The final game of the Thorns Extended NWSL Challenge Cup Preseason ended in a scoreless draw. A late Chicago winner last night means that the Thorns will be squaring directly up with the North Carolina Courage in the quarterfinals.
The Thorns haven’t had the most productive tournament in terms of goals, but if we look at these games as a challenge for a rebuilding squad to test themselves against, they’re getting what they came here for. They’ve faced off against the toughest teams in the tournament and are about to go against the best once again.
New look Reign are not pretty, but they’re effective
OL Reign have been a real mystery so far this tournament. They have a different style of play than anyone in the league has ever had. It hasn’t been great to look at, and the Reign didn’t have a single shot through 30 minutes of this game. But the Reign did not need a win today, and Portland did. New Reign coach Farid Benstiti has made it a point for his team to not lose in this tournament, and his team played a specific game to prevent that above all.
Parsons got his forward rotation wrong
The Thorns started with Simone Charley and Morgan Weaver up top, and with Portland very comfortably parked directly in front of the Reign box in the first half, it seemed like kind of a waste.
You see, Simone Charley Ran Track. She’s fast. She’s also a sprinter who usually does not last 90 minutes because of how much she puts into every forward run. Charley was putting up a real fight pressing the Reign backline in the first half. But with the Reign sitting very deep, it felt like a waste. Charley’s best moments are in the open field where she can put defenders on skates, create separation from her defenders, and create. Up against a set defense, however, she and the rest of the team struggled to do more than cross the ball somewhat aimlessly.
As the game opened up in the second half, Charley came off for Tyler Lussi in what was pretty clearly a planned substitution at the 60 minute mark. Unfortunately, the first few actions of the second half were Charley’s best of the game, with her crossing into the center where no one was waiting, only to put the second service over the bar.
There’s obviously no telling how games will go ahead of time. But most people could probably have told you that the game was going to open up the more that it went on. It was a shame not to have her speed on the break as both teams got more frantic. The rotation in the first game against North Carolina, with Lussi and Marissa Everett eating up minutes and pressing the backline only for Weaver and Charley to come on later, may be one we see against the Courage a second time on Friday.
A makeshift backline once again gets the job done
Emily Menges was not available for selection today after showing up as questionable on the injury report. With Becky Sauerbrunn out for the tournament, Meghan Klingenberg was the only locked-in first choice Thorns player in defense going up against a Reign team that looked, on paper, very strong. Bethany Balcer had to depart early, but Jodie Taylor and Sofia Huerta are both highly experienced NWSL attackers. Yes, the Reign played conservatively, but all three forwards are more than capable of making things happen on their own.
And basically nothing happened. The Reign couldn’t put a single shot in for the first 35 minutes, and when they grew into the game in the second half, a defensive setup that could have been shaky ended up looking solid.
Kelli Hubly has now started three games for the Thorns in central defense. One or two mishaps aside, Hubly looked solid, putting in some strong tackles on Reign forward Yuka Momiki to keep the most dangerous Reign player pretty contained. Christen Westphal looks totally comfortable at right back for this team, providing important offense down the flank.
The Thorns settled for a 1–1 draw tonight against the Washington Spirit, with Lindsey Horan scoring a diving header off a free kick in the 69th minute, and conceding one, also on a set piece, a few minutes later. Let’s dig into what happened:
1. The Thorns are wide now
With each game in this tournament, we’ve seen a slightly different facet of the Thorns’ shiny new diamond midfield. Against North Carolina, we saw the team’s dual No. 8s, Lindsey Horan and Rocky Rodríguez, put wide defensive pressure on the opposing outside backs and No. 10s. On the offensive side, the duo succeeded in breaking the Courage’s press in the center of the field. In this game, we saw Horan and Rodríguez both spend a lot of time attacking in wide areas, with the bulk of Portland’s chances coming on crosses, especially in the first half.
A diamond midfield is often thought of as quite narrow, but not the way the Thorns are playing. Portland attempted an almost Courage-like 19 crosses, and players all up and down the field—from Meghan Klingenberg and Christen Westphal in the back, to Rodríguez and Horan, to Morgan Weaver up top—contributed in that area. Unfortunately, nobody managed to put any of those in the net—though a few came close.
The attack was less focused down the wings in the second half, with Horan finding a few penetrating passes toward Tyler Lussi. According to Mark Parsons, though, that wasn’t by design. “I think the desperateness to score meant that we were gravitating centrally,” he said after the game. “Width is key, and we’re going to get width from multiple areas. You can see from our forwards and also our midfield, and also fullbacks when the shape allows, and the buildup allows the fullbacks to push on. So it wasn’t a switch, unfortunately.”
The question here—and for once, despite my perennial (and fact-based) insistence that the Thorns don’t actually struggle to score goals, I think it’s a fair one—is who’s going to get on the end of those crosses. Horan, obviously, is an extremely dangerous header of the ball. Other than her, of the current healthy players, Lussi seems best suited to that role, but she seems to still be finding her way into this tournament. On the other hand, Portland did find 10 shots from inside the box, even if only four of them were on frame.
2. Lindsey Horan: too good?
Before the tournament started, I asked whether Horan (tonight’s Budweiser Woman of the Match) is such a dominant player that she ends up posing a problem when it comes to squad-building. At the time, I was assuming the Thorns would be using a three-woman midfield as they generally have the past few years; Rodríguez’s strong showing, along with the backing of a true No. 6 in Angela Salem, have proven that specific concern wrong.
However, I still think there’s a potential issue here. Horan is so good, in so many areas of the field, that Portland would be foolish not to let her do as much as possible. She’s been ridiculous in this tournament, the most impactful single player in any of the games she’s played. She disrupts, sets play in motion, and then moves all the way up the field with it, often ending up taking the eventual shot (or, in this game, cross). In tonight’s match, she produced the majority of the chances, took the most touches, conceded the most fouls, and scored Portland’s lone goal.
It’s been a surprise to me to see both her and Christine Sinclair—with whom there’s a similar issue, if not quite to the same extent—starting every game and playing the majority of the available minutes. Parsons says she’s in the best shape of her life and can handle this week; the Thorns also now have a full, luxurious week of no games. Sinclair, meanwhile, is famously fastidious in her recovery protocol. Regardless, I still wonder why these two players started every game, especially given the amount of squad rotation the team has otherwise undergone from day to day.
I don’t have anything particularly smart to say here, but it reminds me of this: I used to play on a rec-league softball team with a friend who was a ludicrously gifted athlete. He nominally played shortstop, but because our roster tended to be split 50-50 between what I’ll call “real athletes” and “the others,” he inevitably ended up covering half the infield. He’d catch a fly ball, tag a runner, and then sprint 40 feet to ever-so-gently toss the ball underhanded to one of the lesser mortals on the team. On top of that, his movements were graceful and beautiful to watch. When he played, we could win. When he didn’t? Things… were harder.
I don’t think winning is the Thorns’ priority in this tournament, at least not at this stage; I think getting everybody minutes and figuring out how the team functions is the point. What I wonder is whether Horan is so central to the team, because she does so much, that playing without her would be a pointless exercise. I also wonder if, in the long term, relying that much on a single talismanic player might make things harder.
There was a tweet today, from a certain talking head/professional troll in the soccer space, about how we’ve reached the point—four years after Colin Kaepernick lost his job for declaring his life mattered as much as those of his white teammates, four years after US Soccer prohibited its players from publicly standing with him—where athletes find it hard not to kneel for the anthem.
It’s an incredibly inane, annoying take, engineered to provoke outrage, and that’s why I’m not linking to it here. Still, I think it expresses a line of reasoning that appeals to broad segments of white America, and that line of reasoning is worth unpacking.
To get the obvious out of the way: being wrong about this issue, or any human rights issue, is not brave, merely evil.
To dig down a little further: if you were an alien just finding out about human customs, seeing the photo at the top of this article with no further context, you probably would come to the conclusion that human beings kneel on one knee before sporting events, and that not doing so is a breech of custom that takes a certain amount of courage. This is how our species is wired, for the most part; it’s difficult for us to do things other than what people around us are doing.
But that conclusion willfully erases context. These players didn’t all show up to the stadium and put on their Black Lives Matter shirts because they saw everyone else was wearing them; nobody scrambled to take a knee when the anthem started to avoid looking out of place. This was a concerted, intentional effort by players on both teams—across the whole league, even. They had talked about this. They had listened to each other. This was not an easy decision.
Conversations within teams didn’t all start right away. Simone Charley talked to The Equalizer about how hard it was, in the days after George Floyd’s murder, showing up to training and deciding to act like soccer mattered, and seeing how easily that decision came to her white teammates.
In Portland, it took a few days for those conversations to start—prompted by both Black and white players, but in particular, according to Sophia Smith, by AD Franch—and nobody should take for granted that they started at all. They happened because Black women on these teams did the work of talking to their white teammates about experiences those same teammates haven’t always been willing to listen to. This sport is as white as it’s ever been, and many of the players who kneeled today come from backgrounds that haven’t forced them to ever think critically about racism—that have, in fact, actively discouraged it.
So while it’s true there’s been a massive, sudden shift in public opinion over the last month on the acceptability of publicly opposing racism, don’t think for a second that this show of support for Black lives was a foregone conclusion. It wasn’t the brands that brought us here. It was Black players fighting for their lives and finally being heard by their teammates.
Furthermore, there are stark facts here, facts that will be recorded in history: these players took their stance in an empty stadium, but that empty stadium was on broadcast television. As the first American sports league to return to play. That’s the biggest platform women’s club soccer has ever been on.
The players knew what this platform meant. It meant they were opening themselves up to criticism that no doubt would also have been directed at male athletes doing the same thing, but which, no doubt, will be more vicious thanks to their gender. Have things changed since 2016, when Crystal Dunn didn’t kneel because she was afraid—for good reason—USSF might “rip up her contract“? Of course. But you’d have to be an alien to sincerely believe there won’t be backlash.
But this is what can’t get lost in the noise: the players also knew how significant the moment was, and they knew they had to take it, and use it to say something. It’s okay for us to be proud of that.
The danger is in letting this gesture exist as a mere gesture, and in deciding once the tournament is over that we’ve all done enough. It’s great that we’ve finally reached the point in this league where players can express solidarity against racism and police violence without fearing for their jobs. Now it’s on us, at home, to commit to standing with them and doing the actual work of putting an end to those things.
Portland Thorns team in Black Lives Matter warmups. Rob Gray / ISI Photos
The NWSL Challenge Cup has begun, marking the return of live professional sports to the United States.
In a reminder of just how much has been going on in the world outside the NWSL bubble, all the starting players wore Black Lives Matter warm-up shirts and Black Lives Matter armbands throughout the game, and took a knee for the national anthem. Which was played by a saxophonist in a suit, with slicked-back hair, who could not resist getting in some delicious licks at the end of a very smooth rendition of the Star-Spangled banner.
This strange image just about summed up the odd sensations of watching live sports again: the seriousness of the threats against life around the globe—Black life in particular—weighs on us all. We stand in solidarity.
The Thorns played better than expected for a young squad who saw significant departures in the off-season, and it was only a late defensive lapse that cost the Thorns a point in stoppage time. Leaving Lynn Williams unmarked is a very familiar way to lose against North Carolina, but the competitiveness showed by a young team in what was effectively a preseason game was admirable. Simone Charley notched her first goal for the team off a Lindsey Horan header for the only Thorns goal in a 2-1 opening day loss.
1. Raquel Rodríguez is the real deal
The Thorns swapping an iconic defender in Emily Sonnett for the player taken after her in the 2016 College Draft was a huge moment in the off-season. Rodríguez (affectionately called “Rocky”) has been a solid NWSL contributor for years, but did a midfield already stacked with talent really need another attacking player?
Yes, it turns out. Rodríguez was a killer addition in midfield, keeping the team ticking over well, holding the ball up and waiting for support, and even putting in some impressive defensive play. Getting overrun by North Carolina’s four midfielders has been an issue for the Thorns in the past, and Rodríguez’s competitive energy and strength were much-needed additions. It looks like this pairing with Lindsey Horan might work out after all.
2. Bella Bixby is ready for the spotlight
She got thrown directly into the fire against the team that shoots more than any other team in the league, but Milwaukie, Oregon’s own Bella Bixby had an impressive NWSL debut. She got tempted off her line unadvisedly for the Courage’s first goal, but otherwise showed well in her first competitive minutes, getting called upon regularly to defend her near post, nabbing everything she could in the air and holding some real rockets from distance.
AD Franch being a late scratch for the whole tournament was bad news for the team. But this is such a weird tournament, one where the Thorns get to try out stuff they normally wouldn’t. Giving Bixby a chance after two years with the club feels right, and she didn’t disappoint. It’s hard to feel like the future isn’t secure.
3. Parsons has some clever squad management plans
Seeing Tyler Lussi and the newly-signed Marissa Everett in the starting lineup threw a few people for a loop. While both players who have made an impact in their minutes for the club, they seem like they would be further down the depth chart than others. After halftime though, it quickly became clear what the plan was: Morgan Weaver and Simone Charley were double-subbed on for the starting forwards and immediately went to work, with Charley scoring and both looking dangerous the remainder of the game.
Charley has been minutes-limited in her time with the club, even in normal NWSL play. She’s clearly a sprinter who leaves it all on the field, and up against tired defenses, this could be a real game changer. Weaver is still getting used to professional fitness. Especially in the opening stages of this tournament, both can be maximized by holding them in reserve from the start. And with five substitutions now allowed per game, why not? It’s a pretty different approach to soccer than most people think of (where your best players must always start) but it’s worth a shot, and it will be interesting to see if it stays the same through the knockout rounds.
4. Aggressive defense works, except when it doesn’t
The Thorns defense has many qualities. They are not as fast as the North Carolina Courage’s attackers. Therefore, they should sit back as deep as they can, right?
Wrong. Becky Sauerbrunn, playing in her first game in Thorns colors, played her markers incredibly aggressively, coming well upfield to head away from Lynn Williams. Kelli Hubly, starting her first game in a while, looked excellent going to ground to win balls near the edge of North Carolina’s penalty box to unsettle them and prevent them from having an easy time building out of the back. It’s hard to say it didn’t work.
And yet, at the same time, the winning goal was conceded because Sauerbrunn was caught upfield trying to cut out a pass, which left two Courage players unmarked at the back post, when most would probably say that the team should have been trying to protect a point.
There’s no doubting that the Thorns made a real impact on the Courage’s midfield buildup in this game, and it cut down on their shooting opportunities throughout. Looking a little foolish once or twice on the break is normally a trade-off that the team will take. Some one has to step up and be the hero in that kind of situation, and looking at Bixby’s face after she conceded, she clearly felt like it should have been her. Those kinds of decisions will get more automatic for her in the future, but she shouldn’t feel too bad about it: the team made a calculated gamble—one that meant that they would sometimes end up in those situations.
With the NWSL set to become the first American sports league to attempt a restart, the eight teams—minus the Orlando Pride, who, as we learned Monday, will sit out due to multiple positive COVID-19 tests on the team—that will participate in the Challenge Cup released their rosters yesterday.
One thing is certain: between a huge amount of offseason tumult and a stack of last-minute contracts—not to mention yesterday’s announcement that Tobin Heath will not participate—this won’t be a Thorns team we’ve ever seen before. A few of our thoughts on the newly announced roster are below.
Katelyn Best
Let’s just have fun, ok?
The Thorns, presumably, had a plan heading into this season. Amid whispers of a needed culture change, the club sent half the roster packing, snagged two promising young forwards at the draft, and made moves for Becky Sauerbrunn and Rocky Rodríguez. Fill in a few more blanks, and it’s easy to envision a good soccer team materializing—but those blanks never got filled. What we’re left with is pieces to a whole that never got finished.
Things were cast into even more doubt last week with the departure of Ellie Carpenter. With her departure, Sauerbrunn—a legendary but aging, and slowing, center back—starts to look less adequate as the season’s big defensive acquisition. The team has options at right back, but it’s hard to envision any of them filling Carpenter’s shoes on day one against North Carolina.
But here’s the good news: soccer is a game. More good news: this “season” isn’t real. Even more good news: historically, the Thorns have played some of their most fun, memorable games without their veterans. This isn’t the same as a World Cup or an Olympics—Lindsey Horan and Christine Sinclair will be there—but the tight schedule means we’re sure to see more squad rotation than we normally would. The sheer volume of new names on this roster means it’s impossible to guess which players are going to be the Meg Morrises or Simone Charleys of this tournament.
That’s not to mention the proven names new to this Thorns roster; Rodríguez obviously falls into that category, as does, I would argue, Sophia Smith. This group of forwards, in particular, is mostly quite young, and none of them are French, but I’d bet they’re going to be a hell of a lot of fun to watch. Wacky stuff is going to happen in this tournament. Let’s enjoy it, yeah?
Photo by Nikita Taparia
The Lindsey Horan conundrum
I have this theory that’s going to sound ridiculous when I say it, but bear with me: Horan is a problem. More specifically, the role Horan plays for the Thorns is a problem.
In 2016 and 2017, Portland deployed Horan and Amandine Henry in the central midfield as dual No. 8s. Both could play disruptor, both could set plays in motion, and both could make forward runs and score themselves. They would trade off on these duties, one sitting back while the other pushed into the attack, and this worked because Henry is just as good at all those things as Horan.
When Henry left, Mark Parsons wanted to continue using the same system, swapping Andressinha in alongside Horan. This went… less well. Andressinha simply isn’t a strong or physical enough player to fill that role. Since then, a succession of players have been tapped to fill that third midfield slot, including Celeste Boureille, Dagný Brynjarsdóttir, and Gabby Seiler. Boureille, for a moment in 2018, worked well; she doesn’t have Henry or Horan’s creative brilliance, but she proved to be a good disruptor deep in midfield. Seiler, for a still briefer moment in 2019, looked even more promising. But none of them have played as Horan’s double like Henry did—unsurprising, seeing as none of them are in the conversation for being the best central midfielder in the world.
This is the question: is there another player anywhere on earth capable of playing a second No. 8 alongside Horan as effectively as Henry did?
Parsons intends to try again with Rodríguez. On its face at least, this makes a lot more sense than trying to convert Andressinha into a No. 8 did, seeing as Rodríguez has played a box-to-box role in the NWSL, you know, ever, although never in the same system; at Sky Blue, she played alongside Sarah Killion, a much more defensive player than Horan. The question is how well Rodríguez can partner with a player who, at any moment, can show up anywhere on the field.
I’d describe myself as curious, leaning toward optimistic about this. At any rate, I’m excited to see Rodríguez, who I think has been underperforming for a few years, in a new environment. And if it doesn’t turn out? Try her at right back, why not!
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Leo Baudhuin
What the heck is going on with defense?
With all of nine players listed as defenders on this roster, one presumably would not have as many questions about Portland’s back line as I do. With a schedule that has the Thorns playing their opening three games over the course of nine days, rotation is going to happen, and I think it’s going to happen sooner than we expect.
If you look at a back four of Meghan Klingenberg, Emily Menges, Sauerbrunn, and Katherine Reynolds, something comes to the forefront pretty quickly: three of them are over 30 and two of them aren’t particularly fast. (Menges, of course, is the exception in both these statements, and Sauerbrunn isn’t slow, per se, but as Katelyn points out above, she’s definitely past her peak.) And while they’re all very capable players, the quartet leaves something to be desired against a fast, high-pressing North Carolina.
On the other hand, Parsons isn’t exactly known for throwing young players into the line of fire. But if these games don’t really matter, there’s no time like the present to experiment, right? Yeah, there’s still Kelli Hubly and Christen Westphal—and where is Seiler going to play? As the No. 6 in a diamond midfield? Somewhere in defense?—but I personally think it would be very cool if Madison Pogarch got the start on Saturday. And why not give Meaghan Nally and Autumn Smithers some time in this tournament while we’re at it?
Photo by Nikita Taparia
Some good news
Guess what I remembered today? Two-time NWSL Goalkeeper of the Year Adrianna Franch still plays for the Thorns. Not only that, but she won’t be missing games that she could be playing with the Thorns for national team duty.
Given the experimentation we’re going to see with this team, having arguably the best keeper in the league—and undisputedly the one with the best handling—means, worst comes to worst, at least we’ll see some great goalkeeping.
Tyler Nguyen
Young attackers will be in the spotlight
Tobin Heath has chosen to stay at home for this tournament. That is her right as a player, and it’s one that all the players in the NWSL have, as guaranteed by the negotiations between the player’s association and the league. Looking at the state of coronavirus cases in the US and Utah specifically, it’s a perfectly reasonable decision to make, and knowing how much she lives for soccer, it has to be an incredibly painful one.
What it means for the team is that, with the departures of Midge Purce, Hayley Raso, and Caitlin Foord in the offseason, no regular-rotation players from the 2019 forward line will play in the NWSL Challenge Cup. Sure, Christine Sinclair is listed as a forward, but you and I both know that’s not how it works, and in a compressed schedule, it’s even less how it works. Sinclair is simply not going to be running around full tilt for 90 minutes on three day’s rest, as much as I’m sure she wants to.
No, the forward line is going to a rotation of players who, while extremely talented, haven’t proven themselves as starters in the NWSL yet. This is going to be an attacking bullpen with no hierarchy and no secure starting places. Expectations are high for some of the talent on hand, but there’s quite a bit of depth, so the team can afford to take some risks if things need to be shifted around.
Heath has such gravity in the team and is so important that when she’s in the team they will almost always play in a very specific way, with Heath one of the three up front drifting inside. No one plays exactly how she does, so without her, Parsons has experimented with back threes, relying on wingbacks for depth. But with Carpenter’s departure, the team has only one proven attacking option from deep in Klingenberg.
So where is the attack going to come from? Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver, the Thorns’ first-round draft picks, were both wide players who specialized in cutting inside and shooting in college. The Thorns could, in theory, play only them up top and load up another player in midfield to get more creation there. That would mean leaving Simone Charley and Tyler Lussi out of lineups though, and both are high-energy players whose styles of play, in totally different ways, can completely throw defenses off guard. Charley’s ability with the ball at her feet on the break, and Lussi’s combination of strength and shooting mastery will both likely prove useful up against different defenses. Marissa Everett showed off a knack for poaching shots in her limited minutes last year, impressing the team enough to earn a contract this year, and Anika Rodriguez, yet another undrafted player the Thorns picked up this offseason, flashed some creative passing playing alongside Ashley Sanchez at UCLA. The depth probably doesn’t even end there. Parsons loves throwing young defenders into the fray as attackers: this is where Pogarch got her first minutes for the club, so the new defenders could absolutely see some minutes there. The possibilities seem endless. It’s now on these young players to make the most of their opportunities.
The way the Portland Thorns ended their 2019 season was disappointing to everyone involved. With only one win and one goal in their final six games—and that nightmarish 6–0 loss to the North Carolina Courage—it was clear that the offseason would bring a number of changes.
“Short tournament [or] long season, our identity—especially after last year, where I think our identity had become very gray—our identity is our highest priority,” Thorns head coach Mark Parsons told media this week. “Because we think that leads to high performance, and we believe high performance leads to success.”
The player movement was as drastic as foreshadowed. Portland waived Ana-Maria Crnogorčević, and Dagný Brynjarsdóttir returned to Iceland. Emily Sonnett ventured southeast to the Orlando Pride. Caitlin Foord and Hayley Raso were lost to the Australian exodus from the NWSL. (Technically, Foord was also traded to the Pride, but the end result was the same.) Andressinha was finally freed—unfortunately, not from the bench, but from Portland. Midge Purce was sent to Sky Blue, Elizabeth Ball to Utah.
Then there were those brought into the team. Raquel Rodríguez and Becky Sauerbrunn came in via trade. At this year’s draft, the Thorns claimed first and second overall picks Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver, as well as Meaghan Nally and Christen Westphal—the latter through a trade with then-Reign FC.
But where does that leave us? Without the likes of Ball, Purce, and Raso, for one thing—all players who had grown into key roles in their time with the club. And while—for the most part—the individual moves make sense on paper, the overall trend means most Thorns players are very young or nearing the end of their careers, with few individuals in between. The notable exception is the midfield, although questions remain about how exactly a partnership between Rodríguez and Lindsey Horan will work, and Gabby Seiler and Angela Salem are both working their way back from ACL tears.
With that in mind, it’s worth noting that the core of the Thorns is still very much intact, Sonnett excluded. Assuming everyone makes the trek to Utah, Adrianna Franch will still be in goal; Emily Menges will help anchor the backline; Horan, Tobin Heath, and Christine Sinclair are still key players in Portland’s attack.
But three of those players are over 30, as are Sauerbrunn and a handful of others. And while they’re all still effective on the field, they’ll likely be playing closely managed minutes—especially given the NWSL Challenge Cup’s compacted schedule.
Parsons addressed the challenges of training for a tournament in which his squad will be playing two games on short rest in the preliminary round alone—a number that will only grow as Portland advances through the Cup. “It’s not about getting every single player prepared and ready to play every single 90 minutes throughout this tournament,” he explained. “It’s not possible, it’s not going to be safe.”
In a sport where defensive consistency is key, it will be interesting to see how lineup rotation plays out across Portland’s backline—especially given that the majority of expected starters fall into the aforementioned age binary. Sauerbrunn, though still a solid player, has shown signs of slowing down, Meghan Klingenberg is now 31, and Katherine Reynolds—likely the first player off the bench in Ball’s absence—is 32.
On the other hand, there’s Ellie Carpenter, who has years of international experience, but also turned 20 just over a month ago. Seiler can also jump into defense if needed. Behind them, there’s a handful of players that are either coming off a 2019 season in which they barely played, or are new to the league altogether. (Although many of the former have looked solid in the time they have gotten, it remains to be seen how that translates as they begin to play more substantial minutes.)
“Every player knows they’re all going to be needed,” said Parsons. And while he’s done a phenomenal job in the player development department these past few years, that often entails gradually building game time—a luxury not afforded by the Challenge Cup schedule.
Portland’s youth is especially evident across its attacking line, with Smith, Weaver, and potentially a couple non-roster invitees joining the already-young group of Simone Charley, Marissa Everett, and Tyler Lussi. Based on the club’s preseason roster, the only real exception to this pattern is Christine Sinclair, although if the Thorns use their regular formation we’ll see Heath up there, too.
Regardless, there’s no way a 37-year-old Sinclair will play a significant role in every match, and all three of the players who stepped in as a No. 10 last year have since departed the team. That leaves a lot of Portland’s attack up to a handful of relatively inexperienced—though admittedly talented—individuals.
The other thing? The Thorns don’t get a preseason tournament this year. Parsons described that his communication with new players has catered to the lack of time to experiment. He explained the importance of establishing identity and expectations, clarifying where he sees a player helping the club, and that he wants the player to be “[themselves] in the rest of the areas.”
However, the lack of preseason opponents still presents questions for a team that likes to use that time allow players to showcase their strengths and test out prospective depth pieces.
“These players need minutes… to develop,” acknowledged Parsons. While the Thorns aren’t necessarily able to provide that time in preseason matches, Portland’s coaching staff has compensated with full-sided scrimmages.
Parsons remains optimistic about his group’s talent. Although preparation time is more limited, that a significant portion of the roster hasn’t played all that much in the NWSL means another thing: the Thorns will be harder to scout. “It’s an advantage that we know [our young players] and others don’t,” said Parsons, “and obviously we have a tournament [where] they’re gonna have to step up and step in. I’m confident that this experience is going to be a hugely positive one for them.”
However it shakes out, it’s pretty clear that that first match against North Carolina is going to be something—and that something will almost definitely sloppy and leave us with more questions than answers.
But despite the uncertainty, one thing is clear: what we see from the young players who are called to step into bigger roles during this tournament will be our first look at what this team can become.
Unlock with Patreon
