfully shut down most of the Dash’s shooting angles, giving Bella Bixby an easy job that night. The cohesion between Natalia Kuikka, Hubly, Emily Menges, and Meghan Klingenberg was evident.

After the match, Rocky Rodríguez spoke about the team’s defensive mentality, saying that they “had a lot to lose” and the Thorns “need to get better at closing out games, especially if [they] are winning.” Those last twenty minutes of the game are crucial to securing three points, and players have to keep working hard even as they are beginning to tire. Parsons’s substitutions, which slotted defensive players like Christen Westphal and Meaghan Nally into the midfield to help overwhelm Houston’s offensive-minded substitutions, worked. The Thorns’ game changers came in and locked down the win, bringing accurate passes and high pressure and holding Houston to only 13 shots. Rodríguez’s statement is true—the Thorns do need to work on closing out games—but they’re already showing improvement from last week. 

2. Defense wins games, but scoring helps too

When Sophia Smith set the new club record for fastest goal, it seemed as though Portland was going to have another performance à la the season opener against Chicago, where they went  up 4–0 in the first half.

Unfortunately, Smith’s goal was the only one for a Thorns side that has struggled to score in recent games. The Thorns have had no problem getting the ball into their attacking third. Last night, they had 50 more accurate passes in their attacking half than the Dash had on them, even without their midfield of international stars. Rodríguez, Angela Salem, and Celeste Boureille link up in the diamond well, and are able to control the ball and distribute to Smith, Simone Charley, and Marissa Everett, but where the Thorns are struggling is getting off that final cross or shot on goal. All players are rising to the occasion of getting more time than they had been seeing prior to the Olympics, and are beginning to find their groove and consistency with this new starting lineup. 

While typically the Thorns outshoot their opponents two to one, against Houston they only registered 14 shots to the Dash’s 13. To the eye, that decrease was clear, with Charley and Smith often taking one too many touches before getting a cross blocked, or a defender crashing on them, neither one of them making an accurate cross on the night. With a team full of talented attackers and a midfield with good rates of distribution and control, there should be more shots on goal. Being able to set themselves up with a wider margin of goals will only complement the Thorns’ defense as they work on closing games without conceding more consistently. 

Categories
Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 2, Pride 1

Photo by Kris Lattimore

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Categories
Soccer Thorns

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

Photo by Nikita Taparia

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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