Last Saturday, the Portland Thorns earned their second consecutive 3-3 draw, fighting back from going down a goal three separate times against the North Carolina Courage.
“I think to find ourselves down three times, it’s probably hard for to wrap me head around,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said after the game, “but group kept pushing”—showing a resilience and rebound that Norris said he was “really proud of.”
So, let’s break all that down.
In defense of Emily Menges
Portland was unlucky to go down in the first minute, after a North Carolina cross deflected weirdly off of Thorns defender Emily Menges. It’s the third time the Thorns have conceded off an unfortunate deflection this year—the first being a Meaghan Nally own-goal against the San Diego Wave—and I’m not really sure what to make of that happening twice in the first month and a half of 2023 play. Are the new white kits cursed? Possibly.
North Carolina’s other two goals came in the forms of a brilliant individual effort from Kerolin and Courage rookie Olivia Wingate nutmegging Menges and getting off a cross to meet Victoria Pickett’s near-post run.
“I don’t want to be a team that’s conceded three goals,” Norris said, “but I didn’t think it was a poor defensive performance. I thought it was anything but that, to be honest.”
I don’t think Norris is outright wrong—it wasn’t an awful defensive performance—but the Thorns definitely could’ve been better on North Carolina’s third goal.
In that play, the Courage are working the ball up Portland’s left flank. As we’ve alluded to above, Kerolin sends a ball ahead to Wingate, who drives endline and ‘megs Menges. Klingenberg has been drawn out to mark Kerolin, so it’s center-back Kelli Hubly who has to step to Wingate, leaving Pickett in space.
As we see above, Hubly stepping leaves Natalia Kuikka marking two Courage players (Pickett near post and Tyler Lussi far post). Dunn and Sam Coffey have been standing at the top of the box and are just beginning their runs to cover—but it’s too late.
Of the goals, this one feels the most like a situation that could’ve been avoided with a little more communication and anticipation. Even if Menges doesn’t get beat here, the Thorns are defending three-on-three, which is a situation they’d want to avoid.
(In Menges’ defense, she also wasn’t the only Thorn to get beat on a North Carolina goal; Coffey dove in too early against Kerolin on the Courage’s second goal, getting beat and leaving Kerolin with far too much space in the center of the field.)
Still, I don’t think that’s a cause for concern, yet. Even though individual players got beat on North Carolina’s second and third goals, Portland’s other defenders weren’t able to effectively drop back and cover—an issue that will hopefully resolve itself as the team gets more used to playing together. Or as Crystal Dunn put it postgame, “We’re still early enough in the season where we know that it’s just these growing pains that we’re going to go through.”
Portland can still hurt you in so many ways
Outside of capitalizing on their chances, North Carolina, for their part, put together a pretty solid performance against the Thorns—especially in their work limiting Portland’s space in midfield. The Thorns, for their part, were forced to play wide or find quick passes through the center of the park, the latter of which they struggled to do consistently.
“We’re a team that’s at our best when we’re fluid,” Dunn said, “when we’re able to break teams down and not be stagnant.” Portland’s second goal was a prime example of that, she said.
In the buildup to the goal, we can see the Courage’s pressure—and the Thorns successfully playing out of that through quick passes. After Sophia Smith’s flick on to Meghan Klingenberg’s overlapping run, Dunn just has to push toward goal from where she’s sitting at the top of North Carolina’s box to get on the end of the cross.
Portland’s other two goals—the first from Dunn and the third from Olivia Moultrie—show another area where the Thorns found success: in their late runs out of midfield.
While we’re here, let’s take a moment to appreciate Moultrie’s game-tying goal—the cherry on top of her impressive performance off the bench.
The Portland Thorns claimed sole possession of the top of the NWSL table with their 2-0 win over Racing Louisville on Saturday evening. All time against Louisville the Thorns are 5-0-0, scoring 12 goals and conceding just one. While the scoreline may suggest a dominant performance over Louisville, the game itself left fans nervous that the Thorns would concede a goal late—not closing out the game with the professionalism and deftness the team normally shows.
Photo by Matthew Wolfe
The largest reason the Thorns nearly threatened their dominant 2-0 first half lead was due to the sheer number of minutes that this roster has played recently. Portland was coming off of a stretch of three games in eight days that fell right on the end of an international break. Natalia Kuikka, Christine Sinclair, Adriana Leon, Hina Sugita, and Rocky Rodríguez played international matches in Europe, while Crystal Dunn, Becky Sauerbrunn, and Sophia Smith played in the United States.
Photo by Matthew Wolfe
Here are the minutes that each player played for their country during the week of April 6:
Kuikka: 180’ vs Slovakia
Sugita: 77’ vs. Portugal, 3’ vs Denmark
Rodríguez: 90’ vs Poland, 90’ vs Scotland
Sinclair: 63’ vs France
Leon: 76’ vs France
Dunn: 67’ vs Ireland
Smith: 135’ vs Ireland
Sauerbrunn: 120’ vs Ireland
Six of these eight players already seemed to be heavily favored in head coach Mike Norris’ preferred starting lineup (Leon, the new arrival, and Rodríguez, who consistently comes in around the 60’ mark in the midfield notwithstanding).
Photo by Matthew Wolfe
Norris’ starting XI against Houston on April 14 featured nine of 11 players that started against Louisville on April 22. This would not be much of a concern, if five of the players did not also start against San Diego midweek.
Here are the minutes that the starting XI against Lousiville played during the three game stretch:
Bella Bixby: 180’
Meaghan Klingenberg: 180’
Becky Sauerbrunn: 148’
Kelli Hubly: 270’
Reyna Reyes: 158’
Sam Coffey: 180’
Crystal Dunn: 137’
Morgan Weaver: 202’
Christine Sinclair: 158’
Hina Sugita: 174’
Sophia Smith: 197’
Compounded with the minutes that these core players played during the international break, many were averaging over 300 minutes in a two-week time span.
Photo by Matthew Wolfe
I bring all this up because the Thorns lost the game against Louisville in a clinical sense. Racing did not play a midweek game, and many of their players did not get minutes internationally during the break either. The miles on players legs showed from the initial whistle, and it was both mental and physical fatigue that prevented the Thorns from closing out the game in a clinical sense. Every touch seemed a little heavy, and their passes seemed inches off or hit too hard, allowing Racing’s players to read and intercept them. Despite outshooting Racing 20-12, the Thorns did not outplay Louisville by any means.
Photo by Matthew Wolfe
While, like Norris commented on postgame, the Thorns “did not have a complete performance [and] were just a bit off in moments,” they still were able to persevere and that is a testament to the professionalism of the individual players.
However, across the highest levels of professional women’s soccer, it seems as though long term ACL, hamstring, and calf injuries are plaguing players. The schedule of women’s players have increased to match men’s sides with the introduction of things like midweek Challenge Cup games, but funding and research toward preventative care and the anatomical differences between different genders has not kept pace. The Thorns have already lost one player to a season-ending ACL injury and have yet to name a new head trainer after the firing of Pierre Soubrier. All the positive culture and fun that the Thorns have at trainings and games cannot combat the “big ask coming back from Wednesday, travel Thursday, manage players [Friday] and then put a performance in [Saturday] to get the three points,” in the words of Norris.
While the players, except Sauerbrunn, who went off around the 60th minute with an ankle injury that was being monitored all week, seemed to have made it through the three game stretch unscathed, a game against Louisville, a team the Thorns have a comprehensive history of victory against, would have been a good chance to give some of the players who typically come off the bench an opportunity to get regular season minutes.
The Portland Thorns’ 2023 Challenge Cup campaign began in a manner opposite how they started the NWSL regular season; rather than recording a four-goal victory, Portland came away from Wednesday’s match with a 1-0 defeat to the San Diego Wave.
It wasn’t a bad game by any means. With both teams putting out rotated lineups on short turnaround, the Thorns managed to hold San Diego to seven shots—only one of which was on target. The Wave’s lone goal wasn’t the result of San Diego putting together something brilliant or Portland doing anything wrong on the defensive end; it was the result of an incredibly unlucky deflection that ended in a Meaghan Nally own-goal.
“I feel a bit unfortunate, just in terms of the bounces,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said postgame, “but we move on.”
In lieu of an analysis of what worked and what didn’t from a team perspective—something that feels less meaningful given all the lineup changes and matches on short turnaround—I’m taking a look at three players who taught us something in their performances against San Diego.
1. Adriana Leon
Short-term loanee Adriana Leon made her Thorns debut less than a week after her first training session with the team.
“I still can’t really believe that I’m back here in the league and playing with Portland,” she said after the match.
Leon looked solid in her first 68 minutes as a Thorn. She showcased a willingness to get into tackles and push forward to put the Wave under pressure. Her two shots on the night—both of which forced San Diego goalkeeper Kailen Sheridan into diving saves—epitomized that pressure: In each instance, Leon intercepted a pass by the Wave defense, dribbled forward to set herself up, and got a shot off.
Her performance in the second half, especially, is what we can expect from Leon with the team, said Norris. “She’s a front-footed winger who likes to get in one-v-one duels from an attacking perspective and produce crosses,” he said. “And if she gets an eye for goal, she’ll take it.”
The key for Leon, as with any new player, will be developing chemistry with the rest of the Thorns’ attackers. “We haven’t had too much time to train together,” she said. “But I’m excited to see what we can pull off moving forward.”
Leon’s already shown her ability to pick out attacking opportunities; if she can do that in-step with Sophia Smith, Portland will have added another lethal wrinkle to their already talent-heavy attack.
After that game, Norris said he had no doubt Reyes would bounce back stronger—especially now that she had gotten her first-start nerves out of the way. That Norris was willing to give her the nod for a second game is a testament to his belief in her, a belief that seems well-founded given her performance against the Wave.
“I think she grew from her performance against Houston,” he said. “I think you can see her versatility being able to play on the left and right side, getting stuck into tackles, likes to play forward. I think she’s still coming to grips with the speed of the league, but happy with the start.”
Norris’ assessment feels accurate of what Reyes showed against San Diego. She looked more confident stepping to balls and using her body to shut down Rachel Hill, was willing to take players on on the dribble, and was able to connect with her teammates more often than not. (She recorded a 63% pass accuracy.) If Reyes continues to grow at the rate she has over these first couple games, she’ll cement herself as an invaluable piece of this team sooner rather than later.
3. Shelby Hogan
Sitting behind Bella Bixby in the goalkeeper depth chart, Hogan hasn’t had all that many chances to show what she can do. Still, she had an opportunity Wednesday night, and she made the most of it.
“I think the first thing that stood out was just her presence and her demeanor,” Norris said, “really calm and confident. Really composed, looked like she had a lot of games under her belt… I think it was solid confidence and a composed performance of somebody probably beyond her experience and her years.”
Even with the unlucky deflection-turned-own-goal, Hogan looked solid throughout the night. Her stellar positioning and solid handling made the couple times she came to claim a ball off a corner or cross look easy. And she was ready to deny San Diego’s Sofia Jakobsson an early chance.
It’s safe to say the Nadine Angerer goalkeeper development academy is alive and well.
Bonus: Emily Menges
Emily Menges made her first appearance for the Thorns since Aug. 24, 2022, when she came on as a second-half sub for Reyes. Especially given the last six months, it’s nice to see her back on the pitch and looking like she hasn’t missed a beat.
It isn’t easy to follow up a 4-0 season-opening home victory, but the Portland Thorns did just that Saturday in Kansas City. Portland’s 4-1 win over last year’s NWSL Championship runners-up—featuring a dominant first half and a Sophia Smith hat trick—positions them at the top of the NWSL table, tied on points with the San Diego Wave.
Despite soccer being a game of two halves, the match was something of a three-act performance: the opening 45 minutes where the Thorns dominated, Kansas City threatening and scoring early in the second half, and Smith doing Sophia Smith things in the last 10 minutes to dam the Current’s attempted comeback.
Here’s a takeaway from each of those.
1. The first half (or: Crystal Dunn)
As Jaiden wrote in their takeaways last week, the Thorns have started their 2023 season where they left off last year. Which is to say they’re still absolutely stacked with talented players who are used to playing together and won the NWSL Championship in 2022. And the Thorns have someone who was missing for much of their 2022 campaign: USWNT star, 2019 World Cup champion, and 2015 NWSL MVP Crystal Dunn.
It was Dunn who opened the scoring for Portland on Saturday, when Sam Coffey found her near post on a short corner kick and Dunn had time to control the ball, look up, and slot her shot past AD Franch.
The third-minute goal set the tone for Portland—and for Dunn’s performance, specifically—that first half.
“She was everywhere,” Smith said after the game, “defensively, offensively, spinning people.”
For Dunn, it was exactly the game she was looking for. “I literally love playing in the midfield,” she said. “It’s honestly where I feel like I’m most authentic to who I am as a player. When I’m able to connect with the forwards to be able to put them in the best position to succeed, it fills me with so much joy.”
And find her teammates she did. Dunn completed an impressive 92.3% of her passes against the Current—far ahead of anyone else on the team.
“She was doing it all,” Smith said. “It’s so much fun to play with her because you trust and you know that she’s going to be right there with you when you go to press and she’s going to be right there with you when you’re attacking.”
But Dunn wasn’t alone in her standout first half. “What I felt all of the first half was just us connecting and people making the right passes making the right decisions,” she said. “Even if it didn’t work out, it was collectively just getting back on the same page and working hard to win the ball back.”
2. Beginning the second half (or: the questions)
The thing is, we’ve seen the Thorns look really, really good this season, but we’ve seen them look really, really good against teams that are not at their best. The Orlando Pride were… not great when Portland beat them in their season opener, and Kansas City could almost field an entire star-studded XI from their injury report on Saturday.
That’s not to say that rookie Gabrielle Robinson didn’t make a few key blocks on Smith in the first half or that Franch’s positioning didn’t stifle a couple promising looks from the Thorns, but the Current’s defense was a very scrapped-together-last-minute kind of deal.
But something clearly happened during Kansas City’s halftime because they came out of the locker room ready to fight. After conceding all of one shot in the first half, the Thorns were caught on the back foot in the second, stuck defending as the Current forced one turnover and resulting chance after another.
“They fixed some things,” Portland head coach Mike Norris said. “They came up with a different energy, which we didn’t match. We had to ride that storm.” And though they did ride it, the Thorns didn’t come out unscathed; they conceded their first goal of the season to an unmarked Cece Kizer header in the 58th minute.
“I think how the team responds says a lot more about us riding the wave of momentum,” Dunn said. “We were able to get back into it, keep our heads high, staying together, everyone was positive. I think that’s really what this team is about—just being able to solve problems and do it in a way that’s positive and encouraging for everybody to kind of get on the same page.”
Although the Thorns were able to claw their way back into the game, the early second half is a good reminder that scoring four goals every match is probably not a sustainable practice, especially this season.
Maybe it’s just me still having flashbacks to 2019—does that one Courage game still haunt anyone else?—but there is a pretty large part of me that cares less about winning games 4-0 and more about Seeing That Mike Norris is Preparing for a World Cup Year.
“The key is for us to be consistent,” Norris said of upcoming international player absences, “just in terms of the environment that we create every day. The expectations that we have of the players is a big piece, regardless of who’s in or who’s not.”
All this is to say that the Thorns are really good right now, and it’s probably safe to assume that will hold true in the near future. But Portland hasn’t really played against another full-strength squad yet, and this is a year where we’ll have players in and out of the team more so than usual, and this is Norris’ first season as a head coach in this league. I’m not ready to make judgements about what we’ve seen so far means for the rest of the season yet. Still, I’m excited to watch what we have going in the meantime.
3. The last 10 minutes (or: Sophia Smith)
As mentioned above, the Current came out of the gates swinging in the second half, and it was the first time this year—in the admittedly small sample size of two games—we’ve seen the Thorns stuck trying to simply keep their opponents from scoring. The important part here is that KC cut Portland’s lead in half, and the Thorns needed something to turn the momentum back in their favor.
That something—or, rather, someone—was, unsurprisingly, Smith, who’d already put away a Portland penalty in the first half. In the 83rd minute, Smith scored her first goal in the run of play, taking on four Current players on the dribble before sneaking a shot past Franch.
“Soph is just out there doing Soph things,” Dunn said in the postgame press conference. “I expect nothing less.”
Soph continued to do Soph things in the 88th minute, finding space at the top of the box and sending a low ball into the back of the net. “I was so shocked that I had more than two seconds to think about what I was going to do,” she said. “That was definitely new to me.”
Bonus: KC takes an L (or three)
Mostly I am still obsessed with the KC photoshop here, although I do think there should be three Smiths.
The Racing Louisville Defense after the conclusion of the preseason game against Portland Thorns. Photo by Taylor Vincent.
This year’s preseason tournament at Providence Park saw the Portland Thorns hosting OL Reign, Racing Louisville, and the U-23 Women’s National Team.
While Seattle and Portland finished first and second in the league, respectively, in 2022, Racing Louisville had a chance showcase the ways they have improved since last season.
In 2021 and 2022, Racing Louisville finished ninth in the NWSL.
As a club entering their third season, making the playoffs is a goal they feel is attainable, and rightfully so. Their welcome to the NWSL has resulted in a rough first two seasons, thus far.
Racing Louisville are closer than ever, and this could be the year it all comes together.
Blockbuster trade & backline
Carson Pickett against Portland Thorns in their preseason match. Photo by Taylor Vincent.
This team completed a blockbuster trade this offseason by sending superstar Emily Fox to the North Carolina Courage for one of the greatest defenders of all time in Abby Erceg and left back Carson Pickett.
After having a shaky situation at center back in their first two years, they’ve made it a strength in one offseason.
Although it is impossible to replace a USWNT left back starter in Emily Fox, they somehow still managed to get an elite one in Pickett.
The backline was Racing’s biggest question mark after surrendering the the third most goals in 2022, and it has looked remarkably improved in 2023.
Erceg’s partnership at center back with Finnish defender Elli Pikkujämsä was excellent in preseason. Her leadership was been on display: she’s vocal, directs the defense, and showcased her superb play.
“I enjoy coming in and helping people,” Erceg said. “I like seeing people reach their potential and get better as a player. I enjoy that aspect of it.”
Pickett and Lauren Milliet have been tremendous coming forward and delivering dangerous crosses. The fullbacks have more reign in attack, and it’s paid off in preseason. Defensively, their speed has been on display. The recovery runs have been impressive. This pair is going to cause problems all season.
Goalkeeper Katie Lund has been lights-out and will only get better from here. After leading the league in saves, she has solidified herself as a top NWSL goalkeeper.
Head Coach Kim Björkegren has been extremely impressed with Lund, who he says has made so many world class saves.
“The funny thing with [Lund] is she still has much higher potential,” he said. “In three to four years, I don’t know how good she could be because in my opinion she’s already one of the best goalkeepers in this league.”
These four players have a chance to make this backline from a question mark into a strength.
Abby Erceg and Elli Pikkujämsä against Portland in their preseason match. Photo by Taylor Vincent.
Familiarity with the system
Racing Louisville Kim Björkegren during their match against OL Reign. Photo by Taylor Vincent.
Björkegren will be entering his second season as the head coach. In 2022, the team had to adjust to a brand new system, and we saw a ton of growing pains as a result.
For most of 2022, they struggled to adapt to what Björkegren was asking of them. Players who did not fit the system, struggled and some were let go or traded away.
In order to get more information on the system, I reached out to Michael Shaw who covers Racing Louisville for Fleur-de-lis FC. One key note is that they play a traditional 4-3-3 formation, which is a staple for both Lou City and Racing Louisville.
Björkegren’s expectations and system is explained in detail by Shaw: “Staring with the front line, he expects defensive effort to try to force the issue when opponents have the ball deep in their territory. When you think about the forwards that Racing released last season, I believe it was more for their defensive effort than their goal scoring ability.”
Shaw expects the midfield to have some versatility, but the main pieces are in place. “At times, the midfield played with two in front of the back four, and that may be how they play at times this season, but Howell is a classic central defensive midfielder, DeMelo is a classic No. 8, and Wang is a classic center-attacking mid,” he said. “I expect him to play to their strengths.”
On the defensive end, this team is looking for players who fit the philosophy.
“The full backs will push forward,” Shaw said, “especially now with Pickett. Indications are that Milliet could start on the back line, too. More than any other player, Milliet explains [Björkegren’s] type of player. She always gives full effort and doesn’t shut off mentally. That’s why she has been ever-present in his lineups.”
At the end of the day, the talent and ability of each player will be highlighted and valued. “When playing out from the back, [Björkegren] values the technical ability to allow the team to keep possession,” Shaw said. “I would say that he tends to prefer the wide areas when building from the back. Now that he has Pickett, Milliet, and [Paige] Monaghan as options on the wings, expect that to continue.”
Even after the team’s 13-game winless streak last year, they never wavered or stop believing in one another. The team’s belief in each other is powerful.
Down the stretch of 2022, Racing Louisville started to figure it out. They won three of their final four games, including the finale over NWSL Championship finalist, Kansas City Current.
That seems to have carried over into the preseason tournament. They narrowly lost to Portland 0-1 on a late set piece goal by Meaghan Nally. Louisville rebounded nicely by coming out 2-0 over OL Reign. Closing out their final preseason game against the U23WNT, they won again.
This is the first time, the staff will have the players they need to make it work. Everyone is going to be more confident and have their roles clearly defined going into Coach Kim’s second season.
Talented roster
Sav DeMelo takes on OL Reign in Racing Louisville’s preseason match. Photo by Taylor Vincent.
This team also returns two of the best young players in the league: Savannah DeMelo and Jaelin Howell. Both also signed long-term contract extensions to remain with the club. DeMelo and Howell have already had stints on the USWNT and will be part of the the squad after this 2023 WWC cycle.
DeMelo said she wants to keep improving in her second NWSL season. “I have some things that I want to take from year one and apply to year two, but also add a couple pieces to my game,” she said.
In regards to the her and Howell’s role, DeMelo said, “I think just us being so young, I think we want to just provide energy and that little spark that the team needs.”
The club has made numerous high-profile player acquisitions in recent years: Monaghan, Nadia Nadim, Wang Shuang, Pikkujämsä, Ary Borges, Rebecca Holloway, Thembi Kgatlana, Alex Chidiac, Satara Murray, and most recently Uchenna Kanu.
Racing Louisville’s roster is very talented, and they possess one of the top rosters in the NWSL.
The Bev Yanez Effect
In a league where former players are now starting to become coaches, one of the highest-regarded ones is Bev Yanez. As a player, Yanez was a former best XI and won multiple NWSL shields. When she is ready, there will be a head coaching job waiting for her.
The respect she has from the team has been very apparent.
“She’s awesome,” Erceg said. “I think, especially for such a young team, to have a coach come in and just drill us on technique and technique and technique, it’s really good. I really enjoy her style of coaching. It’s very direct; there’s a lot of information, and it’s really good that she breaks things down. And I’ve really enjoyed that the training is different. Each time we go in, the drills are different, they’re challenging, [and] you’ve got to think.”
Yanez has made sure it a priority to help players as much as possible. She is also known to bring a lot of clarity to the squad, if needed. Whenever there may be any confusion or questions, Yanez makes herself available.
“She’s given us a lot of feedback, a lot of detail around our performances and the shape of the team,” Erceg said. “I think the girls are really thriving with that. She’s just a really good personality to have on the team as well… So I think people enjoy having her on the field and off the field.”
Team unity
A NWSL season requires you to be around your teammates for nearly the entire calendar. There are teams who are close, but the 2023 Racing Louisville squad has something special.
Their training sessions are filled with laughter, fun, and joyful vibes. They enjoy being around each other so much, and most of them want to be around each other all the time.
“I think just us being so close makes us want to work for each other,” DeMelo said. “We all want to win for each other [and] for our coach. So I think it just adds that level of family to it and makes it a little bit more special and more meaningful. And it’s not really about like one specific player. We all like want to do well just for the club and the team.”
The final lap
In 2022, the Kansas City Current went from last to nearly winning the NWSL championship. They were one game from a fairy tale ending.
After everything Racing Louisville players and fans have been through, it would be quite the story if they were to make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history.
“What would that mean?” DeMelo said. “The world. I think we’re trying to grow something really special here in Louisville. And I think we’ve been like puzzling in a lot of good players, and then extending people’s contracts. And I think we really want to build something here.”
“It would be pretty cool,” Erceg said. “I think playoffs for any team is cool. You lose that specialness, a little bit, when you’re repetitively doing it. So I think for a team like this, they just, they just want it so bad.”
Erceg said the team’s positive culture helps. “The team culture is really good,” she said. “And I want nothing more than for this team to be rewarded for that. You don’t get that all the time. It’s not common, especially in pro teams.”
This team has all the ingredients to be a playoff contender: improved backline, studs in the midfield, and options on the frontline.
Racing Louisville supporters, be proud of the team you have because they’re going to make you proud this season.
Portland Thorns defender Kelli Hubly played for Chicago Red Stars Reserves team in the summers of her college career, so she had their gear. The only other team she has merchandise of is the Thorns.
Besides the Red Stars, “The only other pro team that I ever had a connection with was the Portland Thorns,” she says. “This kind of feels like it was meant to be.”
After almost quitting soccer in college, going undrafted, and receiving limited opportunities in the early years in the pros, Hubly has shown that all paths to the league aren’t the same. Through rediscovering her love for the game and believing in her abilities as a player, she has forged a path for others to follow and succeed in the NWSL.
Hubly’s journey to PTFC stardom has been truly extraordinary. Her story represents a lifetime of hard work, determination, and perseverance. Although it was an extremely difficult path, she would not change it one bit.
“My path has been crazy, says Hubly. “Looking back, it was really hard. But I wouldn’t trade it for anything because it’s gotten me exactly where I need to be. I’ve needed each step that I had to take.”
Hubly’s love for sports started at a young age. She enjoyed playing soccer and basketball. She was always around sports, thanks to her family.
“I started like, as young as I could,” she says. “I have two older siblings and younger one. My two older siblings would always be on a 3v3 tournament. So they threw all the younger siblings together. It was, like, boys and girls co-ed.”
She wasn’t always just a soccer player; Hubly’s love extended to basketball, too. For a long period of time, it was her preferred sport, but soccer was always calling.
“I realized that the club team that I had, we were pretty good,” Hubly says. “We started together really young. So, once I kind of realized like our team was pretty good, I started doing [U.S. Soccer’s Olympic Development Program] and everything.”
Even though she was getting called up into youth national team camps, Hubly still needed more belief in her own talent before she could go all-in.
“At 15, I was going to National Team camps,” she says. “I never thought I was that good. I thought I was decent, but to go into national team camps, I still didn’t believe I was good enough to be there.”
But, she says, “I kept getting called in, so obviously I had to then start to realize, okay, like maybe soccer is the way to go.”
The love of the game has its highs and lows. In college, Hubly experienced both. The time period would be a huge reflection point in her life. She spent three years at the University of Kentucky before transferring to DePaul.
“Kentucky was really an interesting experience because SEC schools are huge,” Hubly says. “Going there my freshman year, I honestly didn’t even feel like I was there for school. I was mostly there for soccer.”
After her third year at Kentucky, she decided to transfer to DePaul. Hubly’s love for soccer was fading, and she didn’t even know if she wanted to play anymore.
“When I transferred to DePaul, I kind of, like, wasn’t gonna play soccer anymore,” Hubly says.
Hubly says Kentucky wasn’t the best fit for her, but Depaul was. “I really lost my love of the game,” she says. “Going to DePaul, finding my love for soccer again is what got me wanting to continue to play soccer. I didn’t ever think I was gonna play pro.”
Kelli Hubly defends Angel City’s Christen Press. Photo by Matthew Wolfe.
After going undrafted in 2017, Hubly’s career could have been over before it even started. Luckily, fate had other ideas. Former Thorns head coach, Mark Parsons reached out and asked her to come to preseason. When the Portland Thorns offered her an opportunity as a National Team Replacement Player that year, Hubly wanted to give it a real chance.
Hubly’s start with Portland was definitely not what she imagined, but she always remained strong and determined.
In her rookie season of 2017, she made two substitute appearances.
“I think that year, I needed that to grow,” she says, “and it wasn’t fun. I didn’t have a of friends. I was really quiet.” The normally-outgoing Hubly found herself watching Love Island eight hours a day, by her estimate.
“I was sad, but I promised myself: I’m gonna give it a year,” she says. “The next year, I came back and earned a roster spot. So I think it was just like, putting my head down doing the dirty work to get here.”
From 2018 to 2021, she earned 22 appearances with 18 starts. In 2020 and 2021, she started all the NWSL Challenge Cup matches for the Thorns.
Hubly blossomed in the 2021 NWSL Challenge Cup. She was dominant and staked her claim as a starter at center back moving forward—but also as one of the top defenders in the league.
Dubbed “unsung hero” of Portland’s defense, per Just Women Sports’ Hanna Martin, Hubly had the stats to prove it. She had a 100% success rate in tackles, a 68.2% success rate in duels, a 75% success rate in aerial duels, and successfully completed 84% of her passes. “Often overlooked among the Thorns’ star names, Hubly is as reliable as they come in the defensive third,” writes Martin.
In 2022, Hubly became Thorns’ Iron Woman by starting and playing in every game. She was one of only seven players in NWSL to achieve this honor.
On June 3, 2022 she scored her first ever goal off a ridiculous header against Angel City at Providence Park.
At the end of 2022 season, she would be an NWSL champion for the second time. However, for the first time, she was named NWSL Best XI Second Team.
“Honestly, I didn’t even [know],” Hubly says. “I skipped over the email because it wasn’t even a thought in my head.”
Kelli Hubly didn’t read the entire message at first, but when she looked at the NWSL email congratulating her, it was pure disbelief.
“I’ve never been the player even in college [to] win awards like that,” she says. “I’m just used to it by now. So, I was really shocked that I got the award.”
Naturally, the first person Hubly told was her other half of Portland soccer’s premier power couple: boyfriend, Portland Timber, and USMNT player Eryk Williamson.
Williamson continues to be her biggest supporter and fan, Hubly says. “He is always pushing me to be even more, even more, and even more,” she says. “He never wants me to settle.”
She then went onto tell her parents. “They’re just so happy for me,” she says, “all the hard work that is finally being recognized. I think for me, that’s the biggest part: just being recognized, like, how far I’ve come.”
In 2022, Hubly signed a contract extension that runs through 2024 and looks to be a player who could spend her entire career with the Thorns. After a lifetime of dedication to soccer, she is finally being recognized for her talent, work ethic, and consistency.
Her development since 2017 is why the NWSL matters, but also why being patient and developing players is so important. Hubly has shown that she’s only getting better and will continue to do so from here.
It’s Challenge Cup time again, and the Thorns opened their tournament on Friday with a 1-1 draw to OL Reign. Even with a couple missed chances, it wasn’t a bad start to Portland’s first non-preseason game of 2022—and it left us with a lot of positives for what this team can become.
The Thorns are generally a team that have high expectations for themselves—take just last year, when they set out with the goal to “win everything”—and they’ll want better than a draw. But with a new team and a new head coach and a number of key players out, I don’t think we can read the team’s performance or the game’s outcome as a bad result.
Thorns head coach Rhian Wilkinson put it best in the postgame press conference. “I thought the team put in a performance, in a lot of ways, that we can be proud of,” she said. Although she said that Portland has room to grow, and that they did miss a couple good opportunities, “they gritted out a tie, and winning teams get points on the road. I was really proud of that piece of it.”
Not only did the Thorns pick up a draw, but they did so without the likes of Crystal Dunn, Madison Pogarch, Rocky Rodríguez, and Becky Sauerbrunn.
Those absences—along with the temporary departure of Lindsay Horan and Angela Salem’s retirement—meant Friday night’s Thorns were in a very different position from last year. Instead of leaning on an internationally-experienced midfield that had at least a couple years in Portland’s system under their belt, the Thorns started relatively young midfield that hadn’t really played together before. Hina Sugita and Sam Coffey—while both clearly very talented—are new to the team, and Yazmeen Ryan played less than 400 minutes in the regular season last year.
It’s not surprising that it took the Thorns a second to settle in. In the opening minutes of the match, Portland looked happy to give the Reign time on the ball, sitting back using pressure to force OL to play out of the back.
In Sauerbrunn’s absence, the Thorns also started Meaghan Nally in defense, who had played 19 minutes for Portland in 2022. Despite a dodgy moment early on, she grew into the game and helped hold Portland to one goal against. Wilkinson called her “unflappable” after the match.
“It took us a second to get organized and communicate a little bit better,” Christine Sinclair said after the match, “but I think we figured it out pretty quickly.”
Even though it was fun to watch Portland’s midfield settle in and more effectively contain world class players like Jess Fishlock and Quinn, I’m not sure how much to read into that performance. Rodríguez, Dunn, and, presumably, Horan will be coming back into the fold as the season progresses, and I won’t be surprised if Wilkinson experiments with formations as she and the players get used to working with each other. Still, Coffey, Ryan, and Sugita all put in solid shifts on Friday, and I’m excited to see how they develop as the season progresses.
“We’re definitely up for the challenge,” Sinclair said, “and we’re only going to grow more and more each game.”
And as the Thorns grow into this new iteration of the team, they’ll still have the likes of a number of more experienced players to lean on. Sinclair, Natalia Kuikka, and Sophia Smith showed as much with the goal they worked to create against the Reign.
The Thorns fell to the Chicago Red Stars 2–0 in their semifinal match at Providence Park on Sunday. Despite both teams taking a major last-minute scratch—Lindsey Horan sat out the match after suffering an injury the day before, and Chicago was without Mallory Pugh due to COVID-19 protocol—the Red Stars were able to execute their game plan, and the Thorns saw yet another match where they struggled to put the ball in the back of the net.
It was a rough game in that the Thorns kind of knew what Chicago was going to do in advance—if not the exact game plan, at least some of what they’d be coming up against—but they weren’t able to do enough to actually counteract that strategy.
“Our last match against Chicago, I thought they did a really good job of keeping us to one side,” Becky Sauerbrunn said in a press conference ahead of the semifinal game. “They kind of invited us to play to one side of the field and then really committed numbers and kept us over there, and it was difficult to switch the play. So for us, it’s identifying open players, it’s identifying the space that we can capitalize on and how we can get the ball there. I think if we can do that we can do that successfully and relatively risk-free, that will really help us in our build up.”
And Chicago did the same thing this time around.
“They’ve turned up into probably the hardest place to play against probably the hardest team to play,” Mark Parsons said of Chicago’s semifinal performance. “Very stingy, very disciplined, very organized performance, and they’ve got a great result.”
The Red Stars applied pressure early, cutting off spaces and staying touch-tight on Sophia Smith. For their part, the Thorns saw some success when they were able to break up a Chicago attack, switch the ball, and counter up the other side of the field, but the Red Stars were able to limit the moments where that happened from early on.
“Chicago did a really good job of keeping a lot of people in their box,” Emily Menges said after the game, “and it was really hard to get anything clean off.”
It’s not that the Thorns were bad—they generated a fair number of chances and managed to play out of Chicago’s press enough to get a couple really solid looks on goal—but, even as they found more chances, they did do the thing they’ve been doing all year where they shoot a lot and don’t have all that much to show for it. Despite a 21–5 shot line and an xG total that played heavily in their favor, the Thorns just weren’t able to find the back of the net.
But beyond the stat lines, it wasn’t a game that felt good. Kealia Watt was subbed off for Chicago after she went down a little before the 30-minute mark, and goalkeeper Cassie Miller went down a couple minutes after that.
And then there was the Red Stars’ first goal: an (admittedly very good) shot from Katie Johnson that deflected weirdly off Bella Bixby’s hand and inside the near post in the 37th minute. And then Chicago struck again when Morgan Gautrat found an open Sarah Woldmoe outside of Portland’s box, and Woldmoe snuck her shot from distance past the Thorns’ defense and inside the near post.
Again, it wasn’t that Portland were bad in the closing 30 minutes of the game, but they weren’t able to do enough to win back either of the goals or to prevent the game from ending in a 2–0 loss and Chicago moving onto the final.
“The ball didn’t bounce for us in the 18 tonight,” Christine Sinclair said after the match. “We created a lot of half chances, a lot of crosses, but we just weren’t on the end of them.”
That’s how it goes in soccer, sometimes.
It’s a tough note to go out on, especially with Parsons set to leave for the Netherlands and the inevitable roster shakeup that comes with two expansion drafts and a new head coach, especially after the fallout of the front office covering up Paul Riley’s abuse, especially with Bixby playing through her dad’s passing just days before—and especially when the Thorns had set out to win everything this season and ended up falling just short.
On Thursday, The Athleticreported that former Thorns head coach Paul Riley sexually abused and coerced multiple players during his tenures with multiple professional women’s soccer teams—including his time in Portland. Sinead Farrelly and Mana Shim brought these reports to the attention of front offices, commissioners, and other league officials, but by no means are they the only survivors of Riley’s abuse.
Although Riley has been fired, NWSL commissioner Lisa Baird and general counsel Lisa Levine have resigned, and SafeSport—a questionable place to turn—is now investigating the allegations against Riley, we, at the Rose City Review, find lack of transparency and action until this point to be unacceptable.
It’s not enough for coaches and managers to apologize for hiring known abusers, as OL Reign owner Bill Predmore apologized for hiring former head coach Farid Benstiti in a press conference on Friday. “Getting it wrong” is not an excuse when there are known, credible accusations against a man. The systems of complacency within the NWSL run deep. We’ve seen them play out time and time again this year, with the terminations of Riley, Benstiti, and Richie Burke. And we’ve seen that same lack of transparency around the firing of Christy Holly, Alyse LaHue, and Tom Torres.
And it’s not enough for Riley to resign when the people who covered up his abuse remain in power. According to The Athletic’s report, Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and general manager Gavin Wilkinson released Riley from the club after investigating Shim’s allegations against him, but neither the club nor the league publicly acknowledged those accusations or that there had been an investigation. Despite knowing that Riley was a sexual abuser, Paulson, Wilkinson, and the NWSL let the league hire Riley for another job, placing him in yet another position of power.
We believe the Thorns’s statement on the report does not adequately address the harm the club has caused—nor does it outline a plan to keep players safe in the future. Merritt Paulson’s open letter, while outlining positive steps forward for the club, does little to acknowledge the complicit behavior of the Thorns’ front office. The “North Star” that he references as what is best for the players and techinical will need to involve the removal of Gavin Wilkinson to create a more safe and open environment.
We support Mana Shim, Sinead Farelly, Kaiya McCollough, and everyone else who has come forward about abuse—publicly or privately.
The steps outlined in Paulson’s letter are positive, and we will be following up to ensure that he follows through on them. But we believe that the club’s current plan is not enough. We feel it is unacceptable that Gavin Wilkinson remains the club GM, given his role in covering up Riley’s abuse. We are calling for his removal from the Thorns and Timbers organization.
It was, by many of the usual metrics, a lovely Sunday afternoon at Providence Park. The sun was shining, the air was crisp, and the Portland Timbers won their seventh game in eight attempts, continuing an improbable run up the Western Conference table that has them positioned to contend as the weather finally begins to turn and the MLS season enters its final stage.
But the result, a 1–0 Timbers victory on the strength of a late headed goal from the Polish marksman Jarosław Niezgoda, felt like little more than a sideshow.
This Timbers victory should have been the second game of the weekend played at Providence Park. The Portland Thorns were supposed to take the field first, on Saturday, for a derby match against their northern rival, OL Reign.
That match did not happen. In its place, after all games across the NWSL were suspended following the horrifying revelations reported by The Athleticlast week regarding the conduct of former Thorns manager Paul Riley, Thorns supporters rallied outside the stadium in support of the players Riley abused and those who remain within an American soccer league that has at every turn disregarded their safety.
They also called for the firing of Timbers and Thorns general manager Gavin Wilkinson, who has emerged again as a lightning rod for anger.
Timbers fans last called en masse for Wilkinson’s firing in the autumn of 2012, when the club was suffering through a miserable season on the field. They were wrong then. The Timbers won the Western Conference the next season and an MLS Cup two years later, and Wilkinson’s prowess as a soccer executive has proven beyond any significant doubt many times since.
They’re not wrong now. This time, the frustration is not that Wilkinson can’t pick soccer players. It is that he, along with Timbers and Thorns owner Merritt Paulson and the club’s president of business Mike Golub, failed to ensure that Riley’s career ended after they were made aware of the allegations of his predatory, coercive, absolutely despicable behavior towards their players.
The club investigated Riley following the 2015 season and, with his contract expiring, let him walk. We don’t know exactly what that investigation turned up, and we don’t know exactly how seriously the club endeavored to communicate to the NWSL and Riley’s future employers that he was an active danger to their players too.
What it looks like, lacking that information, and knowing the connections between the Wilkinson and one of the men responsible for hiring Riley to his next job, is that the Thorns, like the Catholic Church, simply moved an ill-behaved coach on to his next parish, consequences be damned.
Sinead Farrelly. Mana Shim. How many others there are—both among those who spoke anonymously to The Athletic and those who weren’t reached or chose not to be interviewed—we don’t yet and will probably never know.
Timbers players Saturday released a statement expressing their support for NWSL players, while Giovani Savarese and other members of the Timbers coaching staff wore teal ribbons in a show of solidarity.
Savarese and his team entered Sunday in a difficult position. Around them in the stadium, and particularly in a vociferous North End, the supporters called—colorfully, loudly, and repeatedly—for their boss to be fired.
The Timbers Army, singing and chanting to the beat of a drum branded with the logo of the Rose City Riveters, made their position known from pregame to the final whistle. Banners hung or hoisted in the North End included “Believe, Support, and Protect NWSL Players,” “Protect the Players, Cut the Rot Out,” and, most memorably, a simple, “You Knew,” along with plenty of two-sticks aimed specifically at Wilkinson.
All the team on the field could do was focus on the task at hand, no matter how trivial it felt taking place in the middle of one of the biggest storms in franchise history.
Knowing a win would cement their status as in the West’s top four with Real Salt Lake’s loss on Saturday, the Timbers faced a Miami side in desperate need of points to keep their distant playoff hopes alive.
Starting without Sebastian Blanco, whose return to fitness was so critical in their revival this fall, and with Diego Valeri suspended for yellow card accumulation, the Timbers lacked a measure of attacking inventiveness in the first half. But Miami was rarely more than ponderous going forward themselves, with the Timbers comfortably defending deep and looking to break with pace.
When Blanco was introduced with a quarter of an hour to go in the second half and no score, the Timbers quickly began to rack up chances. It was thanks only to some excellent emergency defending from Miami’s three center backs, led by Leandro Gonzalez Pirez that the game remained level for as long as it did, and thanks to some very soft defending in the middle of that box that Niezgoda was allowed to freely position himself in the path of a Blanco corner seven minutes from time and nod in the opener.
Miami thought they had equalized just moments later when substitute Julian Carranza headed a cross past Clark, but the goal was ruled out for a push on Dario Zuparic. Miami manager Phil Neville said after the game that his team was “robbed,” and perhaps in a narrow sense, he was right. The whistle on Carranza was soft, one of a number of marginal calls that so often decide close, pedestrian late-season games.
But in a broader sense, his team did not take advantage of the opportunity presented to them in Blanco’s reduced fitness and Valeri’s suspension. They lost the expected goals battle by nearly two and only forced Steve Clark into a pair of notable saves, one on an uninspired Gonzalo Higuain, the other on Brek Shea.
Miami had one more great chance after Carranza’s equalizer was ruled out, deep into stoppage time, but Gonzalez Pirez, outstanding on the other end of the field, sent his open look well wide. That was it. The Timbers are now seven points clear of fifth, on a glide path to hosting a playoff game.
Afterwards, Savarese and Clark were asked about the NWSL. For many of the supporters, the afternoon ended with that subject—and the club’s response to it—foremost in mind. The Timbers Army and the Rose City Riveters are extraordinary in the American sporting landscape for the outspokenness and seriousness with which they take their sociopolitical commitments.
They also, in recent history, have been extraordinary for their effectiveness. The supporters, with the help of others across the MLS, namely in Seattle, stared down the league and won its fight to fly the Iron Front in 2019. The coming fight to hold the organization accountable for its role in perpetuating Riley’s career will, in many ways, be a much bigger challenge.
Paulson’s most enduring trait in a decade-plus as a major league owner, right alongside his passion and inability to stay off Twitter, has been his loyalty to and faith in Wilkinson—a loyalty that has been richly rewarded in on-the-field success.
This scandal is not not going away any time soon. U.S. Soccer and FIFA have opened investigations. The NWSL remains in turmoil, with the Thorns scheduled to play the Houston Dash at home on Wednesday night. Their current manager, Mark Parsons, who is vacating the role in a matter of weeks, has not faced the media since the story broke.
The level of protest at this, a Timbers game, not a Thorns game, made that plain It is as yet unclear what is coming next for Riley and everyone who passed the buck and did the bare minimum instead of stopping him cold. But it is obvious, if there was ever a doubt, that Portland fans are going to keep close score.
