The Thorns earned a 3-2 win against the San Diego Wave on Sunday, knocking the Wave out of the running for the Challenge Cup semifinals with a strong first half. Still, Portland’s second half left room for improvement.
Formation changes
For the first time this year, the Thorns played a 4-3-3 formation, with Meghan Klingenberg, Kelli Hubly, Emily Menges, and Meaghan Nally spread across the defense and Sophia Smith, Christine Sinclair, and Morgan Weaver sitting as the front three.
Head coach Rhian Wilkinson said after the game that the Thorns are using the Challenge Cup to gradually add in different tactics that she wants the team to use throughout the regular season. “To have two weeks without a game when the internationals went, I felt like it was the right time to to deliver a new structure,” Wilkinson said.
The formation meant the Thorns didn’t have as many numbers wide, and, unsurprisingly, they played more through the middle as a result. We can see that through the average player positions between the Thorns’ last game against OL Reign—where they played a 5-3-2—and Sunday’s game against the Wave, where players are more clustered in the center of the park:
“What I’ve loved is I think you can see this team buys in,” Wilkinson said of the new formation. “They trust one another.”
A first half frolic
That trust was evident in the first half. The Thorns dominated those 45 minutes, winning balls, controlling the midfield, and getting chance after chance off. They ended the half with 16 shots to San Diego’s four and a 3-0 lead to show for it.
Smith opened the scoring in the fourth minute when she got on the end of an on-the-ground cross from Weaver, touched the ball just around her defender, and sent a shot into the far corner that San Diego’s Carly Telford wasn’t able to react to in time.
Portland struck again in the 21st and 41st minutes, as Hina Sugita tallied her first two goals for the team. In both cases, she exposed San Diego’s defensive marking, getting on the ends of rebounds to hit the ball into the back of the net. And it doesn’t hurt that they were both fun to watch:
Hina Sugita scores her first NWSL goal to put us up by 2. Congrats Hina!!! #BAONPDX pic.twitter.com/T1ZPZxTp43
— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) April 17, 2022
Thoughts anyone? 🧐🤔 #BAONPDX pic.twitter.com/DzvUlisCqx
— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) April 18, 2022
“If you’ve watched her the last few games, this is what she’s been doing,” Wilkinson said of Sugita. “I think she’s just gaining in confidence every game and did very well today.”
A second half struggle
But if the first half was a breeze for the Thorns, the second half was anything but. San Diego brought in rookie Kelsey Turnbow after the break, and she immediately went to work terrorizing Portland’s defense. In just the first minute, she played a perfect ball into Alex Morgan, whose shot left Bella Bixby scrambling to her feet as Bella Briede picked up the ball at the top of the six and buried her shot.
The game’s momentum shifted in favor of the Wave after that, with San Diego growing into the midfield and forcing the Thorns into a lot of last-ditch defending. San Diego got of 13 shots in those final 45 minutes, while Portland managed only two. “Our talk halftime was keep the standard up,” Sam Coffey said after the match, “and we didn’t do that.”
Taylor Kornieck further cut into the Thorns’s lead coming off the bench in the 67th minute, scoring a header off a Wave corner kick by virtue of her positioning and being tall.
Although the Thorns were able to hold onto the win, it was a gritty end to a dominant start. “Something Rhian really emphasizes for our group is winning the right way,” Coffey said. “I don’t think we we did that to the best of our ability.
“That doesn’t mean that we hang our heads low or we’re all disappointed, but it’s fuel for the fire,” she said. “I think that’s a good thing for this group, especially with another game just around the corner.”