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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
