Since Sunday, the Thorns have recorded their first two losses of 2021—both 2-1 scorelines—first to none other than OL Reign and then falling to the Orlando Pride.
Questionable officiating and missed chances took center stage in the Thorns’s attack, but Reign did enough to come away with the win.
Portland, for their part, got on the board early when Christine Sinclair volleyed the rebound off Karen Bardsley’s punch over the backpedaling keeper and into the back of the net.
But the Reign came back from that—once off a curled Megan Rapinoe free kick and the second time when Shirley Cruz put her short-range shot passed AD Franch.
Although Cruz’s 15th minute goal held as the game-winner, Rapinoe’s took center-stage—especially after her now-iconic quote from Sunday’s postgame press conference:
Rapinoe's holding court in the postgame zoom, particularly on the Cascadia rivalry. Good stuff here in response to a q from @BestKabest. #NWSL pic.twitter.com/8Zp3PTXtvM
— Meg Linehan (@itsmeglinehan) May 24, 2021
From there, it was a short-turnaround flight to Orlando, light training, and another 2-1 Thorns loss.
Here are a couple takeaways from the matches.
1. What’s going on with lineups?
After a 2021 Challenge Cup where she was (arguably) Portland’s best player, it’s been strange to see Natalia Kuikka start the first two games of the regular season on the bench in favor of Christen Westphal.
“I think after the Challenge Cup Final, it was clear that we’ve pushed her a lot,” Mark Parsons said, “She’s landed, she’s got here, she’s trained. She’s had to deal with a lot, and we’re playing her immediately in big games, big moments. I think was very important last week that she she had opportunity to rest.”
On Westphal’s part, Parsons credited her performance in training to her earning the start against Chicago and said there was no way she wasn’t going to start yesterday based on how she played in the Red Stars game.
Parsons didn’t seem all that concerned about the injury that saw Westphal limping off the pitch against the Reign, but he did choose to rest her in favor of getting Kuikka some minutes against Orlando on Wednesday.
There’s also the question of how Emily Menges fits into all this defensive depth; Parsons said she was fully cleared on Sunday, but they weren’t able to get her in—presumably because they had to sub Westphal out instead.
She did get to take the field for the last half hour against the Pride, though, and… looked like Portland Thorns centerback Emily Menges.
2. I really don’t think we’ve talked enough about Crystal Dunn playing for the Thorns
I think the fact that Crystal Dunn plays for the Thorns hit me again during the Reign game. Which means I spent a lot of the game internally freaking out at her first touch and every ball she slipped ahead to Sophia Smith and the fact that she was doing it all under Jess Fishlock’s pretty much constant pressure.
After the match, Parsons specifically praised Dunn’s ability to get out wide and allow Westphal to move up the field. He also pointed to the midfield’s developing connection as a significant improvement from the last time the Thorns played the Reign.
Orlando was something of a different match. There’s the fact that Portland played the game on a short turnaround—the timeline we got after the game had players showing up at the airport at 5:15 a.m. Monday, making the six-hour flight to Orlando, spending the rest of the day recovering from the previous day’s game, getting in a 90-degree light training session on Tuesday, and then going into the Pride match Wednesday—and players looking understandably tired as a result.
Which is to say the Thorns had something of a strange go at Orlando, but it was the most we’ve seen Crystal Dunn take chances on goal this year, and I’m taking that as a positive.
3. Kelli Hubly has had a weird couple games, and I’m honestly not that concerned
I do want to acknowledge that Kelli Hubly has had a couple shaky moments in the past two games and that those moments came after a very, very good Challenge Cup.
Becky Sauerbrunn said it best when she brought up the goal Portland conceded to Sydney Leroux early in the second half: “I don’t think that’s ever going to happen again. Every centerback, that’s going to happen to us. It happened to me in a quarterfinal at the World Cup. Every centerback’s going to have to go through that at some point.”
What does suck—for Hubly, at least—is that Menges’s return means she’s probably going to see fewer minutes going forward, at least until the next international break.
(While we’re on the topic of defense, I’d like to take a moment to apologize. After the Thorns beat Gotham in penalties, I wrote that Portland’s defense was “scary good.” I do think the Thorns have a lot of backline depth this year, but I think me outright saying that has cursed them, so I’m taking the whole “scary good” comment back.)
4. It’s been a weird couple games, but we did see this beautiful goal from Simone Charley
Mostly, I just want to put this here because it makes me happy:
.@SimoneCharley with the headed equalizer.#ORLvPOR | #BAONPDX pic.twitter.com/bQlPdCG3KG
— Portland Thorns FC (@ThornsFC) May 26, 2021
