Last night the Thorns played soccer against the Houston Dash in the heaviest, most surreal context I’ve ever experienced while reporting on the sport.
As for the game: Portland lost 2–3, thanks in part to a Dash penalty scored off a harsh handball call against Becky Sauerbrunn. After Kristie Mewis notched Houston’s second goal in the 23rd minute, the Thorns seemed to wake up and kick their attack into gear. With Houston’s press collapsing two and three players toward the ball, Portland had ample space to work with and had success both from wide areas and stretching the Dash back line enough to find through passes. Christine Sinclair had a cracking finish, Sophia Smith nutmegged Jane Campbell for her goal, and for a while, things hummed along almost shockingly well. Portland dominated statistically, beating Houston in shots by more than double and shots on goal by nearly double.
But as one of my group chats pointed out last night, there’s perhaps no better sign that a team is struggling to focus than when they keep conceding. Refereeing complaints aside, communication got jumbled, marks were lost, and the Thorns let in goals they normally wouldn’t.
I can’t express how strange it felt to be sitting in the press box as the stadium emptied out, players hugging and commiserating on the field below, this thick heaviness in the air, as Stevie Wonder and Lizzo blared on the PA.
The players and the fans had each staged their own protests during the game; players from both teams, like the teams in the night’s previous two games had done, gathered in the center circle in the sixth minute, commemorating the six years that Mana Shim and Sinead Farrelly had to carry on in silence. For their part, the Riveters set off red and black smoke in the 24th minute, representing Farrelly and Shim’s numbers when they played for the Thorns—Farrelly wore #24, and Shim wore #6 (2 + 4).
Now here we were, processing, the players doing so under the harsh glare of the stadium lights, as the usual rhythm of a game day wound to a close.
Mark Parsons and Meghan Klingenberg spoke to the media after the game. I briefly tried to be reflective about last night and failed, so I’m going to offer some of their reflections instead.
Parsons on the responsibilities coaches have toward their players:
“You sign up to be a coach, and the first thing on the list is to be able to protect people, the health and safety and well being of people, players, but also as a head coach, you’re responsible for staff. It’s the first commitment you make, and it’s the simplest one to keep, and I’m so yeah, I’m so sorry, and sad that, that hasn’t been met, and players have suffered. How we got here, it’s really, really, really tough to think about how we got here. And we have to be honest in reflection and learning, but we have to make sure—and I think everyone keeps saying we—everyone in any position of leadership has to work to make sure that players are safe. That we have relentless policies and protocols in place to make sure that [we, who are] given this honor and and special privilege being around some of the best professionals, the best leaders, the best women are the right people. We absolutely have failed there… This is this is just embarrassingly heartbreaking.”
Klingenberg on the need to shift power into the players’ hands:
“This has been a really dark and heavy week, for everyone in the league, fans, players, coaching staff. It’s just been a lot. I think with that type of heaviness comes the realization that things need to change. And we’ve been doing a lot of grieving for our fellow players. We’ve been doing a lot of pathfinding, we’ve been doing a lot of, having big discussions about where this league should go, and how it should look. The one thing that keeps coming back to me and to us over and over and over again, is that without any say in the league, without any power, and without the financial resources to protect ourselves, and this will continue happening. So to me, there needs to be big structural changes within the league to protect these players. Because we’re vulnerable without a voice, we’re vulnerable without the financial means to protect ourselves, and that is something that cannot continue.”
Klingenberg on the emotions of the last week:
“I feel sad. I feel angry. I think what I feel depends on what time of the day it is. I feel a little bit of guilt.
Because, you know, I never want there to be any silent bystander in this league. And not because I think that people are bad or want bad things to happen to other players. I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s just that the players felt scared, and there’s no way to get out of a bad situation. These coaches get passed around, and so even if you speak up, it doesn’t feel like you’ll be protected. I think a lot of that goes back to the WPS and magicJack [where Klingenberg played as a WPS rookie]. It’s been really hard, because I know, I was on a team where things weren’t right, on a lot of levels, but there was only one person that ever spoke out about it, and that’s Ella Masar. And I think that we need to have a type of reckoning there too, because we need to protect each other, and we need to stand up for each other.
But it’s scary. It’s scary when you think that your career’s on the line and your dreams could be dashed. So I never want to put this on players, ever. I don’t think it’s on them. So yeah, I’m feeling a wide range of emotions. I also feel a bit of joy, that things are starting to change, and there’s discussion. And maybe we can see a light at the end of the tunnel. There’s a lot of there’s a lot of competing feelings.”
Klingenberg on finding joy amid the darkness:
“For us, as players, a lot of times when things are hard outside of the game, we use the game as his place where we can immerse ourselves. And we can just be Megan on a pitch. But that’s been really hard to do this week. Because, as you know, what’s been happening is in our faces all the time, outside of the game, inside the game, so tonight, when I was hyping the team up, I told them that I wanted them to play— My greatest hope for them today was that they played like they were kids again, and to remember what it felt like when you were on the schoolyard or in the streets or in your backyard, and play with that type of passion and joy. I think that, you know, even if the result didn’t come out the way that we want it, I could still feel that joy from a lot of players, and I think we did a lot of really good stuff. So I just want to keep that going for the team because you know, they deserve it.”
