The Thorns fell to Chicago on Saturday night in a disappointing 2–1 road loss. It was the two teams’ second and final meeting this NWSL season, and had a very different tone to it than the 5–0 thrashing courtesy of the Thorns to start the season.
There aren’t many words to describe the game besides “un-Thorns-like.” From the whistle, the Thorns seemed to lack pace and the drive to press, and the momentum of the first half was firmly in favor of the Red Stars. The Thorns opened the scoring, but they did so against the run of play, and the instantaneous response from Chicago was emblematic, so let’s break that down. 
It’s rare for Bella Bixby to make a major fumble that leads to a goal, but she made several against Chicago. Right before the above still, Bixby had come off her line to collect a cross, but spilled it out of her hands. However, because there were no Thorns following the players making runs into the box, Chicago was able to shoot on an open net. The Thorns outnumbered the Red Stars five to three in the box, and should have been first to the ball.
While it’s important for the defense to be confident in their keeper and listen when they call for the ball (which may or may not have happened—the broadcast was as silent as a golf broadcast), they also need to be covering the open spaces. Inside the box, I would argue that it is much more important to mark a player than it is to mark space, and by not doing this Chicago was able to score an easy tying goal.
In the post-match press conference, Crystal Dunn, Christine Sinclair, and Mark Parsons all had similar sentiments about how the speed Chicago equalized with was a “cardinal sin” and reflected how the half had been going for the team.
Dunn said “the equalizer took the momentum out of us, and it was hard to find it again. We came out of the second half looking to give it everything we had.”
Unfortunately, the Thorns weren’t able to find their rhythm in the second half either. Parsons said that he was “frustrated with the way the team played, both individually and collectively,” saying that coming back from an international break where six players and the head coach were on international duty made it hard to quickly find connections, especially when the first game back was away from home.
At half, the Thorns made three subs, but this triple change may have ended up hindering the connections even more by removing two midfielders and one defender, the areas where the Thorns were struggling most with possession. Let’s take a look at the second goal the Red Stars scored that night.
In this (very poor) screenshot, you can see the Chicago player (Rachel Hill) is closer to the goal than the Thorns player (Meghan Klingenberg?), allowing her to easily get the header that results in the point. Even though there are far more white shirts than black ones on the screen, what really matters is backtracking fast enough to get goalside.
The buildup came from a cross that the Red Stars were able to get off with relatively little pressure. The lack of shutting down space was a common trend for the Thorns throughout the game. Normally the team with the strongest midfield, the Thorns were outplayed and exploited, and were unable to gain the momentum the second half.
One thing that is curious is that even though the Thorns walked away feeling disappointed in their outcome and performance, the stats show a different story. They had 59% possession and 396 accurate passes, 150 more than the Red Stars made. The Thorns’ accuracy was also 79% compared to Chicago’s 71%. So, what went wrong?
The Thorns’ identity, which they have been cultivating all season, relies on a high press and building up out of the back, neither of which they were able to accurately employ during the game. The two midfielders who played 90 minutes, Dunn and Angela Salem, actually had more touches than they did against North Carolina, but like possession, that’s another statistic that yielded little in the way of results. Unable to be playmakers, the midfield was dimmed and couldn’t connect the backline and the forwards.
When the tactical numbers are still high, questions of mentality begin to arise. Here, Parsons says that the team was having a hard time mentally, as they were “unable to find a way when things weren’t going as planned.”
Despite the unexpected outcome, the Thorns are optimistic going forward, knowing they have a full week of training with the entire team ahead of them. The time at home and together can only benefit the team both mentally and physically, as they find time to recharge and reconnect with one another on the field.
After the game, Sinc speculated that the team bus catching on fire last week may have been a bad omen. Hopefully this week is fire-free.