Tag: Dash

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Soccer Timbers

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Dash 1

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns dropped their first points of 2023 campaign Friday night against the Houston Dash—but not without a myriad of close chances to earn the win. Since the Dash joined the NWSL in 2014, the Thorns have had an oddly hard time winning outright against Houston at home in Providence Park. In both 2021 and 2022, the Thorns won away in Texas, and lost at home in Portland, and they have already continued their non-winning streak in the 2023 season. 

Luckily, Crystal Dunn seems to hate the Dash as much as I do; she scored her eighth career goal last night, making the Houston the team she has scored on the most in the NWSL. 

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

Statistically, the Thorns were by far the better team on the night. They had 2.84 expected goals to Houston’s 1.47, which came from 22 shots, almost 500 passes, 133 passes inside the final third, and eight corners. So, how did the Thorns, who are currently sitting on a +7 goal differential after two games, only manage one goal? 

The game was won and lost in the final third. An international break that saw Hina Sugita, Rocky Rodríguez, Christine Sinclair, and Natalia Kuikka all go to Europe for games while Sophia Smith, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Dunn played significant minutes in the U.S. was always going to produce a rocky first game back. Thorns fans got their first glimpse at what the team could look like during the World Cup as Reyna Reyes, Olivia Moultrie, and Michele Vasconcelos got their first starts of the season. 

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

When a team scores as much as the Thorns do, their defense is usually overlooked. Against the Dash, who have one of the most threatening front-threes in the league, Portland’s defense was able to hold strong and only allow a combined 11 shots from Diana Ordóñez, Maria Sánchez, and Ebony Salmon. Reyes, this year’s fifth overall draft pick, got her first professional start as right back, placing her up against a fellow Mexican international in Sánchez. Reyes grew into the game during her 45 minutes, showing her quick feet and aggressive overlapping runs with Vasconcelos on the right flank. 

Postgame, Kling complimented Reyes, saying that, “she is super tough and gets in there and tackles. She has a lot of potential, and it was nice to see her get some minutes and have some fun.”

Thorns head coach Mike Norris acknowledged Reyes’ role in the allowed Dash goal. “She wants that moment back,” he said, “but she’ll be good moving forward. I think the first 15, 20 minutes, how she started, she started positively, and she looked comfortable in the environment.” 

With more minutes under her belt, Reyes will be hungry to show her talent and redeem herself for the missed interception. 

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

For me, the player of the match was Kling. She was all over the place, and her link-ups with Morgan Weaver on the left side were incredibly productive at launching Weaver one-on-one against Dash goalkeeper Jane Campbell. If Weaver can increase her shots on target, the partnership will become lethal. Additionally, Kling had 98 touches on the ball—nearly double what the highest Dash player had—seven crosses, and three chances created. She is also a leader, and her postgame analysis was an honest and unbiased reflection of the game.

“There were periods in the game where we lost ourselves a little bit, and when we do that, teams can compete with us,” she said. “I think Houston is a good team. They’re physical, and they’re high pressure. They’re direct, and that’s difficult to combat sometimes when you’re playing on your backfoot. The part that I was really proud of, though, was that the team didn’t stay on the backfoot. We kicked it into gear, got on the front foot again, and started getting after them, getting good chances. And it was a winnable game. We had chances that we could’ve won and put one away in the first half. The thing about us is that we’re never satisfied even when we win; we’re satisfied being unsatisfied. And I think that’s the story of this match.”

While the draw was won on the backline, it was lost in the front line. The majority of substitutions came through the front line, sans Reyes for Kuikka at half, and it was these changes that took the lethal sting out of the game for the Thorns. Olivia Moultrie has a real talent for seeing potential through-balls, but her actual delivery isn’t quite there yet. If she can get her 54% passing accuracy in the final third up, she will be able to fully put Smith, Sugita, and Weaver in on goal. 

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

Vasconcelos will be Mike Norris’ first choice on the wing to fill in for Hina and Soph when they are gone on international duty, and she had flashes of brightness to show that she deserves a valid shot. However, she only had one shot over 64 minutes, which is not quite good enough for a forward. Both Weaver and Smith are high-volume shooters, which usually results in a goal or two for each of them. This tactic is embedded in the Thorns’ recent playing, which regularly sees the team put up over 20 shots. For Vasconcelos to more regularly get that starting position, she needs to start putting up similar numbers to Sugita or Weaver. 

Like Leo said last week, the way the Thorns play during the World Cup will make or break the rest of the season. With more time, players like Moultrie and Reyes will become crucial to winning points during this period. In the meantime however, the Thorns need to practice on tightening up their passes in the final third. With three games this week, they will have plenty of time to try new techniques and improve their chemistry. 

By the way, the new kits are incredibly sick.

Photo by Matthew Wolfe
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Soccer Thorns

Takeaways: Thorns 1, Dash 0

Credit: Matthew Wolfe

For the Thorns, the 2021 season has been all about building a strong mentality and culture. Through interviews and post-game pressers, Thorns players and coaches have spoken about the importance of their culture shift to their success this season. Back in August, Christine Sinclair said that “[the Thorns] want to put [themselves] in the best position to win, and not by chance,” which has been the byproduct of a team that has fun together—and fights and gives everything for each other. 

Since Sinc spoke in August, a reckoning has occurred in the league, with its shockwaves landing firmly in the Thorns’ locker room. In a turnaround from the recent four-game winless streak that’s had people doubting the team’s chances of winning the Shield—something they were favored to do for the majority of the season—the team managed to pull out a win against Houston, looking the best they had against the Dash all year.

The season isn’t over yet, with one last home game against the Courage to go, but I think last night’s win against Houston to claim the shield was a culmination of an entire season’s worth of work both on and off the field. So, in honor of that, here are some things that went really well for the Thorns. 

High Press

Historically, the Thorns have struggled to break down the Dash’s back line. In the Thorns’ 1–0 win in July, they recorded 14 shots, dramatically lower than usual. Just a few weeks ago in October, the Thorns lost 2–3, putting only nine of 26 shots on target. Forwards Sophia Smith and Morgan Weaver (among others) like to sit high, ready to either get the ball at their feet or receive a long ball over the top, and over the course of the season, the Thorns have struggled to score when they weren’t able to press high and sit along the back line. But last night, Smith and Weaver were able to find all sorts of space between the Dash’s defense, and exploited it well, combining for six shots.

One moment that exemplified the ever-strengthening Thorns mentality was a shot by Sophia Smith in the first half. She was played a ball in from Meghan Klingenberg and after taking one touch to settle it, sent it rocketing towards the goal. She missed, but the important element of the shot was Smith having the confidence to take it early. So many times over the course of the season we have watched Smith dribble towards the goal, only to end up passing it straight to the keeper, and it’s much better for her to test the keeper with a harder, earlier shot than not. 

Strong midfield diamond

The Thorns have clearly found their ideal starting midfield with Sinclair, Rocky Rodríguez, Angela Salem, and Lindsey Horan (it’s wild that they still have Dunn on the bench to bring on). The passing chart below shows how important it is that the midfield keep their shape in order to dictate play throughout the center of the field. The heavier lines extending from Rocky and Horan’s bubbles indicate the volume of passes that each player gave and received, showing how they maintained possession, continuously feeding balls forward toward the pressing forwards.

Mark Parsons said post-game, “we knew we needed to control everything we can to put it in our favor,” which manifested in the form of the midfield being first to what felt like every ball. They dominated the center of the pitch, intercepting Houston passes and serving as the catalyst for counterattacks, many of which nearly paid off. 

Credit: Arielle Dror

When looking back at the season holistically, the Thorns struggled to reintegrate their international players after the Olympic break, largely due to the bulk of them being in the midfield. Finally having a consistent lineup over the past few months has let the Thorns implement the tactics they have been working on, allowing them to improve each game.

Brick-wall Bixby

Bella Bixby and the Thorns defense earned their 12th clean sheet of the season, and Bixby’s eighth. While a lot of the glory goes to the forwards and midfield for scoring, the defense has been quietly and consistently dictating games all season. Outside backs Kling and Natalia Kuikka had the most touches out of both teams on Sunday, and center backs Becky Sauerbrunn and Emily Menges contributed to the 48 duels won.

A quote from Bixby sums up the defense’s mentality quite nicely: “despite having big outcome-based goals, we have been extremely process-based, and [are] really just taking it one game at a time.” Bixby, who became the Thorns’ starting keeper after AD Franch went to Kansas City, has excelled at the position. She exudes confidence when directing her back line and stays focused until the final minutes, which yesterday was when the majority of the Dash’s crosses and shots came in. Plus, watching her palm the ball on saves is just epic. 

With one more regular-season game to go before postseason, the Thorns are in a good place to continue growing and proving that their elite mentality is what sets them apart.

As Horan said after the game, the Thorns set out to win everything this season—and now the elusive quadruple is within reach.

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Soccer Thorns

Three Takeaways from Portland’s Semifinal Exit from the NWSL Challenge Cup

Photo by Kris Lattimore

The Portland Thorns depart the NWSL Challenge Cup in the semifinals after losing 1–0 to the Houston Dash on a Rachel Daly header. The Thorns defense, excellent all tournament, could only be breached after Sophie Schmidt’s header hit the bar and left Britt Eckerstrom stranded.

Lindsey Horan was listed as an available sub but was dressed in street clothes on the bench. Horan recorded the second most minutes of the team through the opening stages (aside from Christine Sinclair, of course) and Celeste Boureille took her place.

After the game, Mark Parsons said that the team had left it all on the field against North Carolina to get the win, and they played their worst game of the tournament today. The Dash kept Portland under constant pressure in midfield that they couldn’t play their way out of, and despite how well the Thorns defended, they can’t have too many complaints about being sent home at this stage.

The Thorns have defended well all tournament, but just couldn’t make their attack work 

The Thorns stuck with the diamond this game, with Morgan Weaver and Simone Charley, their best available strike partnership, up top. With Boureille bogged down deep in midfield trying to handle Houston’s strikers dropping deep, those two had very little in the way of support, and were often tasked with chasing down balls over the top just to try to stretch play at all. Raquel Rodríguez had too much to do to offer much support either. In fact, the brightest attacking spark came from substitute Emily Ogle, who in her role as a deep playmaker provided some of the best service from deep the Thorns were able to manage all game.

That’s telling. The Thorns are a team that like to work their way into shooting opportunities on a second or third pass to maximize the expected goal average of any given attack, and get into the position to make those decisive passes with incisive running. Rodríguez, one of the Thorns’ best attacking players this tournament, couldn’t get forward to do what she does best, and the team was too slow to recognize that they needed more quality passing from deep to unlock the Dash.

On the other end, however, Kelli Hubly and Emily Menges were both excellent, with Menges making several decisive tackles to break up counterattacks, most memorably to stop a Nichelle Prince run where it looked like she would be in on goal.

Houston had plenty of attacks this game despite having a minimal amount of possession. They went on the break quickly whenever they forced a turnover. But despite all that, the Thorns restricted them to very few good chances. They just turned one of their two into a goal.

Attacks from out wide look as bad as ever

Crosses are always a low percentage attack. See Portland’s efforts late on in the opening stages of the tournament, and North Carolina’s efforts against Portland. They looked particularly pointless here, with Houston connecting on only two of fourteen crosses and Portland only three of twelve. In part, it’s down to timely defensive interventions in the middle of the park from the Thorns, but they also mostly just let Houston have that space. Of course, it doesn’t matter how inefficient a team’s attack is sometimes: all it takes is a moment of chaos for a team to score, and Houston produced more of those than Portland.

Houston’s pressure in midfield was about the only thing that was working anyone

The Dash had many of the best attacks of the game, but couldn’t create many shooting opportunities. The Thorns had most of the possession, but couldn’t do anything with it. Just about the only effective play happening anywhere for most of the game was Houston’s midfield pressure. Rachel Daly and Nichelle Prince are two extremely active forwards: one or two would almost always be putting pressure on the Thorns backline while they were trying to play from deep, which meant that most of the Thorns possession in the game took place well away from goal.

Houston’s back line played very high to compress the space available to Thorns midfielders, and in that space, they were able to bring a ton of bodies in to break up any attempt by Salem or Boureille to play forward. Whenever Sinclair had the ball, they were quick to close her down. Ogle and Gabby Seiler came on in midfield after halftime and improved the situation by getting better passing from that area, but even though Weaver and Charley are fast, neither of them are really strikers that thrive on balls over the top. They like to play to their feet and attack their defender, and Houston didn’t let anyone on the Thorns have that.