Tag: Thorns

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Soccer Thorns

Four Takeaways: Portland 2, Tacoma 0

Photo by Matthew Wolfe

The Thorns earned their third victory of the Challenge Cup last night, a 2–0 win over OL Reign, which clinched their spot in the championship on May 8. A beautiful free kick by Lindsey Horan in the 17th minute and a weird chaos goal by Simone Charley early in the second half were the difference between the two teams. Here are a few of my takeaways from the match:

1. “I hope [my rose] never dies” -Crystal Alyssia Dunn Soubrier

Crystal Dunn made her long-awaited Thorns debut last night, and as promised, she’s getting a lot of freedom to roam and create. On paper, she slotted in at the No. 8 in the midfield diamond, but she played that role a little differently from how Rocky Rodríguez has been handling it. She was very much still in a box-to-box role, but tended to sit higher up the field in the attack, often swapping places with Christine Sinclair as she found space between the Reign’s lines.

We’ve been misled a little—Merritt Paulson said at least once Dunn would be playing at forward—but I love her in this position, especially since it lets both Sophia Smith and Simone Charley fit in the lineup. Mark Parsons’s attitude toward this role seems not unlike how he outlined Tobin Heath’s job; in short, get her the ball in possession and let her figure it out.

At times, Dunn, Smith, and Horan looked to not quite be on the same page as each other and the rest of the team, but that’s understandable given how little training time they’ve gotten since the international window ended.

2. The Reign didn’t really show up

The team formerly known as the Seattle Reign put up a pretty lackluster opposition last night. For a lot of the first half, they struggled to defend in an organized way, often giving the Thorns too much time and space, not choosing the right moments to press, and leaving players unmarked and passing lanes open. I am struck by this image of all of Becky Sauerbrunn’s passes, which shows how content the Reign were to let her make one particular entry pass into the final third over and over:

A map showing Becky Sauerbrunn's passes

When the Reign did apply pressure, they often focused on Lindsey Horan, and they did succeed in turning her back towards her defense a number of times. At other moments, though, she either broke through the pressure or combined with Sinclair or Dunn to keep moving the ball forward. On top of those players’ individual skill, Portland often had an overload in the midfield, with Natalia Kuikka and Meghan Klingenberg pushing forward and Smith dropping back.

The Thorns also found a number of chances on good old-fashioned balls over the top, as Sauerbrunn and Kelli Hubly were both given as much time as they wanted throughout the first half. Again, sometimes that didn’t matter—Hubly hit a few that were pretty aimless—but with Charley’s speed and dribbling ability up top, that route is a real threat for the Thorns.

The Reign switched on more in the second half, especially once Jess Fishlock and Megan Rapinoe came on. Those two players both looked to have some ideas going forward, and Fishlock in particular (no surprises here) provided defensive grit the midfield had mostly lacked. Nevertheless, Tacoma’s back line kept making weird errors, and their offense was unlucky on the handful of chances they put together.

3. Um?

Sort of a subsection to the last one: I don’t want to take anything away from Lindsey Horan’s free kick, which was gorgeous, but it’s not hard to see what’s about to happen here. I’m not sure why the Reign were set up like this:

A screenshot showing Lindsey Horan lining up a free kick, with an arrow showing the path the ball will take

4. Some highlights from the stats

Like they did against Kansas City, Portland significantly out-passed the Reign, with 79.5% accuracy at full time against their opponents’ 71.3%. Six Thorns starters completed at least 80% of their passes, led by Kuikka at 86.2%.

Charley had a record-breaking night:

And most remarkably, the Thorns as a group broke their record for most shots in a competitive match:

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Soccer Thorns

Three Takeaways: Portland 2, Kansas City 1

Photo by Kris Lattimore

The Thorns kicked off their 2021 Challenge Cup last night with a 2–1 win against the nameless team from Kansas City, thanks to goals by Rocky Rodríguez and Tyler Lussi. What was mostly a routine and successful first game by a Portland team missing a number of players to international duty and injury turned sour toward the end. Danielle Chesky issued a record-setting four red cards, one to Mark Parsons, and a mass scuffle broke out between the two teams. Here are a few of my thoughts:

1. Things started well and were mostly normal

Up until the last three minutes of this game (more on that later), it really felt like the story was going to be that this was a solid first outing for a short-staffed Thorns side against a brand-new Kansas City team that looked to still be finding their feet and struggled to dictate the game.

The Thorns started a few players in new positions—Rodríguez at the No. 6, Marissa Everett at the No. 10, and most delightfully, Kling at the No. 8 (again, more on that later)—but stuck with the 4-4-2 diamond from last season and deployed a game plan we’re used to seeing. They mostly defended well, working to keep KC out of the center of the field and looking to trap them on the wings. Offensively, they found success on set pieces and through direct attacks in transition, as well as using combinations between Kling, Rodríguez, and the overlapping runs of Madison Pogarch and Christen Westphal to break lines of pressure and get into dangerous areas.

Kansas City, meanwhile, often looked to trap Portland centrally. It sometimes worked, but more often ended either in a foul or with Kling or Rodríguez breaking the pressure and sending the ball into empty space between KC’s midfield and back line. In the second half, the visitors started to find more success defensively—while Portland’s defensive structure sometimes broke down—but the Thorns held on for the win despite a second-half goal by Amy Rodriguez shortly after Portland’s second. At the end of the game, one stat painted a clear picture of the gap between the two teams: Kansas City had just one player with a passing accuracy of 80% or higher, center back Rachel Corsie, while Portland had five, including Rodríguez.

All in all, it was a strong debut for Portland—not without some miscommunications and errors, but fewer than we might expect in a more normal year.

2. Meghan Klingenberg had a big day

Much of the Thorns’ offense last night went through Kling, who translated her status as a leader in the locker room into a shift as team captain—playing in central midfield!

I never would have anticipated this move from Mark Parsons, but as the game played out, it made sense. For one thing, Kling has always been an attacking-minded player, both as an outside back and at UNC, where she did shifts on all three lines. In addition, this Thorns formation involves the two No. 8s spending a lot of time out wide, something that added a new wrinkle to Lindsey Horan’s play last year. In that sense, her role last night shared similarities with her usual spot at left back: she linked up with Po to create wide overloads, sent in crosses, and defended the wing.

But she also did some things I’ve never seen her do with my own eyes. She dribbled and passed through the center of the field, broke through pressure from Kansas City, and worked to set up chances centrally. She looked confident under pressure and set a lot of Portland’s attacks in motion. It was strange to watch, like seeing your school librarian at the grocery store, but also very fun and on the whole pretty successful. When I asked her about it after the game, she had this to say:

“Well, Katelyn Best, I think that, you know, that happens to me all the time in practice, and now everybody just gets to see it in the game [laughs] You know, in rondos and all these different things, I’m asked to handle pressure from all sides… I’ve been asking for years to play in the [No.] 10—give me a shot, give me a chance, Mark, give me a tryout! And I finally got one, so hopefully I lived up to the tryout… I think last time, I talked to Anson [Dorrance] this morning because it’s his birthday. And I told him that I was going to be playing in the [No.] 8 and he’s like, ‘oh, you’ll be fine. You played there for for us in college.’ So it made me feel better about it.”

3. Uhhhhhh

After a mostly straightforward 89 minutes, things got weird. There’s no need for me to rehash what we all saw, but I do want to say that multiple things can be true, and these are some things I believe to be true:

  1. Danielle Chesky has a bad reputation for a reason; she’s already officiated games that turned ugly, she missed a number of clear calls in this one, and she probably should not be working at this level anymore. The quality of refereeing in the women’s game is a real issue and reflects a disparity with men’s soccer.
  2. Morgan Weaver deserved a yellow. She clearly wrapped her arm around Kristen Edmonds’s waist, which seemed to be what caused them to both fall down. She then very clearly shoved Edmonds. That’s not nothing! Obviously Edmonds escalated and deserved to see red for that, but it defies reason to say Weaver did nothing wrong.
  3. We’ve all been guilty of using language that seems innocuous to us, but might be loaded for other groups for reasons we don’t see in the moment. It’s a crucial skill for those of us with privilege—whether that’s based on race, gender, orientation, whatever—to be able to listen to marginalized people and admit when we made a mistake.
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Not Soccer Thorns

A Definitive Ranking of the Best Eleven Photos from Thorns Media Day

Simone Charley. Unrelated to the photos from Thorns media day. Photo by Kris Lattimore.

Well, you saw the title of this post. Let’s not waste any time gabbing away, hm?

11.

This one is good because Meaghan Nally’s friends and family get to enjoy her radiant smile, and also her enemies can see how strong and healthy her teeth are to know she will not be easily defeated.

10.

You’re in the front row at a One Direction concert, and Harry Styles points right at you.

9.

Four women who went to Harvard Law are starting a boutique firm together. The office is a casual environment—one of them even brings her dog to work—and they do lots of pro-bono work for low-SES and undocumented clients. “We’re sort of like a family,” they say.

8.

A true story about me is that one time Nadine Angerer called me a “soft egg,” which I guess means I’m squishy and delicate? It wasn’t an insult, but it also wasn’t a compliment. It was just an observation, like everything Germans say. Then she laughed good naturedly like this:

7.

The most popular girl in school asks you to prom. She could have gone with anyone, but she chose you, the eccentric loner who eats lunch in the library and listens to bands no one else has heard of. You’re so different from everyone else, and she just wants to get to know you.

6.

The girl who sits next to you in pre-calc asks you to prom. Your only real interactions are checking your homework together and passing notes about substitute teachers. She knows you don’t know each other very well but she thinks you’re really funny and thought it might be fun to hang out for the night? She really hopes this isn’t weird.

5.

I like this photo because Crystal Dunn is being very clear about what club she plays for.

4.

You’re sixteen years old and you just read one of your poems at an open mic night for the first time. Your big sister is going to college an hour away, and you invited her, but you weren’t sure if she’d come—but she did, and she’s so proud of you.

3.

This season on The Bachelorette:

2.

She is the captain of this battle station and she will gladly crash it into Alpha Centauri before she gives an inch to the insurgent scum, damn it!

1.

Oh, hello. Surprised to see me in your chambers? I’ve been waiting for you. That’s right, I know all about what happened to the queen’s prized jewels. The captain of the guard awaits only my command. You won’t last long in Her Majesty’s dungeon—and just when we were getting to be such good friends! Unless… we can work something out?

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Soccer Thorns

AD Franch is Almost, Finally, Back

Photo by Nikita Taparia
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Draft Recap: Who’s Who and Where This Leaves the Thorns Roster

Yazmeen Ryan (photo courtesy of TCU Athletics)

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.

Graphic by Nikita Taparia; contract info courtesy of Jen Cooper

Another possibility, given Portland’s stack of defenders, is something like the 5-3-2 the Thorns used for most of 2017.

Graphic by Nikita Taparia; contract info courtesy of Jen Cooper
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Soccer Thorns

After an Unconventional Path, Natalia Kuikka’s Next Stop is Portland

Photo courtesy of Connect Management Group

Ever since Natalia Kuikka, the 24-year-old Finnish defender who signed with the Thorns this offseason, graduated from Florida State at the end of 2018, she’s had a return to the US on her mind. After wrapping up a two-year contract with Göteborg—and winning the league in the 2020 season—the timing was right, both for her and the Thorns. She was ready for a new challenge, while Portland needs to bolster an aging back line after losing two starters in the last year.

Kuikka’s career has taken an unusual trajectory in several senses. First, rather than go pro—something many Americans think of as the obvious choice for talented young Europeans—she opted to go to Tallahassee to play for Mark Krikorian’s Seminoles and earn a degree. Once that chapter closed (ending with an NCAA championship), she made another surprising choice and opted out of the 2019 NWSL College Draft, despite being a top prospect.

Both choices have worked out. Contrary to the belief, now orthodoxy in some American soccer circles, that professional clubs are always a better development pipeline than college, Kuikka’s experience at FSU shaped her in important ways, both as a player and as a person.

When asked about what she learned in the States, it’s the latter that comes to mind first. “I grew a lot when I was there,” she said via Zoom. “I learned things about myself…I always knew that football and soccer is what I want to do, but then being in college, I figured out that there’s another part of me that’s not an athlete, and there’s other things I like to do.”

Being in the US and balancing soccer with school gave her opportunities players don’t get on a grueling European club schedule. “I started exploring and had a little bit more time to do traveling and seeing the world,” she says. “I think that it gave me more motivation to learn and experience, and see things in not just my perspective, but learning from others, and putting myself in others’ shoes…There’s so many different cultures and things to experience in the USA.”

Meanwhile, Krikorian’s impact on her development as a player was enormous. After recruiting her as a winger and playing her there during her freshman season, he decided to see how she’d do in central defense. “I don’t even know how it came to be,” she says. “I remember being called to Mark’s office, and he said something like, ‘We’re going to try to do some new things, and you might not play in your normal position, but don’t worry.’ I’m like, okay, whatever. It’s spring. And then we had a practice game against Boston Breakers at the time, and he [played me] as a center back, and after that, he just kept putting me there.”

As far as what qualities of Kuikka’s gave Krikorian this idea, she laughs and says “I don’t know!” She wasn’t totally new to defending—she was already playing left back for Finland—but she was very much an attacker, notching six goals and five assists in her freshman season.

If converting forwards into defenders is another American cliché, it’s also a move we typically associate with outside back, a position that requires speed, offensive aptitude, and a willingness to make lung-busting runs up and down the wing, on top of defensive chops. There’s quite a bit of overlap, in other words, with the role of a winger—something that’s much less true of central defense. But Kuikka stepped up to the challenge. “[Mark Krikorian] started talking about leadership and stepping up for the teammates and all this, and I couldn’t really say no,” she says.

As counterintuitive as the switch sounds, Kuikka’s experience playing higher up the field is evident watching her on the back line. She’s a gritty defender in one-on-one situations, but she’s also supremely calm and confident on the ball. She isn’t fazed by onrushing forwards and is rarely pressured into clearances. On top of that, she has excellent passing range, and it’s clear that even at center back, she still thinks of the game in offensive terms. Although she enjoys defending, she says, “I do like being involved in the game—opening the game and kind of being in control—I like that. So I think [Krikorian] kind of saw that as well.”

“I think playing as a winger and in a more attacking role, and now playing in defense,” she adds, “I know what kind of movements the wingers and attackers would do, and what I would do in that position, so it’s maybe giving me a little bit—I’ll be [more] prepared with those things as well.”

As to where she slots in in Portland, Kuikka says she’s had conversations with Mark Parsons, but there won’t be any final decisions until she joins the team. Portland doesn’t want for quality center backs in Sauerbrunn and Emily Menges, but in the short term, Kuikka adds crucial depth there, and would be a great option if the Thorns ever trot out the back three again. She’s also not likely to start over Kling at left back, but given that she’s naturally right-footed, it’s easy to imagine her becoming the first choice at right back. It’s also not impossible to see her at the No. 6, though that’s a position the Thorns are quite deep at.

Talking to Kuikka, another reason she caught Parsons’s interest quickly becomes obvious: She has the team-first attitude he praises in the team’s leaders and talks about working year after year to cultivate. She’s also a proven quantity as a leader, having captained the Seminoles during her junior and senior seasons. She comes across as thoughtful and understated, always bringing the focus back to contributing to the team.

“I’ll do whatever for the team, and what’s best for the team,” she says, referring to her positional switch. “If [what’s] best for the team is me playing as a center back, I took that challenge, and focused on the next summer, playing as a center back in the summer leagues and making sure I can be the best center back for my team that I can be.”

As far as opting out of the draft, in addition to giving Kuikka a chance to be closer to family and to the Finnish national team, which had just hired a new coach at the time, it also gave her a control over her fate most draftees don’t get. She was able to choose to sign with Göteborg, and then, a few years later, to choose Portland. “I just kind of wanted to have something familiar and safe,” she says—she spent a summer in the Pacific Northwest in college, playing for Seattle Sounders Women, and still has ties in the area—”yet something new.”

The philosophy of the Thorns coaching staff appealed to her, too. “The player approach was what I was looking for,” she says. “The way Mark wants to develop the players and wants the best for the players.” Unsurprisingly, the fans were also a factor: “I’ve always wanted to play in a big crowd, so that was a big thing for me.”

“I think at the end for me, it was a pretty easy choice to go for Portland.”

Categories
Soccer Thorns

We Had Fucking Tobin Heath

Photo by Nikita Taparia

I think deep down I knew as soon as Tobin Heath announced she wouldn’t be playing in the Challenge Cup that she was never coming back. It just felt that way.

Like the rest of you, I spent a few weeks preparing for the expansion draft. I had mapped out what was likely, what I would have done if I was in charge, what I thought was unlikely but possible. I steeled myself hardest against the likeliest outcome, thinking, we’ll miss those players, we’ll empathize with the disruption this causes in their lives, but at least they’ll get a well-deserved chance to start for a team that they will make better.

Then the unlikely thing happened instead. I was surprised by how much it stung.

Five years ago, I started writing about the Thorns because I really, really liked them. I still do. But as you get pulled slowly but surely out of the “fan” column and into the “media” column, things change. You gain some detachment. Everything feels less life-or-death. You start thinking of things in terms of individual actors making the best decisions they can, rather than your team versus other teams and good versus bad.

Photo by Nikita Taparia

So the media part of me wants to start by saying that it’s probably wrong to think of this as something the Thorns did to Tobin Heath. Under the rules of the draft, their protected list made sense. They protected the two most important allocated players who aren’t currently on loan abroad, and Louisville took a really big gamble that no one expected them to take. I also don’t know, but I hope, that this isn’t the end of the world for Tobin, and that whatever happens next is a net positive in her life.

I’m not sure I would have had those thoughts five years ago. The thought I would have had, and still do have, is that I am sad anyway, and all the context in the world doesn’t change that. Tobin Heath occupies a unique slot in my brain: she was my first favorite Thorn.

I have read that music you first hear when you’re young sticks with you more strongly than music you encounter later, because your brain is still forming. Your neural circuitry somehow physically molds itself around those sounds and the experiences that go along with them. You lose that ability once you hit age 25 or so. To this day, I find Tobin uniquely thrilling to watch, the same way hearing “Once in a Lifetime” makes me feel like a teenager again.

When I first started watching the Thorns, I didn’t know very much about soccer. Tobin stood out because she’s so clearly different from anyone else. She’s built different and she moves different, all jagged angles and splayed limbs, awkward and graceful at once. She catches your eye just by how she moves on the ball, and then she does something like rainbow a defender, and that pretty much seals it. You have to be awfully humorless not to find a little bit of joy in that.

Photo by Nikita Taparia

The first Thorns game I watched from the press box was their 2016 home opener, which was the Orlando Pride’s debut as a club, and it felt very big and laden with symbolism in a way I’m not sure I could register anymore. It was a break in the life of both the club and the league: Mark Parsons’s first game as head coach, the first-ever fourth season of women’s professional soccer in America. Alex Morgan’s departure that offseason had felt like the club growing up. Hard as it is to fathom now, there were people who questioned whether the Thorns would maintain their popularity without Morgan’s talismanic star power. Morgan and Heath clasped hands before the game, each now the face of a different club, and you could feel that Heath had always belonged here in a way Morgan never did.

And she owned that game. Before that season, she’d played relatively few minutes for Portland, thanks to injury and international duty. That first game of 2016 was like an announcement that she was really here for the club, and she was going to do things nobody else could do. I remember few details from the game, but one improbable trick of physics sticks in my head, where she flicked the ball into the air and somehow guided it right, then left, in a midair elastico, and the wildest part was that this worked and she beat her defender.

After the game, she walked into the presser with the captain’s armband hanging off her sleeve by one strip of velcro and talked about wanting to give everything to this club. She grinned that big Tobin Heath grin, giddy with excitement like an overgrown kid. Parsons said, “we’ve got fucking Tobin Heath.” I felt giddy too.

Photo by Nikita Taparia

What Parsons said quickly became a meme, but it did mean something real: he saw that this wasn’t just another good player, but one who deserved to have an offense built around her. With her on the team, the only logical thing to do was get the ball to her as much as possible.

And yet, that never quite happened. It’s a little ironic that Tobin’s best season in Portland, in 2018, was one that also saw Lindsey Horan ascend to godhood, and ended with Jessica McDonald tearing off her jersey in Providence Park to reveal an undershirt reading “JESUS PAID THE PRICE”. Her second best season, in 2016, had ended similarly, against the Flash. The year they beat the Courage, the offensive scheme Parsons had built around her had to be scrapped midseason due to a nagging injury, and she played just four games before the playoffs.

There was often this almost-ness around her presence on the team: she’s almost healthy enough to play, the Thorns have almost hit their stride, but just wait until Tobin gets back from the Olympics. She never quite became the face of the team; there were just too many other faces in town.

Photo by Nikita Taparia

Still, it feels wrong to imagine her not being here. There aren’t too many other stars in this league who’ve been with the same club for so long, who seem to really like their clubs as much as she did. It’s a cruel twist that her time in Portland ends without her in Portland at all, in a year where no fans even set foot in Providence Park.

It’s also a bookend for me. I’m turning 30 in a few days, so the timing here is a little on the nose. Heath was the first soccer player I ever interviewed, a few weeks after that 2016 opener, for a short sidebar in Portland Monthly. I had no idea what I was doing, but she was gracious and thoughtful and it made me feel capable. I’ve long wanted to do a big, in-depth feature on her, but time marched on and I never quite got around to it.

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Soccer Thorns

Please, Come and Gaze into Our Crystal Ball

Photo by Matthew Wolfe
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Thorns Sign Finnish Defender Natalia Kuikka

The Thorns have announced the signing of Finnish international Natalia Kuikka. Kuikka is a defender out of Florida State who captained the Seminoles when they won the 2018 NCAA championship. She was projected as a potential top-five pick in the 2019 college draft, but opted out to sign with Kopparbergs/Göteborg FC in the Swedish Damallsvenskan, where she’s currently in her second season.

This signing likely means the Thorns are expecting to lose defenders in the offseason, whether to the expansion draft or elsewhere. Before the Fall Series, Mark Parsons hinted at doubts around Katherine Reynolds’s future, saying she planned to reevaluate her options going forward after suffering a concussion in the quarterfinal of the Challenge Cup. At age 33 and having dealt with a string of injuries in recent years, it doesn’t seem unlikely that retirement is among those options.

Kuikka has played as a center back both in Sweden and for FSU, but she started her college career as a winger. Thus, it’s plausible that Portland may be bringing her in as an option at outside back as well, a position they’re currently thinner at than they are in central defense.

Regardless of who ends up staying or leaving during this offseason, this also looks like a smart longer-term move for the Thorns, who have several defenders in their 30s, including not just Reynolds but Becky Sauerbrunn and Meghan Klingenberg. Kuikka is a smart, physically strong defender who stood out at FSU for her confidence on the ball and ability to play out of the back in coach Mark Krikorian’s possession-oriented system.

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Soccer Thorns

Crystal Dunn? Crystal Dunn.

Photo by Matt Wolfe

Unless you’ve had your head under a rock for the last six hours, you’ve likely heard the news: Crystal Dunn is a Thorn.

It’s not poppycock this time—thanks to OL Reign taking one for the team(s) and “facilitating” the trade. The 2019 World Cup Champion, two-time NWSL Champion, NWSL golden boot winner and MVP of the 2015 season’s move to Portland (finally) extends beyond the offseason.

In exchange, the Thorns sent the Reign $150,000, a 2021 international slot, and Portland’s natural first-round pick in the 2022 college draft. Here are a few of our takeaways about the big news:

[incoherent screaming]

With multiple expansion drafts on the horizon and no clear answer to whether soccer in the traditional sense will even be possible in 2021, the Thorns’ future—like that of many teams in this league—is uncertain (more on that in a minute). What looks pretty watertight at this juncture is that Portland’s midfield is going to involve all of Lindsey Horan, Crystal Dunn, and Christine Sinclair.

Those players aren’t going anywhere, which is, uh, crazy? It feels like cheating. Then again, when Dunn went to North Carolina, that also felt like cheating—so maybe what it boils down to is that having Crystal Dunn is cheating.

Dunn is one of the few players in the world who can genuinely bend a game to her will. She can score practically at will and is equally dangerous at both dribbling and passing. She’s a defensive threat, too. It’s hard to overstate how huge an acquisition she is for the Thorns, especially when you start to think about her connecting with oh, say, Sophia Smith.

What does this mean for the expansion draft?

This looks like a superteam for now, but not so fast. Three expansion drafts are looming in the next two years, with one—for Racing Louisville—happening in less than a month. Don’t expect this to be the last move Portland makes this offseason.

Assuming the rules are the same as they were in 2015, the Thorns will be able to protect nine players, including two USWNT-subsidized players. As things stand, the two protected subsidized players have to be Dunn and Horan. We’d already expected them to lose at least one keeper, likely AD Franch, but now she, Heath, and Sauerbrunn will all be on the chopping block. (Sophia Smith is blissfully saved by the fact that USWNT allocations won’t be announced until after the expansion draft.) Sauerbrunn probably doesn’t get taken—she’s 35 and has made it clear she wants to settle down in Portland. We think she tells any interested team she’ll retire rather than report.

Photo by Nikita Taparia

Heath? Harder to say. She also owns a home here and clearly likes playing for the Thorns. She also holds the same leverage as any elite player in this league: she can always decide to extend her time in Manchester rather than move to Louisville or Sacramento. However: it’s not hard to imagine, say, Louisville picking up her rights, her deciding to stay in England for 2021, and then forcing a trade to LA for 2022.

Of course, that’s assuming the Thorns can scam them into taking the rights of someone who probably doesn’t plan on playing for them, but the Thorns have a pretty solid track record when it comes to taking advantage of other teams (see: The Alex Morgan Trade). That’s also assuming Angel City wants Heath on their side, but it’s hard to imagine a team saying no to her if she asks.

The No. 10 problem, solved

We’ve all been dreading/denying the inevitable: that one day, sure as the cruel sea beats cliffs into sand, Christine Sinclair will have to retire. That she’s had an almost unbelievably long and consistent career doesn’t change how problematic this is for the Thorns in the long term.

A situation that we think epitomizes this pretty well was last year, when the Thorns tried three different players at the No. 10 while Sinclair was away for the World Cup. Dagný Brynjarsdóttir, Ana Crnogorčević, and Andressinha—may she be free forevermore—are all good players, but the team’s reliance on an all-time great in that position showed in her absence.

Dunn is the answer to that, positionally at least. As far as Sinclair’s importance to the locker room, there’s of course no real replacement, but Mark Parsons seems to think Dunn has some of the same qualities as a leader, too. “She has such a contagious energy about her that just wants to make you be better when you’re around her,” he said in an interview released by the team today. “But what she doesn’t get praise enough for is her leadership, and the way that she leads. By example, and by being positive, and by being driven. She’s had a lot of success, and it’s not by luck.”