Tag: Sam Coffey
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Sam Coffey was drafted in 2021 by the Portland Thorns. She was the 12th pick overall from Penn State University and an attacking midfielder. In a class where Emily Fox and Trinity Rodman were selected with the first two picks, Coffey has become the absolute steal of the 2021 draft.
At the time, former head coach Mark Parsons praised Coffey’s ability to pass and score and her skill in the final third. At the draft, he described her as a “difference-maker, can pass and shoot.”
If you look at the modern game, can dribble, who can twist and turn,” he said. “We’ve lacked some of that, you know, the last couple of years.”
He also believed Coffey was pro-ready—despite the fact that she chose to take advantage of an extra COVID-19 season Penn State before joining the Thorns in 2022. “That dynamic ability was key bringing in Sam, who’s going to have an immediate impact,” Parsons said. “This is someone who can be a difference maker in the final third.”
After Angela Salem’s retirement after the Thorns’ 2021 campaign and Lindsey Horan’s loan to OL, Portland was looking at a possible rebuild in midfield heading into the 2022 season.
Thorns general manager Karina LeBlanc and then-head coach Rhian Wilkinson put on a roster-building masterclass. Enter rookie Sam Coffey and NWSL newcomer Hina Sugita. Wilkinson was brilliant to see that Coffey had a chance to be a world-class No. 6 for her squad.
Brilliant Rookie Season
In Coffey’s first season, she was named to the NWSL Best XI first team, earned four caps for the USWNT, was nominated for rookie of the year, and was crucial all season in Portland’s NWSL championship run.
The Rose City Review recently spent some time talking to Coffey about her 2022:
On keys to her immediate success at her new position and how much support she received throughout last season.
Coffey: “There were a lot of keys. One of [the] biggest ones for me is the belief of the people around me and the support of the people around me. When you’re a [No.] 6 on a team like this, they make my job a lot easier. They were so encouraging and helpful—and still are—in my development and learning of this role.
“I can’t even put into words what that feels like, and how comforting [it is] to know that I’m looking from my left to my right and seeing the class all around me. I think just having a real growth mindset with it; I’m not going to get it perfect, I’m still learning.
“I am still learning. It’s not going to be this constant uphill progression. Rhian used to always encourage me to get a PhD in this position, and I love that language, like a student. I’m just trying to learn about it every day, get better at it every day. I’m not going to have it all, all the time.
“There are going to be areas I need to improve, there are going to be bumps, just like this month has presented. Definitely a bump in the road, but I am so confident that it’ll serve and help me, make me a better player, better person, better competitor, and I’m just really excited to experience that.”
The Bump in the Road
USWNT head coach Vlatko Andonovski’s roster for the 2023 SheBelieves Cup somehow managed to omit Sam Coffey from that list. Andonovski has said that he believes Coffey should be considered an NWSL MVP candidate. She was arguably the best defensive midfielder in the NWSL in 2022 and should have been a lock for the Women’s World Cup in Australia/New Zealand.
On the omission from the 2023 SheBelieves Cup and doing everything she can to make the WWC roster.
Coffey: “Obviously, I am disappointed not to be in camp, but I think this presents a really good opportunity for me to fine-tune areas of my game. Even seeing me out here with Vytas [Assistant Coach and former Portland Timber Defender], working on different areas of my game that need some refinement, like aerial challenges, 50/50 balls, being more aggressive. So, I think, I’m really viewing this time as an opportunity to address those things, but like you said it’s my dream to go.
“I want to serve and be on that team. I want to be there, and I believe I’m good enough to be there. I don’t think I need to do anything differently. I’m going to continue and try grow and be my best self. But I think taking this time reflecting and fine-tuning different areas of my game [to the] best of my ability is a good place to start. I just want to continue to be who I am, be authentic to me, just continue to grow during this process.”
If there’s extra motivation for her.
Coffey: “Yeah, I’d say I already have intense fire burning without a setback like that. Of course, it’s all motivation, all fuel for me. Again, I think it does give me an opportunity to even mentally, physically, spiritually reflect and address things that I need time to address and to watch those games. Obviously, cheer the team on, but watch it tactically, watch it from a perspective of how I can improve and how I can just stay locked in and focus on what the group’s doing.
“I would say of course it does light a fire, but I want this more than anything. I’m going to do whatever it takes to get there.”
2023: The Year of Sam Coffey on the USWNT
Whether everyone likes it or not, Coffey should make the World Cup team in 2023. It would be colossal failure to have her wait until 2027.
Coffey is the best distributor in the USWNT pool, and it’s not close. She is an elite quarterback at the position and is able to keep control of the ball with her dribbling, quick thinking, turns, and world-class ability to read her opponent’s defense.
Andi Sullivan is the only other true No. 6 on the USWNT roster and is a very fine option. Still, Sullivan and Coffey are two completely different players, and it’s great to have as options depending on the matchup. Having these two players rotate at the World Cup would be the best case scenario for the USWNT.
As Andonovski continues to experiment with Taylor Kornieck at the No. 6 just months before the WWC, it’s obviously there’s not enough time for her to master a new position. It’s also very apparent that the role is not where she is most effective on the pitch.
“I don’t see her in that light for us,” San Diego Wave head coach Casey Stoney said when asked about Kornieck’s role with the national team. “I think we’d be taking away her strengths if she played as an isolated six.”
That brings us back to Coffey, who is one of the most naturally gifted No. 6s. In most cycles, she would be a lock for the USWNT—and probable starter.
Still, she’ll look to start the NWSL season off blazing hot and force Andonovski’s hand in her favor.
With a year of league play under her belt, Coffey will be trying to pad the stat sheet this season—adding to her two assists and one goal in 2022. She has already taken most of the set pieces for the club, and has continually improved.
“I think she’ll keep growing,” Thorns head coach Mike Norris said. “She’s young. She’s got the hunger and desire.”
Coffey rarely makes any mistakes, has a field vision that is utterly remarkable, and picks out difficult passes with ease. Expect her to be even sharper, more dangerous, and more influential for the Thorns in 2023—from defense and distribution to playmaking as a passer and scorer.
It’ll be a tough game for anyone trying to defend against Coffey in the NWSL this season—and hopefully we’ll be able to say the same about players going up against her on the international stage.
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.”
The Thorns look very different than when they stepped off the field in 2021, and two games into a preseason tournament, they are still finding their footing. Without being too critical of the team, there are plenty of bright spots to take away from the inaugural Thorns versus San Diego Wave game.
Debuts!
Saturday night’s game marked the professional Thorns debuts of Abby Smith and Natalie Beckman. Both players appeared in the preseason games and showed new head coach Rhian Wilkinson that they had valuable skills. Although Beckman only played about 10 minutes coming in for Klingenberg, she looked confident on the wing as part of the Thorns’ five-back and should be an exciting prospect in the games to come. Smith has plenty of NWSL experience, most recently for the Kansas City Current, but had yet to make an appearance for the Thorns since signing mid-season in 2021.
In her inaugural game, Smith registered seven saves and a clean sheet, making her the fourth Thorns keeper to record a clean sheet in a Challenge Cup match. The decision to start Smith over Bella Bixby, Thorns No. 1, was a collaborative one between head goalkeeper coach Nadine Angerer, Bixby, and Smith. Head coach Rhian Wilkinson said post-game that it was Bixby’s suggestion to have Smith play so that Smith has the minutes and confidence to fill in when Bixby is unavailable. Smith also spoke highly of the Goalkeeper Union in Portland and how all keepers push one another and inspire greatness. With such a solid culture in goal, any of the Portland keepers should be able to control the backline.
Sophia! Smith!
Saying that Sophia Smith is good at soccer is probably the understatement of the year. Her technical skill and ability to get in behind the backline has already proven to be crucial to the Thorns’s attacking strategies. Sinking three out of three shots on target, Smith is lethal in front of goal. However, in the game against the Wave, Smith showed that she is more than just a pacey striker. In the run up to the Thorns’s lone goal, Smith was able to draw out three San Diego defenders to surround her, leaving both Natalia Kuikka and Christine Sinclair with plenty of space on the wings to send a ball in that Smith hit one-time deftly around Sheridan.
Post-game, Wilkinson had high praise for Smith. She cited that Smith not only has a high ceiling that she delivers on, but that she is able to quickly implement feedback. One thing that Smith and Wilkinson are working on is “when to go in behind defense on transition and when to hold back to create different types of scoring opportunities.” With the combination of skills she possesses, it is a no-brainer that Smith will be a crucial member of the Thorns this year.
Young players!
Sam Coffey, Yazmeen Ryan, and Meaghan Nally all got the start on Saturday. With Becky Sauerbrunn out after undergoing surgery to repair her meniscus, Nally has been able to slide into a starting role on the backline. She didn’t look out of place in the slightest alongside veteran defenders Emily Menges and Kelli Hubly, registering the highest number of touches and completed passes of the three.
Ryan and Coffey, alongside Hina Sugita, are working to rebuild the midfield that the Thorns lost in the offseason. Together, the two young players in their first full season with the Thorns have already impressed. As the holding midfielder No. 6, Coffey had nearly an 80% passing completion rate. She was able to exploit the wide open spaces left by the non-existent Wave midfield, and looked as though she controlled the field. As she gains more experience and confidence on the field, she will be a real force to be reckoned with. Finally, Ryan also worked hard in the midfield, completing several successful dribbles to bring the ball into the final third, playing in Smith. As both Sophia Smith and Ryan get more time together and their partnership solidifies, they should be a lethal duo on the left.
The Thorns go again tonight at home for their inaugural match against Angel City FC as they continue their run to secure their second Challenge Cup championship.
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.
Sincy on the spot. #BAONPDX | #NWSLChallengeCup pic.twitter.com/sqm1d1cwHd
— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) March 19, 2022
The NWSL held its first-ever virtual college draft last Wednesday evening. Like so much of modern life, it was confusing and tiring. For one thing, constant time-outs made it an excruciatingly slow-moving event, with the first round taking almost a full two hours to wrap up. More importantly, the whole thing was shrouded in uncertainty after the pandemic forced the league and the NCAA to hammer out some new rules.
First, seniors taken in the draft are allowed to choose whether to play in the NCAA’s upcoming spring season and report to their NWSL teams afterward, or forgo their final year of eligibility and go straight to the pros. Second, all NCAA seniors were eligible for selection in the draft, whether they declared for it or not.
While that uncertainty loomed large, and in some cases may have forced teams to rethink their plans, Mark Parsons said during the draft that it didn’t significantly impact the Thorns’ preparations. “We’d done more homework than we ever have” leading into the draft, he said. “We had done that homework because we felt we could improve on last year—there was one or two players we missed [in last year’s draft class].” The coaching staff put together profiles of 100 players and spoke to 67 ahead of the draft, assisted by college coaches who helped the club gauge whether players would be a good fit for Portland, on and off the field. After all that legwork, the rule change was almost incidental.
Unlike last year’s draft where the Thorns nabbed Sophia Smith, the team didn’t make any splashy big-name signings who will significantly change the team. Still, they did take the rights to four high-quality players who will provide depth in areas the Thorns need it, especially with the Olympics looming this summer.
There was, however, some behind-the-scenes drama when it came to Portland’s first pick, Yazmeen Ryan, who they took sixth in the first round. The Thorns went into the draft with the seventh overall pick, but after Racing Louisville selected Emma Ekic with the fifth pick, there was a long time-out, which ended with the announcement that the Chicago Red Stars had traded their number six pick to Portland in exchange for Portland’s seventh and 32nd picks and a 2021 international slot.
Parsons later explained that Portland had tried to trade up for the fourth overall pick in order to take Ryan, the Thorns’ top target, early on. However, it didn’t pan out because Kansas City offered Sky Blue $175,000 in allocation money for the same spot. “And then it was panic time,” Parsons said.
Although they knew Chicago wasn’t planning to take Ryan, the Thorns were concerned Rory Dames might trade that pick to a team who was interested in her. “We assured [Dames] the player he wants would be available, we just can’t have you trading to anywhere else and lose the opportunity to bring Yazmeen to Portland,” explained Parsons.
They were intent on Ryan for good reason, as she’s a player Parsons believes could contribute to the Thorns right now. She’s an attacking midfielder who looks both to score with late runs into the box and to feed her teammates with well-timed through balls. She could be a real asset in that role during the summer Olympics, when Portland will lose Christine Sinclair, Crystal Dunn, Lindsey Horan, and likely Sophia Smith. Ryan has also taken penalties and set pieces for TCU.
Portland’s next selection, Sam Coffey, is a midfielder out of Penn State who’s comfortable in a box-to-box role. She’s good both on and off the ball, has excellent vision, and can dictate the course of a game. “I think Sam Coffey could play for us right now,” said Parsons, “but she could also keep growing, keep improving.”
Amirah Ali, who Portland took 22nd overall, looks like a somewhat longer-term prospect. She’s a forward who, in Parsons’s words, “receives the ball under pressure back to goal, can twist and turn, can run at people, can finish. She can impact now,” he continues, “but I do think there’s going to be a journey for her […] her character is key. I feel she can come in and learn from some of the best players in the world around her, and I think she can learn from this coaching staff.”
Finally, Hannah Betfort is a converted forward from Wake Forest who’s played at both outside back and center back. She’s a leader on her college squad, serving as captain since 2019. She has strong passing and tackling numbers and also contributes offensively—notably tallying seven assists since moving to defense. Betfort, too, looks like a longer-term prospect, as Portland’s defense is already piled high.
With this year’s eligibility extension, how many of these players will report straight to preseason, and how many will want to play their senior college season in the spring? Players don’t have to announce their decision until the 22nd, so at this point, we don’t know. However, Parsons did tell the media that not all the draftees will be in Portland for the start of preseason. In particular, he hinted that Coffey wants to play her last college season, saying she’d been “terrorizing everyone” this fall and “she’ll want to do that in the NCAA tournament as well, fingers crossed.”
The bottom line, though, is this: “We know what their current plans are before we pick them, and we’ll respect that and wait for that phone call.”
So where does this leave the Thorns’ roster, and how will they line up? Trying to guess is a fool’s errand (read: I’m bad at it), but here are two possibilities we think are plausible. The first option is to keep the diamond and use Dunn and Smith up top. If Sinc isn’t available, either Dunn or Ryan could slot in at the No. 10.
Another possibility, given Portland’s stack of defenders, is something like the 5-3-2 the Thorns used for most of 2017.
